Finished TV series—who watches?

[ZedClampet]

Ah man, you're missing out—there's a new genre since you dropped out, and you're obviously the tailor-made audience for it!

Reality TV, where everything's real, and so by definition is got right. Top-rated recommendation.

lol I didn't drop out THAT long ago. I forgot that when my daughter was little I had to sit through more than a few episodes of Dance Moms and Kim of Queens.

Actually, Kim of Queens was pretty funny. It was a show about a woman who trained girls for beauty pageants. One thing was that if a girl didn't have a talent, she had them "throw their arms and legs around", which was mimicking tap dancing. Of course, everyone knows what tap dancing is supposed to look like, but that's about it, and these girls regularly fooled the judges into thinking they were expert tap dancers.

 

[Zloth]

I sure dropped out! I didn't watch much after Babylon 5 all the way up to... let's see... Wheel of Time? No, Loki! That was a good series. Wheel of Time has been fun, too, but for the first season it was mostly in a "I wonder what they'll manage to squeeze in" sort of way. I still barely watch anything on TV. The shows just aren't as fun as even a mediocre video game.

The big exception being Doctor Who, of course. Been watching that since the `80's.

 

[Brian Boru]

shows just aren't as fun as even a mediocre video game

Oh yeah, agree. We only watch during dinner—otherwise we'd have to have

Spoiler: spoiler

conversation

 

[Brian Boru]

Inside Man 2022, 4 x 1h
David Tennant
Stanley Tucci
Dolly Wells
This is brilliant in the best traditions of French farce, where everything spirals out of control as situations and characters unravel. There's great comedy—sometimes dark—plenty of drama and quite a mystery.

David and Stanley are 2 of my favs and they're both on top of their game here, with top-notch support from the rest of the cast. They left the door open for a follow-on series, hope they make it.

10/10

 

[Brian Boru]

Pieces of Her 2022, 8 x 52m
Toni Collette
Bella Heathcote
Jessica Barden
Terry O'Quinn
Nice idea but bad execution, this is a dud despite the fine Toni performance. Pity, cos the premise is decent.

Editing is awful, that's the biggie. 4-5 episodes would've been about right, and there are very frequent and confusing flashbacks, which might work if one pays close attention, but not for casual entertainment. Plot is also full of "Why did he…?" and "Why didn't she…?" sequences—I usually don't mind those, but just too many here.

If it had been longer than 8 episodes, we'd have dropped it, but it just cleared the 'may as well see it out' threshold.

4/10

 

[Brian Boru]

Lupin 2021-23, 17 x 45m
Omar Sy
Ludivine Sagnier
Soufiane Guerrab
This is about as good as it gets for fun escapism. Inspired by Maurice Leblanc's 'Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar' series of books 100+ years ago, but set in modern day, the hero is part magician and part super-hero on a romp thru uncovering high-level official corruption in Paris.

Ludivine is the only cast member I'd seen before and she's very good. Omar is great as the hero, really carries a character who could easily have looked ridiculous. Rest of cast are fine too.

Moves along nicely, all-round well-made, and Paris looks great.

9/10

 

[Brian Boru]

Woman of the Dead 2022, 6 x 45m
Anna Maria Mühe
Yousef 'Joe' Sweid
Felix Klare
Set in the spectacular Alps—near Innsbruck in west Austria—this is a small-town tale centered on the local undertaker. Story can get a bit stretched at times, but overall it's a quite compelling crime thriller.

Great scenery of course, well made and paced, Anna excellent and cast all good. Kept me captivated thruout.

75/100

 

[Brian Boru]

Sleeping Dog 2023, 6 x 55m
Max Riemelt
Luise von Finckh
Peri Baumeister
This is a very good crime thriller set in Berlin—but it needs your attention, else it'll get confusing quickly. There's a lot going on for a lot of people, mainly in present but also in past, and plenty of grey areas.

Never heard of any of the cast before, but they're uniformly very good. Nice pace, tension maintained by events rather than gunfights or car chases. There's one fairly brief adoption arc which serves no purpose, but otherwise the content is on the ball.

8/10

PS this is a remake of the Israeli series The Exchange Principle, which isn't available anywhere for me.

 

[Brian Boru]

Clickbait 2021, 8 x 46
Zoe Kazan
Betty Gabriel
Phoenix Raei
Another very good crime mystery, set in Oakland CA—but not filled with gunfights or car chases. Good story, well acted, good pacing, some dodgy editing and plot holes, and a poor ending imo. Well worth a watch despite flaws, the good stuff is very good.

8/10

 

[Zloth]

I ain't clicking on that!!

 

[Brian Boru]

Behind Her Eyes 2021, 6 x 50
Simona Brown
Eve Hewson
Tom Bateman
4 good episodes to begin, 1 where it gets dodgy, and then the final one which ruined it for me.

