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[TV] REST OF THE SUMMER 2018 DISCUSSION


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9 hours ago, Casey said:

Netflix cancelled The Break w/ Michelle Wolf and The Joel McHale Show.

It wasn’t great but The Joel McHale Show was enjoyable enough to watch over Sunday breakfast. Then they dropped the second batch of episodes all at once and I didn’t touch any of it. 

I think there’s a lesson there about shows with this format. 

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Watched a couple more episodes of Last Chance U, and I still hate Jason Brown.  That dude is the worst.  Say what you want about Buddy Stephens, but at least his talent performed...this new dude's players can't stand him to the point that they don't even want to play.  I'm also pretty sure that he gives Compton a bad name.

Buckmaster is one of those dudes who is always going to be about 15 seconds from disaster.  I grew up with a bunch of people who had parents who had been incarcerated.  In my experience, if your dad gets locked up, you might recover...but all the dudes who's mom was in jail ended up fucked up. 

Bobby Bruce is pretty much in the same boat, he's may very well be too broken to ever really be fixed.  That segment with his mom crying about the time she spent in jail was heartwrenching because she understood that her incarceration did irreparable damage to her children.  

I honestly don't think Malik Henry enjoys playing football.  He just seems miserable every single second he's on screen.  I don't mean to play amateur psychologist, but I'm pretty sure he has some emotional issues that no one around him seems to want to address.  He has all the talent, but that dude is so fucking angry.  

Emmit Gooden might be the best player on the team, and his family seems delightful.  I have no idea what his country ass relative said while he was grilling, but I bet you that food was good.  

Rakeem Boyd is a super talented flake, but when he's on he's a monster.  

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 I am naive I recently realized why Parks and Rec was not an Office spinoff, is because they would have had to pay Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant money. 

I finished the Office and I really love that show. I broke it into three eras 

The Adaptation Era

This would be seasons 1 thru 3. Season 1 is really hard to get thru because of how dogmatic they are to the original series. Things that worked in the original series, do not work in the American show at all. I think the character who stands out most in this regard is Roy. Lee (Roy's UK counterpart) is a pure asshole and bully, The one time they try to do that with Roy, it does not work at all. David Denman is too lovable for that. He played Skip The Demon on Angel and even when he turned bad, he was still lovable. 

So they were smart enough to shift to him being more thoughtless than anything. Personally I always thought Pam was as bad as Roy in the relationship for expecting him to be a mind reader. Which came up way later in the final season. 

Jim was subtly altered too. Tim (UK counterpart) came across as such a weak and bordering on pathetic guy. You get why he is single and he is fixated on Dawn. Honestly when he let Lee and Chris Finch take his shoes, I did not care what happened to him. Disclosure, I do not care for most of the British Office. I appreciate what the show did at the time. But I don't think it has aged well.  It feels like two minutes of cringe with twenty minutes of whatever that ringing is. 


Season 2 was better than 1 but could be a slog at times. it really hit its stride near the end. 

Season 3 is still adapting the BBC series but they start going in some new directions. I think this is when the supporting characters start coming into their own. Beyond just giving reaction shots. 

Season 4 and 5 are my favorite period. Along with seasons 6 and 7 are the fun sitcom era. The minor characters get more development as Jim and Pam are not focused on as much. I do like the running gag that outside of their small pond, a lot of people dislike them. Ricky Gervais said the British show was a stitch job, that the doc crew intentionally removed things that made David Brent look good. I think the American doc crew did the same thing. Especially when we see how shitty they are in the last season. 

I call season 8 and 9 the absurdist era. With Michael gone, things became very bizarre. With James Spader seeming like a serial killer/Bond villain. At the time I did not care for it. But now I appreciate how weird they were willing to get. 

The last season has things I really like and really hate. I loved everything with Dwight, Angela and Oscar. Though I never got how the senator was not paying child support. Even if it belonged to Dwight, the Senator accepted the child as his while married to Angela. Legally he is responsible for the kid. 

It was little things like that, that would bug me. Like the episode when that guy ruined Pam's mural and nothing was done to him or Val. When they both would have been fired. There was no reason not to go to corporate, unless they were protecting Andy while he was gone. But the idea was never even broached. 

Then you get to the doc crew, who fired a guy for saving a woman from being beat up. This is never acknowledged in anyway. The doc crew spying on them plot was dropped too. It just felt like something done to create drama with Jim and Pam and it never felt earned. Minor thing, but Pam taking a phone call during Cece's play made her look like a dick for multiple reasons. 

