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Kevin Klemme
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Mycelia Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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What TV SHOWS are you watching?

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28 Nov 2017 20:26 #258324 by ubarose
Ugh. The Spawn got me hooked on that British baking show. She started watching it (in the dark under the covers with earbuds) when her school was on lock down in the middle of the night due to an armed suspect on campus. We were still stressed out when she came home the day after, so she suggested we watch it. It's like electronic valium. Now I'm addicted.
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28 Nov 2017 21:56 - 28 Nov 2017 21:56 #258326 by Frohike

charlest wrote: Godless, a Netflix Western miniseries, has my attention after the first two episodes. The abundance of female characters adds an interesting slant and I enjoy that social issues are highlighted while weaving through the slightly typical revenge narrative. Acting, writing, and cinematography are all top notch and it has a very large cinematic feel to it. I also appreciate that it doesn't appear to waste your time with fluff.


I enjoyed the show right up until the finale which felt like it was directed by someone else, or by committee, or by budget pressure. It wasn’t a terrible episode, but in the context of the rest of the mini-series it was kind of pedestrian and predictable, with several character threads just kind of fizzling out or ending unceremoniously... probably because they wrote arcs that needed a couple more episodes to really pay off but didn’t have that luxury.
Last edit: 28 Nov 2017 21:56 by Frohike.
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28 Nov 2017 22:28 #258327 by hotseatgames
Just finished The Punisher. I really liked this show. Other than Daredevil, it's the only Marvel Netflix show I've made it all the way through. The first half probably could have been 2 episodes shorter... they took a while getting up to speed. But the last half was fantastic!

I hope they make more.

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29 Nov 2017 11:17 #258336 by ThirstyMan
OK I finished Legends of Tomorrow (well, S2 anyway which is as far as Netflix goes).
It did get better, I have to say, but absurd time travel paradoxes tended to spoil it a bit, I think. Like the sexuality jokes throughout. Like how that is slowly being normalised into US entertainment culture.

Now on Arrow Season 3 which is not bad. Love the Arabic speaking League of Assassins. I guess if you are going to pick something from Arabic culture that is basically non religious, then assassins is the way to go.
That guy in red, Armoury or Assault or something, is a dick and so is the police captain.
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29 Nov 2017 11:34 #258338 by barrowdown

Frohike wrote:

charlest wrote: Godless, a Netflix Western miniseries, has my attention after the first two episodes. The abundance of female characters adds an interesting slant and I enjoy that social issues are highlighted while weaving through the slightly typical revenge narrative. Acting, writing, and cinematography are all top notch and it has a very large cinematic feel to it. I also appreciate that it doesn't appear to waste your time with fluff.


I enjoyed the show right up until the finale which felt like it was directed by someone else, or by committee, or by budget pressure. It wasn’t a terrible episode, but in the context of the rest of the mini-series it was kind of pedestrian and predictable, with several character threads just kind of fizzling out or ending unceremoniously... probably because they wrote arcs that needed a couple more episodes to really pay off but didn’t have that luxury.


We still have a couple of episodes left of Godless and it definitely has some issues. All of my problems stem from the fact that it is several show ideas jammed into one mini-series. It feels like the original intent was for a longer season or multiple series or both. Some of the storylines logically mesh, but others feel tacked on from a different show. They are not of any lower quality, they just do not belong with the others. It should have been separated into two different shows: Griffin/Goode/Fletcher/McNue in one and La Belle/Blackton/Quicksilver in the other.

Based on Frohike's comment, I doubt they will manage to tie it all together in the final two episodes and it will end up as a good series not a great one.

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29 Nov 2017 12:34 #258346 by Shellhead

ThirstyMan wrote: Now on Arrow Season 3 which is not bad. Love the Arabic speaking League of Assassins. I guess if you are going to pick something from Arabic culture that is basically non religious, then assassins is the way to go.
That guy in red, Armoury or Assault or something, is a dick and so is the police captain.