First 4 are good psy thriller stuff, if a bit slow moving—but the cast do well to keep it interesting, incl Bono's daughter holding her side up nicely. But then the deus ex machina is telegraphed in Ep 5, and implemented in Ep 6 which also includes some really ludicrous plot choices. Pity.

5/10 for first 4 eps.

 

[Brian Boru]

FUBAR 2023, 8 x 55
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Monica Barbaro
Milan Carter
This is ok if you want sth undemanding to pass the time, an Arnie spy comedy. Cast is ok, writing is a bit weak, but it's enjoyable in a romp sort of way.

5/10

 

[Johnway]

i suppose i should add my entry. Some weeks ago i finished watching Boiling point, the sequel to the movie boiling point. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0g5h206

A continuation of the story from the movie, this time it focuses on Carly, Andy jones second in command has set up her own restaurant - North point taking pretty much the entire kitchen brigade with her. Carly now faces the same pressures and problems that Andy did trying to run a restaurant and she knows she's on borrowed time with mounting costs and debts. But on top of that, her home life and looking after her mother is taking their toll on her.

What about Andy jones? although he survived the heart attack and is recovering, he's a broken, foul tempered wreck. unsurprisingly his ownership of his old restaurant is over and he's lost his way in life. But there is hope, he has time to reconnect with his son and rekindle bonds between father and son whilst s possible opportunity to learn to move on from events and forgive those that left him.


The series isn't very long, only 4 episodes long, but it does give us a glimpse of the other members of the kitchen team and the struggles they face individually and as a team . its more a drama that some people might like and others might find boring. personally, i found it pretty compelling stuff and can't wait to see if there is a series 2 as it pretty much ends the same way as before: game over.

 

[Brian Boru]

Maid 2021, 10 x 54
Margaret Qualley
Andie MacDowell
Nick Robinson
Rylea Nevaeh Whittet
Wonderful show if low-key drama is your thing. Second half maybe dragged a bit, but otherwise a tip-top job by all with direction, editing, pacing, cinematography.

Margaret is outstanding as a single mom working as a cleaner. Rylea is her 3yo daughter, and is just remarkable—I'm usually not a fan of kids in shows, but Rylea is maybe the best kid I've ever seen on screen. Cap all that with the fabulous interplay between Margaret and Rylea—I was surprised to find they weren't related.

But not to worry, there is a real-life mom-daughter team here, and they play mom-daughter too! Andie is Margaret's mom, and they have lots of great times together too with Andie playing the ditzy artist to the fullest. Nick is also great as Margaret's ex and Rylea's dad—the whole cast are just great.

No surprise it's based on a book, the writing is top class. Nobody's all bad or all good, everyone has redeeming qualities and also weakness under pressure. Plenty of nuance and shades of grey.

If the genre suits, watch this—it's a real gem.

11/10

 

[Johnway]

The Newsreader (2021)
I've recently started watching this on the BBC iplayer. Set in the late 80s, the drama revolves around Dale, an ambitious reporter with dreams of being the news reader for channel he works at. His life changes when his relationship with the lead female news anchor changes his life working there. its a pretty good show as the characters have to contend with office politics, the cut throat world of working in australian news media whilst also dealing with the main stories and events of the time (namely the aids pandemic) and making sure the tv ratings are good.

i found it pretty compelling stuff, the cast of characters are interesting and have depth to them as the pressures of working in news media starts to take their toll on each person. Whilst it doesn't exactly make a compelling discussions on social issues, you can see the tensions that are caused from it. A key one being Aids and the stigma of the gay community surrounding it. The show a strikes a good balance between exciting to funny. Rob (the sports reporter) being a key player in the department as he comes across as awkward when out of his depth, but has a heart of gold being the few people who would stick up for the downtrodden (even putting his career on the line) and humble to admit he isn't cut out for the big time or anything beyond sport.

if you can, i would recommend a watch.

 

[Frindis]

Finished mini-series Black Bird (2022) starring Taron Egerton, Paul Walter Hauser and Ray Liotta to mention the most important ones.

The plot is inspired by a true story about a convict working for the FBI trying to get a serial killer to point to some past crimes. Hauser does a great job as the serial killer, he looks/acts very creepy. Egerton does a good undercover role but could have been better. Not misplaced by any means, but he just did not come out that convincing taking in perspective the roles of a huge amount of other undercover roles in the past that did it much better.

I do think his overall acting would have been more convincing had they just removed the first part of the series about his more slick-looking part as it clearly represents his more Kingsman/Rocetman style of acting which I did not think fit the series in any good measure.

Ray Liotta plays Egerton's father and it makes me quite sad knowing this was one of his last roles. He played the role flawlessly and even while being fatigued and clearly hurting in parts of the movie, he finished the job like a champ.

