Rate the last series you completed out of 5 - No spoilers!

[Silent Runner]

Evil - Season 3

 

A wild ending to a good, if uneven, season. There were some storylines that seemed to get dropped and some that went nowhere but overall this was a ton of fun. Lots to look forward to for season 4. 

[Thor]

Midnight Mass

 

A classic case of a great story, poorly told.  I actually gave up midway through the second episode but was advised to give it another shot. Glad I did, but this could easily been five or even four episodes long instead of seven. The long monologues and church scenes really drag the pace right down, the writing is ... let's just say its clear the lead writer had no editor. That said,  it is still a good story, with some very strong performances from the cast. 

 

3/5

[Ry]

The Sandman -2.5/5

 

Half was good. Half wasnt. Tone felt all over the place. As soon as the David Thewlis arc ended I felt it went downhill. 

 

I can suspend my disbelief for anything really but a comic con style convention for serial killers? Oh fuck off. 

 

Although I'm excited for a second series if it sticks to the fantasy based stuff and not crap real life characters. 

[ImmaculateClump]

The Rehearsal - *****

[Rayn]

Breeders (HBO MAX)

Season 1

Never heard of this before accidentally stumbling over it while trying to find something to watch with my missus. 

By the description I was expecting a sitcom style comedy show about how shit parenting is but it turned out to be a quite serious drama affair with some really dark humour thrown in for relief. Overall great performances and some really interesting situations that hit really close to home. 

 

4.5/5

 

Season 2

Still great but a small dip in quality/originality as it veers towards safer grounds throughout the season. 

 

4/5

[Kingpin]

Good thread - lots on the list to watch as a result. Unfortunately, I just have a guilty pleasure turd of a show to mention.

 

Billions - Season Six - Continuously gets worse but I still watch and enjoy certain parts. I think the writers really messed up this season and got the balance of characters going back and forth as the protagonist/antagonist all wrong. I don't really know why this show is so well funded (good production values, endless big name cameos, some big names in the main cast) but it continues on and has done well to survive some big changes from the last season where you really should bin it. I will continue to watch it until it's well and truly dead. 2/5.

 

 

[RubberJohnny]

Sopranos S6 - Finally made my way through the entire series, and Season 6 in particular just seems to really go crazy, just amping everything up and almost throwing everything at the wall. The ending is fine and it almost feels churlish separating out a big paragraph for it, I read it as this wasn't the end for these characters, this is never a series that has longform arcs that get wrapped up the series end and they were never going for the usual sentimental series finale as these are not good people, you can cut wherever but you'll never resolve everything, there will always be investigations and gang beefs and parenting troubles and so on. 4/5

 

Light and Magic - This is a great documentary series on the founding of ILM and through that tells the story of the shift in Hollywood from practical effects to the rise of digital and CGI. I can't really think of another documentary that takes this as their subject, and obviously this has a lot of first-hand material and discussion that makes it really worthwhile, a fantastic watch. 5/5

[Fierce Poodle]

Under the Banner of Heaven was excellent, thanks for the recommendations.

[PK]

Yeah agreed, Under the Banner of Heaven is absolutely superb. Everybody's performances are brilliant but Andrew Garfield's is outstanding, the gradual erosion of his character's naivety and faith is palpable every second that he's on screen.

 

5/5

[Silent Runner]

Pretty Little Liars - Season 1

 

I've watched a few heavy shows recently so I wanted something a bit trashy I could zone out to. 

 

I'm not sure what I was expecting with this but it's deeply strange. It's about a group of 5 teenage friends. On Halloween night one of them goes missing and a year later her body is discovered. Her friends are kind of suspects but the cops seem to make no efforts to solve the murder. At the same time they start getting text messages from an unknown harasser threatening to expose all their secrets. 

 

This is legit one of the weirdest mainstream shows I've watched. The acting from some of the cast (not the PLLs, they're all great) is the worst I've ever seen - proper school-play level stuff. There's a plot where a teacher dates one of the PLLs, I think she's meant to be 16 and he's 25 or something, and it's played off as romantic instead of deeply creepy and predatory. Characters get dropped and never mentioned again, some stories just disappear and the whole thing is played dead straight. But it's very watchable and as Danial Craig said in Knives Out 'It makes no damn sense - compels me though'. 

 

120+ episodes to go.

 

3.5/5

 

Netflix
 

[Sabreman]

Fosse / Verdon - Limited series, complete.

 

Focused biopic on the professional and personal relationship between Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. The show jumps back and forth quite a bit at first, but basically picks up right after the movie version of Sweet Charity opens in 1969 and follows along until his death in 1987. Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams play the leads and they are magnificent. If you're remotely familiar with Fosse, and especially All That Jazz, it's compulsive viewing. A monumentally complicated, fucked up, talented, self-loathing figure who was never satisfied with his work, and Verdon the only person who seemed to truly understand him but also be completely aware of his bullshit. There's so much social psychology at play that it's hard to pin down how manipulative both of them are being at various points. You can see self-destructive episodes forming from something as subtle as a glance or a word. Not that it's hard going - it is superbly shot, occasionally very inventive, and blackly funny.

