I actually really liked "Nosedive" though. I guess it makes sense that the first episode would be one of the strongest, to hook people in.

I liked Hated in the Nation and the 80's lesbian love story quite a bit too.

Jumping in on the Black Mirror discussion, I just finished the first two seasons and have watched Part I of White Christmas. Loved The Entire History of You the best, the way the tension between the married couple just winds down towards a downward spiral is just super satisfying. Gotta say though, I cannot deny its preachy messages sometimes, maybe that's also the reason I liked that episode the best as well; there's much more open-ended questions being asked there, and, to a lesser extent, on White Bear and The Waldo Moment as well. All in all, a very satisfying TV show, but it's probably not good to take the scenarios presented too seriously.

Hmm, looks like the new Trailer Park Boys season is coming out January 13. Season 10 was unwatchably bad, so I'm not holding my breath, but hope springs eternal or something.

Alright, since I finished up DS9, I've jumped into ST: Voyager.

Only about ten episodes in, which history tells me is not really a fair point to judge this show against prior Trek stuff, but first impressions are that I really like Janeway as a captain (she seems about halfway between Picard's philosophical leanings and Sisko's warmer, more approachable character) and I love Tuvok bringing a Vulcan presence back to a Trek crew, but so far I'm not in love with the rest of the crew by any stretch of the imagination. Not many episodes have really pulled me in so far, but that said this DOES exactly scratch the exploratory Trek itch that was left largely unscratched by DS9's more static narrative. Hopefully the characters and writing get better in this because it does seem like it has a lot of potential.

How does it compared to Season 9? I'm only 2-3 episodes into it and, tonally, it's more fitting with the first six seasons than 7 and 8 have (which is where Ricky and Lahey were sitcom'd to shit).

I was a fan of 7 - even though the absurdity was played up, the pace, scope and situational comedy was so snappy that I never noticed, as opposed to 8 being lethargic rehashes of previous plot threads. That said, Season 10 is just straight-on farce for every character and makes 7 & 8 look like a somber drama. It also includes one of the most laughable attempts at a "twist" in the season finale. Watch paint dry for a more fun time instead.

Damn. Looks like my thoughts about S6 being the rightful finale are justified.

The rightful finale IMO is the third movie, Don't Legalize It. Complete tonal throwback to the first two seasons, with a lot of black comedy and darker themes, more obvious social satire, moodier & more thoughtful pace, and just a great amount of work that obviously went into it wrapping up Clattenberg's directorship on a high note. Even the soundtrack is mostly old-school country tunes with a very deliberate wistful and nostalgiac element, and there are a lot of those lingering close-ups that happened in Season 2 (my personal favorite season.) I highly recommend seeing it if you haven't yet or were turned off the middling first two movies.

I watched the first episode of Black Mirror a couple nights ago and it was one of the most worthless, tasteless pieces of dogshit I've ever seen on television. I can see no way in which it's morally insightful or even remotely entertaining, unless you're a pretty twisted person. I assume the other episodes are better, but this really turned me off from wanting to watch it again, after the episode was over I felt like a worse person for having watched it and had a strong urge to take a shower. Suffice it to say, I don't think I'll be continuing with the show.

That's the one that I thought was supposed to be a comedy but was assured it was serious. I don't see how a plot revolving around forcing a major government official to fuck a pig on live TV is anything but hilarious, though.

Well yeah if they'd played it more as a comedy that might be one thing, but the tone was very serious and the guy was so defeated in the end, it 100% felt like exploitation, like the show was trying to force you to watch something nasty like that and then be like, "Haha, see, you're as terrible as everyone else, you watched it too!" Kinda similar to the film Funny Games in that regard, which was also a giant turd. Artless, shock value bullshit as far as I'm concerned.

The new episode of Sunny was fun. I've been a die-hard (and I mean DIE-HARD, it's my favorite show by a mile) fan since season 2, and I've been kind of "waiting for the fall" ever since around season 7. Usually each new season starts shaky and then finds their footing. I was feeling this one though! I love that they started with an episode so completely off-rails. Also love that they kept up the "Old Black Man" storyline.

Glad to hear! Just as big a fan myself and I think S11 was a great return to form after the mediocre S10.

Season 2 of Star Trek: Voyager is the single worst season in all of Star Trek (although there are three absolutely fantastic episodes--Cold Fire, Meld and The Thaw), but all of the rest of them are varying degrees of shit. Tattoo and Threshold are so fucking retarded they're actually kind of entertaining in a how-the-fuck-did-this-get-greenlit way, but sadly the other twenty-or-so episodes are just boring and tedious wastes of time and space. I wouldn't wish episodes like Initiations, Elogium and Innocence (somehow, the name still manages to be most memorable part of this episode) on my worst enemy and while I know I wouldn't do so if I was in your shoes, I beg you to skip them anyway.

But just don't give up, season 3 (with Sarah Silverman's first major role, and a total babe here) is rather good and seasons 4-7 are some of the best Trek has to offer.

