TV Show Mini-Reviews

[Roman Totale]

I really enjoyed Daredevil, but Vincent D'Onofrio stole the show - loved every second he was on screen.

[Joose]

New Sci Fi!

Dark Matter

People on a spaceship with amnesia. The people have amnesia, not the ship. Only watched the first episode, but its not terrible! Its actually pretty interesting, with decent (if a bit clichéd) characters. Worth a go.

Killjoys

Bounty hunters in space, complications happen. Its a bit... its kind of trying a bit too hard. The characters are a bit uninteresting, the script isnt particularly thrilling. Its not actively horrible, but Its not great. One to stick on whilst you are playing a game or something maybe.

Theres one called Humans too, which seems to be some kind of I, Robot deal. Not tried it yet though.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Pretty little liars.

Note: I'm not actively watching this, wifey is, but I keep catching bits.

This is by far and away, the single worst thing I have ever witnessed, Like it'd be more comfortable to insert chilli sauce soaked brambles into your urethra while watching twilight and reading 50 shades of grey.

Shit acting, shit, aimless plot, shitty shit shit.

Incidentally, the forum seems to felcher J-a-p to Japanese, thus making me unhappy

[Wifeyberk]

Pretty little liars.

This is by far and away, the single worst thing I have ever witnessed, Like it'd be more comfortable to insert chilli sauce soaked brambles into your urethra while watching twilight and reading 50 shades of grey.

So, does this mean you have to watch Twilight /and/ 50 shades with me or I get to put chillied brambles somewhere?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I'll pass on all of the above, thankyou.

[Dog Pants]

I took the month's free subscription to Netflix and started watching Fringe. I've probably got about 20 years of TV to catch up with.

[Roman Totale]

Fringe is great until the last series - I think the writers all went insane.

I'm currently watching Arrow and Wayward Pines. I don't really know what to make of the former. It's watchable, but it's bloody irritating a lot of the time - I seems to flit between trying to be a bit gritty, and stupid teeny type romance drama. Wayward Pines, on the other hand, is most enjoyable. Wasn't really expecting much but I've been gripped by it. Sort of a cross between Twin Peaks and the Village (the latter being the shit film by M. Night Shyamalan, who has some sort of credit on WP but can't remember what), but more concise and focused than Lynch's stuff, and not utter bollocks like Shamalan's stuff.

[Roman Totale]

Things I've given up watching halfway through in 2015

Narcos - Netflix original series that everyone raves about. Very slow, story doesn't really move which is made worse by the fact you already know what's going to happen. The two "main characters" are difficult to root for. On the one hand you've got Pablo Escobar (drug dealer, crime lord, murderer of innocent people - the show seems to flit between making him a sympathetic character and a big bad guy). On the other you've got...Steve? Can't even remember his name. DEA agent. Boring as fuck.

Sense8 - another Netflix series, and again raved about. Holy fucking shit this is slow. Got to about the 6th episode and they're still struggling to work out they are all telepathically linked. Problem is there are too many characters, and it tries to give the life story of each of them. If they trimmed it down a bit and got to the point a bit quicker it might be good.

Arrow - I WAS ON THAT ISLAND FOR FIVE YEARS! No shit, Oliver - you mention it every five minutes.

Gotham - oh look it's young Batman. And young Catwoman. And young Poison Ivy. And young Joker. And young Penguin. And young Riddler. Any more knowing nods and they'd break their own necks. Furthermore, why the fuck would I be interested in watching a pre-pubescent Bruce Wayne? If you're going to make the show about Jim Gordon get rid of all the other fuckers, otherwise you might as well just make it a Batman series.


I've clearly had a very short attention span for TV this year.

[FatherJack]

I tried watching The Man in the High Castle which is an Amazon studios version of the Philip K. Dick book of the same name. It's an alternate history story that speculates on what might have happened if the Axis powers won the war. It could have been quite interesting just investigating that scenario, but it kind of messes up by over focussing on a confusing plot device.

The book's novel-within-a-novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is replaced by a film - and the glimpses of it we see show what we remember as the real history - with the Allies winning. Within the novel it's a work of fiction designed to link a number of threads about Inner Truth and within the novel's story it's not much more than wishful thinking or an entertaining read, while still being a contraband item of course.

The trouble with making it a film - and having it made up of what look like actual newsreels - make it look like it's actually real, not fiction - that the characters in the fictional world are somehow getting a glimpse into our world leaking into theirs. This isn't helped that the reaction of most of the characters who see it is to look like they are having some sort of epiphany.

It's such a glaring thing as it's so central, making you wonder if this is some more science-fictiony version where the filmmaker is like Albert Fink in Bioshock Inifinte who plagiarises music he hears through the tears. The question of what the film actually is remains ambiguous throughout what I've seen, and what plot there is outside of that is a little thin, although it has to be said, quite the treat for any Nazi fans out there.

[Dog Pants]

Just watching a one-off spoof detective drama called A Touch of Cloth. Pleasantly surprising, it reminds me of Police Squad.

A woman found the body this morning while walking her dog.

Any distinguishing features?

Four legs, waggy tail, spotty coat...

