Ugh, it's awful that the future of Halt and Catch Fire is still in limbo. Still no news on either a cancellation or continuation. If they cancel this show I'll be so disappointed. It's been so damn good and still has so much potential.

Best worst case scenario fantasy: If AMC does drop it, Netflix picks it up, like they did with The Killing

not loving The Killing. up to ep.4.
it feels like an urban pastiche of Twin Peaks, which I also wasn't all that interested in.

is that the bad guy from Kick Ass 2?

Watch the original Danish The Killing. It'll blow your fuckin' mind.

Is Halt And Catch Fire Michael Mann-ish? Some of the screencaps I'm seeing seem like they've got that deliberate, atmosphere-y feel like a Mann film. I also have no idea how, but that sentence is a fucking tongue twister.

I've been sorta-binging through the two seasons of Bojack Horseman. Any fans here? It's an intriguing show; it might look like some bizarre and vulgar Adult Swim-style cartoon series, but it's actually pretty grounded and with real narrative/dramatic depth, masterful continuity and a sort of really effective cleverness sprinkled over everything. It's also hilarious, but manages to mix the serious and the funny pretty much perfectly. Main voice cast includes Will Arnett, Alison Brie, Aaron Paul and there's an impressive array of guest voice actors (including Stanley Tucci, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Wilde and Alan Arkin (<3)).

Also, the theme song rules. Written by the drummer of The Black Keys (you might notice their later albums in the sound).

Yeah I've seen the first two seasons, it's quite good, although Bojack gets a bit annoyingly stupid/irresponsible/a mess at times. Overall though it keeps a pretty good balance between serious drama and cartoonish exaggeration. It's not anywhere close to my favorite show, but it's worth watching, and very easy to watch. Comparable to Archer, but not quite as good.

I was iffy on BoJack at first as the whole "look, he's such an entitled jerk, har har!" thing can wear pretty thing, but once the dramatic elements picked up I really started to like it. S2 was an improvement on S1 as well, I was impressed how dark it was able to get while still being funny. Definitely worth checking out.

Archer is amazing, but as I recall it took a bit of a dive in quality during that cocaine arc. Not sure if I'm up to date with all the episodes.

Speaking of cocaine and quality Netflix shows, I started with Narcos today. Very promising.

Narcos is great, finished it the other day.

Finished season 2 of The Killing. I cried at the end, hahah. But it's still only a "pretty good" show to me, nothing amazing.

Also started watching Attack on Titan because I'm sick and have too much bedridden free time. I really like it, emotionally dark and realistic. No playful Tolkien "I've killed 56, how many have you killed dwarf?" bullshit, just people being terrified and traumatized. I'm in a seminar class on trauma right now, so it's salient.

Attack on Titan is insufferable. I want to like it because the concept is interesting and the plot, when it's actually moving forward, is intriguing... the art style is cool too. But holy fuck is everything else hot garbage. Worst of all are the pacing (entire episodes spent on what should have been a 30 second scene at the most, reusing themes constantly) and the tell-don't-show idea, common in Anime but taken to an extreme here. The storytelling is just such shite.

"I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW! LET ME EXPLAIN MY FEELINGS OF ANGER!!"
"LET ME SHOUT BACK AT YOU BECAUSE I AM ALSO DRIVEN BY UNCONTROLLABLE RAGE WHEN NORMAL HUMANS WOULD JUST BE MILDLY UPSET!"
"HOW DARE YOU SHOUT AT ME! LET ME SHOUT EVEN LOUDER!"
*cue sweatdrops and gritted teeth à la DBZ*

yeah that's true. The dialogue does get pretty masturbatory, and there have been times when I was like "okay can we get to the meat of the story already."

I'm willing to suffer through all that for the up sides so far.

OH MY GOD. Attack on Titan has so much fucking screaming in it, it's true. It's practically caricature and totally exhausting, especially since they're usually screaming about the same thing they already screamed about four times before. Like Morrigan said, the concept is interesting and there are various elements of the whole thing that keep you watching, but god, man, there's so much goddamn flashbacking and episode padding it sort of kills your enthusiasm for the parts that are actually good. Yeah, thinking back on it, that total lack of emotional gradient was really wearing, it was only ever really quiet and hushed or extreme, testicle-imploding fury. Made it impossible to actually feel anything, it's was just really numbing after a while.

Yeah, whenever something supposedly dramatic happens I just don't give a shit. Everyone except Mikasa and potato girl can fuck off and die (okay, the mad scientist woman can stay too, she's amusing), and potato girl only because she was briefly known as potato girl. Everyone else is boring or annoying as hell.

Seriously, it feels like a 13 year old's fanfic come to live. The writing is abysmal.

Must suck to be a voice actor on a series like that, all of them probably end up with swollen tracheal growths or something.

A lot of these anime series seem like they were based entirely on other anime series and how other anime characters act, rather than, y'know, real people. There was that Miyazaki quote about how too many modern anime artists learn to draw by copying other anime instead of real life people, but I think it's just as true of the writing.

