Author Topic: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?  (Read 333929 times)

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Offline 6pairsofshoes

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1620 on: April 13, 2020, 12:33:52 PM »
I started watching Outlander last night.  First episode.  Talented cast.  I'm not sure I'll be able to stick with it.  Too many improbable things happening.

One question for my Brit friends.  Would it have been common in the 18th century for Scottish highlanders to be bilingual?  Would they have routinely spoken both English and Gaelic?  I wonder at several things.  Woman showing up speaking English in 20th century dress and nobody thinks it odd in any way.  Rural Scots just let her take over a medical procedure because she interjects herself.  Oh well.  I know it's just tv, but I was curious as to how likely the whole business was.  I mean, ok, she's in a stone circle that somehow begins to function like a time machine.  Granted.  That's pretty weird from the get go, but once we accept that do we also have to run roughshod over every other factual situation?

In GoT, I just accepted that this was a different time and place, so of course there's Whitewalkers and little fairy people and flying dragons and women who can walk through fire.  Fine and dandy.  But post WW2 lady goes back to 18th c. and these rural guys just roll with it?
« Last Edit: April 13, 2020, 11:38:55 PM by 6pairsofshoes »

Offline 6pairsofshoes

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1621 on: April 14, 2020, 02:04:22 AM »
Big Trouble at Barney's.   On amazon prime.  Brother and sister inherit father's pool hall only to find it's deeply in debt.   They try to save their father's legacy and comedy ensues.  A sweet series.  It kind of reminds me of Lodge 49 without the stoners.

Offline 8ullfrog

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1622 on: April 14, 2020, 03:05:09 AM »
I've been putting off SG-1 10 after you dropped 9.

Offline 6pairsofshoes

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1623 on: April 14, 2020, 03:55:44 AM »
Does it get any better?  I couldn't get past the first episode of Season 9.

Offline 8ullfrog

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1624 on: April 14, 2020, 06:33:38 AM »
I'll spoil it, they lose. horribly.

Online goldshirt*9

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1625 on: April 15, 2020, 12:38:04 AM »
Wife loves this so its on, better than some of the other dross

Offline 6pairsofshoes

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1626 on: April 20, 2020, 02:38:57 AM »
Westworld gets more and more grim.  The futuristic architecture and engineering on display is entertaining.  Lots of shoot em up and torment to go around.  Who are we supposed to be rooting for on this show anyway?  I say Dolores, because she's focused on her goals and strives to do anything she can to achieve them.  Like a master class in the art of war.

Homeland gets more and more grim.  There's a dimwit in the White House who cares more about his ratings than serious governance.  He relies on mr. bad guy to advise him, a guy who would rather punch you in the nose rather than have a dialogue to see if a compromise could be worked out.  Carrie is in  trouble.  What's new.  Stay tuned.  Maybe she'll be spared from a treason sentence and will get to see her kid again.  Who knows?
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 09:20:33 AM by 6pairsofshoes »

Offline 8ullfrog

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1627 on: April 20, 2020, 10:03:47 PM »
yeah, after I learned that Westworld S2 was ACTIVELY HOSTILE to the audience because the secrets of Season 1 were spoiled a few hours after the scalp maze reveal, I walked away.

The concept is very cool, but I don't much want to watch a show where the people making it hate me.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/westworld-season-3-ed-harris-man-black-explained-1290835
« Last Edit: April 20, 2020, 10:11:54 PM by 8ullfrog »

Offline 6pairsofshoes

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1628 on: April 21, 2020, 12:08:05 AM »
I'm fascinated by the sets, the makeup and the special effects.  It's also so far beyond the thin screenplay that parades itself as the novel, that I'm curious to see how far it goes.  So much has changed in the way of robotics and stem cell research, genetics, etc. since Crichton wrote the original that the television show has taken on an independent life.  The show expresses the perspective of a younger generation of writers, who have been influenced by movie adaptations of books.  Blade Runner, Gattica, etc. all deal with issues of robotics, cybernetics, cyborgs, etc. in ways that merge developments in biological sciences with AI and robotics, so this is a more modern synthesis of those things.  I guess that's one aspect that interests me. 

