What are you watching right now? (tv series + see OP!)

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Postby Shinoyami65 » Wed May 31, 2017 10:51 pm

I will say that I don't find American Gods as much of a mind-fuck if only because it does borrow a bit from recognised mythology whereas Twin Peaks's otherworld doesn't correspond to any known myths or legends.
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Postby backseatjesus » Mon Jun 26, 2017 11:14 am

Pretty sure last nights episode of Twin Peaks might be the weirdest episode of any series to ever been aired

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Postby Chuckman » Mon Jun 26, 2017 2:02 pm

I was absolutely floored.

My favorite thing about Lynch/Frost is that they can convey perfectly logical consistent information using surreal imagery and it's not even that hard to figure out it that means.

As much as I am loathe to say this kind of thing, but reading The Secret History of Twin Peaks adds enormously to the experience of the show. It's not necessary but it adds much context.

I think the most important thing we saw last night was that

SPOILER: Show
Laura Palmer really is the key to it all. She's not a victim of of Bob because she lives in Twin Peaks- she has some kind of significance to the Giant and possibly the white lodge and was somehow sent or marked by them. Things happen in Twin Peaks because Laura is/will be there, not the other way around.

I'm pretty sure that godawful frog bug thing was Bob.

I'm predicting that the Return will build off Fire Walk With Me to place Laura at the center of some cosmic battle.


I liked the whole episode. It had Lynch's surrealism blended with the slick modern feel of the effects and all, but it captured that feel of the '50's monster mash/teen horror/atomic mutation angle.

I also like how Frost (probably) is pulling all of the weird/High Strangeness material from UFOlogy lore. The burned sooty men asking weird questions in distorted voices and confronting a motorist on a remote highway is something you'd see in one of the weirder UFO/alien "reports"; in popular consciousness the archetypal alien is the Grey, but UFO reports, especially from before the greys reached their maximum cultural penetration, really have some weird shit.

What fascinates me about when Frost and Lynch are collaborating is this way that Frost is sort of a magos while Lynch is his seer. Frost, though his scripts, brings order to the chaos of Lynch's connection to the deep unconscious.

There's some stuff about Crowley, Hubbard, and Jack Parsons in the companion novel, but I expected that to be a little thing that Frost (who wrote it) touched on to make it more mysterious sounding but the show is really using it. There's a lot of occult imagery and logic in it. This is a very magical show. Might even be a hypersigil.

No matter what it is, it's the two at the height of their work with no network inference to compromise their art.

Also, yeah, this show makes Game of Thrones/Westworld/whatever look like little kids playing with crayons by comparison. The original Twin Peaks was years ahead of its time and came as a precursor and inspiration for the Golden Age of Television and here comes Lynch again showing off what can truly be done with the medium.
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Postby Chuckman » Sun Jul 09, 2017 11:32 am

Last night: Castlevania, the Netflix series.

First season is only four episodes, but it's damn good and written/produced by Warren Ellis.

It's already approved for another season, this time eight eps. I hope they keep going with it, it's very strong.

Tonight: T W I N P E A K S
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Postby Guy Nacks » Sun Jul 09, 2017 1:24 pm

I'm still marveling at Part 8 of Twin Peaks S3, even 2 weeks after the episode has aired. What a trip, man.

BTW, kinda unrelated, but I saw on twitter several days ago that Sam Esmail (writer/director/creator of Mr. Robot) tweeted that Twin Peaks is the best thing on television right now, and he seems to indicate through other tweets that this new series surpasses the original 2 seasons.
Among the people who use the Internet, many are obtuse. Because they are locked in their rooms, they hang on to that vision which is spreading across the world. But this does not go beyond mere ‘data’. Data without analysis [thinking], which makes you think that you know everything. This complacency is nothing but a trap. Moreover, the sense of values that counters this notion is paralyzed by it.

And so we arrive at demagogy. - Hideaki Anno, 1996

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Postby Chuckman » Sun Jul 09, 2017 9:05 pm

The first scene is good, the second season is spotty because it runs long and is heavy on the soap opera plots and Lynch/Frost both left the show, and some of the momentum died because of demands the network made on the plot.
the prophecy is true

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they and he will bind them with ancient logics. —Marty Mikalski

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Postby Guy Nacks » Sun Jul 09, 2017 9:34 pm

View Original PostChuckman wrote:The first scene is good, the second season is spotty because it runs long and is heavy on the soap opera plots and Lynch/Frost both left the show, and some of the momentum died because of demands the network made on the plot.



Yeah, I've read about all the behind the scenes troubles with executive meddling and Engels/Peyton taking over most of the creative direction of the show after Lynch/Frost left. Though I think Frost did co-write a few of the episodes leading up to the finale, rather than Lynch, who just bounced after "Lonely Souls" and only returned for the final episode.

