Watching the first few episodes of Billions. Seems mostly like any other business oriented drama. Two main actors are interesting, but nothing really special.
THE AMERICANS.
Tied with Better Call Saul, itās likely the best drama currently still on. Final season airing, catch up now & thank me later!
One of the few things we agree on. 
- Few things?
Iāve been really enjoying āComedians in Cars Getting Coffeeā! Cool cars, funny people, a well put together show.
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I have been binge watching this too.
GREAT show. Very relaxing to watch. Enjoying it a lot.
Exactly! Really cool way to conduct a ātalk showā. Just a couple of comedian friends hanginā out and chatting without the live crowd/stage feel of traditional talk shows. Just super chill and funny.
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Iām making my way through Northern Exposure S2 again, man what a good show that was. Highly recommended to everyone and anyone whoās not watched before.
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How are you watching that? I thought the original version has basically disappeared forever, and the DVDs mostly use different music. (Same problem as WKRP, I believe: music rights.)
AFAIK there is no way to legally stream NE right now, and the version I am watching does have different music. To be honest, I do not recollect what the changes are as itās been soooo long since I watched it on TV, but there are a lot of criticism online that the changes in music isnāt as good. Iām pretty sure the opening score is the same though.
I ughā¦ acquired my version from a āfriend of a friendā 
.
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OK, cool. I donāt remember the show well enough either, but I do recall that, like in WKRP, the musical choices were pretty important parts of the show.
Good to know that it holds up. It was one of my favorites back in the day.
Really into 2nd season of Billions. Great casting and actors.
(not sure if this goes in movies or TV threadā¦)
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Who watched THE AMERICANS this week?
Holy mother russia.
Freakinā
A.
Iām so wrecked.
Shame on you, Philip. Shame on you, Elizabeth.
Watched Season 1 a while back and enjoyed it ā¦ Iāll get to Season 2 any year now.
Which reminds me of another show Iād better return to. Iām halfway through the final season of Breaking Bad, and left Hank on the shitter a week or two back. Wonder how heās doing?
Iām watching it again. Just about to finish season 3!
I confess Iām not enjoying it as much as I expected. Basically, Iāve never liked Walt or found him particularly interesting as a character (unlike Tony Soprano, one of the other great anti-heroes of our age). I gather a lot of the audience finally turned against him in the final season, but I donāt think I was ever āforā him.
That being said, fantastic acting and writing and filming.
I see it as a straight-up soap opera. There has to be a villian! And if Walt didnāt make his own problems, there wouldnāt be much of a show.
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Yeah, Breaking Bad doesnāt work if you canāt make an emotional connection to Walter White.
Gilligan pitched it to AMC as Mr. Chips becomes Scarface over several seasons, which it is. If you donāt empathize with the main character, then you donāt care if he becomes Scarface. In fact, itās probably boring if you donāt make an emotional connection.
I thought it was great, though. Slightly better than The Sopranos in my book, mainly because I think Vince Gilligan as a story engineer is superior to David Chase in TS. Of course, The Sopranos came first so Gilligan had the advantage of a target.
I watched that āYouāre goddamn rightā scene a couple of weeks ago ā¦ and yup, I just didnāt like it at all. Or more accurately, took it as āGoddamn this pretentious git has no idea of how much damage his idiotic hubris is causing, does he?ā (Imagine if Ricky Gervais from The Office gave that speech. Thatās roughly how I saw it.)
Jesse, Skyler, and Hank are the characters that make the show interesting for me. Iāve felt far more of a connection with those three. (I was sort of hoping for Fring in the big Season 3/4 conflict, because I figured he and Mike would treat Jesse better, and I felt far more a vicarious sense of triumph when Fring defeated the cartel than for any of Walterās victories.) And of course thereās fantastic writing and filming.
I agree that Gilligan does a better job of engineering the story than Chase did in The Sopranos, but I find the character of Tony Soprano much more interesting than Walter White. Tonyās ā¦ amazing. Walter, I dunno, I know itās supposed to be Mr. Chips to Scarface, but to me itās been more like an Iago without a backbone to Iago with a backbone. I gather the original plan was to kill off Jesse in the first season? Thank goodness they didnāt.
Donāt get me wrong - Iām enjoying the show. But as bojack said, the fact that Iām missing that emotional connection means that Iām not enjoying the show as much as many others did.
I think my lack of enthusiasm for Breaking Bad echoes my similar lack of enthusiasm for The Godfather Part II. Both masterfully made, but for me, Michaelās arc was done in the first film. Heād fallen, and heād turned away from his family. He fell more in Part II, but the main action had already been done. And I feel like the same thing happened with Walt in the first few episodes of Season 1.