TV Shows

[Maf]

I’m going to start a new YT reviewing channel called time to boredom and my rating system will be a percentage based on how many minutes of the total amount of minutes I survived before doing something else 

 

FU, Rotten Tomatoes, I’ll show you how it’s done 

[mfnick]

Well me and the OH have just binged the entire Fallout show in 2 days. Safe to say we loved it. Gloriously violent too. Highly recommend it. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I watched 2 episodes of Fallout. I think it's really good, but maybe faithful to a fault. It understands and adapts its material really well, but to the point it does feel a bit like watching a video game at times.

 

Dunno if you would call that a negative as such, but it gives me kinda LARP vibes a bit. The video-gaming 'coding' of its world is a little bit too obvious to get immersed in its storytelling in these early chapters. It is violent and humourous in ways that you will recognise from the video game. 

 

As such maybe it's better to look at it is a fun addition to the already existing video games rather than try to pin it down to this other medium. Like an 8 hour live action FMV to watch alongside your New Vegas playthrough.

[Nag]

Think I'm gonna binge it next weekend tbh... helped by the fact the Missus is interested in watching it.

[one-armed dwarf]

I finished it now. I'm all over the place on how I feel about it, it's got plenty of peaks and valleys. I'd say it's the best video game adaptation for the reason that the makers deeply understand the thing they're adapting (as mentioned) but also are completely unafraid to leave their own mark on the property and take massive swings

 

That said, it relies really heavily on this type of drip feed storytelling I've grown to really dislike, from other TV shows to FFVII Remake to this, this kinda 'mystery box' stuff where they draw out a mystery to keep you tuning in, and do it really slowly. I hate this type of storytelling cause it just feels like episodes pass you by with nothing interesting being said in them. Westworld did it too I think, which is what these guys worked on previously. I'm glad this was a binge drop, cause I would have dropped it otherwise. It's pretty clear to me IMO that the show is not actually intended to be binge viewed, they wanted to do a weekly thing to get engagement going cause of the big megatons it drops towards the end. But I'm glad I didn't have to put up with that nonsense cause in this day and age it sorta feels a bit of an artificial thing considering the way on-demand viewing works. At the same time, I bet the show's viewing figures would have benefited with that (not that it's hurting in that regard)

 

I think towards the end it gets a bit too serious and dour and forgets to have a bit more fun with the setting, cause of the things mentioned. But even with all that it's actually a great installment in the Fallout series, a sort of Fallout 5 in a way. It made me resume my New Vegas playthrough and put Fallout 1 on the backlog for an isometric RPG to play at some point. I don't love it, there's bits that fucking suck, but it's just a much more interesting work than The Last of Us was. It's not a facsimile like that was. It's pulpy, but in a good way. While the video game coding of its world can be distracting at points, it's also just sort of part of the deal that you should be ready to accept anyway cause it's not embarrassed about its video game origins either, and they find innovative ways to integrate aspects of that gaming language into plot developments but also its narrative expression (try to tell which karma alignment each of the main characters is supposed to represent, and which way their moral compass tilts overtime)

[shinymcshine]

Really enjoyed Fallout, and there's so much more too that they haven't yet explored, so Season 2 could be great.

 

[Pikman]

21 hours ago, shinymcshine said:

Really enjoyed Fallout, and there's so much more too that they haven't yet explored, so Season 2 could be great.

 

Me too, loved almost every minute

[shinymcshine]

My missus suggested we watch 'Baby Reindeer' on Netflix.

 

Watched 4 episodes so far - bloody hell it's grim - the show itself fine, but what a horrendous true story.

[Pikman]

4 hours ago, shinymcshine said:

My missus suggested we watch 'Baby Reindeer' on Netflix.

 

Watched 4 episodes so far - bloody hell it's grim - the show itself fine, but what a horrendous true story.

I suggested it to mine. We saw 2 and I don't know if we'll watch more, it's so painful to witness.

[shinymcshine]

Well Ep 3 & 4 were much worse (in terms of uncomfortable viewing) than 1 & 2 were, if that helps.....

[Pikman]

Yup, it helps reaffirm we're good to quit while we are ahead, thanks

[Nag]

Forgot to say we binged Fallout over the weekend, yeah... it was great from start to finish. Even knowing how violent the game can be I wasn't really expecting it from the show... Still had a great sense of humour though.

 

Like others have said there's literally loads they haven't touched on for the second season. 

[shinymcshine]

Inside No. 9 will return on BBC Two and iPlayer on Wednesday 8th May at 10pm.

 

The earlier seasons were definitely my favourite, so here's to the final series.

[Maryokutai]

I also watched the first four episodes of Baby Reindeer. I don't find it quite as shocking as people made it out to be but at the same time I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that it all really happened in some way. I expect by the time that info really has sunk in I also start to see it in a very different light.

 

I'm not sure yet if it has anything going for it beyond the premise of 'awful things happening to person' but with only three episodes to go I'll probably find out later today. I will say I do enjoy the overall production and particularly the glimpses at the standup comedy stuff. I've seen a couple of interviews over the years from some people in that business and it seems pretty on point and realistic in how they portray it here (which I suppose makes sense considering the writer is part of that scene as well).

