2014 RANDOM TV THOUGHTS

[Spritenaut 32]

I'm really enjoying Crossbones, but I didn't expect it to find an audience in the US (even given the low standards of other Summer Friday night shows.

 

I gave Halt and Advance a try, but thought it was really plodding.
 

Anyone watched Musketeers on the BBC Network?  I want to get to that before too long.

[Biz Smarkie]

Well shit. I was really kinda enjoying Crossbones.

[Matt D]

Crossbones kind of had a mini series feel to me.

[HumanChessgame]

Is The Blacklist worth watching?  The previews made it look like something that could be either halfway interesting or incredibly formulaic.

[Stennick]

I have the Muskateers ready to watch but I haven't watched it yet. Someone else pointed out earlier that there is so much TV. I pretty much have an order I go in. I watch one season of each show as I move down my list adding shows as they debut. I'm done with the first episode of Vikings and I thought it was a bit slow for a show called "Vikings" but I was really interested in the stories they did present. The Lord being pissed at the farmer. The farmer wanting to sail west. The farmers friend wanting to fuck his wife. The little boy is an interesting part of it. So I like it so far and its been renewed for a third season so I should get good mileage out of it. 

[Biz Smarkie]

Is The Blacklist worth watching? The previews made it look like something that could be either halfway interesting or incredibly formulaic.

Its a mixed bag, but mostly pretty awesome. You should watch just to see James Spader be awesome

[J.H.]

Finished season 2 of Deadwood and goddam if Al pull off the ultimate comeback in those last stretch of episodes!

He's like the most treacherous benevolent cocksucker in all of television. Those last 4 episodes were focused on Al rising like a damn phoenix and basically pushed Bullock to the background. That whole season was amazing as it seemed it was going to be Bullock being the man but him being so morally superior (despite being a hypocrite) made him ill suited to deal with the coming storm of Hearst. Season feels like the tease to the final season with the blowoff of all of the camp v. Hearst and I'm looking forward to the carnage!

 

James

[Reed]

Spader in The Blacklist is one of those "performances so good it outclasses an otherwise mediocre show."

 

See also: Eva Green in Penny Dreadful.

[piranesi]

Finished season 2 of Deadwood and goddam if Al pull off the ultimate comeback in those last stretch of episodes!

He's like the most treacherous benevolent cocksucker in all of television. Those last 4 episodes were focused on Al rising like a damn phoenix and basically pushed Bullock to the background. That whole season was amazing as it seemed it was going to be Bullock being the man but him being so morally superior (despite being a hypocrite) made him ill suited to deal with the coming storm of Hearst. Season feels like the tease to the final season with the blowoff of all of the camp v. Hearst and I'm looking forward to the carnage!

 

 

 

I'm just about there.  One episode to go in season 2.

I'm finding something that separates this show from some of the other really great series to show up since THE SOPRANOS is that I'm not all that intensely focused on the plot.  That's normally a hallmark of the great serials of the last decade or so, complex and satisfying plots with lots of twists and a real tension as to who will "make it" and who won't.

Honestly, I don't really care about the plots and planning or the intricacies of the various alliances or the brilliance of Al's tactics.  What is driving me in this show maybe more than any I can think of, is the characters.  I really like them, all of them...and I care about them based on more than their centrality to the story.

Even when watching THE SOPRANOS, which had great characters, there were only two I think that I was truly emotionally invested in.  Tony (mainly because he was the only one whose inner life I was let into) and Adriana.  All the other characters as funny or well-drawn as they may have been, were not really an emotional stake for me.  Even Christopher...like if he had been killed at any point in the show, it was always a tension, and it would be a big deal dramatically because he was important story-wise.  But I wouldn't have felt it, like, heartwise.  He was just another sociopath.

BREAKING BAD, as amazing as the characters were...there were three I "cared" about (once I stopped liking Walt): Jesse, Mike, and Saul.

But in DEADWOOD, it's hard to think of a character whose death wouldn't really get to me.  All the main characters, villain or not, are important to me, not just to the story.  Even minor characters...Fuck, if anything happened to EB...as miserable a little snake as he is...I would be in for it.  Just listing the ones that would be on my list of who I'm deeply invested in:

Seth, Al, Trixie, Joanie, Ellsworth, Jane, Charlie, Doc.  I even like the cutthroat Adams and kind of liked that fake tutor who worked for the Pinkertons.  Yeah, she was evil, but she was cool and working a tough angle...Even Cy, who is an unredeemable asshole, I would miss because it's so much fun to try and figure him out...to figure out just where he exists on the continuum between a pragmatic villain like Al and a psychopath like Wolcott.

 and then event the various gargoyles and goons and idiots.  Shit, I would be torn up if Dan, or Merrick, or EB, or even a goof like Tom got it.  Hell, Wu only knows two words (Swedgin and cocsucker...and one of those isn't a word) and I'd hate to see anything happen to him.

 

 The only characters (apart from those presented as simply purely evil) that I'm maybe supposed to care about but don't are Alma and maybe Sol who so far just hasn't gotten to show me much.

 

 I can't think of another show where "who wins" or how it all works out is so much less important to me than just seeing these characters and enjoying their interactions.  It's not what I was expecting.

[Jrag]

Totally agree.  The Wire is the only other show that hits those notes for me where EVERY character is truly worth caring about.

