The Syndicate

insertnamehere wrote:

Scotty wrote:

Cryptonic wrote:Rewatching Breaking Bad atm. Only like 3 episodes left, no idea what to watch next.

Have you tried Dexter? My gf got me watching all 8 seasons and I just finished that shit in 2 months. Very entertaining. Almost all the seasons were well done, I thought. (I have differing opinions on a couple of them, but that's to be expected in long runs of shows)

You're one of like, 5 people I've seen who didn't think that show went to hell in a handbasket after season 4.

It's weird- yes, the later seasons take a remarkable downturn in a different direction but I blame the fact that the source material (because, yes, it is based on a series of books) ends after the 5th season. I also blame Debra's illogical conflicts driving plot points (I've screamed at the TV when she enters the screen sometimes) but at the end of the day, there were moments in the later season that totally worked- as far as series that go past their expiration date go, I think dexter did an admirable job.

juliets wrote:If you haven't watched Sherlock - the BBC one - I would recommend it.

With the premiere of the 4th season, I've been rewatching that with the gf. Watched them years ago, and remember them being very witty and exciting, and after a second viewing, it's almost as good as I remembered...innovative editing and shots, Martin freeman and cuucumberbatch have great onscreen chemistry. But sometimes the writing and the cases seem...I dunno...stilted. We just finished rewatching season 2 episode 1 last night and the final reveal of the case (I'm not ruining anything) made us collectively moan a "realllyyy? That's a stretch".

Still, it's totally worth a watch if you suspend you disbelief and just don't question some story choices. Excited to start season 4 when we get there.

MovingPictures07 wrote:The OA is freaking awesome.

Tell me about this show. I belong to the No-Nothing party

The OA was pretty awesome. Original.

After that I watched Travelers on Netflix which was also really good.

Scotty wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:The OA is freaking awesome.

Tell me about this show. I belong to the No-Nothing party

The series centers on Prairie Johnson, an adopted young woman who resurfaces after having been missing for seven years. Upon her return, Johnson calls herself "The OA", exhibits scars on her back, and can see, despite having been blind when she disappeared. The OA refuses to tell the FBI and her adoptive parents where she has been and how her eyesight was restored, and instead quickly assembles a team of five locals to whom she reveals that information, also explaining her background story. Finally, she asks for their help to save some other missing people who she claims are currently in the same situation she has described to them. ~Wikipedia

Sorsha wrote:

Scotty wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:The OA is freaking awesome.

Tell me about this show. I belong to the No-Nothing party

The series centers on Prairie Johnson, an adopted young woman who resurfaces after having been missing for seven years. Upon her return, Johnson calls herself "The OA", exhibits scars on her back, and can see, despite having been blind when she disappeared. The OA refuses to tell the FBI and her adoptive parents where she has been and how her eyesight was restored, and instead quickly assembles a team of five locals to whom she reveals that information, also explaining her background story. Finally, she asks for their help to save some other missing people who she claims are currently in the same situation she has described to them. ~Wikipedia

Something like that, yeah.

Without spoiling the show, I usually tell people it's a show about near-death experiences.

I just finished The Expanse season 1 on SyFy (watched it on Amazon Prime). Good for folks that like Battlestar Galactica.

Homeland starts again tonight. What the hell is Quin's status?? I hope they don't leave that dangling.

Also Victoria starts tonight. Don't know if it's going to be any good but it looks interesting.

And of course the last installment of Sherlock is on tonight.

I hope I can record all three while watching the game!

juliets wrote:Homeland starts again tonight. What the hell is Quin's status?? I hope they don't leave that dangling.

He's just getting Chinese food in Australia, as I understand it.

Epignosis wrote:

juliets wrote:Homeland starts again tonight. What the hell is Quin's status?? I hope they don't leave that dangling.

He's just getting Chinese food in Australia, as I understand it.

I bet they could just about come up with such a storyline, by the time the show reaches its 20th season.

'Hi. Can I have the sesame chicken, please?'

*staring and doubting intensifies while watching the clerk go in the back to get his order*

On a serious note, I think they've stretched the Quin narrative for quite some time, now. Is he seriously the only rogue assassin pawn figure in the entire Agency?

Season 5 was slightly better than the norm, so I'll prolly keep watching it.

I bet Danes will cry, at one point, too.

Ricochet wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

juliets wrote:Homeland starts again tonight. What the hell is Quin's status?? I hope they don't leave that dangling.

He's just getting Chinese food in Australia, as I understand it.

I bet they could just about come up with such a storyline, by the time the show reaches its 20th season.

'Hi. Can I have the sesame chicken, please?'

*staring and doubting intensifies while watching the clerk go in the back to get his order*

On a serious note, I think they've stretched the Quin narrative for quite some time, now. Is he seriously the only rogue assassin pawn figure in the entire Agency?