The stuff with Jim going to form a sports marketing company felt wrong to me. It felt like a "Its the last season, gotta wrap it up."  I preferred the idea that Jim had grown to enjoy his job. He had a well paying/low stress job sitting right next to his soul mate. Why would he want to leave for sports marketing, which sounds like a scam. 

I hated nearly everything with Erin, Plop, Andy and Clark. They decided to make Andy a villain after three seasons of trying to make us like him. Then spend the second half shitting on and humiliating him. Which if he got a happy ending it would be okay. 

Erin is fun as a minor character dumber than a brick. But trying to give her a story arc was never going to work. 

In closing it is always fun to rewatch. Dunder Mifflin had such a broke corporate culture that someone on here pointed out was true to life. All of their corporate decisions rewarded appearence over results. From wanting to close Scranton because they valued Josh over Michael, because Josh looked like a successful executive, even though Michael got results. Or hiring Ryan because he had an MBA over people in the company with experience. Even Michael selected his replacement (in S3) based on who kissed his ass. Then you get Charles Minor, who was clueless but David Wallace thought was integral to the company. 

My name is The Reverend Doctor Super Kami Guru Victator and I watch too much TV. 

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Although both Warner Horizon and Hulu declined to comment, Rob Thomas retweeted a deadline article about Hulu nearing a deal to revive Veronica Mars for an 8 episode limited series that will not interfere with Kristen Bell's work on The Good Place.

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1 hour ago, Brian Fowler said:

Although both Warner Horizon and Hulu declined to comment, Rob Thomas retweeted a deadline article about Hulu nearing a deal to revive Veronica Mars for an 8 episode limited series that will not interfere with Kristen Bell's work on The Good Place.

A long time ago, we used to be friends. But I haven’t thought of you lately at all.

I have no appetite for this. I’ll probably maybe definitely watch all of it. Fucking zombie shows. 

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3 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

A long time ago, we used to be friends. But I haven’t thought of you lately at all.

I have no appetite for this. I’ll probably maybe definitely watch all of it. Fucking zombie shows. 

It's interesting because it's really going to have to be a pretty significantly different show. No teen drama, school based stories. I'm hoping they pitch it at an older audience like he originally wanted to the movie, because, damn, even the 13 year olds when season one came out are 26 now, it's not on broadcast, etc.

I'm more interested in it than the Buffy reboot revival whatever.

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On 8/21/2018 at 11:18 PM, Brian Fowler said:

Although both Warner Horizon and Hulu declined to comment, Rob Thomas retweeted a deadline article about Hulu nearing a deal to revive Veronica Mars for an 8 episode limited series that will not interfere with Kristen Bell's work on The Good Place.

I did not care for the movie, it felt like one of those TV reunion movies they use to do. It ended up an extended episode that undid any progress the characters made between the show ending and the movie. Its been a few years since I watched it, I was so disappointed I never tried to watch it a second time.

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On 8/20/2018 at 11:09 PM, supremebve said:

Watched a couple more episodes of Last Chance U, and I still hate Jason Brown.  That dude is the worst.  Say what you want about Buddy Stephens, but at least his talent performed...this new dude's players can't stand him to the point that they don't even want to play.  I'm also pretty sure that he gives Compton a bad name.

Buckmaster is one of those dudes who is always going to be about 15 seconds from disaster.  I grew up with a bunch of people who had parents who had been incarcerated.  In my experience, if your dad gets locked up, you might recover...but all the dudes who's mom was in jail ended up fucked up. 

Bobby Bruce is pretty much in the same boat, he's may very well be too broken to ever really be fixed.  That segment with his mom crying about the time she spent in jail was heartwrenching because she understood that her incarceration did irreparable damage to her children.  

I honestly don't think Malik Henry enjoys playing football.  He just seems miserable every single second he's on screen.  I don't mean to play amateur psychologist, but I'm pretty sure he has some emotional issues that no one around him seems to want to address.  He has all the talent, but that dude is so fucking angry.  

Emmit Gooden might be the best player on the team, and his family seems delightful.  I have no idea what his country ass relative said while he was grilling, but I bet you that food was good.  

Rakeem Boyd is a super talented flake, but when he's on he's a monster.  

"GO FUCK YOURSELF! I'M FROM COMPTON MOTHERFUCKER! Check out my new Cadillac, it goes fast. NOW FUCK YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT! YOU DON'T LIKE IT, FUCKIN' LEAVE MOTHERFUCKER! Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww maaaaaaaaaaan COME ON! YOU GOT ME ALL FUCKED UP RIGHT NOW!"