I'll soon be finished with all episodes of adventure time that are currently available and season 8 is rolling in. Super exited about that.

Hah, yeah, I'm not the skipping episodes type. I will soldier on. I've watched 16 episodes now and it's not bad, for the most part. Apart from the aforementioned issues, sometimes the writing just isn't that great. Like this atomic bomb Japan analogy episode where they meet the space Oppenheimer guy who developed the WMD that destroyed Neelix's planet - it started strong, but was weak as an analogy because in the story, Neelix's people sounded pretty well innocent and were invaded by a conquering alien force who then nuked them. The real Japan scenario is so much more powerful because Japan were the aggressors who started the war in the Pacific, and they were war criminals who did awful, awful things to a whole lot of people, yet EVEN SO it was wrong to drop atomic weapons on civilian populations and inflict unimaginable horrors on them. It's the kind of scenario TNG would have handled super elegantly, but with VOY it was more hamfisted "nukes are bad" with a sci-fi non sequitur finale that really had no bearing on the power of the story they were already telling.

So not totally awful or anything, but a wasted opportunity.

Voyager in a nutshell.

I watched all of Voyager 'cause let's face it, I had nothing better to do but yeah, TNG and DS9 are much much much better it's almost ridiculous. I think I'll rewatch some of my fav TNG episodes soon as I have Netflix and it's fun easier to watch stuff. I started with "Family" last night and it made me cry, such a fucking great episode. Patrick Stewart at his best.

The first series I tried on Netflix are:

Love (1 season, 10 )
It was ok but I really didn't Paul Rust as the male lead of the series. He was so unfunny and boring compared to Gillian Jacob's character. Jacob's character was also much deeper and interesting (AA etc). Some episodes were better than others but ultimately worth it if you kinda like non traditional rom coms.

Lovesick (2 seasons, 6 + 8 episodes)
This was insanely great (it's a British tv series, need I say more?). The 3 leads are super talented and it's super well written. It's basically this guy who got chlamydia and has to contact all his previous sexual partners but the 2 other characters are also deeply explored in this tight and rewarding show. Flashbacks are used in each episode and it's wonderful. I can't recommend this series enough.

Just saw that the lead actor will play Einstein in this new series. Looking good. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5673782/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1 season, 8 episode)
INSANE series. Elijah Wood plays this has been musician who has a lot of issues until he meets this Dirk Gently dude who's... Not gonna say more, honestly. This was inspired by Douglas Adams's book so you know it's absolutely nuts

Crazyhead (1 season, 6 episode)
Good little series about 2 girls fighting demons, nothing spectacular but it has this English charm.

I'm also starting The Office (US), Marco Polo and I want to start Downton Abbey soon too.

I liked Love quite a bit, but it took about 3 episodes to really draw me in. I thought Paul Rust was a fairly complex character, at least just as far as coming off like a believable human being. I loved the way his confidence would wax and wane from the highest heights to the deepest depths. I know that game! But yeah the whole show really was made by Jillian Jacobs being so great, and Judd Apatow doing what he does. I'm a bit of an Apatow fanboy so I wasn't surprised to end up really enjoying it.

Have you watched Master of None? It's VERY good. I'm not even the hugest fan of Aziz's stand-up (though I think Buried Alive was perfect), and I don't think you really need to be to enjoy it. It's short in a similar way to Louie although it's less relentlessly awkward. The episode about Parents is really funny and insightful.

Apparently another Breaking Bad baddie will be on the upcoming season of Better Call Saul. I think they've done a decent job so far of balancing mostly new stuff with only limited callbacks to BB, & hopefully that'll continue.

To be honest, everyone knew Gus was coming back anyway. The finale of Better Call Saul season 2 alluded to it strongly, and then the first letter of each episode of season 2 is an anagram for Fring's Back, and people figured that out early last year (and the show runners confirmed it was done intentionally).

Really? Because I thought they were calling back pretty hard with Mike's story arc right there in Better Call Saul. And Tuco being there in the early episodes. That was very fan servicey.

I can see Paul Rust's confidence thing, yeah but it wasn't as interesting to me as Gillian's character. I do like Apatow as well but not everything he did. His daughter was very good in the show though, she played Arya, this young actress and Gus' pupil.

I've seen Master of None and it was perhaps my favorite series of its year, I should rewatch it. I liked Aziz's standup but not as much as his Parks and Rec character but this was completely different. Subdued, contemplative yet funny, engaging and political. Great show.

I'd almost agree if season 7 of both TNG and DS9 weren't so fucking horrendous--albeit for different reasons. TNG got turned into a ridiculous, freewheeling family drama (thanks, Jeri Taylor) while DS9 had exactly 26 episodes to bring the wonderfully deep but also needlessly convoluted war epic that had been playing out for six seasons to a close and guess what, they blew an episode playing baseball in the holodeck with their allies, a couple episodes on nu-Dax, introducing a literal Frank Sinatra impersonator (with like a ten-minute sing-along in the finale for no fucking reason) and basically just making a total fucking mess of what could've been the best season of one of the best tv shows on television.

