TV Serieseseses
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How Every Character Was Cast on The Wire
(An excerpt from Jonathan Abrams’s All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire.)
Your Favorite Actors from 'The Wire' Explain How They Got Cast
An oral history of casting one of the greatest shows of all time.
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Nostalgia is a helluva drug (massive spoiler for the new Star Trek)
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Actually got goosebumps. Interesting to see how they handle a younger Spock and Captain Pike.
Star Trek Discovery is starting to hit it straps (average finale aside), has some interesting takes on the Trek universe. And even tits and arse (even if some of it is Klingon) for MN5.
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Discovery is really dreadful. It tried to be Game of Thrones in space in the second half, and it's just dopey, poorly written, charmless schlock. Looks good though.
It hasn't presented a single interesting idea. Problems are solved because the awful lead character has a genius idea that is never revealed. She wins all the fights too.
They just introduce a bunch of unconnected events and sequences in rapid and random order, never connecting them or building for a payoff.
Garbage. Worst of all it presents a lame and generic "dark" sci-fi future that is completely unappealing. Who gives a shit about saving that federation. There's no earned stakes.
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don't think I mentioned this before...
Gunpowder, with Jon Snow, although think it is Tom Cullen who plays Guy Fawkes and a unhot Liv Tyler, as you might guess by a character, based on the attempt to blow up Parliament.
Anywho, 1 historical moment out of 3 pretty boring episodes.
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Just finished Billions S1. I thought it was great Ep 1 - 6, then it lost the plot a bit for a few episodes and then it got good again on the home straight.
Then it completely ruined it all with the showdown in the offices at the end. WTF. I was laughing through that whole scene.
One other problem with the show is that Paul Giamatti's character is just so unikeable whereas Major Winters is likeable, even when he does shitty stuff.
Anyway, I have S2 to look forward to now, so that's all good.
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@taniwharugby said in TV Serieseseses:
don't think I mentioned this before...
Gunpowder, with Jon Snow, although think it is Tom Cullen who plays Guy Fawkes and a unhot Liv Tyler, as you might guess by a character, based on the attempt to blow up Parliament.
Anywho, 1 historical moment out of 3 pretty boring episodes.
Watched one episode. Aside from some gruesome executions it was boring as batshit and Liv Tyler as you mentioned looks like hammered shit. Jon Snow not being Jon Snow didn't help either.
Have just started Counterpart. Two episodes in and looks extremely promising. Nice plot.
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@mn5 I woulda given it 1/5 but I couldn't think of a reason to weight it out of 5 as there were luckily only 3 eps.
Saw it advertised with Jon Snow as lead, I expect that sucked plenty of people in.
I have Counterpart on my Watchlist, I like JK Simmons.
I see there is also a series about Waco started.
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Is this where we talk about 30 for 30s? 'cause i watched one on Rick Flair last night and it was goddam awesome.
I only really knew Flair when he was old in the late 90s, and just a shit character. Turns out he was fucking awesome. Watching a bunch of wrestling legends speak about his ability in awe was pretty surprising (not sure I've seen Hogan give anyone that level of praise).
The last 15 minutes gets pretty fucking somber though. Shaun Michaels absolutely nails it.
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@mariner4life heard them talking about that a few weeks back on RS, amid reports that Flair had supposedly slept with something like 10,000 women
Those 30 for 30 are pretty good though, another worth looking at is the one on John Daly, am sure there are plenty of others too.
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The Flair one was successful enough ESPN have already greenlit a 30-For-30 about Andre (in-production). That John Daly one from last year was very cool too, a good ol’ boy folk hero.
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@mariner4life said in TV Serieseseses:
Is this where we talk about 30 for 30s? 'cause i watched one on Rick Flair last night and it was goddam awesome.
I only really knew Flair when he was old in the late 90s, and just a shit character. Turns out he was fucking awesome. Watching a bunch of wrestling legends speak about his ability in awe was pretty surprising (not sure I've seen Hogan give anyone that level of praise).
The last 15 minutes gets pretty fucking somber though. Shaun Michaels absolutely nails it.
I bet he couldn't drink as well as Andre the Giant though
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@tim said in TV Serieseseses:
Discovery is really dreadful. It tried to be Game of Thrones in space in the second half, and it's just dopey, poorly written, charmless schlock. Looks good though.
It hasn't presented a single interesting idea. Problems are solved because the awful lead character has a genius idea that is never revealed. She wins all the fights too.
They just introduce a bunch of unconnected events and sequences in rapid and random order, never connecting them or building for a payoff.
