The Sofa (General Chat Thread)

Mr E

Time for a general chat thread... see how it goes. Only one rule - spoiler tags where necessary. Use your own discretion.


I was sick over Christmas, so I had a chance to catch up on a good bit of TV.

I caught up on Elementary - it has jumped a good bit in quality this year. John Noble has the power to make any show better than the sum of its parts.

I watched Jessica Jones. Really loved that show. Some weak plot elements (like

Jessica moving in with Kilgrave - whyyyyy?

) but it was great overall.

Started Gravity Falls.... who says cartoons are just for kids? Very witty and the writers have a great imagination.

Finally I caught up on season 4 of Saving Hope. Again, much better this season compared to season 3.

Anyone else binge on anything over Christmas (apart from quality street and turkey?)

The Black Oil

Really hope John Noble ends up on a cable show some day.

I am behind on A Making of Murderer.

Looking forward to what Netflix's expansion might bring in terms of diversity. Not in a PC sense, but if a small little country like Denmark can make shows like The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing, there's no reason why say, countries in South America can't produce some good stuff for Netflix.

CastorTroy

I had a similar rant about this before, but was watching Castle on Alibi. Was the last season finale and it was really heavily edited, including cutting out the murder at the beginning and some flashbacks during the episode. Why do they do things like this? Sky have done it with House, at least that I'm aware of, and I remember The Mentalist cutting out a reference to drugs. They cut stuff that you can easily see in a soap like Eastenders and even the older Grange Hill. And this is stuff that makes it past censors in the US where they seem to be stricter.

Right, rant over. Now back to iZombie.

As for catch up over Christmas/the past few weeks, I watched Jessica as well and One-Punch Man. While also being happy about the return of Galavant. Looking forward to checking out Angie Tribeca to see if it lives up to the claim that it's done in the style of Police Squad. Will it be more Epic Movie than Naked Gun?

Mr E

CastorTroy wrote: »

Looking forward to checking out Angie Tribeca to see if it lives up to the claim that it's done in the style of Police Squad. Will it be more Epic Movie than Naked Gun?

Never heard of it, but it looks fantastic!!
You can definitely see the Police Squad/Naked Gun influences.

Are all 10 episodes really out next Sunday?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKivuQ4HpF4

The Black Oil

Time of day re the cutting, or maybe a fear of complaints.

somesoldiers

I rewatched s01 of Matrioshkis, after discovering it on Sky over Christmas. it is available on sky catch up under Sky Arts for anyone interested, I would highly recommend it. Had first watched it when living in Belgium back in 2005

It centres on sex trafficking of girls from Eastern Europe into Antwerp to work as dancers but really as sex slaves. There is also a second series available in the usual places. I hadn't even known s2 existed so was happy to binge all 20 episodes in a couple of days, made up for everyone else being sick and not being able to go any where


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320882/

Just finished s2 of Kingdom, centred around an MMA gym in California but not too much of that MMA stuff or I'd not have stuck it, great show with some crazy characters

Mr E

The Black Oil wrote: »

Time of day re the cutting, or maybe a fear of complaints.

Ah remember the days of the RTE and UTV cuts?

Yippee-kay-ay kemosabe!

The Black Oil

It's because of this forum that I've learned about a bunch of great TV shows - thanks!

CastorTroy

Mr E wrote: »

Never heard of it, but it looks fantastic!!
You can definitely see the Police Squad/Naked Gun influences.

Are all 10 episodes really out next Sunday?

Yep, they're airing all 10 episodes, which are only half hour each, on a loop for 25 hours. Then according to wiki, the season 2 premiere is on the following week. Carrell said that like Police Squad, they're gonna be playing the roles seriously. It's also been compared to Sledge Hammer (I know I trust them because they seem to know what they're doing). So not as over the top as NTSF:SD:SUV I suppose or contain the intentionally comedic characters of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Hope it's good. Even the tagline on the poster says "Finally! A show about cops!"

The Black Oil wrote: »

Time of day re the cutting, or maybe a fear of complaints.

Seems very random with the cuts at times though. Then they seem to reair the edited version for the late night repeats they do. Just annoying. Puts me off watching repeats

CastorTroy

Mr E wrote: »

Ah remember the days of the RTE and UTV cuts?

Yippee-kay-ay kemosabe!