[one-armed dwarf]

Watched 3 episodes of Shogun, it's a 10 episode miniseries which is a sorta remake of an older 80s miniseries by the same name. That older one has Toshiro Mifune in it, the guy who's in like every Kurosawa movie, which had me well interested until I read they kinda do it from the perspective of the main character (who's an Englishman) and don't sub or dub any of the Japanese parts. Sorta a 'Lost in Translation' kinda thing, which sounded a bit dated

 

This new show isn't like that. This new one has Hiroyuki Sanada playing Mifune's old role, who I mainly know from Ring but checking his wiki he's been in tons of action blockbusters like Avengers and John Wick. It interweaves all the different perspectives. The premise is it's set around this period in Japanese history which I've a vague idea of, this civil war that happened between the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (he's a baddie in Onimusha, that's how I know his name) and the rise of the next shogun. The way they do it here though is they take a leaf out of the book of Pro Evolution Soccer and change everyone's name and loosely adapt real history into its own fiction. The main dude, Yoshii Toranaga is based off a guy called Tokugawa Ieyasu (if you're inclined to view history as being a 'spoiler', maybe don't click that link, but it's interesting imo). Meanwhile, there's some intrigue from the colonial side with Portuguese Catholic missionaries trying to establish their own sphere of influence through the region. For some reason, all the portuguese speak English. I suspect it's a decision they made cause an entirely subtitled show is a hard thing to get eyeballs on in the anglosphere. It's fine, no biggie really.

 

So it's all about this political power struggle, and this English guy called Blacktorn gets mixed up in it. It's pretty good, got lots of exciting action in it but requires a hefty upfront investment of your attention span for the first episode and a bit as it lays out the power and political structures. However it balances that out with some violence and nudity, so you know.

 

I'm not entirely on board with the insane hype it's gotten but it's solid and kinda dovetails with a lot of stuff I've been watching recently anyway. 

[Maryokutai]

Baby Reindeer concluded. It's interesting that out of all the awful things that happened, I found one single scene from the last episode involving a side character the most poignant:

 

Spoiler

When the protagonist's father, who up to that point was mostly used for comic relief, opened up about being sexually abused as a child. What followed was this weird situation where I wasn't sure whether this also really happened or was made up for drama. If it were the latter, it would have felt forced. But then I realised that for a moment I was hoping for it to be real just for the sake of this show, which is a pretty messed up thought to fly through your head. That was a bit of a rollercoaster. I haven't checked whether it is true and decided I never will.

 

As for the show in general, despite how grim it can be, there are moments where I actually laughed out loud, which is a high compliment to the writing, because it never took away from the subject matter. Also mad respect to the writer, whose name I keep forgetting, for just putting himself out there like this. And he doesn't even hide behind the camera but goes through it all yet again as the protagonist actor, which might be therapeutically cleansing, but goddamn I couldn't imagine myself doing that. There's a long monologue in episode 5 (I think) that made me wonder if it was all acted or if it was just him having a genuine meltdown in front of a camera.

 

Overall I think it's worth watching, though I will say the hyperbole online, as usual, can negatively affect your expectations. It's not the second coming of TV, it's simply a well-made, self-therapeuthic autobiography with good pacing, humour and acting. I haven't found it as uncomfortable as most people, but episode 4 can be a hard watch (or whichever episode has the trigger warning).

 

I'd also recommend checking out the little Making Of. Doesn't go into too much detail but it was nice to see the real version of the person who seems to, mostly, have put a lid on the whole affair, thankfully.

[Maryokutai]

Still don't really know whether to use this topic or the Streaming one, but I've watched the first four episodes of Sugar over the weekend and I think it's pretty good. It's a story about a private detective looking for a missing girl, so as run-of-the-mill as you can get, but it mixes in a couple of different things to spice it up in its own way.

 

The main character, played by Colin Farrel, is a big movie fan so occasionally there's scenes from classic detective films being cut in to mimic what he's doing. It's a purely visual gimmick, but pretty funny. And while it takes place in modern day, the overall vibe and feel is very 60s/70s, so whenever someone takes out a smartphone it feels like an anachronism even if it isn't one, which has to be a deliberate choice. Visually it's an incredibly beautiful production IMO, especially in the way it uses and accentuates colour. And a few episodes in it introduces a whole new thing that reminded me a bit of John Wick lore, without giving too much away.

 

Also has a cute dog and a great opening animation.

 

I realised too late they're doing this weekly release nonsense so I have to wait another three weeks to see the rest. It's an AppleTV thing though, so probably unlikely to appear anywhere else.

[one-armed dwarf]

I finished Shogun. While it started off good it interweaved much more melodrama into its political intrigue than I expected. There's some interesting twists that evoke Game of Thrones but it just feels kinda tedious by the end I though. It's a lot of repetitive 4D chess type stuff, characters doing this you don't know that I know that you know that I don't know type stuff. Got boring. There were cool moments though

 

I need to not get swept up in the online hype for TV shows. People make it sound like it's going to be the best thing ever but then you watch it and it's just alright. Shout out though to the guy who played Yabushige, who I only just learned played the main role in Ichi the Killer. He was the best person in it.

 

As an aside, I really don't like how TV shows are being lit and shot. It's not like I'm a stickler for this type of thing, but it's very very dark and has this weird blurry anamorphic lens thing going on. It's so blurry on the sides. The really really dark look makes it impossible to watch in certain conditions, but also generally makes the whole thing look dull and dingy. Which is a shame considering that the sets (and presumably the CG used for these sets) look great. But everything is shot like the later Harry Potter movies, all dark and blue.

[DANGERMAN]

I watched Baby Reindeer over the weekend. It's mental that it's so popular given the subject matter, but it is very good. My favourite character by a mile is his dad, he's great 😂 then the trans girl, who just seems like the most decent person in his friend group 

[Maryokutai]

I thought his ex was decent as well. I don't know if those details are entirely truthful but he seemed to have a penchant for driving away the voices of reason in his life. Not judging or anything, I know the impulsive nonsense can feel more appealing in some situations.