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NOV 2016 TV DISCUSSION


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ABC isn't planning to order any more episodes of Conviction for the back half of the season, so it is essentially canceled.

I've only seen two episodes so far, so I can't judge quality, but those two episodes managed to make Hayley Atwell look pretty ordinary (as opposed to Agent Carter, which I thought was average overall but made Atwell look like she had the "it" factor to become a huge star).

 

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On 11/9/2016 at 0:42 PM, Vader does my taxes! said:

ABC isn't planning to order any more episodes of Conviction for the back half of the season, so it is essentially canceled.

I've only seen two episodes so far, so I can't judge quality, but those two episodes managed to make Hayley Atwell look pretty ordinary (as opposed to Agent Carter, which I thought was average overall but made Atwell look like she had the "it" factor to become a huge star).

I haven't watched a single episode of that show, but if it makes Hayley Atwell seem ordinary, it can't be good.  She was so effortlessly charming on Agent Carter that she carried that otherwise completely average show.  Agent Carter was only watchable, because she was the star.  It shouldn't be hard to figure out how to use that kind of talent and charisma.

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Speaking of Gelman, he just showed up on The Meltdown. He said it was "Gelmania" and had a guy dressed up in heavy metal duds (bullet belt, etc.) playing a Prince guitar and making gunshot sounds with a beatbox, then introduced his friend "Tiny from the Y" who was another comedian, a rather large man, wearing only a thong and a rabbit mask with tighty whities wrapped around the lower half of his face to make this INCREDIBLY CREEPY mask. Then the guy starts singing in a falsetto with a bunch of echo on the mic and crawls into the crowd. Utterly hilarious and utterly terrifying. 

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You're The Worst just finished up its third season. Third season was awesome. It's a total pantheon, Hall Of Fame show for me. So delightfully mean and spiteful but also affirming and heartbreaking.

It also has one of my favorite lines of dialogue of the past few years on TV.Jimmy says something like: "You want to go on a cruise ship? I had no idea you wanted to contract norovirus on a floating red state."

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Fuck you, How To Get Away With Murder..

Spoiler

Wesley Gibbons (Alfred Enoch) was under the sheet.  I am broken hearted.

My gut tells me that Connor did it because Connor blames Annalise and Wes the most for the situation they are in. 

The fucker lied about going to that gay bar and ambushed Wes at Annalise's crib.  Annalise getting tossed in jail was a bonus for him.

 

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Finished up 3 seasons

Atlanta was incredible.  Front-to-back goodness.  I think the Montague episode, replete with commercials was the single best episode of anything I've watched this year.  Felt the penultimate episode kinda lagged a little bit, but the last one captured the spirit and vibe of the show perfectly.  Really good stuff.

Better Things: The good episodes were really good, including the finale, and especially the episode 'Brown' which had one of my favourite laugh-out-loud moments of the year.  Sometimes it gets a little bogged down in Samantha being the smartest person around giving advice to everyone around her and occasionally it gets a little "Our family is so quirky and wonderful" but it also had a fairly unique point-of-view and tackled some interesting issues without ever getting too preachy.  All three of the actresses who played Pamela Adlon's daughters turned in absolutely stunning performances for being 17, 12 and 9.

Stranger Things: This was really great, too.  Reminded me a lot of 'Freaks and Geeks' in that every one of the kids in the cast could make a living in Hollywood for a very long time, they're all amazing.  The music was incredible on this, and the effects were great, too.  About the only thing I didn't like was that

the kids were very much the focal point of the series, then spend the majority of the final episode sitting around when it felt like they deserved to be more of a central part of the plot.  I also felt Mike deserved a little closure at the end and was hoping the Christmas tree would flicker a little for him after everyone else had fallen asleep

Almost finished

Bojack Horseman: Not as into this season as the two previous.  I'm finding it more of a downer then previous years (Which is funny because the previous years were depressing but punctuated by humor, while this year is kind of a slog at times to get through).  Thought the dialogue-less underwater episode was total brilliance, though.  I guess I'm just not finding the Will Bojack get an Oscar story as interesting, maybe.

