Random TV Talk III - Do the Russell Coight

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I am not sure if it's the best new series this year or not, but, I have enjoyed the first two episodes a lot more than I expected, especially the pilot.
 
Finished season 1 of Hannibal.

This is my kind of show. It takes itself completely seriously except in those moments when it doesn't (I think of it as a grotesque black comedy more than anything), Mads Mikkelsen is fantastic, Fishburne is doing his best work in ages and of course, the combination of cinematography, sound design and music truly creates a disturbing, baroque, hellish atmosphere. Even the violence has a poetic side to it. Easily the best work on network television I've seen as far as that aspect is concerned.

There's a big X-Files/Millennium influence there which is a very good thing. It's a shame that they didn't get Lance Henriksen for a bigger and more important role.

If I have one complaint (outside of the plot being outrageously absurd which is a given when taking the basic premise into account), it's Hugh Dancy's uneven performance. Sometimes - as in the season's climax - he's absolutely on the mark, sometimes his delivery screams "acting!" for me. And they're having trouble making the main female characters interesting. The supporting, recurring ones are far more intriguing (Freddie, Bedelia, Abigail etc.).

I do love where the storyline is going. It's wonderfully over-the-top and completely shameless about it. I think I'll start catching up with the rest by the time second half of season 3 starts.
 
I am so jealous you're about to experience season 2 for the first time.

Dancy's performance also improves, which seems to go hand in hand as Will's confidence increases. Less tics and more natural, I guess.
 
I still have episode two of Season 3 of Hannibal lodged in my head.

Agreed that Dancy's performance is more....grounded, I guess, in Season 2 but I didn't really have much of an issue with it in Season 1.

Also, so far so good on the Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell front, definitely enjoying it.
 
Finished The Wire.

Yeah, that season stabilized itself. I didn't like all of the choices that were made (Omar's anticlimactic death was a big one; for all of its realism, it was a failure from a dramatic perspective and he deserved better), but by the end it seemed a fairly logical and satisfying conclusion to a great show. One aspect I really enjoyed was the numerous callbacks to characters from earlier seasons (various demoted officers from season 1, The Greek, Krawczyk). The Wire always had strong continuity and that lasted to the end.

McNulty coming clean was...well, it's one way to go. It salvages his character somewhat, but further cheapens his already inexplicable character change from late season 4 to episode 7-ish of season 5, as if the writers themselves were apologizing for what they did to him. He sobered up at some point along the way, but I missed when that was. More work could have been done to transition him from cocky to contrite, but that never happened. Lester never had a change of heart in any capacity, which is odd because he was the wrong character to get involved in this scheme to begin with.

I liked Marlo feeling that he still needed to prove himself on the streets. I liked Bubbles being accepted by his sister. I liked Carver being promoted for staying the course. There were countless moments of fan service in the closing montage that made me feel good. But it wasn't enough to convince me that the very basis for this season was anything more than a cynical "what if" from the writers that ran a number of well-crafted characters through the mud. The newspaper plot grew more engaging over time, but the writers fumbled that one. It was a missed opportunity. Too much too soon and they didn't bring the goods from the start.

Every season but 2 and 5 were introduced to us in a smooth and natural manner and it's no coincidence that both of those seasons started off very slowly. I didn't start enjoying season 5 until somewhere around the halfway mark, but from then on it was pretty decent. It's not a travesty and it doesn't diminish the legacy of a great show. But it is the weakest season and I find myself glad that the show ended when it did because cracks were beginning to show. That being said, as the finale drew to a close, I was pleased to see that despite how much had changed, the relationships between the main cast of characters remained strong. The core was still recognizable. Season 1 didn't feel so far away. The world of The Wire is, ultimately, a relatively small one.

Great show, but you guys knew that already. Ranking the seasons:

4 > 3 > 1 >>> 2 > 5
 
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I think you're wrong about Omar, but you'd need a second viewing to see why that is the case.
 
It was a necessary fallen domino for the case, but it felt cheap to me. The scene immediately before it felt like a sendoff for the character, the beginning of Omar's end, but I didn't expect it to come so quickly and flatly. As you said, perhaps I'll see it differently in time. EDIT: On second viewing of the scene, I noticed one thing I really liked: seconds before he dies, Omar looks over and sees Kenard but thinks nothing of him. That's really sad.

I did, however, feel the deaths of Snoop and Cheese were just right. Those couldn't have been staged any better.
 