 

5/5

 

Disney+

[mushashi]

Severance - 8.5/10

 

This is very nicely shot, has some fine acting and an intriguing premise. It's a great debut first series, but the risk, as always with this sort of show is whether the creator(s) fuck it up further down the line, fingers crossed they don't. It has a bit of a BioShock vibe too.

 

Spoiler

John Turturro's character does get slightly annoyingly obsessive I feel.

 

[Sane]

Succession - 5/5

 

Amazing drama in every way, I was hooked from start to finish. It's about a Rupert Murdoch style media magnate and his family. There's lots of scheming, intrigue and politics about the running of the company and the succession of the father. 

 

Every character in the show is deeply flawed, but also has actual depth and even though they do horrible things you always keep some sympathy for them. 

 

Highly recommended! 

[pledge]

Fist of Fun 2/5

This Morning with Richard not Judy 3/5

 

Despite being a fan of later Stewart Lee and being the right age at the time this passed me by. I cant really tell if it has dated or I just would not have found it funny at the time. It varied widely from being hilarious to falling really flat.  The best parts were really just the duo in the studio. 

 

One thing that really stood out was the making fun and parodies of Christianity - many sketches, singing of hymns, vicar character. At the time this might have been fresh but now it just seems so strange. Particularly how much of the shows it made up.

[Treble]

On 04/09/2022 at 22:54, mushashi said:

Severance - 8.5/10

 

This is very nicely shot, has some fine acting and an intriguing premise. It's a great debut first series, but the risk, as always with this sort of show is whether the creator(s) fuck it up further down the line, fingers crossed they don't. It has a bit of a BioShock vibe too.

 

  Hide contents

John Turturro's character does get slightly annoyingly obsessive I feel.

 

 

You reminded me I needed to finish this off, so I did. I agree entirely with what you said: a mostly fabulous season with impeccable performances (and the best theme tune in years) that sits a little uneasy. It's impossible to fully relax into it... 

 

Spoiler

As you can see from episode 2 they were intending on spinning it out. I'd have liked tighter episodes and a conclusion.

 

There's some wheel spinning, and I'm a bit worried they have started some dangling threads just to give themselves story options, with no idea what they want doing with them. 

 

That said, it's fantastic to see great actors get properly meaty scripts and long scenes to stretch their thesp legs (cf. Yellowjackets).

 

As per my spoiler there is one big caveat to enjoying this show, but overall it was a cracking piece of woozy, paranoiac, dark-hearted sci-fi. 

 

4/5

 

[schmojo]

The Innocent

 

This one's yet another of the forty thousand Harlan Coben whodunnit adaptations on Netflix, but it's given a little extra interest by being a spanish production.

 

As you'd expect from him, the story is about two layers too convoluted, there are plot holes and wildly illogical behaviours, and it's ultimately a big Scooby Doo story. That said, the acting is half-decent, the setting interesting, and I quite like these nonsense jaunts.

 

It's more shiny than it is quality, and the circuitousness doesn't feel particularly clever, but I watched it all in a week. Which must say something.

 

3/5

[pledge]

Exit - 4/5

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9612102/

 

Quote

EXIT is a dark drama series based on true stories from Norway's financial scene. The series takes place inside this secret, exclusive world, where four friends from the west side of Oslo are looking for an exit from their everyday lives

 

Follows four deeply unpleasant and irredeemable bankers in Oslo. Mostly about their personal lives and excess.

[ImmaculateClump]

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared - ****
Not quite as good as the shorts, but still brilliant fun!

[Plissken]

Meltdown: Three Mile Island (Netflix) - 3.5/5

 

Documentary about the largest nuclear accident on US soil and the after effects.  It's a bit of a curates egg, the first two episodes are far too full of overly dramatic reconstructions accompanied by doom/sad music and light on what actually happened.  Where it kicks into gear is midway through the second episode, where the story of the local residents, and clean-up operation technician Rick Parks properly begins.  We get some back and forth between the power of the nuclear lobby, the need for profit and the disregard for the effects on ordinary citizens.  I definitely got the feeling that it was trying to exaggerate certain things for dramatic purposes, but it doesn't quite tip into conspiracy theory territory and there is clearly a lot of information that was buried.  For example, one interviewee does a 180 degree turn in my mind due to his attitude, though that can be a mix of his own words and some clever editing.

 

So, it's a little frustrating but at 4x40 minute episodes, not too much of a burden.

 

(In one of those coincidences that happens all the time, the accident happened 12 days after The China Syndrome came out.  The nuclear industry were attacking the film as scaremongering with no basis in fact and then almost exactly that thing happened.  IIRC, it's a good movie, and I should try to find it.)

[Arn X Treme]

The Leftovers Series 1-3 

 

Saw this recommend in another thread and decided to give it a go. 

 

It starts off quite strong with lots to think about and loads of questions to be answered and then it just gets stranger and stranger and then the final episode. 