Easy: This is incredible, however.  Every episode is basically a standalone episode with a different cast (Some crossover here and there) that deals with relationships and sex.  It's really well-acted, funny, dramatic and raises all kinds of interesting issues and discussions.  I love Joe Swanberg's films ('Drinking Buddies', 'Happy Christmas' and 'Digging For Fire'), so I figured I'd like these as it's basically 8 little short films by him.  Great, interesting cast, too: Dave Franco, Marc Maron, Jane Adams, Malin Akerman, Orlando Bloom, Kate Micucci etc. etc.

Midseason

Son of Zorn: Really wanted to like this after the brilliant pilot but I feel like it's kinda not as funny as it should be.  It's funny, in a show about a cartoon He-Man-like barbarian voiced by Jason Sudeikis adjusting to life in the suburbs that Tim Meadows absolutely steals every scene he's in as the man engaged to Zorn's ex who is just really nice and kind of sad.  Johnny Pemberton is really irritating on this show.

The Last Man on Earth: You know, I'm still enjoying this show but I kinda feel like they weren't expecting it to last this long and have kind of run out of plot.  This season feels like a it's spinning its wheels a lot, like they don't know what they want to do next.  The past episode was pretty great, though, so I'm hoping it gets back on track.

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10 hours ago, caley said:

Atlanta was incredible.  Front-to-back goodness.  I think the Montague episode, replete with commercials was the single best episode of anything I've watched this year.  Felt the penultimate episode kinda lagged a little bit, but the last one captured the spirit and vibe of the show perfectly.  Really good stuff.

The penultimate episode is my favorite episode of the entire series.  One of the things that never gets represented on TV is the fact that black people aren't exclusively poor.  Not only are black people not exclusively poor, if you live in Atlanta, DC, and a few other cities there is a whole community of filthy rich black people.  The thing that episode did so well was put you smack dab in the middle of the awkward intersection where poor to middle class black people and filthy rich black people meet.  I've found myself in these situations, and you kind of spend the entire time sightseeing if that makes any sense.  You find someone you have something in common with and just walk through the party trying to figure out how this foreign land works.  What people don't understand is that most black people spend their lives trying to fit into white society.  I for one have a better understanding of how to navigate through a party full of rich white people than I do a party full of rich black people.  Those muscles just get used more.  Trying to navigate a situation where everything is super rich, but everything is also covered with a layer of trying to stay true to your blackness leads you into some super awkward interactions.  Those scenes where Mo interacts with the "help" feel so uncomfortable, because we don't expect those interactions between black people.  Here is the thing though, Mo is completely in her rights to expect a certain level of service, but it still feels like she's doing something wrong.  She hired what is probably a black owned business, with an all black staff to do a job.  That very well could be the biggest contract that company has all year, but the people working at that party have probably never been treated that way by another black person.  It honestly feels like you are living in a fantasy land where everything is the same, but somehow everything is completely different.

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1 hour ago, supremebve said:

The penultimate episode is my favorite episode of the entire series.  One of the things that never gets represented on TV is the fact that black people aren't exclusively poor.  Not only are black people not exclusively poor, if you live in Atlanta, DC, and a few other cities there is a whole community of filthy rich black people.  The thing that episode did so well was put you smack dab in the middle of the awkward intersection where poor to middle class black people and filthy rich black people meet.  I've found myself in these situations, and you kind of spend the entire time sightseeing if that makes any sense.  You find someone you have something in common with and just walk through the party trying to figure out how this foreign land works.  What people don't understand is that most black people spend their lives trying to fit into white society.  I for one have a better understanding of how to navigate through a party full of rich white people than I do a party full of rich black people.  Those muscles just get used more.  Trying to navigate a situation where everything is super rich, but everything is also covered with a layer of trying to stay true to your blackness leads you into some super awkward interactions.  Those scenes where Mo interacts with the "help" feel so uncomfortable, because we don't expect those interactions between black people.  Here is the thing though, Mo is completely in her rights to expect a certain level of service, but it still feels like she's doing something wrong.  She hired what is probably a black owned business, with an all black staff to do a job.  That very well could be the biggest contract that company has all year, but the people working at that party have probably never been treated that way by another black person.  It honestly feels like you are living in a fantasy land where everything is the same, but somehow everything is completely different.

