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2014 RANDOM TV THOUGHTS


RIPPA

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Aw shit, Black Mirror is on Netflix. I've been wanting to watch this for a long time now. Is it as good as the hype?

 

The National Anthem is legitimately one of the most disturbing pieces of television I've ever seen. Darkly comic, but I also felt so unclean and hateful to our world at the end. Big thumbs up.

 

I really liked White Bear and 15 Million Merits as well.

 

The Waldo Moment is pretty dumb and easily the worst episode and Be Right Back is a story I swear I've seen done before, but is well done. I somehow missed The Entire History of you and have yet to watch it. Its not written by Charlie Brooker, so I dunno how its going to be.

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Brooker's books are worth checking out too; guy is hilarious. He's sort of a more TV obsessed and less crazy Chuck Palahniuk.

 

Anyway Black Mirror's appeal is that so much fiction now seems to be based on societies falling, dystopias, zombies, big military takeovers etc.

 

Whereas Black Mirror's genius is that it doesn't go that far out. Which makes it a lot scarier than just straight up dystopia stuff.

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Whereas Black Mirror's genius is that it doesn't go that far out. Which makes it a lot scarier than just straight up dystopia stuff.

 

Exactly. The world of Black Mirror seems like the logical evolution of this one.

 

I'll definitely have to check out his books. I really dug his series "How TV Ruined Your Life" as well.

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FWIW, I watched all 6 episodes of Black Mirror on youtube.

My ranking:

#1: s01e02: 15 Million Merits. Probably could have been edited down a bit, but the version of dystopia they created was interesting, and I really liked the lead performance and the denouement. This one will likely stick with me far longer than the rest.

#2: s01e03: The Entire History of You. Owes something to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but wasn't a ripoff. Came up with various intriguing consequences of the premise.

#3: s02e01: Be Right Back. This is the borderline between "really good" and just "good" for me. I didn't think they did anything that interesting with the premise. It was still a good watch, though.

#4: s02e02: White Bear. Interesting premise and mystery, but in the end it had too much cruelty for me to enjoy (or find realistic).

#5: s02e03: The Waldo Moment. The character stuff wasn't that interesting. The most interesting part of the premise was only touched upon at the end.

#6: s01e01: The National Anthem. It seemed like it was trying too hard to be grotesque for grotesquerie's sake. And I never believed it for a minute. Yeah, it had some okay plot elements vis a a vis technology, but it was way too unrealistic on the human level. I'm glad I kept watching after this episode, since this was the worst one.

Hmm, didn't realize until now that except for episode 1 ending up on the bottom, I liked them less and less as it went on. But anyway, I'd recommend the first two on my list and the next two aren't bad either.

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Did they renew The Strain?  The TV show basically adapted book 1.  Based on plot summaries (I haven't read the books), books 2 and 3 strap on the jetpack and really rocket themselves into the absurd.  The tv show is going to be unwatchable if they adapt book

3.

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Guest The Magnificent 7

I may be late on this, but I'm currently plowing through The Strain, boy did this go from 0 to ridiculous in the quickest time ever.

 

Yeah I checked out when they introduced the Rainbow Six Vampire Team and then didn't even follow it up the next episode with explaining what the hell that was about.

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Because I follow Trisha Helfier on Twitter and it up and exploded Sunday, what is Ascension and should I be watching it?

SyFy mini-series about group traveling through space on a hundred year journey. There is a decent bit more to it, but it would be too spoilery. It was an interesting series. I suggest checking out an episode and seeing if it catches you're fancy.

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I enjoyed the Z Nation finale (really, the whole season was way better than expected) but I wonder if they didn't know if they were going to get a second season considering they pretty much painted themselves into a corner with the whole nuclear bombs about to kill all the remaining cast thing.

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Z Nation was surprisingly not terrible.  -Ish.

 

Yeah, the nuclear bomb thing reminded of Millennium's second season finale, where the showrunners (Glen Morgan and James Wong of X-Files/Final Destination fame) were told the show was going to be canceled.  So they killed off quite a few characters and unleashed a plague on the world (the apocalypse, basically).  Then the show was renewed.  And the new showrunners had to write off a world-destroying plague as a mystery virus that only affected Seattle.  Oh, and reboot the premise of the show for the third time in three years since Morgan and Wong had blown up the premise of the show and killed off the main character's wife (thereby destroying the relationship dynamic of the show).

 

I actually think the 2nd season was the only decent year in a very mediocre run, but, man, that finale is over the top.  They went all Grand Guignol with that one.  Still trying to forget the bizarre musical montage where Kristen Cloke's character goes crazy while psychedelic music plays (that scene seemed to last half the show.  Way too long).

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Guilty Pleasure COnfessions!!!!$#$#

 

- My wife started watching THE GOOD WIFE, like on an ipad in the background when she's fucking around in the kitchen or something.

 

- I mocked her because it seems like such a textbook "CBS show for old ladies."

 

- I found myself listening in to some of the cases and thinking, "Hey that was a pretty slick scene!"

 

- Alan Cumming showed up and, I mean, what the fuck how do you not watch a scene he's doing?

 

And now....fuck....

 

 

I like to watch THE GOOD WIFE OKAY!!! Mmmmmmm Good I can't get enough...ARE YOU SATISFIED!!!

 

It's like L.A. LAW multiplied by slickn .  The only things that are bad are the lighting, which is weirdly terrible, like you can almost see the lights glaring on someone's face when they're trying to act and the super hot "investigator" lady...who is unbelievably hot, but also a really badly written and sort of cheap character so far.  Like CSI MIAMI shallow and 90% spinning around in hot outfits.  God she's terrible and I can't look away from her.

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While researching whether Val Kilmer has lost the weight he gained1 I stumbled across news that REAL GENIUS is in development for NBC, to the point where NBC/Universal has to pay a penalty if it doesn't air.  Kilmer is attached (he would be fun as Bill Atherton or amazing as LAZLO!)

 

Great news, right?  HAPPY MADISON is producing it!  *heart seizes*

 

 

1he did!

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So I've been taking a whole bunch of the movie reviews I've posted here on DVDVR and compiling them into a blog (The Tabedoza Line).  It's been fun, reminding me of movies I'd forgotten I'd seen and others I wish I had forgotten.  Anyway, today I added my first review of a TV show.  As for the first one, there really was no question what show it would be.  Rather than go looking for my comments or whatever that I've previously posted, I decided to write a new review, longer than what I normally post here.  

 

So check it out:

 

Review of Friday Night Lights at The Tabedoza Line

 

Feel free to check it out.  And I promise not to spam the forum much more like this post.

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