Arrow season three was as far as I got in that series. The League of Assassins is the same group that appears in Batman Begins. Arsenal is the guy in red, and he isn't a strong enough actor to play a heterosexual character who is supposed to have chemistry with Ollie's sister. I lost interest for contradictory reasons: too much soap opera and most of the supporting cast becoming superheroes. Oh, and the ridiculous number of archers in Star City, and the technobabble of Felicity Smoak. Too much drama following a standard formula: character has a secret, complications, secret revealed, more complications. All that said, Arrow was the best Batman tv show that I've seen.
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03 Dec 2017 10:59 - 03 Dec 2017 11:06 #258576 by Sagrilarus

Sagrilarus wrote: Good Behavior is back for season 2. Anyone watching?


I'll tell you what, anybody who hasn't taken a look at Good Behavior on TNT is missing the boat. Season 2 in particular is showing very creative script writing, beautiful character development and some superb acting. Michelle Dockery is stunningly good playing a role as different from her Downton Abbey gig as is conceivable. Her interactions with her costar Juan Diego Botar are pitch-perfect. This is intellectual television.

I don't know of anything I'd compare it to at the moment. The last couple of episodes have had some exceptionally artistic camera work as well, directly relating to the state of the characters. You really should be giving this one a shot. As far as I'm concerned it's the best show on TV at the moment. Stranger Things was good, this is better by a fair margin.

Fair warning, sexual content, violence and a lot of drug use. This is a gritty show.

TNT is getting very experimental, and some of its efforts are quite impressive. My wife and I look forward to every episode of this one.

S.
Last edit: 03 Dec 2017 11:06 by Sagrilarus.
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04 Dec 2017 16:00 #258608 by Hex Sinister
I caught 3/4 of an episode and it wasn't bad.

Stranger Things 2 was disappointing at best. It started off alright but gradually nosedived into that punk gang filler episode. That was pure trash, not in a good way either. From that point on I just wanted it to be over. I don't feel the series was very well thought out or executed. The good moments (and there are several) didn't make up for the rest. 2 stars.

True Detective 2 fared a lot better. I knew what NOT to expect and was cool with that going in. I thought Vince Vaughn was going to make me choke hard but dammit he won me over somehow. Pretty gripping cop/gangster show overall. 4 stars.

Daredevil (Season1) is pretty much like all the other Marvel Netflix stuff. Low B grade material at it's best and downright corny or cheesy at other times. The scene with Froggy and Matt crying it out made me cringe it was so painfully awkward. Froggy is the most embarrassing character evar. What casting sludge hole did this guy spawn from?FFS! Kingpin is alright, I guess. My friend is a big Elektra fan and he says they fucked that up, so we'll see. I'll stick it out.

Mad Men and Downton were both really top notch. Yeah, I'm behind with shit.

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04 Dec 2017 16:43 #258611 by Shellhead
I am watching Ash vs Evil Dead, season 2. Almost every important character is back again, except for the black female cop that I really liked in season one. The overall quality is about the same, so if you liked season 1, you will like season 2. And yet, the jokes aren't quite as funny this time around, even with the addition of Ted Raimi (best known as Joxer from the Xena show of the '90s) and more screen time for Lucy Lawless. The story also feels like it got stuck in a bit of a rut once they got to Ash's hometown. The song choices are still classic rock, either great or strange. The action still mostly lands on the buckets of gore end of the scale, though there is one hilarious scene involving full frontal shots of a naked male corpse. Lee Majors has some good scenes playing Ash's dad.

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04 Dec 2017 17:50 - 05 Dec 2017 11:05 #258616 by Jackwraith
True Detective season 2 was really bad. From the staged dialogue to the wooden characters, it was pretty obvious that season 1 had been Pizzolatto's baby that he'd been nursing along for years and he managed to get together with McConaughey and Fukunaga at the peak of their powers. When he cut everyone else loose because he wanted all the credit, it showed. Badly. I mean, the plot was all over the place and wasn't even that well executed. In episode 7, where Ani gets to the party and is required to ingest Ecstasy, she has a reaction to it that no human has ever experienced. She becomes totally disoriented and her vision clouds, like she's drunk. But X is a stimulant, like cocaine. She should have been wired, not functionally impaired. Then, after she's been feeling the effects for a half hour (i.e. it's long since passed into her bloodstream), she breaks the stupor by sticking a finger down her throat. Sorry. There's nothing left down there. You're stuck with it. But she's OK to help another ailing woman sprint down a hillside 10 minutes later. In that same episode, Ray and Paul do what every good cop does: listen outside a window as the details of the entire plot are revealed. Just brutal, man. It was a long, long fall from season 1, which was and remains excellent.