Yeah never understood why they would start showing Die Hard before the watershed, and even though scenes like that appeared after the watershed, they still couldn't have it because of the start time. Even if they stopped for the News @ !0 during it

pickarooney

somesoldiers wrote: »

I rewatched s01 of Matrioshkis, after discovering it on Sky over Christmas. it is available on sky catch up under Sky Arts for anyone interested, I would highly recommend it. Had first watched it when living in Belgium back in 2005

It centres on sex trafficking of girls from Eastern Europe into Antwerp to work as dancers but really as sex slaves. There is also a second series available in the usual places. I hadn't even known s2 existed so was happy to binge all 20 episodes in a couple of days, made up for everyone else being sick and not being able to go any where


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0320882/

Just finished s2 of Kingdom, centred around an MMA gym in California but not too much of that MMA stuff or I'd not have stuck it, great show with some crazy characters

I watched matrioshki just a couple of months ago. I'd highly recommend it. The marriage of the grim and the hilarious is extremely well done. I found myself adopting an Antwerp accent at work for weeks afterwards

I finally got around to the Americans. It took me a while to get into it but I love it now.

The kids are gorging on gravity falls an I wish I ad the time to Join them.

Lovely Bloke

I'm finding it really hard to get to grips with Netflix/Amazon etc method of distribution, and finding somewhere online to chat/read about those shows.

With traditional weekly shows you get the "S05E11" weekly threads, you know what to expect in those threads, and you don't open them until you've watched.

But I'm literally afraid to open threads about Making A Murderer, Transparent, The Man In The High Castle and all those type of shows in case I inadvertently spoil those shows on myself. I don't like the constant black lines in those threads either, and the conversation is totally non-linear, so you might get a few posts talking about Episode 2, then someone a bit further ahead starts talking about Episode 6, then some other fella might say something about Episode 3 - tough to follow and messy too.

Is there any way we could have threads for each episode? and maybe a thread for people to post in when they've finished watching, to discuss the finer points and nuances that appear after a full watch.

Like this

Making a Murderer Ep1
Making a Murderer Ep2
Making a Murderer Ep3
Making a Murderer Ep4
Making a Murderer Ep5
Making a Murderer Ep6
Making a Murderer Ep7
Making a Murderer Ep8
Making a Murderer Ep9
Making a Murderer Ep10
Making a Murderer Post Watch

pickarooney

The online tv forum was set up for this but I think it's not really visible enough.

Agent Coulson

I'm totally obsessed with the absolutely terrible History channel reality show The Curse of Oak Island.

Lovely Bloke

pickarooney wrote: »

The online tv forum was set up for this but I think it's not really visible enough.

Even in there, there is one single thread for every show, so the problem is the same.

MAM, HOC

I certainly can't read beyond a certain post in the MaM thread, where someone asks about the spoiler policy.

What you get is a thread full of wishy-washy "this is so great" posts, peppered with posts full of black-lined content, often with no indication outside the spoilers as to where in the series that particular post relates to, so you could unspoiler a post in the middle of a discussion about Episode 3, where someone mentions events in Episode 8, which you haven't watched.

So, I don't bother even going to that forum due to the nature of the content of it. It's unreadable, and pretty useless.

The Black Oil

I think there was an expectation - for some people - that the Online TV forum would break off into episode specific discussions. That really hasn't happened, at all. The mods encouraged people to go ahead with this format if they wished, but bingeing has become so 'go to' that any such talk is fairly low down on the priority list. Certainly don't have a problem with it myself as I can be a slow viewer compared to others. Bit more challenging to discuss themes and narrative if you blitz through 6 episodes, imo.

Mr E

There is absolutely nothing stopping people from creating episode by episode threads in the OTV forum.

FWIW, I don't think that they'd be particularly active, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

The Black Oil

Feck it, I'll start a thread on MAM 1.01, what harm can it do? It's the only one I've watched.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I blitzed through a re-watch of Oz over the Christmas period. Still the Godfather of modern television if you ask me - we wouldn't have the type of quality shows we have today were it not for Oz paving the way. I'm not saying it's the greatest show of all-time or anything, but it's brilliant all the same and an milestone series in television history.

I'm also currently paving through a re-watch of the first two season of The 100 before season 3 kicks off next week and I can't champion the show enough, so urge anyone who hasn't seen it to hop on the auld Netflix and press play... It's kinda like Battlestar Galactacca meets LOST meets Lord of the Flies if you need an idea of what it's all about before diving in.
The first couple of episodes are nothing to write home about, but the show does find it's feet very quickly and becomes must see TV by episode 5 or 6...