 

I think I need to rewatch Deadwood now.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Yeah, I mean, The Wire had literally dozens and dozens of characters but, off the top of my head, the only character (I suppose, major one anyway) I wasn't all that invested in was Shakima.

 

But D'Angelo, Bodie, the kids in series 4 (particularly Dukie), Frank Sobotka walking to his doom (guy didn't even last a full series but is still one of my all time favourite TV characters, mostly because Chris Bauer is sooo fucking good in it), those bastards clipping Butchie followed by the sorrow-murderous vengeance about-turn in Omar's eyes and, perhaps more than anyone else, friggin' BUBBLES? I was invested in all that shit like those dudes were members of my own family. And those are just a few examples off the top of my head, I'm forgetting a shitload more.

 

As said better than I ever could, Deadwood is the same and it helps too that it's one of the best ensemble casts I've ever seen. I mean, funnily enough, the guy I think is weakest in it is Olyphant. I dunno, at times he's good but then other times he's kinda corny and comes across like he went all Method in trying to be Clint.

 

The Wire is pretty much number one with a bullet for me but had Deadwood gotten, I guess, another series or maybe the rumoured TV films (I figure, it ends with the fire which destroyed the real Deadwood which would be expensive as fuck and maybe put HBO off a little) it would be real close.

 

And, yeah, all this is doing is making me want to re-watch this and The Wire. Again. For the 17th time.

[J.H.]

Have I mentioned that Brad Douriff is the fuckin' man as Doc!

At first I had to get over the fear of hearing the Chucky laugh and having a Monday Nitro flashback but damn Douriff is so aces. He might be the one incorruptible on the whole show.

 

Still the second half of season 2 is basically "The Al Swearengen Show" and it was AWESOMW!

 

James

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

His rant against God followed by Al whispering 'You can go now, brother' is the greatest.

 

http://youtu.be/63CXrk_hon8

 

Gets me every time.

[J.H.]

I watched episode 1 of Season 3 when I woke up. Jane Canary's account of her time with Custer was gripping storytelling, the likes I've seldom come across

 

James

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Custer was a cunt. The end.

 

Right?

 

Up there with Be brief...BE FUCKED and 'This is the ass of a drunken shitbird' in the pantheon of great Calamity Jane moments.

[piranesi]

I don't get Olyphant's walk.  I mean, it works...it looks very "don't fuck with me."  But if you break it down, it's like crazy fem.  He's like placing one foot across the other like a female runway model and like swishing back and forth, and one hand is sometimes swinging too.

 

It's the girliest thing. But it's weirdly commanding.  Is it the duster?

[piranesi]

Custer was a cunt. The end.

 

Right?

 

Up there with Be brief...BE FUCKED and 'This is the ass of a drunken shitbird' in the pantheon of great Calamity Jane moments.

 

 

"I know that's some clever opening gambit to culminate in breaking my balls."

 

"You're a keen fuckin' student of the of the human scene, Charlie."

[J.H.]

I think the walk is intentional of the character. He is kinda holier than thou so his representative of him trying not to dirty himself (which is why his brawl with Al was great, it brought Bullock hated going in the mud). The problem in Deadwood is everything is covered in muck and shit so Bullock's walk is futile thing but he has to give still try to avoid it because he doesn't want to be Al (who knows he is in the muck and shit but doesn't give a fuck as long he continues to rule Deadwood and wet his beak).

 

James

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

 

Custer was a cunt. The end.

 

Right?

 

Up there with Be brief...BE FUCKED and 'This is the ass of a drunken shitbird' in the pantheon of great Calamity Jane moments.

 

 

"I know that's some clever opening gambit to culminate in breaking my balls."

 

"You're a keen fuckin' student of the of the human scene, Charlie."

 

 

Doris Day never spoke like that.

[Newb82]

Desperation must be setting in at the STORAGE WARS camp. They're bringing Dave back.

[Kuetsar]

Desperation must be setting in at the STORAGE WARS camp. They're bringing Dave back.

Yep!

[Swift]

I don't get Olyphant's walk.  I mean, it works...it looks very "don't fuck with me."  But if you break it down, it's like crazy fem.  He's like placing one foot across the other like a female runway model and like swishing back and forth, and one hand is sometimes swinging too.

 

It's the girliest thing. But it's weirdly commanding.  Is it the duster?

 

I'm glad I'm not the only who was entranced by Bullock's walk. I always assumed it was a representation of the proverbial "stick up the ass"

[Control]

Everything Bullock does is incredibly stiff and mechanical, because he has to exert maximum control over himself; otherwise, he'd just shit kick everyone in sight. He's by far the angriest dude on that show. Re watching that show, one of the first things you notice is that he's more motivated by his temper than any sense of "right."

[EVA]

Everything Bullock does is incredibly stiff and mechanical, because he has to exert maximum control over himself; otherwise, he'd just shit kick everyone in sight. He's by far the angriest dude on that show. Re watching that show, one of the first things you notice is that he's more motivated by his temper than any sense of "right."

Yep. Bullock is a long, tall drink of self-loathing and barely-contained rage.

Olyphant is such a terrific actor. He played basically the same part in DEADWOOD and JUSTIFIED (violently angry lawman who is far less righteous than he'd like people to think), yet comes up with two distinctly different people.

[piranesi]

The soliloquy Al gave about being held down by Hearst's henchman was amazing.  One of those moments where you tear up, in part because of the emotion of the character, in part because of the universal truth of the image, and in part because it's such a joy to see someone do anything at the level that Ian McShane does acting.