Season 5 was slightly better than the norm, so I'll prolly keep watching it.

I bet Danes will cry, at one point, too.

Haha Epi wrong Quin!

And Ricochet I think you're underestimating the appeal of Quin to the Homeland audience!

I tried to watch the Young Pope, and I learned that ~7 minutes of weird bullshit is about my limit. I'm good.

DharmaHelper wrote:I tried to watch the Young Pope, and I learned that ~7 minutes of weird bullshit is about my limit. I'm good.

I, however, must possess an endless appetite for weird bullshit, as I absolutely adored the first episode and can't wait to watch the rest of the series. I mean, come on. How can anyone not love a show that produces high-quality, thought-provoking theological discussion such as this:

Sorrentino's style-frenzy [I've no doubt he aspires to be the Fellini of XXIth C], pop-culture-tinged [I've no doubt he reads Pitchfork and Medium too much], if a tad bullshitty work is something I should at least indulge in, but I found no time for this one, just like for any recent shows. Fleabag was the last one I managed to watch and that was during Christmas and it was done in three hours.

EXTRA: For any cinephiles out there, Sorrentino's English-language work so far ranks as the piece of garbage fire that was This Must Be the Place and Youth, which, apart from having a couple of dumb scenes, the stuff of Tommy Wiseau's creative sessions, I rather considered it too disliked by the general critics. (If anyone is paying attention to the new The XX album and their song Lips, the sample from there belongs to an original piece by David Lang... which was heavily featured in Youth, btw

/trivia)

So far, I get the vibe that YPope is mostly accepted as both ridiculous and yet enjoyable.

Ricochet wrote:EXTRA: For any cinephiles out there, Sorrentino's English-language work so far ranks as the piece of garbage fire that was This Must Be the Place and Youth, which, apart from having a couple of dumb scenes, the stuff of Tommy Wiseau's creative sessions, I rather considered it too disliked by the general critics. (If anyone is paying attention to the new The XX album and their song Lips, the sample from there belongs to an original piece by David Lang... which was heavily featured in Youth, btw

/trivia)

So far, I get the vibe that YPope is mostly accepted as both ridiculous and yet enjoyable.

It's like House of Cards but set in the highest rungs of the Catholic Church, and also 100 times better.

The first shot of the show is Jude Law emerging from a mountain of naked babies followed by him giving a speech about the benefits of masturbation and abortion. Then he wakes up, and screams at his servants for not instantly bringing him a Cherry Coke Zero, which is the only thing he drinks. He also gets a pet kangaroo, who he lets live in the Vatican gardens.

The final scene of the pilot is Young Pope admitting that he doesn't even believe in God, and smirking at the camera, proving that the immortal question: "Is the Pope Catholic?" can be answered multiple ways.

Also Diane Keaton is in it for some reason, playing a nun who wears T-Shirts that say "I'm A Virgin (But This Is An Old T-Shirt)," along with James Cromwell, who will unfortunately never top his performance in American Horror Story: Asylum.

It's the most purely fun and enjoyable viewing experience I've had in a while, which probably says more about me than anything else.

Then again, I thought This Must Be The Place and Youth were both pretty great films, so maybe Mr. Sorrentino's 21st-Century-Fellini-wannabe charms just speak to me.

I finally watched the premier of Homeland last night and found it a little slow, though this has been true of the last few seasons of Homeland all of which I enjoyed.

Spoilers below:
All in all it was an ok episode and I guess the slowness is somewhat necessary to set up the background for what I think will be the major themes of this season. I'll keep watching.

Trailer for Season 3 of Damon Lindelof's show The Leftovers, which happens to include weird occurrences on a plane ride to Australia.



It's basically LOST, and I'm 1000% on board.

I... don't think I like Legion much. Picked it up because of the hype of the first episode (which was k) and it being helmed by Noah Hawley, who delivered the good with the Fargo TV adaptations. It going against the usual capeshit action trend is a good direction, but I feel each new episode has stretch marks all over, the main team is not too exciting or anything, all the literal fight scenes so far have felt insanely CGI'd and shitty and the whole psychic/schizo visuals feels like a bad mix of David Lynch, Silent Hill spooky sequences and Hannibal's (the TV series) lush visual porn - which was great a first, but also went completely overboard during subsequent seasons.

Designated Survivor by way of OnDemand. It's entertaining but not very engrossing. There are equal amounts of intrigue and predictability. It makes me eager to watch another season of 24 this summer.

