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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeAug 15th 2017
    Southall wrote
    I quite enjoyed the first episode, though I can't say I always understood it. Some of the acting was surprisingly weak. Music hideous.


    Quite amusing that I wrote that six years ago. I gave up on the show not long in but a couple of years later went back to the start and gave it another try. I quite enjoy it now but not quite caught up in the hype that everyone else seems to have about it. It seems a reasonable portion of my social media friends think it's the best thing they've ever seen. I don't really get what makes people think it's so special. I wouldn't really care if they just stopped now, though I will persist to the end now I've got this far.
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeAug 15th 2017
    It's a superb show, but it's not the Second Coming of Television.

    Amazingly, I hadn't read any of this thread when it was first posted, despite being a fan.
    I am extremely serious.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017 edited
    I'd consider myself someone who doesn't get caught up in hyperbole but this show just appeals to me and I fucking love it. I'm currently waiting for season 7 to end so I can watch it in a chunk or two. And yeah, I think Ramin Djawadi's scores are superb, the man has obviously thrown himself at this and improves season after season in his development.

    Thor wrote
    It's a superb show, but it's not the Second Coming of Television.


    For sure Thor but there's no doubt it will be considered a milestone in this new "golden age" of television along with the likes of The Sopranos ( THE game changer and still the best ever TV series IMO ), The Wire, Lost ( Most overrated that had a huge fan following ) , Breaking Bad, Mad Men etc
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    It's a show I greatly enjoy while watching it, but it's never really got under my skin enough to obsess about it after it's finished. It's all a bit silly really, but very well done.

    My favourite current running show is Better Call Saul. That is just superb; acting, writing and directing. It's damn near perfect.
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    And Lost looked (and sounded) great, but christ on a stick was it badly written.
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      CommentAuthorBobdH
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017 edited
    It took me a while before I was convinced quality of tv-shows is improving significantly, basically because there are a lot of extremely overrated shows. But Game of Thrones is one of the first that got me convinced. Mostly because it's based upon a series of books, which gives it a strong overarching story. It's building towards something, everything is connected, characters behave in ways that is explained in later seasons, and while they all have hidden agenda's, they're always believable. Also, the ruthlessness in which characters are killed off, even major ones, gives the whole thing a welcome unpredictability which is sorely lacking in the mainstream of TV and movies.

    I find the best shows take that approach: the telling of a pre-defined story over the course of a or several season(s), like also Westworld, The Night Of, The Leftovers or Stranger Things. Sure, Leftovers has some major issues, and Stranger Things can be considered flawed, but they're enjoyable and you want to know what happens. It's like reading a novel in a visual medium.

    The more traditional tv-format of simply setting out to following characters over a longer period of time... sure, you may have the benefit to develop your characters and to bond with them as an audience, but pretty quickly the developments feel random, and you're getting the sense of watching a glorified soap opera. The Sopranos is for me the biggest offender here: good characters, some great acting, but it's all so random. Throw in several other frustrations (characters behaving in annoying ways for sake of plot development, interesting plot threads left frustratingly unexplored) and I'm struggling to finish its final seasons. I consider this the most overrated of all tv-shows. It has its popularity because of the interest of people in its milieu, and said characters, but there's not much else to it.

    Deadwood is in the same vein, but because of its strong dialogue writing, great characters and lack of frustration on my part, I find that show a lot more watchable. House of Cards started off promisingly, with a few strong characters and wonderfully sharp dialogue, but that show is now also struggling to stay relevant. Once again, no pre-defined story, and you can feel they're making it up as they go along, just because they need to churn out a new season, because, popularity (hello, Lost).

    It's all so forced.

    Oh, and I started watching Breaking Bad but I couldn't be bothered after the first episode. Everybody praised it because of how such a decent normal person was forced into the drug industry, how this criticised American health care, and sure, there's plenty of time to develop such a seemingly far fetched concept when you've got 7 hours in its first season to set things up, take advantage of the medium!, but then within the first episode he was cooking meth? WTF?

    Oh, and I consider The Knick to be one of the best things to happen to the tv-show medium in a while. Now that is great on so many levels.
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      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    got, never got around liking it. i've seen scarce episodes here and there and i think it's definitely not for me.
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    BobdH wrote

    Oh, and I started watching Breaking Bad but I couldn't be bothered after the first episode. Everybody praised it because of how such a decent normal person was forced into the drug industry, how this criticised American health care, and sure, there's plenty of time to develop such a seemingly far fetched concept when you've got 7 hours in its first season to set things up, take advantage of the medium!, but then within the first episode he was cooking meth? WTF?