I hate Jason Brown a lot. I mean, you have to be one huge piece of shit to make Buddy Stephens look good. I also totally agree with you about Malik. I honestly feel really bad for the kid because you get to understand that his passion was for baseball and his dad forced him into football because that's where the money is. Which is dumb because you look at the amount of guaranteed money that gets thrown around in baseball and you don't have to get your brains bashed in and baseball would have been the better of the two sports. Instead Malik is essentially forced to play a sport he doesn't like, he doesn't have the heart for, but he somehow has a great brain for it.

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18 hours ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Hugh Laurie will be the lead in Armando Iannucci's space comedy at HBO.

Laurie once again collaborating comedically with a fellow funny Brit is going to bring out the best in him.

I did not remember that bit but 15 s in I wanted to scream "MARJORIE".

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22 hours ago, Craig H said:

"GO FUCK YOURSELF! I'M FROM COMPTON MOTHERFUCKER! Check out my new Cadillac, it goes fast. NOW FUCK YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT! YOU DON'T LIKE IT, FUCKIN' LEAVE MOTHERFUCKER! Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww maaaaaaaaaaan COME ON! YOU GOT ME ALL FUCKED UP RIGHT NOW!"

I hate Jason Brown a lot. I mean, you have to be one huge piece of shit to make Buddy Stephens look good. I also totally agree with you about Malik. I honestly feel really bad for the kid because you get to understand that his passion was for baseball and his dad forced him into football because that's where the money is. Which is dumb because you look at the amount of guaranteed money that gets thrown around in baseball and you don't have to get your brains bashed in and baseball would have been the better of the two sports. Instead Malik is essentially forced to play a sport he doesn't like, he doesn't have the heart for, but he somehow has a great brain for it.

The look on Malik's face when his dad was joking about not having a second gear said so much about how the two of them think about football.  His dad is laughing and joking, and he's staring at him like he'd rather be anywhere else on the planet.  

Bobby Bruce is the only one I think I legitimately feel sad for, he doesn't feel like he has any other options.  The thing that makes him a good 170? pound linebacker is that he's totally fearless, but that is the same thing that could send him down the wrong road. 

Carlos Thompson is a hell of a talent, but he's about 120 lbs. and has quite possibly reached his ceiling.  He killed me with the look into the camera when the D-II coach was talking about the facilities.  

Rakeem Boyd and Emmit Gooden are NFL talents.  Rakeem is really easy to root for, and I hope he makes it.  Emmit is the exact personality type to be a really good defensive lineman.  He's big, strong, and takes pride in being a fucking menace.  

This season is the least entertaining, because the players didn't have much personality, but I'm ready for season 4.

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CAN SOMEBODY ELSE PLEASE WATCH THE SINNER! The first season is on Netflix. It's haflway through the second season on USA. It's really good and creepy and haunting. It's a step or two away from being truly classic but it's definitely worth your time.

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On 8/21/2018 at 1:13 AM, Victator said:

 I am naive I recently realized why Parks and Rec was not an Office spinoff, is because they would have had to pay Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant money. 

I finished the Office and I really love that show. I broke it into three eras 

The Adaptation Era

This would be seasons 1 thru 3. Season 1 is really hard to get thru because of how dogmatic they are to the original series. Things that worked in the original series, do not work in the American show at all. I think the character who stands out most in this regard is Roy. Lee (Roy's UK counterpart) is a pure asshole and bully, The one time they try to do that with Roy, it does not work at all. David Denman is too lovable for that. He played Skip The Demon on Angel and even when he turned bad, he was still lovable. 

So they were smart enough to shift to him being more thoughtless than anything. Personally I always thought Pam was as bad as Roy in the relationship for expecting him to be a mind reader. Which came up way later in the final season. 

Jim was subtly altered too. Tim (UK counterpart) came across as such a weak and bordering on pathetic guy. You get why he is single and he is fixated on Dawn. Honestly when he let Lee and Chris Finch take his shoes, I did not care what happened to him. Disclosure, I do not care for most of the British Office. I appreciate what the show did at the time. But I don't think it has aged well.  It feels like two minutes of cringe with twenty minutes of whatever that ringing is. 


Season 2 was better than 1 but could be a slog at times. it really hit its stride near the end. 

Season 3 is still adapting the BBC series but they start going in some new directions. I think this is when the supporting characters start coming into their own. Beyond just giving reaction shots. 

