Done with Bakemonogatari. Now moving on to its sequel, Nisemonogatari.

Still epic.

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:Done with Bakemonogatari. Now moving on to its sequel, Nisemonogatari.

Still epic.

Wrong topic

Xard wrote:Wrong topic

It's what I'm watching right now, isn't it?

Nuclear Lunchbox wrote:It's what I'm watching right now, isn't it?

We have functionally identical anime topic over in the animango subforum and as you can see most posts in this topic are about non-anime viewing projects.

I'm watching Bates Motel and so far I'm liking it about as much as Psycho 2 & 3 by which I mean not at all. Has anybody else seen it?

Resident Evil: Afterlife

yep, it also sux

I started The Wire ages ago but had t put it on hold because I forgot one of my externals at home. I'll have it again soon and eagerly anticipate starting it back up.

And I've been watching Mad Men too. Season 6 was lukewarm to me but it set up what should be an excellent final season.

Speaking of The Wire, I've been slowly watching it with a friend over the past month or so. It's quite a bad influence on me, though. I so want to be like Stringer Bell and have that remote control over the game.

Mythbusters Breaking Bad Special



awwwwwwwwwwww yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I, Claudius. I watched this as a kid and had pretty fragmentary memories of it, but it holds up quite well. Brian Blessed's Augustus Octavian and Sian Phillips' Livia are absolutely priceless together.

Azathoth wrote:I, Claudius. I watched this as a kid and had pretty fragmentary memories of it, but it holds up quite well. Brian Blessed's Augustus Octavian and Sian Phillips' Livia are absolutely priceless together.

Brian Blessed is a god amongst men. I love him in the first Blackadder series.

caragnafog dog wrote:Brian Blessed is a god amongst men. I love him in the first Blackadder series.

One of the few great things about that series... :P

and by that series, i mean the first Blackadder. The later series really took off ( i am especially fond of II and Blackadder Goes Forth)

Ænimal wrote:One of the few great things about that series... :P

and by that series, i mean the first Blackadder. The later series really took off ( i am especially fond of II and Blackadder Goes Forth)

I saw the first series when I was a lot younger so nostalgia makes me remember it fondly, but Goes Forth is definitely the best. Dat poignant ending.

Also, IS EVERYONE READY FOR 9 PM EST??????

caragnafog dog wrote:I saw the first series when I was a lot younger so nostalgia makes me remember it fondly, but Goes Forth is definitely the best. Dat poignant ending.

Also, IS EVERYONE READY FOR 9 PM EST??????

You're goddamn right

So I just finished Season 2 of The Wire.

After the very excellent first season, it's kind of sad to see the overall production suffer a such a drop in quality. The few interesting uses of camerawork from Season 1 have been dropped in favor of a completely generic copshow look. The acting, while not terrible, seems to have taken a bit of a dive as well. There was never any kind of performance on par with the "Where's Wallace" scene, for example.

Even the writing seems a little weaker than before. D'Angelo's story seemed concluded already, so bringing him back for his arc to end the way as it did seemed kind of completely and totally forced to me.

And what the hell happened to McNulty? It's like his character turned into the police version of James Bond with the amount of pointless sex scenes he has. I miss the McNulty from Season 1 that used his kids to follow drug dealers, as opposed to just drinking and fucking around to the point of being non-compelling. The ambiguity about whether he really should have his kids back or not just seems to have vanished.

That's kind of the problem with the returning characters in general. A lot of the subtlety and ambiguity just seems absent. I remember when Daniels was heavily hinted to be somewhat crooked cop, and then did things like covering up for Prez and what he did.

We see a similar event in this season, where Daniels attempts to defend Prez. But whereas the older scene was challenging to people to people's perceptions of a what a police officer is, should do, how they should act etc....this is just comedic.

Then there's the dock story. Let me start out by saying fuck The Greek. Terrible name that's completely out of place with the gritty "realism" of The Wire. Terrible, bland villain as well. That's kind of the biggest issue as well. He seems like a TV villain whereas other "antagonists" seemed more like people just trying to make the best of less than ideal situations without trying to necessarily screw over people but also being willing to do so. Everything about The Greek is just so...blah.

Thank god for Frank though. Here's a guy that was actually compelling to some degree, especially toward the end of the season. But even here I wish they would have explored some more with the character.

Like when he was against the robotic technology being brought to the docks that could reduce the number of accidents on site, but also cost a lot of jobs. That's interesting, and is an important question to consider as we enter an increasingly technological and robotic age. Is automation really worth it if it runs people out of jobs, home, and food? When the one worker gets injured later on, that might have been a good place to bring this topic up again. But nothing happens with it.

I want to talk about Ziggy for a moment as well. What the hell was up with him? I get that he was shat on his entire life, which is why he does that big thing he does at the end. But then there's stuff like that subplot where he buys a pet duck.

I can't believe that's a subplot that's meant to be taken seriously in this show. A character buying a duck
I know I've been shitting on this season a lot at this point, and in its defense it's not unwatchable or anything, and there are good parts (Mostly around Frank and his union, mob ties etc.), but the whole is season is just noticeably not as good as what came before. Hopefully Season 3 will recover from this mediocrity.

I can't help but feel that Season 2's fatal flaw is that it tried to continue the story of all the characters from Season 1 while introducing a completely new set of them, and that as a result everything suffers.

Alright everyone, come tell me how wrong I am.

Season 2 was the worst season of the show.

Well if it only goes up from here, that's comforting to know. It's certainly better than the low points of other critically acclaimed shows (Particularly the infamous chunk of episodes in Season 2 of Twin Peaks, Season 6 of Lost etc.).

EDIT: In the middle of Season 3 now (Seven episodes in), and I just wanted to say that I'm glad they're continuing the D'Angelo storyline after all.

Hamsterdam is completely ridiculous though. I get that they're trying to explore all of the ramifications of such a thing, but something like that seems so incredibly unlikely to even get off the ground in modern America to begin with, let alone go as long as it seems to be without the higher-ups getting wind of it.

I'm not even sure what The Wire is trying to be at this point anymore. Season 3 is better than Season 2 so far in most areas, but I still find myself missing where the show was in Season 1.

EDIT 2: "What college student can't afford a cell phone? If they can afford a college education they can afford a cell phone."

Yeeeeaaaahhhhh, some lines of dialogue from this show have not held up as well as others. Even back when this aired I kind of doubt college costs were so easy write off as simply "affordable" for most students.

The Killer of Heroes wrote:I just don't know what to make of this quackery.

Impressive.

Every Single Mickey Mouse Cartoon Ever: WHAT? NO MICKEY MOUSE!

Well, I felt like I accomplished something this summer. I wonder what cartoon series from the 30s I'll go into next summer...

Watched all 3 seasons of The Walking Dead. One of the shittiest things I've seen in a while.