The Black Oil

I watched s1 of Oz a good while ago, haven't gotten back to it yet.

I've watched a few episodes of Fargo s1 on Netflix. A year ago I probably wouldn't have bothered, but I'm enjoying it a lot. Tonally, the humour, some of the imagery and Molly the deputy is pretty great too. Enjoyable in its own right, away from the film.

Agent Coulson

Hill Street & Homicide for me would be the Godfathers of modern television.

somesoldiers

The Black Oil wrote: »

I watched s1 of Oz a good while ago, haven't gotten back to it yet.

I've watched a few episodes of Fargo s1 on Netflix. A year ago I probably wouldn't have bothered, but I'm enjoying it a lot. Tonally, the humour, some of the imagery and Molly the deputy is pretty great too. Enjoyable in its own right, away from the film.

I gave Oz a go recently, got about 3 episodes in and decided life was too short, that reminds me must watch Fargo 2 I really enjoyed 1

pickarooney

Has anyone watched Dag? One of the best comedies ever.

JP Liz V1

I don't understand why people go into a thread on a specific show even with spoilers and country pace in title and complain about spoilers for an aired episode, surely if you haven't watched the latest episode you don't go in, simple as, sorry for the rant but this bugs me

Also Starring LeVar Burton

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I don't understand why people go into a thread on a specific show even with spoilers and country pace in title and complain about spoilers for an aired episode, surely if you haven't watched the latest episode you don't go in, simple as, sorry for the rant but this bugs me

Ditto.

The Black Oil

Concluded Fargo s1, very enjoyable. Thought 1.08 was weaker than the others, but the final two were very good. 1.09 had a nicely tense scene, just two people in a coffee shop/dinner. Finale was just right too, somewhat haunting. Wouldn't be a Martin Freeman fan, perhaps not helped by his character lying so much.

Are you guys believers in the concept of so-called 'peak TV'?

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9301867/peak-tv

http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2015/08/16/432458841/television-2015-is-there-really-too-much-tv

Mr E

There was a 3 part TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's "And then there were none" on over Christmas and I finished it this morning. I didn't know the story, but apparently it was originally called "Ten Little Ni**ers" in 1939 - different times!

Ten people are invited to a remote island and are picked off one by one. A classic whodunnit and will keep you guessing until the end (unless you've read the book).

They kept the original time period (1939), so they didn't try to put a modern spin on it. Great cast too, including Sam Neil, Charles Dance and Miranda Richardson.

Quite gruesome in places too, so not one for the kids.

Riveting TV, recommended.

Lovely Bloke

yeah, that was an excellent short piece of TV really, loads of misdirection and mystery.

Funny story, one day over Xmas myself and my wife had both sets of parents over for lunch and we got to talking about it - her parents had seen it and my parents said they'd been recording it.

My MiL blabbed out "XXX did it", and my own mother's jaw just dropped.

It was a pretty shítty thing to do, but funny all the same. I just picarded saying "spoilers ffs".

Mr E

Mother in Laws, eh?

Skid X

Mr E wrote: »

There was a 3 part TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's "And then there were none" on over Christmas and I finished it this morning. I didn't know the story, but apparently it was originally called "Ten Little Ni**ers" in 1939 - different times!

Ten people are invited to a remote island and are picked off one by one. A classic whodunnit and will keep you guessing until the end (unless you've read the book).

They kept the original time period (1939), so they didn't try to put a modern spin on it. Great cast too, including Sam Neil, Charles Dance and Miranda Richardson.

Quite gruesome in places too, so not one for the kids.

Riveting TV, recommended.

I really enjoyed that too. Gripping well paced drama with a fine cast. It got decent numbers for BBC1 over Christmas week, but I think it would have attracted more viewers if it had been scheduled in the New Year.

Three consecutive nights for a relatively heavy drama at Christmas is a bit much, a lot of viewers would have missed it.

CastorTroy

How long is it? Is it Sherlock length miniseries or Luther? So sn hour or 90 mins per episode?

Just about to start into Angie Tribeca.