That's an interesting viewpoint that sheds more light on it for me.  But I still felt like it wasn't that funny.  Like the white guy into the African culture was way too broad for me to really enjoy.  I mean, I'm sure guys like that exist but just because it's real doesn't make it really funny, you know?  Episode just didn't hit home with me.  It was definitely awkward and interesting, but I just never felt the humor connected much with me.  I should probably give it a rewatch but FX Canada only keeps the last episodes on demand (And not for very long either...) so I'll have to wait for them to marathon them or a DVD.

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4 minutes ago, caley said:

That's an interesting viewpoint that sheds more light on it for me.  But I still felt like it wasn't that funny.  Like the white guy into the African culture was way too broad for me to really enjoy.  I mean, I'm sure guys like that exist but just because it's real doesn't make it really funny, you know?  Episode just didn't hit home with me.  It was definitely awkward and interesting, but I just never felt the humor connected much with me.  I should probably give it a rewatch but FX Canada only keeps the last episodes on demand (And not for very long either...) so I'll have to wait for them to marathon them or a DVD.

It may very well be the most narrow, specific, had to be there, episode of television I've ever watched.  Trust me though, as someone who has been there, that episode is spot on.  I also know at least two versions of that white guy. 

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Has any mainstream project ever talked about the black Boule (which supreme basically described accurately up above)? I mean I heard someone on a podcast/radio show say The Inkwell did, but I haven't seen that in a long time. I mean now it's not even a dirty little secret anymore among black people of status.

The reason why they treat black people like shit is basically that's the only way they can be preferred by whites. There's no really old black money, extremely powerful families in the United States, and we've been in what is the modern lower 48 as early since at least  the mid 16th century. Yeah, you have rich, black people but they don't pass down the culture and tradition that would make what they do with that money revolutionary. So basically, all they pass down is green money that changes in value every now and then and how to vacation in the Hamptons. It goes back to like the Blue Vein society where any possible method to separate one group of black people based on a specific set of characteristics from another is preferred as long as you don't run afoul of white people.

What I took from that episode is that you can't just purchase your history because if you could, it wouldn't mean shit. Moreover, you can't mold that history into your own narrative.

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24 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Has any mainstream project ever talked about the black Boule (which supreme basically described accurately up above)? I mean I heard someone on a podcast/radio show say The Inkwell did, but I haven't seen that in a long time. I mean now it's not even a dirty little secret anymore among black people of status.

The reason why they treat black people like shit is basically that's the only way they can be preferred by whites. There's no really old black money, extremely powerful families in the United States, and we've been in what is the modern lower 48 as early since at least  the mid 16th century. Yeah, you have rich, black people but they don't pass down the culture and tradition that would make what they do with that money revolutionary. So basically, all they pass down is green money that changes in value every now and then and how to vacation in the Hamptons. It goes back to like the Blue Vein society where any possible method to separate one group of black people based on a specific set of characteristics from another is preferred as long as you don't run afoul of white people.

What I took from that episode is that you can't just purchase your history because if you could, it wouldn't mean shit. Moreover, you can't mold that history into your own narrative.

I've always left those interactions wondering where everything changed for them.  It is kind of like how Eddie Murphy got less and less funny as he got more and more successful.  When the amount of people you can relate to on a equal level gets too small, everything seems to get super weird.  It is kind of a catch-22, where you are black, you want to stay true to who you are, but you kind of live in a world where being black is even more rare than it is elsewhere.  Society dictates how we go through the world, how do you navigate through life when you are in a place where society hasn't really bothered to set any rules?

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