BEST TV Shows to watch... CURRENTLY...

[SouthtownKid]

A Buffy audio drama, really? You're going to actually listen to that?

Audio dramas can work, depending on how they're written. Doctor Who has decades worth of them, with many better than a lot of the actual tv show. Some of them good enough to redeem eras of the show that fans previously hated. As you might imagine, the biggest hurdle comes from trying to describe everything the listener can't see within the dialogue organically.

 

[famicommander]

Audio dramas can work, depending on how they're written. Doctor Who has decades worth of them, with many better than a lot of the actual tv show. Some of them good enough to redeem eras of the show that fans previously hated. As you might imagine, the biggest hurdle comes from trying to describe everything the listener can't see within the dialogue organically.

Buffy audio drama ended up pretty good. Sometimes the extras really laid it on thick with the overacting but for the most part I liked it.

Tony Head sounds really, really old/drunk as Rupert Giles, though. Which is fair, the actor is pushing 70 and it's been two decades since he played the character, but he's playing a 50-something Giles and he sounds like a feeble old man in this. Might be because he had to record his stuff solo in England while the entire rest of the cast was in one recording booth together with the writers and directors.

For anyone who didn't bother looking into it but did watch the show, the basic premise without too many spoilers:
-it's been a dozen or so years since the Buffy and Angel finales
-on a parallel earth Cordelia is the Slayer and Buffy never existed; instead of Xander and Willow as her support group it's Tara and Anya
-Drusilla is the big bad on that Earth but she's been especially unhinged since Cordelia killed that world's Spike, and now she's plotting an apocalypse. So the Cordelia of that earth comes to our earth to seek out our Spike's help, since he knows Drusilla better than anybody else
-Spike, Clem (the chill loose skin demon from the latter seasons of Buffy), Giles, and a newly called Slayer end up going there to help. It's time sensitive and these are the characters accessible from LA at the time the shit goes down, so it's a fairly reasonable explanation about why Buffy and the gang aren't helping

 

[SouthtownKid]

-on a parallel earth Cordelia is the Slayer and Buffy never existed; instead of Xander and Willow as her support group it's Tara and Anya

Ah, okay, I was wondering how Anya and Tara came back to life. Beh.

I dunno. I was kind of fine with the Angel series finale being the last we heard about any of them. I read the couple years of Buffy season 8 and 9 comics before giving up and rejecting them completely. And the comics feeling so off makes me a lot less inclined to give any other "sequel" a chance. Leave well enough alone.

 

[famicommander]

Ah, okay, I was wondering how Anya and Tara came back to life. Beh.

I dunno. I was kind of fine with the Angel series finale being the last we heard about any of them. I read the couple years of Buffy season 8 and 9 comics before giving up and rejecting them completely. And the comics feeling so off makes me a lot less inclined to give any other "sequel" a chance. Leave well enough alone.

This is orders of magnitude better than the season 8-12 comics.

What makes this good is how bleak everything feels. In the new world Cordy and the others didn't activate the entire Slayer line like Buffy did in S7, so Cordelia is the one and only Slayer who had to watch her father, sister, boyfriend, and best friend die before her eyes.

The main world is still, 12 years later, for all intents and purposes saved. There is still evil and there are still demons but by this point there are hundreds of Slayers. Buffy is essentially running the new Council, assigning Watchers to new Slayers and coordinating shit, but things have been tame enough that Giles is happily retired and Spike runs a bar in LA.

 

[famicommander]

Scavengers Reign on HBO Max is really cool. Watched the first few episodes of it today. Animated series about people marooned on an uninhabited planet.

 

[HornheaDD]

Scavengers Reign on HBO Max is really cool. Watched the first few episodes of it today. Animated series about people marooned on an uninhabited planet.

Only watched the first episode so far, but definitely intriguing. Have you watched the 7 minute short it's based on? Its the same art style but you can tell the art has matured a bit in the series. Also the short has no dialogue. Its got a real Fantastic Planet/Time Masters feel to the world. Definitely cool and looking forward to watching the rest of the eps.

 

[HornheaDD]

Really? No comment on Severance? buncha fagits.

Started watching Pantheon. It came up as a recommended thing on youtube for some weird ass reason, so I watched the trailer and was interested. Its an animated show, and kind of like an anime artstyle, but I think it might be American made. Its also not your average 'anime' with the goofy faces and beads of sweat when nervous, guys that look like fagits, girls saying uwu every 5 seconds. Nothing like that. Evidently its a thriller/drama. I think this could easily be a live action series, but maybe they went animated to save on special effects?