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I don't understand why people go into a thread on a specific show even with spoilers and country pace in title and complain about spoilers for an aired episode, surely if you haven't watched the latest episode you don't go in, simple as, sorry for the rant but this bugs me

Although I don't complain, this came up in the Supergirl thread when I was using spoiler tags. The reason being is that with the way the US schedules episodes, I have a habit of forgetting when an episode might air. So may click in to see comments on the previous episodes, only to see people have started talking about one I haven't seen. So I use spoilers for at least the first day after it airs in case others make the same mistake as me.

Skid X

CastorTroy wrote: »

How long is it? Is it Sherlock length miniseries or Luther? So sn hour or 90 mins per episode?

3 * 60 minutes

Mr E

CastorTroy wrote: »

Just about to start into Angie Tribeca.

I found the first one amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny. Shame.

Let me know if it gets better!

CastorTroy

Yeah it's not quite Police Squad, but it'll do. I'm about to start episode 4. Easy watch and found 2 and 3 better than 1.

The Black Oil

Finally getting back to The Leftover s1.

pickarooney

The Black Oil wrote: »

Finally getting back to The Leftover s1.

I only watched the pilot so far and there was nothing in which caught my interest. Does it take time to get going?

Mr.Prodston

So yeah. I've just finished The Sopranos.

What the hell am I meant to do for the rest of my life now?

Thundercats Ho

Mr.Prodston wrote: »

So yeah. I've just finished The Sopranos.

What the hell am I meant to do for the rest of my life now?

Watch Deadwood?

Mr.Prodston

Thundercats Ho wrote: »

Watch Deadwood?

I actually got the box set at Christmas. I might give myself a week or 2 to readjust again now that I've finally completed the holy trinity of Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos.

The Black Oil

pickarooney wrote: »

I only watched the pilot so far and there was nothing in which caught my interest. Does it take time to get going?

Have watched 3 episodes of The Leftovers. I wasn't sure what to make of the third one, not to say it was bad, more 'oh'...I'll try a few more.

Deadwood's better than The Wire, imo.

Nuts or fruit are my TV snack. What about the rest of ye?

CastorTroy

Was wondering, are there any series these days that have a following like Lost who analyse every little detail?

The Black Oil

The Making a Murderer a thread seems that way, though I've not really read it in detail as I've only seen one episode. Are you thinking of fictional shows?

CastorTroy

Yeah, fictional shows. Haven't watched Making of a Murderer but I know enough that loads of people now believe themselves lawyers/detectives/whatever

The Black Oil

Hmmm. I wonder if that's down to its tone.

There's a really strong (imo) underlying breathless chant of "he's innocent" that I think might be diminishing its quality a little. I have only seen 4 episodes. I don't know the outcome. Just something that has struck me and made me pause.

dball

does anyone know what station is showing lovehate series 1 - Id like to watch this from the start but never got around to it?
it was mentioned here on the forums but I cant seem to search on boards today.

brian_t

dball wrote: »

does anyone know what station is showing lovehate series 1 - Id like to watch this from the start but never got around to it?
it was mentioned here on the forums but I cant seem to search on boards today.

Spike shows it late on Wednesday night but they have already shown the first 3 episodes of series one.

The Black Oil

Do you guys think some of the US networks will eventually ditch the traditional pilot season model?

CastorTroy

I always wonder why they don't release the pilots that aren't picked up on iTunes or somewhere like they did with Aquaman. Might make some of the money back. Also means we get to see proper copies instead of poor quality leaks. Or we get to see ones we want to see, like Locke and Key.
Though I suppose then it means we would want more.

CastorTroy

I always wonder why they don't release the pilots that aren't picked up on iTunes or somewhere like they did with Aquaman. Might make some of the money back. Also means we get to see proper copies instead of poor quality leaks. Or we get to see ones we want to see, like Locke and Key.
Though I suppose then it means we would want more.

Mr E

I'm working my way through Suits at the moment. I dropped it some time around season 3 for some reason, but got the urge to pick it up again.

I'm on season 4 now, and I'm finding it very dry - a show to have on in the background while I'm doing something else. I'm finding it hard to root for any particular characters apart from Louis and Donna - they are the only ones who have a personality.

Poochie05

I gave up around the same stage I think - or at least only dropped in sporadically from around then.
Couldn't stand Rachael, everyone falling out and strained relationships between Mike, Harvey, Jessica and whoever else all led to me not caring about what happened. Like you Louis and Donna were the only ones who interested me.