[TV] Talk about the last TV you watched, the catchall thread

Cat

Cat

Bubble181 said:
I can get quite annoyed at TV shows feeling the need to make every group a rainbow of representation - not every friend group/super hero group/whathaveyou is, should be, or ought to be, made up of exactly 1 white male, at least 40% women, at least 1 black person, at least one Asian person, at least one LGBTQ+ person, and not every show needs to include at least one female black person in a position of authority, etc etc etc.
I know it's easy to speak from a position of cishet white guy on this; I just think that while all those groups (and others like neuro-atypical, disabled, etc) definitely need and deserve representation, there oughto be better ways to do it than enforce practically every show to adopt more or less the same group composition. The main cast of, say ,The Good Doctor, includes....one cishet white guy (depending on how you limit the groups - it's funny how Jewish people get lumped in as white these days while they were very much considered non-white up until at least the '90s), and I don't think the series is any better or worse for not happening to have a character that "fits" me. Which is easy since my group is still incredibly over-represented everywhere else. I'm not saying we need any less representation, I'd just wish tv makers were more daring in saying "yeah, this group happens to have 3 women and only 1 guy in the main cast, so what? And that show happens to have only 2 straight characters out of 5, what of it?". Right now, it's either "aimed at a specific audience" (and thus hasa full-ThisGroup cast - Sex and the City, The L-word, Family Matters, whatever), or it's "aimed at everyone, so we need to cut as close as possible to the agreed upon percentages of 37% non-white of which at least one black; 40% female, 18% non-straight, and...;". It's a meaningless self-imposed restriction based on fictional quotas, and while I get why it's done, I personally feel that having the balance be appropriate (that is, over-representing minorities by approximately a factor of 1.5 to 2, which studies have shown is in fact necessary to make it appear representative) across a larger number of shows would be in everyone's favor.

HAVING SAID THAT, if there's one show where the main cast definitely SHOULD be inclusive, representative, and showcase every type of character there is, it's Sesame Street, and the fact that there wasn't an Asian-American in there already for 30 years strikes me as odd and definitely something to recitify.
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I really thought that Hannibal pulled off having a diverse cast while also making them interesting characters as individuals. Fuck I should watch that show again
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Bubble181 said:
If it's about having a backstory and being a protagonist, Bert and Ernie have been around and yellow for a good long time:tina:
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The wiki classifies Bert and Ernie as "humanoid," but it also does the same for Dr Teeth, Janice, Zoot, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, and Scooter.

My head canon is that Muppet DNA is compatible between Human and Monster muppets, and they are of mixed lineage.
 
mikerc

mikerc

For seasons 1-3 of Star Trek Discovery new episodes dropped on Netflix outside of the US / Canada 24 hours after their US air date. 2 days before season 4 starts & Paramount with 1 days warning pull Discovery from Netflix, meaning international viewers will need to get Paramount+ which isn't available outside the US to watch new episodes.

TLDR Paramount wants you to pirate Discovery.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

mikerc said:
For seasons 1-3 of Star Trek Discovery new episodes dropped on Netflix outside of the US / Canada 24 hours after their US air date. 2 days before season 4 starts & Paramount with 1 days warning pull Discovery from Netflix, meaning international viewers will need to get Paramount+ which isn't available outside the US to watch new episodes.

TLDR Paramount wants you to pirate Discovery.
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Haven't seen season 3 yhet because it hasn't aired here yet, but, yeah, well, too bad for them I guess. If it's not available legally, I'll just have to resort to banditry.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Just started watching the Wheel of Time.
The magic is...uh...very Shyamalan Avatar...meaning it's super slow and impractical looking.

But, I am intrigued enough to watch another couple episodes at least.
 
Frank

Frank

Apparently Brandon Sanderson agreed.

I watched the first three with a Wheel of Time superfan, of which I am not. She's on the fence. I enjoyed it.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
WoT has some flaws but there's also a lot to like. The cinematography is quite pretty, the costumes look pretty good, the acting is good, and the writing is mostly solid.

I'm enjoying it a lot.