Its got a real WestWorld (HBO), Matrix, Caprica feel to it with a little bit of that Depp movie "Transcendence." Except.. you know... not shit.

Its on Amazon video so I went to check it out and got a stupid notice that says "this video is not available in your country." WTF amazon Im in the US and so are you. I effectively put Bezos in space with the amount of shit I buy from you people and I cant watch this on your fucking service in the US? Ok so piracy it is.

 

[Lagduf]

At this point why even pirate the product?

If it’s not in the US or purposefully not easily available then fuck it. Sounds like it’s not worth watching in the first place.

 

[HornheaDD]

At this point why even pirate the product?

B... because I wanna watch it?

 

[Lagduf]

B... because I wanna watch it?

lol fair. I don’t get it tho. I just don’t care enough about TV or games anymore I guess to pirate them if they aren’t otherwise accessible.I’ll just forego it. Plenty of other entertainment exists.

I have paid some stupid prices for used and (somewhat) hard to get paperbacks so i guess I get it to an extent.

 

[HornheaDD]

I gotcha man. Way I look at it, is I *HAVE* paid for it because I have amazon prime video. Now, the show evidently started on AMC+, and was canceled for whatever reason. But from what I understand, Amazon 'saved' it like they did The Expanse, or how Netflix 'saved' Manifest. So its an "amazon original" at this point.

There is absolutely zero point in not having it in the US. You know, where Amazon is located? Happens to be same piece of land I live on. So maybe they should make that shit available to their US subscription base. I wont pretend to say all of my piracy is justified. But this one is 100% justified if you ask me.

 

[famicommander]

Doom Patrol series finale aired on Thursday. Overall I thought it was a strong finale and a strong final season, even if the old age makeup they used was pretty awful.

First season of Scavengers Reign on Max is also complete. If you've not checked it out yet, you really should. Really beautiful, brutal show.

 

[HornheaDD]

Finished season 1 of Scavenger's Reign and I was a little disappointed.

It felt like the whole season was a bunch of vignettes that were very loosely tied together with the 'get to the Demeter' plot but that's the only part that made any sense. Whats up with that panda lizard thing. Why did it 'eat' Kamen, and when it was blown up by Levi (even more questions) it left a baby panda lizard thing.

By the credits on the last episode almost no story was actually told.

Visually cool. The premise of 'marooned on a planet where everything is deadly' is kinda cool, but there doesn't seem to be much story there.

 

[HornheaDD]

Really? No comment on Severance? buncha fagits.

Started watching Pantheon. It came up as a recommended thing on youtube for some weird ass reason, so I watched the trailer and was interested. Its an animated show, and kind of like an anime artstyle, but I think it might be American made. Its also not your average 'anime' with the goofy faces and beads of sweat when nervous, guys that look like fagits, girls saying uwu every 5 seconds. Nothing like that. Evidently its a thriller/drama. I think this could easily be a live action series, but maybe they went animated to save on special effects?

Its got a real WestWorld (HBO), Matrix, Caprica feel to it with a little bit of that Depp movie "Transcendence." Except.. you know... not shit.

Its on Amazon video so I went to check it out and got a stupid notice that says "this video is not available in your country." WTF amazon Im in the US and so are you. I effectively put Bezos in space with the amount of shit I buy from you people and I cant watch this on your fucking service in the US? Ok so piracy it is.

This has been a really great series so far. Just started the 2nd season. From what I understand the show was originally pitched/picked up for 2 seasons and canceled after the first. But I guess Amazon bought it and finished the 2nd season.

 

[terry.330]

Tried the new season of Fargo and tapped out after the 2nd episode. It's like a cheap imitation of the Coen's, borders on cartoonish. Great cast, bad writing and direction.

A Murder on the Far Side of the World on the other hand is surprisingly good. I expected to hate it from the trailers and description. A zoomer hacker/author girl is invited to a secretive meeting at a tech mogul's hotel in Iceland with a bunch of influential strangers and people get murdered. Trite murder mystery mixed with woke zoomer hipster sounds awful but it's so well constructed and the character development is solid it all works and feels fairly natural. Worth checking out.

 

[radiantsvgun]

Tried the new season of Fargo and tapped out after the 2nd episode. It's like a cheap imitation of the Coen's, borders on cartoonish. Great cast, bad writing and direction.

