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

figmentPez

Staff member
I finished the first season of The Boys, and I'm conflicted.

On one hand, the acting is great, it's well directed, the special effects are well done, it's funny, and it's overall enjoyable....

But there's this nagging problem that makes me upset with it. Movies / TV never had the Comics Code Authority. Making live action superheroes act like bad guys is like telling an in-joke to people who weren't there. "No, you see, the twist is that they're assholes!..." Uh, yeah. Movies and TV have always had those characters. They never had the CCA forcing good guys to be paragons of morality. It doesn't hold the same weight because of that.

I probably won't come back for season 2. I'd much rather be watching The Tick.
 
See, they added so much nuance to the assholery of the supes in the show that I think it transcends all that.
This right here. Combined with the blatant corporatism and the quiet menace of just how incredibly scary Homelander is, I think it all combines to go beyond the simple trope of 'supes are actually bad'
 
Which lasted from the 1930s until the 1950s, it was being phased out by the time color movies became common. The CCA started in the 50s and was a big influence over comics until the 1990s. The two are not comparable in their impact.
I forgot about the Television Code.

The Hays Code and the CCA may not have been contemporaries (although both were in effect when the CCA effectively wiped out EC Comics), their purpose as MORAL GUARDIAN!!!1!!ELEBENTY was the same.
 
Could it be the direction he's given? He sounded pretty lively* when we played Lego DC Supervillains.


*Lively for Batman, anyway.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I liked Batman versus Harley Quinn, and I don't think Conroy has been phoning it in. That's just how Batman has always sounded to me.

Though the only Arkham game I played was asylum.
 
Depends which Old!Bruce we will see. "Batman Beyond" Old!Bruce? "The Dark Knight Returns" Old!Bruce?
Or "Kingdom Come" ?
I suspect Kingdom Come since Brandon Routh is playing KC!Superman. But I'm going to stay optimistic until it's confirmed no Terry.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I have noticed he's a little scratchier, but he's been doing this for 30 years. I think it's unavoidable at this point.
I would have been saltier about the transition away from Arleen Sorkin for Harley had I not heard Sorkin's swan song voice lines in DC Universe Online... and Harley sounding like my grandmother in certain lines, thanks to the quaver in Arleen's voice. It was saddening, but it did illustrate that it was time for make way for Tara Strong.
 
I would have been saltier about the transition away from Arleen Sorkin for Harley had I not heard Sorkin's swan song voice lines in DC Universe Online... and Harley sounding like my grandmother in certain lines, thanks to the quaver in Arleen's voice. It was saddening, but it did illustrate that it was time for make way for Tara Strong.
Yeah she had a few voice lapses in Arkham Asylum to, as well as only being able to do the Harley voice, and not the Dr.Quinzel voice like in the animated series.

I also want to emphasize JUST a few lapses outside the interviewtapes, it was still cool hearing classic Harley one last time.
 
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Catching up on GLOW, before starting Season 3. He may be a bit short, but if there's ever a Stan Lee Biopic, Marc Maron should be the frontrunner.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I've been watching Designated Survivor and the first season was pretty enjoyable. It felt very contrived at points, but it was still fun.

Season 2, however.... Holy crap the writing went into the toilet. First, they introduced a genius character who has bad social skills. I am so tired of that trope. No one would keep this guy around, no matter how brilliant he is at political strategy, and there's no way he's that good at political strategy while being so completely inept at personal relationships.

Other missteps include "in English, please". Holy crap, these people were brilliant last season, why are they reacting to this simple concept as if it were in a foreign language? They keep on being insulting to people who are technically inclined. "Why would I care about <major event/person in scientific history>?" Wow, really?

Last, they can't even get the damn politics right. The Attorney General threatens to pursue felony charges against the President, and the White House counsel says that "there's no model for charging a sitting President with a crime".... Impeachment. The model you're looking for is impeachment, you incompetent morons! If the President is being investigated for crimes, the justice department should be taking that information to congress. You can avoid having a "constitutional crisis" by threatening the President with impeachment. The writers already established that both the Republicans and Democrats want the Independent President out of office. They wrote themselves into a corner, and they just made shit up to get themselves out of it.

This show has no idea what to do when it's not weaving conspiracy theories.
 
Last, they can't even get the damn politics right. The Attorney General threatens to pursue felony charges against the President, and the White House counsel says that "there's no model for charging a sitting President with a crime".... Impeachment. The model you're looking for is impeachment, you incompetent morons! If the President is being investigated for crimes, the justice department should be taking that information to congress.
This must be Nancy Pelosi's favorite show. :awesome:
 
I've been watching Designated Survivor and the first season was pretty enjoyable. It felt very contrived at points, but it was still fun.

Season 2, however.... Holy crap the writing went into the toilet. First, they introduced a genius character who has bad social skills. I am so tired of that trope. No one would keep this guy around, no matter how brilliant he is at political strategy, and there's no way he's that good at political strategy while being so completely inept at personal relationships.

Other missteps include "in English, please". Holy crap, these people were brilliant last season, why are they reacting to this simple concept as if it were in a foreign language? They keep on being insulting to people who are technically inclined. "Why would I care about <major event/person in scientific history>?" Wow, really?

Last, they can't even get the damn politics right. The Attorney General threatens to pursue felony charges against the President, and the White House counsel says that "there's no model for charging a sitting President with a crime".... Impeachment. The model you're looking for is impeachment, you incompetent morons! If the President is being investigated for crimes, the justice department should be taking that information to congress. You can avoid having a "constitutional crisis" by threatening the President with impeachment. The writers already established that both the Republicans and Democrats want the Independent President out of office. They wrote themselves into a corner, and they just made shit up to get themselves out of it.

This show has no idea what to do when it's not weaving conspiracy theories.
My wife and I couldn't get past three episodes. We kept comparing it to the much superior West Wing
 

fade

Staff member
I finished the first season of The Boys, and I'm conflicted.

On one hand, the acting is great, it's well directed, the special effects are well done, it's funny, and it's overall enjoyable....

But there's this nagging problem that makes me upset with it. Movies / TV never had the Comics Code Authority. Making live action superheroes act like bad guys is like telling an in-joke to people who weren't there. "No, you see, the twist is that they're assholes!..." Uh, yeah. Movies and TV have always had those characters. They never had the CCA forcing good guys to be paragons of morality. It doesn't hold the same weight because of that.

I probably won't come back for season 2. I'd much rather be watching The Tick.
Yeah, I was also pretty mixed on this. They changed a good number of plot points from the books, especially concerning Compound V and the fact that
The Boys themselves had superpowers thanks to taking V
. But all in all, frankly, I thought the books were pretty bad, and the show was a rare case of the derived material being better than the source. But despite that, I never really got into the whole "but the good guys are actually bad guys" plot deconstruction, because most of the plot points you can make are kind of already covered by supervillains. Especially anti-villain type characters that appear to the public as heroes.
 
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