My boyfriend and I finally watched the final two episodes of The West Wing last night. We watched it pretty slowly over the course of two years (started in January 2015, an episode a night but we took several breaks between or sometimes in the middle of seasons so it really stretched out a while). It's weird not having any more to watch, it's been part of our lives and I've loved it all the way through. Quite a ride, so much changed between the first couple seasons and the last... amazing show, amazing characters and development. The final episode was pretty moving. But unfortunately so much more optimistic than the current political situation There's just something that felt so strange about watching the too-perfect Santos election arc while in the midst of these last few months, it was like the show entered the realm of the fantastical.

nutella wrote:My boyfriend and I finally watched the final two episodes of The West Wing last night. We watched it pretty slowly over the course of two years (started in January 2015, an episode a night but we took several breaks between or sometimes in the middle of seasons so it really stretched out a while). It's weird not having any more to watch, it's been part of our lives and I've loved it all the way through. Quite a ride, so much changed between the first couple seasons and the last... amazing show, amazing characters and development. The final episode was pretty moving. But unfortunately so much more optimistic than the current political situation There's just something that felt so strange about watching the too-perfect Santos election arc while in the midst of these last few months, it was like the show entered the realm of the fantastical.

And yet, in its time (2006) it felt like it mirrored what actually happened in 2008 perfectly. A man of ethnic minority beating out a Republican moderate who was also quite likeable.

Yeah apparently they actually modeled Santos on Obama and Vinick on McCain, making for a pretty impressive prediction 2+ years out.

I just subscribed to Curiosity Stream today, so i am going to go Documentary Binge tonight, squeeeeee!!!

Samurai Jack is next level shit yall. Amazing.

DharmaHelper wrote:Samurai Jack is next level shit yall. Amazing.

True this. And I've only just started watching the first season. Since they made the new season and some of our friends were excited about it, the boyfriend and I decided to go back and watch it from the beginning and it's totally awesome.

nutella wrote:

DharmaHelper wrote:Samurai Jack is next level shit yall. Amazing.

True this. And I've only just started watching the first season. Since they made the new season and some of our friends were excited about it, the boyfriend and I decided to go back and watch it from the beginning and it's totally awesome.

AHHH THE NEW SEASON IS SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD YOU ARE GONNA LOVE IT

It's ok, but there's so little dialogue and the visuals are simplistic.

I think the visuals are amazing and beautiful. And I think it's cool that there's so little dialogue. They make it work by telling the story visually (and with awesome music and sounds).

Just watched "The Brainwashing of My Dad"

I really like it.

In case y'all weren't aware s3e1 of Rick and Morty came out and it's excellent

All goofs and gifs aside, Negan and especially JDM's version of Negan is way too good of a character for TWD

nutella wrote:In case y'all weren't aware s3e1 of Rick and Morty came out and it's excellent

Oh shit, I watched that reenactment of that crazy judge and prisoner interaction in Georgia like 40 times waiting for a new ep to come out. I almost don't want to watch it because it will be over too soon.

I've been watching the Korean show the Genuis (2 seasons through now), after having been reliably informed it was the best reality competition show ever made. I have to say that I agree, it's been a really enjoyable experience. It doesn't even bother me that I have to read subtitles since everyone is speaking in Korean, because the show keeps me hooked.

If anyone decides to watch it, let me know. It might end up being worth it's own thread.

Final season of Orphan Black starts tonight.

Meanwhile, Master of None is pretty amazing (and bingeable in its entirety on Netflix, as always). Must be something in the water for these 2nd seasons...

S~V~S wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2017 9:50 pm Final season of Orphan Black starts tonight.

Oh man I've sort of forgotten about that show!! I totally LOVED it for the first couple seasons but now I can't even remember when/which season I watched it last. Should try to catch up.

Ricochet wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:08 am Meanwhile, Master of None is pretty amazing (and bingeable in its entirety on Netflix, as always). Must be something in the water for these 2nd seasons...

Yeee the boyfriend and I love Master of None. We just finished season 2 a few days ago and I have to say I don't think it was overall as good as season 1, but it had some strong points.


Aaaand I have to catch up on the new season of OITNB as well, thanks for reminding me (was so upset at the end of last season though ). Also House of Cards. I'd love to convince my bf to catch up on the previous seasons of HoC with me since he hasn't seen it (and I'd like to rewatch it anyway) but we have such a long list of things we want to watch and never get around to anyway.

I think Season 2's manner of dealing with particular topics (religion in family; online dating malaise; coming out in family) were hallmarks of smart, senseful writing. I sort of liked the Francesca romance way more than the Rachel one. Season 1 felt more quirky and swaggy. Season 2 felt like packing more real feels. My one wish would have been for more episodes set in Italy. I liked the idea of Dev taking an exodus abroad. I disliked that they timejumped that whole process and were forced to head back into NYC for their usual urban social skits and such. But seriously, this was overall great.

Yeah, I thought the first half of the season was great, as was the Denise episode. But I got really sick of the Francesca arc by those last two long-as-fuck episodes that just dragged on. And the whole Chef Jeff thing was fucking awful.