[Roman Totale]

Touch of Cloth is great. I'm sure it's had 3 "series" now. It's by Charlie Brooker

[Dog Pants]

It's a series? Cool, I thought the 'next time' bit at the end was just part of the spoof. It's a long time since I've seen good, silly comedy like that.

[Roman Totale]

I've just checked and there are 3 series, each 2 episodes long.

Edit: I've just watched the first episode again - I'd forgotten how many quick and subtle jokes there were in it. Particularly liked the chart in the kitchen of the lesbian couple "Fruit other than oranges".

[fabyak]

Con man

Crowdsourced show how by Alan Tudyk with a little help from Nathan Fillion about an actor who was a pilot in a TV sci-fi show that got cancelled half way through the first season and 10 years on he is stuck going to conventions even though he hates the show and is desperate to do anything else while the guy who played the captain has gone on to much bigger and better things.
Pleasingly entertaining with lots of cameos and little touches. It's a pay for on vimeo but is surely sweepable and is in 10 to 12 minute episodes

7/10

[Joose]

The Magicians

Very reductive plot explanation: Its Harry Potter for adults. Kid is applying for Uni (College, because it's american) and ends up in a school for wizards. Big bad evil wizard is doing nefarious things. Hijinks ensue.

If you can get past the fact that the entire cast are Beautiful People Who Are Also Arseholes, its pretty entertaining. Definitely got a lot of things in that makes it not OK for kids (it ticks all the sex, violence, drugs and alcohol boxes) and the big bad is wonderfully creepy despite (as far as I have watched) not having done much yet. According to a friend its based on a book series and, inevitably, the books are better. Still worth a shot in my opinion though.

[Dog Pants]

I'm enjoying Bojack Horseman at the moment. Crude animated comedy series about a narcissistic washed up celebrity living a lonely z-list life in Hollywood. It usually makes me laugh out loud once per show.

[Mr. Johnson]

Just finished daredevil deason 2, and I liked it. Newcomers Jon Bernthal and Élodie Yung do a great job as a pretty gritty punisher (even by punisher standards) and an exotic aquiline Elektra.

Some things that bother me though:

Spoiler:

Nothing about the hand makes any sense whatsoever. What was that giant pit about? Is that where the big cauldron came from? What is black sky exactly? What about those zombie teenagers? What about that black sky kid from season 1 that Stick kills? I really feel like the show put up too many things, and I can't help but wonder if they'll struggle to put all the pieces together in either season three or any of the other spinoffs.

Also, what is up with Elektra's accent? It seems to constantly transition from French to Oxford English. It's probably intended as it suits the character but it's weird(ly hot).

[buzzmong]

Dunno if anyone watched it, but the BBC's Happy Valley was really rather good and is another reason why I have no problem with the TV Licence (and no adverts!) when the Beeb create excellent content such as it.

[Roman Totale]

Loved the second series of Daredevil - thought Punisher was fantastic and an interesting counterfoil to Daredevil's own brand of justice. Like that they're exploring the weird mystic with The Hand as well. Hopefully will all tie up nicely with Dr Strange etc.

Happy Valley was good, though not as good as the first series. I found it lacked the same edge of the seat suspense, despite the fact there was more of a mystery to this one. I also had difficulty with the sound (a common complaint apparently) - could barely understand a word that was being said at times so had to turn the subtitles on.

Another BBC series that has just started up again is Line of Duty. First series was brilliant, second was very good but ended in a disappointing fashion (I'll be honest though, I can't remember what I thought was disappointing about it, just remember being let down). Only one episode into series 3 so far, but it's been a strong start.

Just finished watching Into The Badlands on Amazon. To be perfectly honest the only reason I'd heard about it was after looking up Emily Beecham having seen her in Hail, Caesar! She's lovely. It's not bad, and it's mercifully brief unlike most US series these days (stopped watching Person of Interest as I didn't have the stamina or patience for it). There's a lot of over choreographed fight scenes, which I don't normally like, but they actually managed to be satisfyingly meaty and visceral (but not as good as Daredevil in that respect).

[Joose]

Just finished daredevil deason 2, and I liked it. Newcomers Jon Bernthal and Élodie Yung do a great job as a pretty gritty punisher (even by punisher standards) and an exotic aquiline Elektra.

Some things that bother me though:

Spoiler:

Nothing about the hand makes any sense whatsoever. What was that giant pit about? Is that where the big cauldron came from? What is black sky exactly? What about those zombie teenagers? What about that black sky kid from season 1 that Stick kills? I really feel like the show put up too many things, and I can't help but wonder if they'll struggle to put all the pieces together in either season three or any of the other spinoffs.

Also, what is up with Elektra's accent? It seems to constantly transition from French to Oxford English. It's probably intended as it suits the character but it's weird(ly hot).

Elektras accent is bloody strange, especially for a character that is supposed to be Greek. As for the spoilered stuff: a lot of that is a reference to the comics, I suspect it is leading in to the mystical magical stuff in preparation for the Iron Fist show and Dr Strange. I do wonder how much they are just not going to bother trying to explain to people who are not familiar with the comics. having little references in the background for nerds makes sense, but putting them front and centre seems a risky tactic.