Garbage. Worst of all it presents a lame and generic "dark" sci-fi future that is completely unappealing. Who gives a shit about saving that federation. There's no earned stakes.
Most of what you described is basic Trek problem solution, from Kirk to Picard. Someone always comes up with a batshit crazy solution - usually with techno babble - and they always win hand to hand combat.
Discovery is no different there.
I do find the nudity jarring in a Trek universe, they could drop that and lose nothing.
I agreed with the war/militaristic tone issue until they had the huge twist that explained that completely. They ended up in a very Star Trek hippy dippy vibe.
I also like the structure being a compromise between episode long arcs and season long arcs. They had three main story blocks, with two cliffhangers before have a finale to wrap up the story (I don't include the above as a cliffhanger, that's a "please watch us next season hook").
Respect that you think it's garbage, but I grew into it and really enjoy walking dead actor's acting.
Special effects are movie quality at times. Just look at that Enterprise! The deflector shield!
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@kirwan Nah, old Trek at least worked through a problem in basic sci-fi/tv manner, and earned a resolution. Here they just say it's solved and everything is finished up in a couple of minutes. There's no setup and payoff, it's just a random thing that happens. Very JJ Abrams. Very dumb and empty. The resolution of the bomb issue and the war in the final episode was a good example of this.
No drama, no tension, no stakes, no ideas, no interest.
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@tim said in TV Serieseseses:
@kirwan Nah, old Trek at least worked through a problem in basic sci-fi/tv manner, and earned a resolution. Here they just say it's solved and everything is finished up in a couple of minutes. There's no setup and payoff, it's just a random thing that happens. Very JJ Abrams. Very dumb and empty. The resolution of the bomb issue and the war in the final episode was a good example of this.
No drama, no tension, no stakes, no ideas, no interest.
Captain Kirk once conquered a planet by telling them that the Federation was the biggest syndicate in the universe. While dressed as a 30s gangster.
I can come up with equally stupid resolutions from the next generation too.
People take TV way to seriously these days. It's always been stupid, that's why it's fun.
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@kirwan A total cop out answer. All TV is not equally poorly written.
In the Syndicate episode that one was one small element. It was silly, but it had charm, and it worked through the plot while adhering to the rules it set out - the problem wasn't solved by a deus ex machina, or simply having a character state that everything worked out. It had some good lines ("You do not even know what the action is."), and was well paced.
Discovery takes itself extremely seriously, and features interminable, self-important monologues full of cliches and meaningless pablum. The very silly, not at all thought out, plot devices and resolutions are completely at odds with its self-serious tone and ambition.
You cannot make a case for a show if you just excuse it's failings by saying "oh well it's just stupid TV." It is indeed stupid TV, and it can be far more than that. It may as well be Supergirl.
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@tim said in TV Serieseseses:
@kirwan A total cop out answer. All TV is not equally poorly written.
In the Syndicate episode that one was one small element. It was silly, but it had charm, and it worked through the plot while adhering to the rules it set out - the problem wasn't solved by a deus ex machina, or simply having a character state that everything worked out. It had some good lines ("You do not even know what the action is."), and was well paced.
Discovery takes itself extremely seriously, and features interminable, self-important monologues full of cliches and meaningless pablum. The very silly, not at all thought out, plot devices and resolutions are completely at odds with its self-serious tone and ambition.
You cannot make a case for a show if you just excuse it's failings by saying "oh well it's just stupid TV." It is indeed stupid TV, and it can be far more than that. It may as well be Supergirl.
My point is if the TOS and TNG was subjected to modern fandom the criticisms would be very similar. TNG in particular relied on deus ex machina (love that term), spreading around the last 5 minute resolutions to Wesley, Jordi and Data all the time.
Can we at least agree that it's better than Enterprise???
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Star Trek suuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkksss
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@kirwan The thing is that even if TNG's first season was rough, it was developing interesting, appealing characters, and was set in a very well designed, and highly appealing universe - you wanted to live in it, it was a different vision to most of sci-fi, and it gave you a reason to care.
Also, although TNG was often over reliant on technobabble to save the day, at least they worked through a story that presented it as the logical conclusion to the episode. They didn't just have a character say "I know what to do", then jump to the conclusion or have a woman beat everyone up.
Seasons 3 and 4 of Enterprise were much better than this dreck, despite that show being pretty bad.
This is neither good nor trek. It's a bad JJ Abrams show with a high budget.
Come up to Warkworth tomorrow so I can continue insulting your taste.