I've read the manga and watched the anime and I absolutely love Attack on Titan and have nothing bad to say about it other than that the recent volume of the manga has been moving the plot a bit slowly, but the latest issue makes up for it. The movie, on the other hand...

Speaking of which, the latest Fear the Walking Dead episode really picked things up. Daniel is awesome.

Attack on Titan is so lame. Watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure instead.

Funny enough, my best friend recently got me into JoJo bizarre adventures, didn't expect the ending of season 1 but now starting to understand what kind of show this is. Really good stuff.

Yeah the Phantom Blood chapter is pretty cliche' zombie/shounen stuff, but from that point on it gets crazier and crazier haha. The animation is vastly improved with Stardust Crusaders too.

Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online are further proof that there are people out there who will swallow any shit that's shoved down their throats as long as it's aesthetically pleasing.

Will anyone be watching The Bastard Executioner (starts tomorrow)? It looks like pretty cool.

^I'll be watching it.

Count me in.

I think that's the case in general with tv shows. You don't see that kind of devotion to wade through shit for movies, because it has to be good, except maybe the clique of people who enjoy bad movies. The majority of TV shows are slowburn, mediocre acting, largely non consequential, score is ok but never memorable beyond the theme song, soap opera bickering, disappointing action because of budget and overall tedious to sit through. Only until recently have we received stellar examples such as True Detective and Black Mirror that aim for the quality of a movie.

I think AoT was good beyond aesthetics. Aside from some repetitive and not always well voice-acted dialogue, I thought the overall story and atmosphere were fascinating and some of the characters were interesting. Other than the circular dialogue I didn't have *that* much of an issue with pacing (I did marathon it, however). I'm not even a huge anime fan, last thing I watched was Berserk and it kicks total ass, but I can count the series I've seen on one hand.

Noticed ads for The Bastard Executioner recently and was wondering if it was some sort of quasi-tribute to, or possibly some bastardized (ahem) rendition of, The Book of the New Sun. Reading the synopsis it's sort of hard to tell, would have to see where it goes. I'm curious, though, I'll definitely check it out.

I'm cautiously curious, but that caution runs deep because of Kurt Sutter. I liked Sons of Anarchy because there were a couple of likable characters, but lots of things about that show were pretty irritating, such as the heavy-handed overuse of certain elements like the music montage scenes, certain bits of dialog and character interaction repeated endlessly, the constant introduction of new bits of chaos that just got tiring and predictable, etc.

So yeah, even if the concept is cool, I wouldn't be surprised at all for this to be another semi-disappointment like SoA.

Who can forget the great wasting of time scenes with brooding characters looking off in the distance accompanied by some folk or blues song. Oh how pivotal to the episode.

Hmm, I got tired of SoA after just a few episodes, couldn't really buy into it somehow so I ditched it without getting too far. Maybe the change of setting/story will be better for this show, but yeah, sometimes old directorial habits die hard.

Sons of Anarchy was just horrible to me, but I Sutter did good work on The Shield.

I saw all of SOA, but it annoyed me to no end how the writers obviously wanted to keep that stupid bitch alive for the finale.

Oof, the woman who played Kes on Star Trek: Voyager, who was arguably the best character on the show for the first three seasons, has been arrested for exposing herself to children. Whoops. THE STAR TREK CURSE LIVES ON!

Apparently when they came to arrest her, she was naked and refused to put on clothes. This is her mugshot:

So what did you guys think of the first episode for The Bastard Executioner? I just finished watching it and thought it was better than I was expecting it to be.

I just binged all of Black Mirror since I didn't realize it's only six total ~45 minute episodes. Really interesting shit - basically a contemporary "what if, in the near future..." kind of Twilight Zone show but with really neat scenarios, high production values and good casting.

Don't miss The Christmas Special with John Hamm; it's my favorite except for the Jesse Armstrong episode (Entire History of You).

I watched a bunch of Black Mirror early this year while home sick with nothing to do. Then I sort of forgot about it with everything going on. I need to go back soon and watch all of them sometime - fascinating, well made sci fi. That episode about the British prime minister was great, as was "Entire History of You."

I love everything Brooker does. but Weekly Wipe and How TV Ruined Your Life are prob my favs,

Dr Who season premier was less than stellar to say the least. The writing seems to have tanked and the cinematography is just a fucking disaster. I think the idea behind the episode was cool enough but it was culled by shit performances and crappy dialogue. I think Capaldi has it in him to be a decent Dr but not with the current staff the show has. And it's high fucking time to dump Clara on her ass.

The only thing I really enjoyed about the episode was the resurgence of Missy who actually does a great job at portraying her character.

Tried watching the first episode of The Bastard Executioner but couldn't get through more than a half hour or so. Just really dull, mediocre stuff that seems like it was made by people that are kinda tonedeaf to the sort of material they're trying to produce. Shitty Game of Thrones and Vikings similarities that are there for no reason, flat characters... lame stuff. Oh and the opening Oh fuck, the opening. Ugh, I'd say avoid.

Oh shit anyone excited that Downton Abbey's final season just started???!??!?!??! I know secret babies and kitchen drama get you motherfuckers hyphy. And the wallpaper?!??!?