Voyager season 7 was simply business as usual: fun, slickly produced with a few stinkers here and there. I dare you to find an episode in season 7 of either TNG or DS9 as much fun as Renaissance Man, Author, Author, The Void, or Bryan Fuller's epic gay activist allegory "Flesh and Blood."

To be fair Vic Fontaine was introduced in season 6. Also to be fair that baseball episode was great and baseball is a fucking miserable game. Also that season was fine and you suck!

Who's all going to check out The Young Pope tonight?

I'm late to this party, but I just binged the first season of F is for Family. Only 6 episodes, so it wasn't too long. That show is so dark, but it's also got its funny moments. Probably not as out-loud funny as Rick and Morty or Archer, but I really enjoy its charm. Looking forward to season 2.

I've also been watching seasons of The Simpsons. Just finished seasons 10 and 17. People have their opinions of later Simpsons, but I liked season 17 generally. The episode "The Seemingly Neverending Story" was pretty cool (and one I hadn't seen in years). I plan to get more box sets of seasons I don't have (I'm pretty all over the place with what I have and don't have).

AMC finally announces a return date for Better Call Saul.

http://ew.com/tv/2017/01/14/amc-better- ... ere-dates/

Finally getting around to Bojack Horseman between Voyager seasons. The show did start pretty weak but had already picked up quite a bit by about halfway through this first season, I thought. I'm looking forward to the even more acclaimed second and third seasons. I kind of like how this show is basically Californication with far less gratuitous nudity and a more relatable main character (despite him being, you know, a horse) because he's far less pretentious than David Duchovny's character in Californication, who basically thinks he's god's gift to literature. Anyway it's good stuff, and I'm super curious to see how they're able to keep the animal puns up for multiple seasons. I have faith.

Yeah at first I wasn't sure about it, but Bojack Horseman really hooked me in as it went on. Honestly it's less a comedy at this point and more like a good dark drama with a bunch of ridiculousness pasted on top. Some really fucked up shit happens later on, and it doesn't get a magic end-of-episode reset.

Yeah they've already shown that they're gonna do episode-to-episode continuity even in S1. The seasons are short and the episodes are short as well so I'll probably watch all three seasons of it before getting into Voyager S2.

I would love to watch Bojack Horseman. Need to get Netflix, haha.

ok, now I have to watch this show.

oooh, it's got Claudia O'Doherty, too!

just saw episode 1... man, I would not have the balls to be topless on TV if my body looked like that

and they even featured a Gravediggaz song in an ep. I approve of this show.

shame Wittels didn't get to be a part of it (up to ep 4 now)

Gillian Jacobs' fake orgasms were enough to make this show worth watching

ep 8-9

That last jig he does really sells it.

Just finished Bojack S3. Not only did the writing get much more on point as this show went on, I feel like all of the voice cast started really getting into the characters. Is it weird to say that this is the best thing Will Arnett has done? Because it definitely is. But yeah I'll stick to my earlier thoughts: as much as I love David Duchovny, this show is basically what Californication should have been. Super bleak and wonderful.

Yeah, I couldn't get into Californication, it just seemed too self-congratulatory and wasn't funny enough. But Bojack Horseman is super good. Pretty much every supporting character is great, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and once the series gets going, none of them are relegated to "comedy relief" or anything. Even Mr. Peanutbutter is well fleshed-out in the end. The ending to S3 is brutal, though.

Just finished watching Series 4 of Sherlock. I liked it better than Series 3 which was a bit too thin story wise and I didn't like the comedic approach there either, so Series 4 is definitely an improvement. However, Series 1 and 2 had much better writing and fewer plot holes but they were so good and true to the books that it was inevitable it would change. So it did. Series 3 was more removed from the books, changed the characters quite a bit but Series 4 took even more liberties. Just that this time, they actually worked.
I think I need to watch a few times before finally judging it, though.

Edit: Fixed some typos.

Sherlock is a good show all around. The last five minutes of s04 were the only part of it I thought was genuinely bad. S04 I definitely have qualms with, but the production is really good, and of course the leads are consistent.

'Frontier', on the other hand, sucks. Its initial brutality, good production, and entirely misleading Euro-art opening shots are wasted on a disappointingly insubstantial character drama. The story telling is wack, the dialects are poop, the production can't save it because the character interactions are shit. Another good premise gone to wank. I love a good intrigue drama, but the characters have to actually be worth a damn, which they are not in this case. It's one of those cases where even if the story does manage to get good eventually, the particle-board dialogue and improbably shallow characters who didn't get developed past the elevator pitch stage aren't worth subjecting myself to.

TV has no idea how to tell an effective story without people talking all the fucking time.

S4 of Sherlock was good except the final episode. That was really kind of garbage, I mean it had entertaining moments, but when you stop and even think a little bit about it, it completely falls apart.