Season 4 and 5 are my favorite period. Along with seasons 6 and 7 are the fun sitcom era. The minor characters get more development as Jim and Pam are not focused on as much. I do like the running gag that outside of their small pond, a lot of people dislike them. Ricky Gervais said the British show was a stitch job, that the doc crew intentionally removed things that made David Brent look good. I think the American doc crew did the same thing. Especially when we see how shitty they are in the last season. 

I call season 8 and 9 the absurdist era. With Michael gone, things became very bizarre. With James Spader seeming like a serial killer/Bond villain. At the time I did not care for it. But now I appreciate how weird they were willing to get. 

The last season has things I really like and really hate. I loved everything with Dwight, Angela and Oscar. Though I never got how the senator was not paying child support. Even if it belonged to Dwight, the Senator accepted the child as his while married to Angela. Legally he is responsible for the kid. 

It was little things like that, that would bug me. Like the episode when that guy ruined Pam's mural and nothing was done to him or Val. When they both would have been fired. There was no reason not to go to corporate, unless they were protecting Andy while he was gone. But the idea was never even broached. 

Then you get to the doc crew, who fired a guy for saving a woman from being beat up. This is never acknowledged in anyway. The doc crew spying on them plot was dropped too. It just felt like something done to create drama with Jim and Pam and it never felt earned. Minor thing, but Pam taking a phone call during Cece's play made her look like a dick for multiple reasons. 

The stuff with Jim going to form a sports marketing company felt wrong to me. It felt like a "Its the last season, gotta wrap it up."  I preferred the idea that Jim had grown to enjoy his job. He had a well paying/low stress job sitting right next to his soul mate. Why would he want to leave for sports marketing, which sounds like a scam. 

I hated nearly everything with Erin, Plop, Andy and Clark. They decided to make Andy a villain after three seasons of trying to make us like him. Then spend the second half shitting on and humiliating him. Which if he got a happy ending it would be okay. 

Erin is fun as a minor character dumber than a brick. But trying to give her a story arc was never going to work. 

In closing it is always fun to rewatch. Dunder Mifflin had such a broke corporate culture that someone on here pointed out was true to life. All of their corporate decisions rewarded appearence over results. From wanting to close Scranton because they valued Josh over Michael, because Josh looked like a successful executive, even though Michael got results. Or hiring Ryan because he had an MBA over people in the company with experience. Even Michael selected his replacement (in S3) based on who kissed his ass. Then you get Charles Minor, who was clueless but David Wallace thought was integral to the company. 

My name is The Reverend Doctor Super Kami Guru Victator and I watch too much TV. 

Great analysis. I sort of feel like The Office had this weird arc in terms of how it was perceived. It went from everyone hating the first season because the first episode was a cover band act but overlooking truly funny TV like the Health Care episode. Then it at some point became America's most beloved comedy, and then it started to fizzle out and people dogged it. But all over my life there are people rewatching and really loving the show. My cousin is in college and is rewatching it and could not like it more. 

The DInner Party episode from Season 4 is, IMO, one of the high water marks of American comedy. That episode really captured everything perfect about the show. Andy immediately going all in when Michael asks for investors into Jan's unique line of candles gets me every single time. 

The show ran out of steam, which is what happens. It was right before when the US TV industry said "hey, it's cool to end when this show is at its peak." If the final episode was Michael's well-earned goodbye, I think it would be pretty unimpeachable. There are still a lot of great moments after. But the initial premise of the show had two end goals: Jim/Pam matching and then Michael claiming his dignity.

Another issue the show got crushed with was the writer's strike that year. It was the year Ryan was regional manager. They actually didn't have a Christmas episode that year because of it. It seemed like the arc of Ryan's season was that he was super jealous of Jim. They sort of wrote between the lines the season before that Jim could have had that job since David Wallace liked him a lot, but he turned it down to date Pam. Ryan also asks out Pam early on in his manager season, and Ryan also comes down on Jim a few times once or twice. There's a brief line at some point about Jim whispering something at the Holiday party about Ryan's weirdo scheme that is his undoing.

The worst plot-point for it was Ryan showing up in the first episode of the season after and then running off to Thailand. No way a workplace (even a dysfunctional company) lets a guy running a con like that keep his job. He was written off for a while anyway and didn't return until the Michael Scott Paper Company episodes. Just didn't make sense

I think one of the one problems with the show as it aged is that the writers stopped really getting office/corporate culture. Most of the writers all had crappy temp jobs and the like when they weren't busy doing stand-up or improv. So they understood the inane nonsense of office life from that perspective. But I doubt any of them worked in anything but a writer's room or comedy setting after the age of 27. 

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