If I was recommending the show, I'd tell someone to watch all of season 1 and then up until the episode with a wake for a character in season 2 (only because the wake episode sets up Windom Earle). After that episode, skip several episodes and start with Slaves and Masters and skip ANY scene with James or Billy Zane.
Among the people who use the Internet, many are obtuse. Because they are locked in their rooms, they hang on to that vision which is spreading across the world. But this does not go beyond mere ‘data’. Data without analysis [thinking], which makes you think that you know everything. This complacency is nothing but a trap. Moreover, the sense of values that counters this notion is paralyzed by it.

And so we arrive at demagogy. - Hideaki Anno, 1996

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Postby Chuckman » Sun Jul 09, 2017 10:46 pm

Frost is responsible for almost all of the world building. The Tibetan stuff, Lodges, etc are all him and he wrote the Secret History of Twin Peaks.

I think their visions gel really well together and he brings a kind of order to Lynch's chaos. They're both interested in the same things from different angles and it's beautiful how it synergizes, as in episode 8.
the prophecy is true

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they and he will bind them with ancient logics. —Marty Mikalski

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Postby FrDougal9000 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:22 am

Just finished watching the Castlevania Netflix series and I gotta be honest, that was terrible. I'm not really a fan of the series, so this isn't some bitter fanboyism masquerading as critique. My issues with the series lie with its mistakes and them alone. So, what did I not like about the series?

The Content: In a post I made shortly after the series' announcement, I expressed my fear that the show was going to be claim its rating of "R-rated as fuck" (an actual thing said by one of the show's producers) by cramming each episode with gratuitous gore, disgusting spectacles or subject matter, and basically all manner of nonsense for no other reason than to appeal to teenagers who think that kind of shit is 'mature'. And that's exactly what happened. Whipped out eyes, rainstorms of bat foetuses, disembowelled children, talk of goat-shagging; shit like this is done constantly (especially early on), and it feels like it has no other purpose beyond shock value.

I understand this is a horror-action series and that it wouldn't be presenting family-friendly content for that reason, but there's a reason that the best horror media (and non horror media) choses to use gruesome/disturbing content sparingly. Be it showing the brutality that a being is capable of (the climax of Evangelion Episode 18), to contrast the terror of this creature with the tone of the work in general (Gygas in Earthbound, anyone?), or to simply scare the shit out of the viewer after a peaceful respite (Clemens' death in Alien 3); good works wait to disturb the viewer until the right time.

Netvania, meanwhile, chooses to subject the viewer to an un-relenting amount of gore and other disgusting scenes, unaware of how quickly that ceases to affect the audience and simply results in them getting bored with your nonsense. If you want effective horror, you're not gonna get it here.

The Writing: Netvania is written in the same manner seen in too many other shows or films: an overly serious tone that wishes to depress the viewer with 'heavy' themes, only broken up with Joss Whedon-esque quips from Trevor or one of the other characters to provide moments of 'humour'. The different tones don't play off of each other well; it feels like writer Warren Ellis felt that he had to do a 'funny scene' at this point, with no regard for comic timing or the context in which the scene happened. It's hackneyed writing at its most blatant, and it makes me groan with irritation every time.

The characters themselves, though well acted, are as one-note and predictable as you can get. Trevor is your typical roughed-up hero who stays out of things until he decides not to. The Bishop is the same misguided religious nut who believes the word of God allows him to do whatever. Sypha's the grand-daughter who wants to get out and make a difference. The Elder of the Speakers is a wise old man who exposits background information and is hesitant to abandon people in their time of need. There's nothing wrong with using old character tropes (they're tropes for a reason), but there's nothing interesting going on here. There are dopey 60's sitcoms with more nuanced characters than this show.

What drives me up the wall more than anything, however, is the dreadful use of screen-time economy: this is a principle where you try to get across as much as you can while saying very little (Mad Max: Fury Road and Perfect Blue are very good examples of films that use screen-time economy effectively). That doesn't happen here; every conversation feels like one-note exposition that has nothing to interpret beyond what the script is literally telling you, every scene goes on for 5-10 minutes when it could have very easily been done in half that time. The end result is that it feels like very little happens in each episode, even though it feels like an eternity. It belies the fact that Warren Ellis is a comic book writer, since that kind of expository dialogue can work far better in comics than in animation.

The Animation: When it comes to TV shows and films, most people tend to think that the script and the acting are the most important elements when analysing and critiquing them. However, they forget to take into account that those are not the only elements that exist; there's the visuals, the use of sound, the editing, and the pacing (each of which contains at least ten other elements that all play off each other to create the film/show that you are watching). What I'm getting at is that there's more to a show than just the script, and those elements need to be as strong as they can be to really make the show work, or they feel wasted.

And the animation in Netvania is more than wasted. Sure, the characters look 'detailed' and 'on-model', and some of the backgrounds look pretty good, but it's so uninteresting. The character designs are bland and have too much detail for them to be animated well, and the animation itself is often stilted, mediocre and lacking a soul. There are a couple of decent scenes (the fight against the Cyclops in episode 3, and the fantastic title sequence, both animated by animation director Spencer Wan), but for the most part, it feels like the animation was done by a series of drones who were told to serve the script and character designs, and little else.

