What TV shows are you watching (2021)?

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Yeah, the preview is probably the best thing about the show. But what a preview!

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I might cancel netflix because 90% of content is low budget reality and rights to European shows about isolated small town murders/mysteries in snowy weather, but not before I watch this.

They did the same show last year actually, they just had people in separate rooms where they couldn’t see each other before picking.

Actually it’s the third show like this, there’s another one where people can’t see each other, only post a picture and text, and they can lie about who they are too.

The best dating show I’ve seen involved people with degrees of autism. It’s great because they just say what they’re thinking.

A show with seniors dating would yield similar results too.

I seem to remember there being a similar show on the BBC. This one has better costumes though.

I’m sure there’s a billion of them, plan being that eventually a monkey at his typewriter will chonk out a winner like the Bachelor. I like the costume idea though, because why not be absurd as possible.

Drama- it slogs a bit.

For All Mankind.

Alt history space race where the Soviets landed first on the moon, spurring increased competition and tech development (moonbase etc). Extremely well done, recommended for anyone interested in the Cold War and space exploration.

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Don’t knock those shows. ‘Dark’ is one of the best shows to come to Flix in the last couple years.

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That one made my brain hurt. I had to sit there with a family tree open in another tab while I was watching it.

I saw it, it was good, though I agree with the premise it’s too dense to bother following.

But for every Dark there’s 20 others like it. They’re not horrible or anything, some are solid, they’re usually not offensively bad direction or acting-wise, but mostly underwhelming. And they drag.

They follow a template, basic budget, small town, small cast, local law enforcement solving x.

It’s the template stuff that gets me, like the reality shows on NF. Low cost looking for high appeal.

They may as well come out of a factory, the level of artistic quality and talent on NF is at an all time low. Specifically the production quality of the vast majority of netflix productions, it’s flat out poor.

Well, there’s a mix of bad and good (and everything in between) on all the streaming platforms and premium channels now. It’s not like the old days when everything was good. A lot of crap is getting the green light nowadays. For my money, NF still has enough good stuff to warrant me not cancelling my subscription.

Ok to be honest I’m beginning to contemplate thinking about it. They’re going cheap though and other platforms are actually investing in talent.

Saw NF mentioned yesterday on CNBC, they give up something like 7-13 billion in revenue by not having ads. And they’re not moving the needle forward now as a business in other ways so guess what’s coming on top of your (sorry, our) monthly fee?

What’s your alternative though? Apple, Disney +, Amazon Prime, HBO Max? Everything is so Balkanized between the different services now, so none of their catalogs are that comprehensive or complete anymore.

You’re right stuff is too spread thin, in a few years i imagine there’s a smaller pool of players there and people will typically sub to 2 of them. In many cases Disney, then one for the adults. Netflix may turn it up to compete too and remain a good all in one, at the moment I’m finding it a nauseating experience though.

At least until this dating show with the costumes showed up. :eyes:

I just finished Mare of Easttown on HBO/Catchplay.

Although it does have a little vibe of

…so may not appeal if you don’t like that kind of series.

Actually, I felt it had something of the feel of Twin Peaks and Fargo.
Kate Winslet is really good and believable.

Plenty of twists and turns, and it wraps things up in 7 episodes, so not too great an investment of time. A big plus for me, as I quickly get bored of shows which go on and on for 20+ episodes, each one drawing out a miniscule scrap of plot over an hour’s viewing.

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I saw it too, thought it was excellent, and Winslet is fantastic.

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I’m quickly going through Mythic Quest, on Apple+. It’s … OK. I gather it’s some of the same people as Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which I’ve never seen, and Community, which I love. Hijinks in a toxic game-studio workplace. As the second season goes on, it’s edging deeper into “All these people are assholes” territory, which isn’t something I usually enjoy, but the show is working well for lifting weights at home. If I like a show too much I wind up taking excessively long breaks between sets.

It’s doing the Community thing of occasional giant genre swings, with each season having one-off barely related episodes that are really, really good short dramas. But in Community those all felt like the same show. In Mythic Quest they feel like visions of a possibly better show.

I will highly recommend an episode called “Quarantine”, first aired between seasons a little over a year ago about, yes, going crazy working at home. That was excellent. I think it’d work even if you don’t know who the not-exactly-deep characters are.

If you like the pilot, keep going, although the pilot is probably one of the better typical hijinks episodes. If you don’t like the pilot, my god, stop, except for giving “Dark Quiet Death” (this first season one-off) a shot, and definitely the between-seasons “Quarantine”.

Danny Pudy - Abed in Community - is having a great time playing a villain.

If you’ve got Apple+, Ted Lasso and For All Mankind should be far higher priority than this one, but it’s OK background viewing.

Yup, seconded. I’ve got to get back to that - I think I’m three episodes in? I was watching it while exercising, then realized I want to give it full attention, so it’s been put on the back burner for a while.

I think it was S1E03 that tells the story of (mild spoiler) the women they’re bringing into the program to compete with the evil commie feminist Ruskies - I was so impressed with that episode. Most dramas I’ve seen in the past few years are flabby 10-episode long “movies”, with single episodes that could almost have random start and stop points. But that episode did such a great job of telling one story in the midst of a much larger arc.

Yes, the series races forward at a surprisingly fast pace, jumping years ahead at times. Refreshing. Would not be a spoiler to say that by the start of season 2 we are in 1983.

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Firefly

Starts really good and really gets great after first few episodes and great story lines. Seems like there is a cult following.

Something of interest to people here.

  • Chinese words and phrases are used frequently in every episode with no translation. There are quite a lot of interesting and funny phrases. It is because the USA and China are now an alliance and many people speak both languages.
  • Here is a link to all of the Chinese used in the series
    The Message - By Title - Firefly-Serenity Chinese Pinyinary
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Um … you’re not anticipating those story lines going much of anywhere after those first few episodes, are you? Because there’s those first few, and then another few, and that’s it.

It’s probably been posted upthread somewhere, but there is the movie Serenity, which serves as an adequate wrap-up to the series.

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