Tinwhistler said:
The magic is...uh...very Shyamalan Avatar...meaning it's super slow and impractical looking.
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Sometimes, but other times it's been faster. Like, the first use of the one power we see is a tendril of it reach in and rip a trolloc in half quick as you can snap your fingers. The inconsistency almost makes it worse.
 
chris

chris

Watched the first episode of Cowboy Bebop. Not bad first episode, really good adaptation that's not just a copy of the anime.
 
Frank

Frank

Alright, I don't hate Cowboy Bebop, but I sure as fuck hate Vicious, they should have left his ass in the second season. FUCK HE SUUUUCKS.

Worst part of the anime and almost single-handedly ruining the live action.

On the other hand I'm enjoying Wheel of Time in a Saturday afternoon Xena/Hercules way which is probably not what they had in mind. It's like watching a D&D game at this point and I'm having fun. First time (I've never read the book so PLEASE forgive my spelling of these fake words) Aishadai lady started lobbing fireballs I laughed out loud. The party has it's high level DM insert.

I loved when the trollocks were just dudes in costumes, that made me smile too.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Aes Sedai. And don't worry, there's an almost tolkienesque number of made-up-words coming, too.

I'll probably start watching WoT soon. Boy oh boy I hope they took a machete to the books, because the middle ones draaaaaaaag like you wouldn't believe.
 
Far

Far

I know nothing of the anime and am up to episode 6 but will 100% agree with the consensus, loving the show overall except him.
 
Cat

Cat

Kinda makes sense that vicious wouldn't work well in live action. Did you guys like his character in the anime?
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Frank said:
Alright, I don't hate Cowboy Bebop, but I sure as fuck hate Vicious, they should have left his ass in the second season. FUCK HE SUUUUCKS.

Worst part of the anime and almost single-handedly ruining the live action.
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Even if you liked him in the anime, he was not a character that would ever work as they're trying to use him in the live action...

Hell, i'm not even sure that in the anime he was actually trying to get ahead as much as trying to antagonise Spike.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
I know it probably comes down to the limited budget that The Wheel of Time has, but...

I'm really disappointed that Loial is about the same height as Rand. Ogier are supposed to be much bigger than men, he should be 8 - 10 feet tall.
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

I'm watching Invasion on Apple TV. It's acceptable, but there aren't many characters to root for. The Navy SEAL is abrasive and unlikeable, the Syrian immigrant family is almost too dumb to live, and the JAXA technician is okay but her part of the plot grinds on so slowly.

The British schoolchildren are all right, though. Their story arc is like something from Lord of the Flies.


Final grade, C plus. Not great. The aliens won't destroy our world, but neither will they share their secret of immortality.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
figmentPez said:
I know it probably comes down to the limited budget that The Wheel of Time has, but...

I'm really disappointed that Loial is about the same height as Rand. Ogier are supposed to be much bigger than men, he should be 8 - 10 feet tall.
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How is it so far?
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Dave said:
How is it so far?
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I'm enjoying it a lot. It's one of the few things I've been watching that I'm not constantly alt-tabbing away from. I feel a good emotional connection with the characters, the cinematography continues to be beautiful, and the pacing is keeping me entertained. There's some excellent casting, too. (I could listen to Rosamund Pike talk about fictional history all day.)

That said it's been like 9 years since I last read the first books, so I have no idea how faithful they're being to the small points, and you know I'm often an outlier opinion on other things.

There are a few misses. Magic continues to be on the slow side, though other combat is fairly well done. The budget kinda shows here and there (e.g. a less than impressive city scene in Tar Valon) and such. But overall it's good.
 
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Dave

Dave

Staff member
I’m a huge fan of the books and have not been impressed with the casting choices. A small homogeneous farming community should NOT have diversity. In fact, it’s a main point of the story that Rand looks different from everyone else. I understand that diversity in a show is good, but not when it’s shoehorned in for no reason other than being PC. Make them all black, all white, or all Asian - I don’t give a shit. But they need to be the same racial makeup unless they just don’t give a damn about major plot points.
 
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Dave

Dave

Staff member
Watched the first episode. Holy fuck. It’s like they didn’t even read the source material and just got a crib sheet of a few points and names, then made it.

So many things wrong with this. You know Egwene might be the Dragon Reborn? Seriously. Perrin is married.

Yeah, I’m done.
 
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