But the hybrid sets that integrate the latest in plastiform infrastructures, like bridges, transportation hubs, and tall office structures intrigue me the most.  It makes me wonder what the CGI people have in mind.  There was a series of commercials for Transitions lenses, eyeglasses that change with lighting conditions, that were filmed in Brasilia, a new capital constructed in the center of Brasil in the late 1950's and '60's.  That was the image of the future and it is echoed a lot in the sets of urban spaces in Westworld.   That's a far cry from the Disneyfied main streets of the wild west from Season 1.

Online goldshirt*9

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1629 on: April 30, 2020, 09:46:09 AM »
With the "lock down" in UK, unless you want to buy a house / antique or make a meal (although getting the product would be hard.
TV is pretty poor (IMHO).

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1630 on: May 02, 2020, 08:46:53 AM »
There is always Columbo.
Don't put off until tomorrow, what you can put off until the day after.

There is an exception to every rule, apart from this one.

Online goldshirt*9

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1631 on: May 03, 2020, 12:08:08 AM »
There is always Columbo.

Wife will tape and watch anything Hospital related ( why I dont know as she works in one)  Also anything criminal based, and Chateau DIY.

One fact to come out of this lock down is
Body bags have been redesigned to pull of a roll similar to Bin bags.

Offline 8ullfrog

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1632 on: May 03, 2020, 02:19:27 AM »
I always found it terrifying that if you're zipped into one, and wake up, you're screwed. They don't open from the inside. Learned that from KoRn.

I always found the TV detector van advert where they snoop on some scumbag watching columbo amusing.

I've really got nothing to watch, WAS watching SG-1, but 6 convinced me not to force myself to watch something I am not enjoying.

The Ori are bless'ed poo.

Offline 6pairsofshoes

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1633 on: May 07, 2020, 09:29:06 AM »
Homeland rescues itself at the end.  Overall, it's a really compelling series.

I finished Season 3 of Westworld and was pleased to see that it redeemed itself.  There is, surprisingly, another season coming.  Aaron Paul is an interesting addition to the cast.

Has anyone watched Devs?  I just read an article comparing the two in the context of the problem of free will vs determinism.  To say that the televised Westworld far surpasses the film script (I haven't seen the original movie) is a gross understatement.  Here's the article, a interview with the physicist, Sean Carroll.  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/arts/television/westworld-finale-devs-sean-carroll.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

I've been casting about for something compelling to watch.  Have been bingeing Sex and the City.  That's annoying, but it's far better than Girls.  It's mindless and its pretenses to self reflection are comical at best.  I think it's quite dated, interesting to see people wearing portable CD players and not using cell phones.

Also watching Season 9 of Trailer Park Boys.  That's another show that seems kind of forced, but is reminiscent of a modern Three Stooges.  Sure, it seems stale, but it's still entertaining.
« Last Edit: May 07, 2020, 10:51:29 AM by 6pairsofshoes »

Offline 6pairsofshoes

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Re: What's your favourite TV program of the moment?
« Reply #1634 on: May 18, 2020, 10:05:42 AM »
Sex and the City is sort of a "dig me" surrounded by fan girls and a fashion show along with desirable successful men with nothing better to do than to obsess over Sarah Jessica Parker.  It gets old, and her frequent squeaky screaming, combined with an unenlightened obsession with Manolo Blahnik shoes, awakens a desire to throw her overboard, mid-Atlantic.  Not a favorite.  Why I feel the need to punish myself with this kind of dreck mystifies me.  It's a billion times better than Girls, however, so things are looking up.

I did watch, for sheer pleasure, another Berlin-based show, this time a miniseries, "Unorthodox."  About a young woman, aged 19, trapped in a stultifying Orthodox Jewish marriage in Brooklyn NY, who escapes to Berlin.  It's 4 episodes.  I watched it on a streaming site and the chunks of Yiddish dialogue, without subtitles, were a little challenging to slog through (it's kind of like Middle High German), helped by occasional English words and phrases interjected into the mix.  There are frequent flashbacks to her former life in Brooklyn, to give context to the journey.  Tension arises due to her family's efforts to drag her back, etc.  So it's a quest for freedom and liberation, oddly enough, by a young Jewish girl, seeking solace in Berlin, an irony in itself that goes unaddressed.

But it was a satisfying series -- well acted and sort of spare in production.  She ends up at a music academy and finds kindred spirits there.  I think it's on Netflix, where they may even provide subtitles. 
« Last Edit: May 18, 2020, 10:08:36 AM by 6pairsofshoes »