 

I liked the cast a lot I don't think there was a character I didn't like throughout. 

 

But then you get to that final episode and you are reminded it's by one of the guys from Lost.

 

3/5

[LaveDisco]

Ooh great idea for a thread - not spotted it before.

 

Better Call Saul - the high water mark for television now, just sumptuous beauty in every shot, fantastic characters, and understated heart. Surpasses BB on every level. GOAT. 5/5 

 

The Rehearsal - now I'm hitting middle age, it's getting rarer to watch something that truly surprises me. This did, every single episode. I keep thinking about it. Any other day it would be a 5/5, but BCS is still a different league that I'm tempted to give it a 4/5. But no, it's still worthy. 5/5

[Timmo]

1 hour ago, Arn X Treme said:

The Leftovers Series 1-3 

 

Saw this recommend in another thread and decided to give it a go. 

 

It starts off quite strong with lots to think about and loads of questions to be answered and then it just gets stranger and stranger and then the final episode. 

 

I liked the cast a lot I don't think there was a character I didn't like throughout. 

 

But then you get to that final episode and you are reminded it's by one of the guys from Lost.

 

3/5

It’s my favourite finale!

[Arn X Treme]

13 hours ago, Timmo said:

It’s my favourite finale!

 

It's one of those isn't it. 

 

Spoiler

It works as a really fucked up love story.

 

We got a bit of a twist where if you think she's telling the truth we've been watching the departed and it's been flipped around. 

 

But it never really wraps anything up and (for me at least) wasn't too satisfying. 

 

But as I said I enjoyed the show as a whole and it's even got me to seek out the book although that apparently only covers some of the first series.

[dino_jr]

Industry: series 1 iPlayer, series 2 iPlayer & BBC2

 

Follows the induction and training of new recruits at a Bank/Trading firm. Compelling viewing despite literally all the characters being totally unlikeable. I wonder if anyone here is in such an Industry watching this: Are bankers really all shagging / drug taking Tossers?

[PK]

From (2022) - 0/5

 

Shite. Gave up ten minutes into the second episode. Terrible writing and awful acting, life's too short.

[gospvg]

The Bear (Disney+)

A younger brother takes over the family restaurant and has to cope with family issues & chaotic workforce.

Only 8 x 30min episodes and just like pringles once you start you will not be able to stop.

 

8/10

[Silent Runner]

I didn't finish it but I gave up on American Gigolo after 4 episodes. I'm a big fan of Paul Schrader, Jon Bernthal and sleazyness in general but this pretty bad all round. It looked nice but it was aimless and rambling. I had high hopes for it with the talent involved and the original film but this was a miss. 

[pledge]

16 minutes ago, Silent Runner said:

I didn't finish it but I gave up on American Gigolo after 4 episodes. I'm a big fan of Paul Schrader, Jon Bernthal and sleazyness in general but this pretty bad all round. It looked nice but it was aimless and rambling. I had high hopes for it with the talent involved and the original film but this was a miss. 

Probably the disappointment of the year for me. Even the usually excellent Bernthal seems awkward in this. 'Hung' was a much better show than this with a similar premise.

[pledge]

On 04/10/2022 at 19:45, dino_jr said:

Industry: series 1 iPlayer, series 2 iPlayer & BBC2

 

Follows the induction and training of new recruits at a Bank/Trading firm. Compelling viewing despite literally all the characters being totally unlikeable. I wonder if anyone here is in such an Industry watching this: Are bankers really all shagging / drug taking Tossers?

I only work on the sidelines, but I've met many people that the cast in the show are caricatures of. I've enjoyed both seasons as there's a lot of it I can relate to (and my colleagues have said the same). It is of course extremely exaggerated but some of the plot lines, events etc are things I have experienced.

[Boothjan]

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

 

Bleak as fuck but with this subject matter, I think it had to be.  Evan Peters puts in a superb performance as Dahmer, and the way the season explores how his crimes affected other people, the local community, parents, families of victims etc is well done.  Wouldn't say I enjoyed this as some of it really is very disturbing, but it's very good

 

4/5

 

Save Me/Save Me Too

 

Lennie James stars and created this crime drama about a guy whose daughter is abducted. Again, some of the scenes in this are pretty grim and uncomfortable to watch, but this is well paced and well acted.  Stephen Graham is brilliant (when isn't he?!) as is Suranne Jones in the 2 supporting roles.  Loses half a mark for James' character's mobile ringtone which is really fucking annoying.  

 

3.5/5

 

Crossfire

 

Watched this on BBC iPlayer - a drama starring Keeley Hawes as an ex police officer whose family holiday turns into a hellish ordeal as two gun men start shooting at guests.  This was really stupid in places, some daft plot decisions, and whilst Hawes herself is good, the over-reliance on mobile phones as a plot device and storm trooper-esque abilities with firearms from various people make it clumsy.  Also, it's not helped by having a cast who are almost all very dislikeable.  Wasn't keen.

 

2/5

 

I think I'll watch something a bit more cheerful next.