    Er... I have never heard Breaking Bad praised for that reason. That's nonsense.

    I have however heard it praised for its acting, writing, character relationships, story arcs, humour and tension. It has all of those things by the bucket load. Better Call Saul is arguably even better on the writing front. (In fact, I prefer Saul to Breaking Bad. Jimmy McGill, Saul, is a much more interesting character than Walter White, and he's much easier to empathise with.)
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    While BREAKING BAD is brilliant, I agree with Steven that BETTER CALL SAUL is now on the same level (and at times even surpassing it) in terms of not only the writing, but also the photography.
    I am extremely serious.
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      CommentAuthorBobdH
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017 edited
    Steven wrote
    BobdH wrote

    Oh, and I started watching Breaking Bad but I couldn't be bothered after the first episode. Everybody praised it because of how such a decent normal person was forced into the drug industry, how this criticised American health care, and sure, there's plenty of time to develop such a seemingly far fetched concept when you've got 7 hours in its first season to set things up, take advantage of the medium!, but then within the first episode he was cooking meth? WTF?


    Er... I have never heard Breaking Bad praised for that reason. That's nonsense.

    I have however heard it praised for its acting, writing, character relationships, story arcs, humour and tension. It has all of those things by the bucket load. Better Call Saul is arguably even better on the writing front. (In fact, I prefer Saul to Breaking Bad. Jimmy McGill, Saul, is a much more interesting character than Walter White, and he's much easier to empathise with.)


    Friends of mine used it as arguments for me to watch it. They're saying all kinds of stuff so I start watching it. But still, your main character is a teacher, living a normal life, family, then all of a sudden, cancer. And BOOM, cooking meth. Where's the transition? Shouldn't you at least attempt a transition? Especially when you know you've got 7 hours to set things up?
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    That first episode makes total sense as the season progresses. You watched one episode Bob, the events of which take place much later in the season.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017 edited
    yeah

    Watch it all, then try to say that. His decision makes sense given the character they, and Cranston, created. The show is literally called Breaking Bad.
  1. Yep. BREAKING BAD and GAME OF THRONES are, for me, two of the greatest TV series in the history of the medium.
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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    BobdH wrote
    Mostly because it's based upon a series of books, which gives it a strong overarching story. It's building towards something, everything is connected, characters behave in ways that is explained in later seasons, and while they all have hidden agenda's, they're always believable.


    I had somehow never thought of that, though it's obvious now you've said it - having the whole thing mapped out in advance, surely a great rarity in tv. Still, I do think talented writers can just keep writing themselves on even if it's only partially planned. Lost is a great demonstration of how wrong it can go (the writers fell into the trap of setting thing up that seemed cool and then not being able to get out of them without resorting to cheap tricks) but I can't agree about The Sopranos, it all felt a very natural progression to me (as did Breaking Bad).
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      CommentAuthorBobdH
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2017
    Yeah, I'm aware I probably should watch more of Breaking Bad before I start having an opinion about it. I probably will rewatch it sometime. But apart from all the hype surrounding it, I'm not really drawn towards it. And you have to invest 7 hours (!) into at least the first season. Something needs to have a certain standard for me to invest that amount of time. And I wasn't seeing any of it in that first episode (including visual style).
  2. Breaking Bad is awesome, every season more than than the last. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are just topnotch as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. And the character of Gus Fring that comes in later... Giancarlo Esposito was perfectly cast (cool, calculated, extremely smart, not one to mess around with).

    Still haven't watched a single episode of Better Call Saul, but will start with that soon(ish).

    To get on topic I've now watched up until the end of season 5 of Game of Thrones and for someone who first despised it and didn't want to give it another chance, I'm really glad I did (after much convincing by brother Thomas, who was already a fan). Wonderful show, even though I still get lost somehow in the complex writing and multitude of characters, but I've gotten used to it now.

    Am about to start season 6.
    "considering I've seen an enormous debate here about The Amazing Spider-Man and the ones who love it, and the ones who hate it, I feel myself obliged to say: TASTE DIFFERS, DEAL WITH IT" - Thomas G.
  3. BobdH wrote
    It's building towards something, everything is connected, characters behave in ways that is explained in later seasons, and while they all have hidden agenda's, they're always believable.

    That aged well.