Overall, it's the perfect binge series and I give it a decent score of 8/10.

 

[Snouff]

I haven't finished watching SpongeBob yet

 

[Zloth]

I watched the Rings of Power series on Amazon. Wow, what a slow start! And by 'start' I mean the whole first half of the season. I think they had too many plot lines going at once that seemed to have nothing to do with each other. Finally, the Elron/Durrin line started getting good, then the rest of the show started to come together. The final two episodes were much more enjoyable.

 

[Brian Boru]

Obliterated 2023, 8 x 45m
Cast: Probably a bunch of models
1/10
I finished dinner after ~25 minutes of this and told GF "I'm going to enjoy doing the washup for once." I've never rated a TV show 1/10 before, and only 4 movies—out of over 900 ratings.

It's 6.5 on IMDb so I had to check to see what I'd missed. A lot of reviews are 9 and 10 out of 10, and a lot are 1 and 2 out of 10—very few around the 6-7 mark—so you'll probably love it or hate it. Some extracts from the low scores:

---

"Hmmmm what else. Terrible one liners. Cheesy acting. No depth. No grit. No sense of how people actually interact. This is the worst show I have ever seen in my entire life. I think whoever created this … tried to combine Miami Vice with Baywatch"

"Awful in every way. There's nothing good about this. Bad, overused tropes. Bad writing. Corny cliche and annoying characters you instantly dislike. Bad dialogue. Bad technology ideas. Boring cliche plot lines."

"Where do I start? It's so bad I have absolutely no idea."

"It is like it was written and directed by a load of 12 year olds."

"Absolutely awful acting, as usual for cheap american shows where they get models to do the acting instead of actors. It doesn't help that they are playing really dumb 1 dimensional characters. Directing is poor, story line is lame."

"From poor acting and awful scripting to childish jokes and scenes that fall flat-even the editing resembles a B-rated movie."

"it was god awful"

"Imagine a TV show written entirely by teenagers. Their knowledge of weapons and special ops comes entirely from video games. Their idea of intimacy straight out of the internet. Their attention span honed by years of Tiktok."

---

This will become a cult fav!

 

[Brian Boru]

The Irregulars 2021, 8 x ??m
McKell David
Thaddea Graham
Jojo Macari
About street kids recruited by Dr Watson to gather intel for him and Holmes. We gave it 4 episodes and dropped it.

It's not awful, but not good either. Paranormal elements, rap music on the soundtrack—if you're going to mess with classic material, you need to provide compelling content. This doesn't. The kids just aren't convincing or endearing, the setting doesn't seem to be the Victorian England I've read about in classic novels, plots are not interesting.

3/10

 

[Johnway]

Just finished watching the BBC drama boat story

The tale begins when 2 random down on their luck individuals discover a shipping boat full of cocaine. janet and samuel, decide to take the drugs and sell it in the hopes it will fix their life problems.. But the person who owns the drugs begins his hunt for his lost shipment and those who have taken it. Cue a game of cat and mouse for our hapless duo as they try to blagg their way to selling the drugs and not get killed in the process.

Despite some sensitive critics saying that its violent, the show is great. only 6 episodes long, its that sort of British drama/ black comedy (think snatch or the outlaws) as 2 people completely out of their depth try to succeed. i found it entertaining and engrossing, good performances and ideas all round. Well worth a watch if you can.

 

[Johnway]

kin (2021)

So i've finished watching kin, a crime drama revolving around the Kinsella crime family. it starts as Michael is freed from prison for a murder he committed. He hopes to go straight in the hopes to see his estranged daughter and leave the criminal business for good. But all is not well, when a small time feud soon escalates into a gangland war when one of cunningham's drug dealers is killed in retaliation for the accidental killing of child of the kinsella family. Its soon apparent that no member of the kinsella family, regardless of innocence are dragged into the family business to survive.


A good crime drama, good performances as the family struggle to survive and to contend with the various crimes that come back to haunt the family. What makes it extra spicy is the friction within the family itself as some advocate peace or running, other demand bloodshed. The kinsella is at risk of imploding as they double deal with cunningham and with each other to save the family or themselves.

Worth a watch i think. Will watch Series 2 as whilst the gangland war wraps up, it does leave a lot of threads to pick. Frank, the head of the kinsella family is found OD from cocaine, his son viking (who's hot headed actions started the gangland war in the first place) is in prison and taking out the son of a powerful drug baron supplying cunningham isn't really good for peace.

 

[Brian Boru]

Joe Pickett 2021, 20 x 50m
Michael Dorman
Julianna Guill
Sharon Lawrence
Very good crime action drama set in Wyoming, the least populated state in the USA—Joe is a Game Warden in prime hunting country. Two seasons of 10 episodes each, both seasons start a bit slowly, especially first 2 episodes of Season 2, but otherwise it all moves along nicely while allowing plenty of time to appreciate the nature, scenery and family dynamics.