So I finished watching the first season of The Handmaid's Tale, a Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel. It was overall quite good, although, despite me being seemingly attracted to dystopian works in general and this show pumping serious, brutal doses of somber drama, I almost feel guilty for not feeling it was that gripping (I'm probably too desensitized).

If I were to recall Epignosis' complaints (stated once in Discord, I believe) about Atwood having the ideas, but struggling with pushing them till the end in her novels, I'd say the same issues of execution exist in the series. Being done in the American TV tradition of a 10-episode season bulk, that probably didn't even exhaust the book material and will now head into a second season, I'd say it had some stretchmarks, complete with backstories on each character midway through the season and such. Plus, if the first, say, three episodes or so are really tight, afterwards I felt with each episode a sort of tonal mellowing. The show exhibited both finesse (bleak, minimalistic art direction and visuals combined with the most striking, wild-ranging gamut of expressions and emotions via close-ups; very meaningful thematic juxtapositions of plot and backstory, adding weight to the individual episodes; dry, sharp humour to balance the gloom) and a few rough patches (with the exception of a handful of episodes, every other felt like they couldn't land an ending - tonally off and overdone; also, while the original score bits were excellently broody - think Enemy or Arrival - the insertion of songs / singles / schlagers were overkill and on-the-nose).

The performances were likely the strongest element of the show - you have Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men fame and Samira Wiley from Orange is the New Black, plus absolutely breakout stuff from Alexis Bledel (breaking out of her Gilmore Girly shell), Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck) and Madeleine Brewer (also Orange is the New Black). Plus, I feel this show would be worth recommending just for Ann Dowd's most spinechilling display of magnificence to date (making her Patti in Leftovers Grumpy Cat by comparison).

So yeah, well done and relevant all in all, but could have been a tad more subtle with its style, while at it.

I agree with you.

Finally Started Game of Thrones. Season 1 was good. I finally understand the hype. Watching it with a friend, and I think my favorite part of the show is not really the show itself, but how fun it is to talk about. The show also weirdly reminds me off the office I work in <_<

This summer I also finished Luke Cage, worth the watch for the sake of defenders coming out at the end of the summer. Not game of thrones but worth the watch.

Iron Fist is a different story. The characters motives are silly, and the conflict are silly and unwarrented, and feel like they could be resolved if people just talked to each other. I didn't finish it, and i think i might just wiki the show instead of watching the rest tbh <_<

Finished Izombie season3. If you digged Veronica Mars, this show is definitely for you. I feel like it's one of those shows that if I were to describe it would sound really stupid, but the characters are fun, and don't take themselves too seriously unless it earns it's warranted. Probably my favorite show i've watch all summer.

Finished Season 3 of House of Cards. I get why people might call it slow, but I enjoyed the political focus this season's had. Less stuff happens this season, but save a redemption plot line that goes wayyy long than it aught to, it's watchable.

Think that's about everything I've watched this summer so far. Productive/10

I started watching 11.22.63 the other day. I am intrigued, but not in love.

Spacedaisy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:49 pm I started watching 11.22.63 the other day. I am intrigued, but not in love.

The book is better.

Gotham is

++++

Spacedaisy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:49 pm I started watching 11.22.63 the other day. I am intrigued, but not in love.

I though the show was just alright, but I am in love with the actress who plays Sadie.

Watching Steven Universe.

I was skeptical about it, but the reviews were overwhelmingly good so I had to try.

So I heard the show only started getting good at ep. 25. Fine. I decided to brace through it. But the first 24 episodes were pretty good. They were focused on comedy, but it was comedy like the old 90s Cartoon Network shows, and the best ones. Silly and creative in surreal ways. So it was pretty fun to watch them.

Then I passed that mark, got through a pretty good midseason climax, and after that, the show came back to episodic plots. But while it didn't suddenly get epic or dramatic, the stories started getting more mature and the character development started getting really good. This could be described as "Heartwarming: The Show". You want to feel good, watch Steven Universe. Most episodes start with silly plots, then they turn into something serious that gets resolved in the cutest way possible. We have a setting that is pretty dark but there are those characters who manage to stick together and overcome their weaknesses despite the odds, and a protagonist who lacks amazing fighting powers but is lovable and creative and innocent enough to somehow make everything work.

Now I'm at episode 45, getting to the season finale, which I hear it's pretty epic again. I recommend this show.

Hoooly shit. We just watched all six episodes of Neo Yokio, an animated series that just came out on Netflix today by Jaden Smith and Ezra Koenig (and starring Jaden Smith as basically himself). I can't even describe it except that it's amazing. I'm in awe it's so good

Anybody been watching Vietnam? We've only watched the first episode which was the excellent back story going back to 1858 about how we got embroiled in the war. I'm looking forward to the other episodes we've got DVR'd.

For anybody still hanging with Gotham, holy shit has the writing taken a dump.


Again, holy shit.