A Murder on the Far Side of the World on the other hand is surprisingly good. I expected to hate it from the trailers and description. A zoomer hacker/author girl is invited to a secretive meeting at a tech mogul's hotel in Iceland with a bunch of influential strangers and people get murdered. Trite murder mystery mixed with woke zoomer hipster sounds awful but it's so well constructed and the character development is solid it all works and feels fairly natural. Worth checking out.

I'm glad I'm not alone- I tried to get through Fargo and I just couldn't.

Since I've got telework days at the job now, I get more time to check out shows:

Onimushia- does not tie into the PS2 games at all, but its a decent show. I don't think its stellar or jaw dropping, but you could do worse.

Castlevania Requiem- Could have fuck all to do with Rondo but the animation is nice. I didn't have much interest until the last episode. The first season with Trever was way better.

Harlots- My wife has been watching this and I've been catching it in the background, its actually not terrible, and pretty funny at times.

 

[jro]

Tried the new season of Fargo and tapped out after the 2nd episode. It's like a cheap imitation of the Coen's, borders on cartoonish. Great cast, bad writing and direction.

A Murder on the Far Side of the World on the other hand is surprisingly good. I expected to hate it from the trailers and description. A zoomer hacker/author girl is invited to a secretive meeting at a tech mogul's hotel in Iceland with a bunch of influential strangers and people get murdered. Trite murder mystery mixed with woke zoomer hipster sounds awful but it's so well constructed and the character development is solid it all works and feels fairly natural. Worth checking out.

IIRC the Coens themselves really do not care for the show and/or Noah Hawley. I've sat through all of this season so far, mainly due to Keery's character cracking me up. I probably wouldn't bother if there was more new stuff on right now, though, it is pretty underwhelming. One of those play a handheld at the same time kind of deals.

I really like the pacing in A Murder at the End of the World and how it does not feel at all compelled to pander or talk down to the audience. Corrin and Owen both do a really nice job of portraying characters with some layers to them. I think I have one episode left to watch until I'm caught up on it.

Looking forward to watching Culprits. Good reviews, and J. Blakeman is the creator, who wrote and directed I Care a Lot, which is one of the more unique films I've seen in some time (and it's also really good).

 

[terry.330]

A Murder at the End of the World

lol A Murder on the Far Side of the World, must have been reading about Master and Commander before I typed that. Anyways, the show is great. Like you said it doesn't dumb it down too much for the audience, great pacing etc. The structure is really strong in the way it handles the story of the book, how she met Bill etc. and weaves it into the current situation. There are a couple things I found a little too predictable but they don't detract from the mystery too much.

 

[Stefan]

IIRC the Coens themselves really do not care for the show and/or Noah Hawley.

My gut feeling is that forthcoming(huge delays via SAG-AFTRA strike) ALIEN tv series devised & mostly directed by Hawley for FX stateside will be tantamount to a goddamned trainwreck, especially since it's yet another needless prequel to the 1979 film, albeit with a story unfolding entirely on Earth.

 

[LoneSage]

Invincible was a big part of pop culture for a while when the first season came out...two and a half years ago.

I just found out the first half of season 2 came out last month.

What's the deal? Haven't heard anyone talk about it. That would suck if it sucks.

 

[HornheaDD]

Invincible was a big part of pop culture for a while when the first season came out...two and a half years ago.

I just found out the first half of season 2 came out last month.

What's the deal? Haven't heard anyone talk about it. That would suck if it sucks.

Because its been a couple years since the first season ended, and this current season - only half of the 8 episodes have been released.

Its good, still follows the comic pretty well so far.

 

[LoneSage]

bro I just want you to know I was going to ask you but didn't but you replied within 5 minutes so it all worked out

 

[Xavier]

Got a new TV it came with 90 Days of Apple+

Loved the Tetris movie, I give it a 91% lived up to my hype
Had found a torrent of Finch prior, enjoyed it as well

Foundation: A dystopian Sci-fi based off an Asimov series, space opera like Dune but I like it better so far (and most other sci-fi stuff) have to think about if I like it better than Firefly...BattleStar Galatica???. Get's more convoluted and silly as the show goes on though. I binged the shit out of it while I was sick though.

Everybody seems to love Ted Lasso any other suggestions?

 

[famicommander]

Foundation is so fucking bad. Not anything like the book at all.

 

[Lagduf]

Foundation is so fucking bad. Not anything like the book at all.

But that’s the thing to do these days right?

All the Philip K Dick stories on Amazon, The Hand Maids Tale, etc just take the essence of the story (maybe include some plot points) and then go off the fucking deep end making shit up. It’s wild. I’ve generally not been impressed. Oh well, fuck Hollywood.