This isn't helped by the incredibly lacklustre visual storytelling. Every other shot shows the characters in 3/4 profile, making most shots feel very repetitive. When characters are talking, it shows them talking without trying to do anything interesting in terms of visuals. It ends up making the already long exposition scenes feel so much longer, because there's nothing going on beyond seeing pictures of people talking. This right here was what killed the show for me; I can get over the needless 'R-Rated' nonsense, I could have tolerated the boring script and hackneyed tone, but this show is just so goddamn boring to watch! It reminds me a lot of DC's animated work since Batman Beyond, in that you have to like the script or characters to enjoy them, because there is absolutely nothing else of interest.

If you haven't yet seen this series, avoid it. Go watch the 1997 Berserk anime if you want a horror-action series that tries to keep you interested. Go play any of the Castlevania games if you want to have a good vampire-whipping time. There are much better shows and films that deserve your time and attention.

(Also, the music is terrible. It's the kind of boring electronic Zimmer-lite arpeggios that's been popping up in every hackneyed show or film since Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's awful and forgettable, and the fact that Castlevania is a series known for its often great soundtrack just rubs salt into the wound. Fuck this series.)
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Postby Cybermat47 » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:03 am

I'm watching Designated Survivor at the moment. It's about the US Secretary for Housing who becomes PotUS after the US Congress is destroyed in a terrorist attack, killing everyone higher up than him.
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Postby Guy Nacks » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:04 am

Wow. From the reactions I've seen, people either like Castlevania or outright hate it.
Among the people who use the Internet, many are obtuse. Because they are locked in their rooms, they hang on to that vision which is spreading across the world. But this does not go beyond mere ‘data’. Data without analysis [thinking], which makes you think that you know everything. This complacency is nothing but a trap. Moreover, the sense of values that counters this notion is paralyzed by it.

And so we arrive at demagogy. - Hideaki Anno, 1996

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Postby Sachi » Thu Jul 13, 2017 7:58 am

I just finished watching Castlevsnia yesterday. It's bad, but a fun sort of bad. For everything good the series does, there's probably two or three bad things that can't be ignored. Still, I had a bit of fun watching it.
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Postby Chuckman » Fri Jul 14, 2017 7:36 pm

I loved it, thought it was fantastic.
the prophecy is true

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they and he will bind them with ancient logics. —Marty Mikalski

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Re: What are you watching right now? (tv series + see OP!)

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Postby Reichu » Fri Jul 14, 2017 9:59 pm

Just finished it today. The four episodes went by far too fast! I want more! Glad we're at least getting another eight. Can't wait. :w00t:
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Postby Chuckman » Fri Jul 14, 2017 10:02 pm

Oh dear god we agree on something.

I can't wait for Sunday. Game of Thrones, then Twin Peaks! I have to watch GOT first since I watch it with someone.
the prophecy is true

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they and he will bind them with ancient logics. —Marty Mikalski

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Postby Guy Nacks » Sun Sep 03, 2017 10:38 pm

So, Twin Peaks just ended and the amount and intensity of the online WTF reactions towards it are staggering. It's as if Twitter was around for the '96 finale of NGE.
Among the people who use the Internet, many are obtuse. Because they are locked in their rooms, they hang on to that vision which is spreading across the world. But this does not go beyond mere ‘data’. Data without analysis [thinking], which makes you think that you know everything. This complacency is nothing but a trap. Moreover, the sense of values that counters this notion is paralyzed by it.

And so we arrive at demagogy. - Hideaki Anno, 1996

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Postby backseatjesus » Mon Sep 04, 2017 3:09 am

I'm in a weird place with the last two episodes. I'm not disappointed, but I'm not sure how I feel.

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Postby Chuckman » Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:07 am

View Original PostGuy Nacks wrote:So, Twin Peaks just ended and the amount and intensity of the online WTF reactions towards it are staggering. It's as if Twitter was around for the '96 finale of NGE.


It's the American NGE on many levels. It's a confrontation of our entire belief system.
the prophecy is true

Statistical fact: Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they and he will bind them with ancient logics. —Marty Mikalski

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Postby Joy Evangelion » Sun Sep 24, 2017 3:34 pm

Ken Burns The Vietnam War has been fantastic so far, and with episode 6/10 airing tonight. It excels pretty well in explaining the what and why of the war, which can be a bit tough to wrap your head around. The anecdotes by the veterans on both side are right up there with the great commentaries in Burns' other works, i.e. Shelby Foote in the Civil War or Dan Okrent in Baseball. Very highly recommended.
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Postby Sachi » Mon Sep 25, 2017 2:39 pm

With season 4 of Gotham starting, season 3 is now on Netflix and I've gotten caught up.

The more this show embraces cartoon and comic book logic, the more I'm falling in love with it. It can be incredibly dumb at times, but in a way I find quite charming. For every ridiculous plot twist it throws in, there's an equal number brilliance. I'm a huge fan of Cory Michael Smith's take on the The Riddler, and he is easily my favorite character of the show. The Joker made another appearance, and while I wasn't impressed with him in season 2, he was much more effective in his role in season 3 and I bought him as the Joker. Bruce Wayne is pretty boring though, but meh since Gordan is the true star of the series.
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