Cast are fine, as is every aspect of production. If you liked Longmire, this is similar, a bit more action-oriented.

85/100

 

[DXCHASE]

Latest sci-fi series finished up: Beacon 23

If you are into sci-fi that deals with AI with feelings, mysterious aliens and a dystopic evil corporation, then id check this out. Stars Lena Headey (Game of Thrones mother who was evil and had to do the SHAME SHAME SHAAAME walk) Its kinda slow at first, (which never really bothers me, id rather a show be slow than hit me with a bunch of stuff ima forget to care about later). But by the end, its average sci-fi, didnt mind watching it and, for me, has me wondering where the show is going to go for its next season.

7/10

I haven't watched anything in years.

I salute you!!! Honestly i dont watch it on tv if its not accessible for free offline. I know my tv works but thats because i game on it lol. I also do not like watching sports live but thats because i dont like sports.

I sure dropped out! I didn't watch much after Babylon 5 all the way up to... let's see... Wheel of Time? No, Loki! That was a good series. Wheel of Time has been fun, too, but for the first season it was mostly in a "I wonder what they'll manage to squeeze in" sort of way. I still barely watch anything on TV. The shows just aren't as fun as even a mediocre video game.

The big exception being Doctor Who, of course. Been watching that since the `80's.

Babylon 5 to me, was peak sci-fi. its my personal favorite. I absolutely loved the story and the Shadows (i was ~10 years old when i started watching and had been on a few seasons). I like Star Trek Next Generation which i watched before Babylon 5 (dad liked it) and....can stand Star Wars ...if someone wanted to watch it (otherwise, no star wars ever here, movie, game, anything lol)

Other Stuff ive seen recently and scores from me:

Rebel Moon Part 1: 5/10 - Zack Snyder film, hes not good imo, i dont like this whole "directors cut" versions of his movies and this movies pacing was out of control. It looked good, but its meh.

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix 8/10 - Went in blind with this one, only because it looked like it had Rayman in it and my son was interested. Turns out its a Ubisoft crossover anime thats extremely influneced by Cyberpunk 2077. So it was pretty much up my ally anyways. The ubisoft crossovers are great, lots of good subtle hints at pretty much every Ubisoft game. I would watch this even if you aren't an "anime" watcher but as a gamer just to see if you can spot them. Good story too, hopefully another season will come tbh.

Onimusha 9/10 - Loved the game when it was on the Playstation 2. Good series, good anime, good story.

Vinland Saga 10/10 - Another great anime for anyone here that watches it. Completed this a while ago but was probably my familys favorite anime weve watched together (outside of Cowboy Bebop) There are some slow episodes, but its a great story. Theres good historical references in the show too if you are into Viking/Early English history.

 

[Johnway]

some things to add to the watched list.

The first is more of an documentary/experiment. The trial is a social experiment to determine whether 2 different jury's would come to the same conclusion if presented the same evidence or watched the same trial. The trial is a reenacted by actors but the words and the evidence are from the real trial. The case unfortunately isn't clear cut - Whilst the man admits to killing his wife, is it manslaughter or was it murder? Cue evidence, witness cross referencing and you get to see the workings of the public volunteers who were jurors and you get to decide yourself if he committed manslaughter or it was murder.

Whilst its only 4 episodes long, its a bit of a slow burner as we break down the case and really the last episode is what is most relevant. i personally found the whole thing a bit flawed as the volunteers weren't exactly "random" as some of the people have a history of being victims of domestic abuse, anger problems etc so it would influence their opinions. sure its interesting to see the insights of various people and understand whether key domineering people in the group influenced others to decide how to vote.

more surprisingly, it was filmed in the city i live in and it didn't make the place look like a dump and in fact made it look presentable.


Ok the next thing i watched was Kin Season 2 - We continue with the kinsella family and after dealing with cunningham, the crime family are at the top of their game and rolling in cash. But the past comes to haunt them, killing a prominent son of a Turkish crime family as collateral damage offing cunningham has repercussions one that could bring their criminal enterprise down. Worst still, former patriarch of the Kinsellas, Bren, brings internal strife. Bren's influence is felt immediately as he kills those who wronged him prior to going into prison and begins reestablishing himself as the leader of the family. Unsurprisingly his actions brings further strife (killing your main buyer who buys big isn't great) as Bren is a violent, abusive and callous man who doesn't take too kindly to Anne to running things. he's the type who shows who's boss by killing all that oppose or work behind his back. its not long the family fragments and Bren's days are numbered.

A pretty good second series full of eventful things many highs, many lows but the status quo is fragile. just as one thing gets sorted, another 2 unfinished businesses with pissed off rivals gunning for the kinsellas and the police breathing down their necks means there probably a 3rd season coming.