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I loved how they handled Omar's death, and I've yet to think of a better way for him to go out. At first glance it appeared borderline random, but with the connection of Kenard being someone in Baltimore who Omar's legacy influenced it really does make a lot of sense. The mythology around Omar both created the kid who would end up killing him and covered it up as his death was spun into a thousand stories of him being shot in a final blaze of glory. It goes back to what Bunk laid out for him when he berated him on that alley bench way back when. Omar's enemies feared him, but kids glorified him. And having a vigilante of sorts out there created a whole 'nother vessel with which to warp a child's view of the game and the seriousness of killing.

It also tied well into Marlo's story. Marlo wasn't going to get killed by Omar, but even in an inglorious death Omar got what Marlo always wanted and could never get.
 
It also tied well into Marlo's story. Marlo wasn't going to get killed by Omar, but even in an inglorious death Omar got what Marlo always wanted and could never get.

I think they did a great job with Marlo's storyline, particularly here. His life was summed up in 2 minutes. He was gifted the life Stringer Bell wanted but couldn't have, ducked out of the party and went back to the only world he knows, only to find that Omar's legend continues to undermine him. He overpowers the two kids and conquers yet another corner, only to find himself alone. Because he's off his fucking rocker, the blood on his shredded sleeve convinces him that he's a bigger man.

In many ways, he won the game the first time around. No one else had. But his thirst for respect and lack of experience in the straight world will lead him to keep playing again and again until it kills him. I would feel for the character, but he's a fucking sociopath. Omar I have sympathy for.
 
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Oh wow, I didn't realize you couldn't quote someone in a spoiler tag without it showing up on the app. That's weird. It's covered on the desktop and mobile.
 
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Regarding Omar...

My first reaction was WTF... But it soon made perfect sense. Omar was always looked upon as a legend, a larger-than-life figure in the projects. But despite his code and his sense of dignity and even justice when comparing him to a lot of others... He was a gun thug and he was in some cases an impulsive killer, as evidenced by his shooting of Savino. He was contributing to the misery and not even a hundred finger pointers at sleazy lawyers who are also pieces of the puzzle are going to change that.

There is a scene in season 3 where a couple of kids are pretending to be Omar, shooting imaginary guns. One of those kids is Kenard. The seeds were obviously sown quite early, which was also visible in Omar's behaviour towards kids in general, who were obviously a soft spot. No matter how much somebody is going to "glorify his ass", he can be in a certain situation as easy of a mark as the dumbest hustler out there, shouting on the street, looking for trouble when nobody's even paying attention.

The ironic thing when it comes to the end of Marlo's arc is that the gangs continue to ignore this. No matter how his death was hardly a glorified ending worthy of the gods, the legend will keep on going while making up bullshit about it. On the other hand, the media and downtown don't really care, as seen in McNulty's and Gus' muted reactions and in the ending symbolism.

The good thing about this is no matter how hard Marlo would try, his end - which is ironically something Stringer always wanted - is a pure nightmare for him.
 
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i'm belatedly watching Don't Trust the B In Apartment 23.


BWA HA HAAAAAAAAA. It's pretty weird and awesome.
 
I really can't get into Veep...it feels like a watered-down version of The Thick Of It (which itself was really only going through the motions by the end of its run). The best thing to emerge from all of Armando Iannucci's political comedies is In The Loop which is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen.

Netflix just added Hjordis which is the spinoff of the excellent Rita.
 
loved Rita, even if the last season was not as strong as the first two

Will give Hjordis a try, hope some more characters carried over.
 
So, the second season of Hannibal was excellent.

My reservations about Dancy were gone, I love the inversions in the plot between the two main characters, the visuals are stunning and the ending was oddly poignant.

Great stuff.
 
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Wait until you see Season 3...one of the episodes was basically a 40 minute hallucination...I still can't believe this aired on network television.
 
Emmy nominations are out....I'll just post the show nominees.

Thumbs Up = My Favorite


Outstanding Drama Series:

Better Caul Saul
Downton Abbey :doh:
Game Of Thrones
Homeland
House Of Cards
Mad Men :up:
Orange Is The New Black

Outstanding Limited Series:

American Crime :up:
American Horror Story: Freak Show
The Honorable Woman
Olive Kitteridge
Wolf Hall

Outstanding Television Movie:

Agatha Christie's Poirot: Curtain, Poirot's Last Case
Bessie
Grace Of Monaco
Hello Ladies: The Movie
Killing Jesus
Nightingale

Outstanding Comedy Series:

Louie
Modern Family :angry:
Parks & Recreation
Silicon Valley
Transparent :up:
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Veep

Outstanding Variety Talk Series:

The Colbert Report
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Jimmy Kimmel Live
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver :up:
Late Show With David Letterman
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series:

Drunk History
Inside Amy Schumer
Key & Peele :up:
Portlandia
Saturday Night Live

Outstanding Variety Special:

Bill Maher: Live From D.C.
The Kennedy Center Honors
Louis C.K.: Live At The Comedy Store :up:
Mel Brooks Life At The Geffen
The Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special
Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Cheek To Cheek LIVE!

