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2023 TV DISCUSSION THREAD


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Watched the premiere of Fox’s new show, Accused, last night.  The trailers make it look like a run-of-the-mill courtroom drama but the pilot spent very little time in the courtroom and instead was something far better.  The pilot told the story of two well-heeled, well-meaning parents who inadvertently raise a teenage psychopath.  For most of the hour, viewers think the father is on trial for 

Spoiler

attempting to murder his son.  The father finds the kid’s journal and becomes convinced -correctly - that the son is planning a mass casualty event.  He eventually takes the kid on a wilderness camping trip with the intention of killing the boy before he kills others.


…but, it’s a clever bit of misdirection.  Dad is actually on trial for 

Spoiler

giving the kid money the kid used to buy weapons and ammunition used in a school shooting which killed seven people.  Basically, the son figures out that Dad is planning to kill him and uses the camping trip to manipulate Dad into believing he (the son) is open to getting help.  He then gaslights the dad into giving him money for a fictitious trip to Iceland.


The Shield’s Michael Chili’s plays the dad and gives a great performance.  And the whole hour is well-written.  The parents come off as complex people who are well-meaning and proactive and still fail miserably because they’ve decent people who want to believe their son can be helped.  The show stayed away from the cliches and one-note characters that usually pop up when television tries to address this topic.  I thought it was a very ambitious, very powerful hour of television, so I’m curious to see the rest of the season.

Other network shows I’m watching:

- Fox’s other new show, Alert, is mediocre so far.  Kinda cliched, overstuffed with plot.  It’s supposed to be procedural but the cases of the week so far are only backdrop for a mystery/conspiracy involving the lead couple’s teenage son.  So far, I haven’t been at all interested in the overarching mystery and the whole thing seems preposterous to me.

- ABC’s new cop show, Will Trent, is dark and different.  Really liked it so far.  Characters are very well-drawn.

- East New York started off really strong but it losing me a bit.  The last few eps have had a few melodramatic “only on tv” plots.  In general, the show seems to be moving too fast.  The no-nonsense older cop going rogue after his rookie partner is shot seems like something that should have happened a few seasons down the road after we get to know these characters better.  Or maybe not happened at all, because it’s a kinda over-the-top plot for a show that is trying to be more gritty and grounded.  Still recommended.

Edited by Doc Townsend
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Well holy shit. Following in the footsteps of the very, very, very excellent His Dark Materials, it looks like someone else may have nailed another YA novel with the Percy Jackson series on Disney+.

 

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Something I just don't understand - why would the past three years require such a spamming of "once in a lifetime global pandemic creates post-apocalyptic society" TV shows?

I just tried watching The Last Of Us. It's good, I'm surprised it's got 9.1 on IMDB but it's not far off, but fuck it, we've lived this to some degree, I don't want to relive it through unnecessarily gritty bleak near-future drama. Nothing about the past three years makes me think "Wow, I really want to watch how bad it could have been".

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5 minutes ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

Something I just don't understand - why would the past three years require such a spamming of "once in a lifetime global pandemic creates post-apocalyptic society" TV shows?

I just tried watching The Last Of Us. It's good, I'm surprised it's got 9.1 on IMDB but it's not far off, but fuck it, we've lived this to some degree, I don't want to relive it through unnecessarily gritty bleak near-future drama. Nothing about the past three years makes me think "Wow, I really want to watch how bad it could have been".

Wife and I discussed this and came to the mutual decision that we were good not watching it and that Station Eleven was the last post-apocalyptic show we were going to watch for a long while.

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6 hours ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Succession Season 4

March 26

I'm afraid we're gonna need to hear that voice

LET’S FUCKING GO!

Succession is all you people need. Watch this instead of another post apocalyptic tv series.

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And consider watching Three Pines - it's VERY Quebecois!  Alfred Molina is great, no surprise.  And they did a French cover of "Mad World" as a background for one of the more screwed-up scenes in Ep 2.  It's a decent enough little diversion and the arc plot seems like it will be a gut punch by the time it's over.

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14 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Yeah, watch the reason why we're careening towards the apocalypse instead of the apocalypse itself.

Hey you, this series is about the McMahon family, not the Murdochs. I don't care what the showrunners and Adam McKay have hinted at.

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On 1/26/2023 at 11:57 AM, Craig H said:

Well holy shit. Following in the footsteps of the very, very, very excellent His Dark Materials, it looks like someone else may have nailed another YA novel with the Percy Jackson series on Disney+.

 

My buddy Travis is in a few episodes of this. He's playing Charon.

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9 hours ago, Contentious C said:

And consider watching Three Pines - it's VERY Quebecois!  Alfred Molina is great, no surprise.  And they did a French cover of "Mad World" as a background for one of the more screwed-up scenes in Ep 2.  It's a decent enough little diversion and the arc plot seems like it will be a gut punch by the time it's over.

Just finished The Killing Stone. Great show.

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Night Court is getting slightly better with each episode. Third episode got more chuckles out of me than the previous two. It's still utter shit laugh track sitcom TV, but it's not completely terrible.

However, if John Larroquette weren't in it, it would be unwatchable.

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I already love Poker Face but man I can just imagine the pitch meeting

Studio Exec: ok Rian let's hear it
RJ: ok imagine a detective show where Natasha Lyonne
Studio Exec: you already lost me
RJ: no hear me out... Natasha Lyonne basically plays Natasha Lyonne but as Columbo
Studio Exec: Are you high? Who the fuck is this supposed to appeal to?

The answer is me!

James

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54 minutes ago, J.H. said:

I already love Poker Face but man I can just imagine the pitch meeting

Studio Exec: ok Rian let's hear it
RJ: ok imagine a detective show where Natasha Lyonne
Studio Exec: you already lost me
RJ: no hear me out... Natasha Lyonne basically plays Natasha Lyonne but as Columbo
Studio Exec: Are you high? Who the fuck is this supposed to appeal to?

The answer is me!

James

Plus the 70s Incredible Hulk

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6 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I just noticed The Saint and Space 1999 were on Peacock.

I've been watching Space 1999 on there.

Never picked up on the Blu-Ray sets, but the episodes look great.

Really tempting me to get the Shout Factory Complete set.

Been a fan of that show since discovering it in the early 80s.

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On 1/31/2023 at 8:38 PM, Craig H said:

Watched the first two episodes of Shrinking. I'm in love with it. If Ted Lasso does indeed end this year then Shrinking will take over for it nicely.

I wasn’t sold on it initially but the last 5-7 minutes or so of the first episode hooked me in. 

Edited by peterien
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