Outstanding Animated Program:

Archer
Bob's Burgers
Over The Garden Wall :up:
The Simpsons
South Park

Outstanding Short-Format Animated Program:

Adventure Time :up:
Disney Mickey Mouse
Regular Show
Robot Chicken
Steven Universe
Wander Over Yonder

Outstanding Special Class Program:

Beyoncé And JAY Z On The Run
The 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards
The Oscars
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (Live From Lincoln Center)
68th Annual Tony Awards

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special:

The Case Against 8
Going Clear: Scientology And The Prison Of Belief
Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck
Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All :up:
Virunga - Also an Oscar Nominee in this category

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series:

American Masters
Cancer: The Emperor Of All Maladies
The Jinx: The Life And Deaths Of Robert Durst :up:
The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
The Sixties

Outstanding Informational Series Or Special:

Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways
Inside The Actors Studio
StarTalk With Neil deGrasse Tyson
Vice

Exceptional Merit In Documentary Filmmaking:

Citizenfour - Won the Oscar in this category and is phenomenal
The Great Invisible
Hot Girls Wanted

Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program:

Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis: Brad Pitt
Billy On The Street With First Lady Michelle Obama, Big Bird And Elena!!!
Children's Hospital
Key & Peele Presents Van And Mike: The Ascension
Super Bowl XLIX Halftime Show Starring Katy Perry

Outstanding Short-Format Nonfiction Program:

American Horror Story: Extra-Ordinary Artists
Parks And Recreation: Behind The Final Season
30 For 30 Shorts
Transparent: This is Me
A Tribute To Mel Brooks

Outstanding Children's Program:

Alan Alda And The Actor Within You: A YoungArts Masterclass
Degrassi
Dog With A Blog
Girl Meets World
Nick News With Linda Ellerbee: Coming Out

Outstanding Reality-Competition:

The Amazing Race
Dancing With The Stars
Project Runway
So You Think You Can Dance
Top Chef
The Voice

Outstanding Structured Reality Program:

Antiques Roadshow
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives
MythBusters
Property Brothers
Shark Tank
Undercover Boss

Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program:

Alaska: The Last Frontier
Deadliest Catch
Intervention
Million Dollar Listing New York
Naked And Afraid
Wahlburgers
 
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In this batch of nominees, Hamm is gonna cruise to that legacy Emmy.

Yep...they were very forward thinking with a lot of these new categories and acting nominees this year...yet the biggies, Comedy and Drama Series are still full of rubber stamping.

I don't think The Affair earned a single nomination after winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress and Drama Series. Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter rightfully pointed out that Downton Abbey hasn't been in the top tier for years and that the Homeland "comeback" nomination is pretty ridiculous for what is widely considered a so-so season. I was expecting both of those to get pushed out and leave a lot of room for new nominees, but that certainly didn't happen. At least Better Call Saul managed to sneak in there.

By next year, you figure they could finally get over Downton and Homeland while Mad Men won't be taking up a slot anymore, so it could finally get interesting for newer blood or prestigious shows like The Americans and Rectify that have been snubbed for years.

I think they do nominations similar to how The Oscars does where they take a good look at first place votes or allow only one vote...thus, a show like Downton Abbey will get in every year since there's a contingent of maybe 5% of the voters that are older love Downton Abbey. Likewise, most of the voters could be over watching laugh-track sitcoms, yet one will usually get nominated for Best Comedy Series because there's a small contingent that prefers those sort of shows. It's how crap like The Blindside or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close get nominated for Best Picture - there's enough of a group of morons that will consider something like that to be "the best"...

Obviously, if you asked television critics what the top ten dramas happen to be...Downton would come nowhere even close to being nominated...but it's all about having a vocal fanbase that likes one series far above everything else. Practically everybody might like The Americans, but nobody is going to run around waving its flag. Could also explain the ease with which Better Call Saul was nominated...probably a lot of Breaking Bad diehards made sure that topped their ballots.
 
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Yay Tatiana Maslany.

So happy about this.

In this batch of nominees, Hamm is gonna cruise to that legacy Emmy.

Don't be so sure. He could have won in the past and they gave it to Michael C. Hall (that was a cancer sympathy award), Kyle Chandler, and Jeff Daniels.

I'm also pulling for Christina Hendricks in Supporting. Now that would be a jump-for-joy moment. Moss would be nice as well but she is up against some tough competition.
 
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