I watched the first couple episodes of Sneaky Pete the other day. Not great. Not horrible. The first episode was a bit too formulaic (Cousin's a bail bondsman and needs to save the business! Pete, with his street smarts, will guide her through kinda funny, kinda menacing hijinks to save the day!) The second episode was better, though. They're taking their sweet time introducing the cast and laying the groundwork for the past events that mean everything to the current day. They've had more than one person on screen that Pete is speaking to familiarly but who hasn't been named directly or at all. I'm fine with that, since it lets the story grow on its own, rather than shoveling it to the audience. I'm not quite ready to accept Bryan Cranston as Super Tough Bad Guy, but he did OK. I wish Ribisi (Pete) was a little more canny and a little less weaselly sometimes, but I'm willing to ride along and see where it goes. No one else on the cast has sold me yet, though.
Last edit: 05 Dec 2017 11:05 by Jackwraith.
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04 Dec 2017 18:39 #258620 by Shellhead
I went into watching True Detective season 2 with trepidation, aware that it was generally panned. A few lead characters delivered fine performancees, but the story wasn't good. It wanted to be Chinatown, but wasn't even in the ballpark. But my biggest problem was that I just found the entire proceeding utterly joyless. I mean, season 1 was pretty dark, but I took some satisfaction in the detective work, the chemistry between the main characters, the really hot BSC blonde, and the suggestion of mythos involvement. The ending of season 1 was maybe a little too happy and sentimental, but it felt like the show earned that ending. Season 2 was just so harsh and grating. I don't need the characters to be likable, but maybe a little less unpleasant would have helped.

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04 Dec 2017 18:44 #258622 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic What TV SHOWS are you watching?
I have been totally digging MINDHUNTER on Netflix. It is oddly stale and riveting at the same time.I am 5 or 6 episodes in and will finish the season to be sure.
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04 Dec 2017 20:01 #258627 by Jackwraith
Mindhunter was really well done. I think they really delivered on both the reality and the constructed story in that one.
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05 Dec 2017 09:28 #258634 by Joebot

hotseatgames wrote: Just finished The Punisher. I really liked this show. Other than Daredevil, it's the only Marvel Netflix show I've made it all the way through. The first half probably could have been 2 episodes shorter... they took a while getting up to speed. But the last half was fantastic!

I hope they make more.


I just finished this last night. It's ... fine. The cast was solid, but I'm kind of done with shadowy military cabals and government conspiracies. As with all these Netflix Marvel shows, they cram about 10 episodes of plot into 13 episodes, so everything is stretched thin and slowly-paced.

Also, I realized that I like the more out-there, sci-fi / fantasy genre elements of superhero fiction, and this show had none of that. It was a straight-up, sorta bland, action drama about a vigilante. It had nothing to do with the wider, crazier Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I found myself wishing for more of that genre stuff.
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08 Dec 2017 06:16 #258775 by repoman
In 1978 a guy named James Burke wrote a book and hosted a 10 Episode TV show called Connections. In this show, Burke, a science historian, would look at an invention or idea in the past and how that lead to a ripple effect down through history. So as an imaginary example, somebody created the paper clip and that eventually leads to man landing on the moon.

I LOVED that show and if you've never seen it you really should

Well, I came across a show streaming on Amazon called How We Got to Now hosted by Stephen Johnson. This is in the same vein as Connections as Johnson explores the ripple effect of certain ideas and/or inventions and how they make the modern world possible.

I haven't seen the whole series but what I have seen is fascinating. I won't spoil the whole show but the first episode is about how modern cities became clean compared to the cesspits they were 150 years ago. Did you know that the entire city of Chicago was raised up several feet on locomotive jacks to allow for the installation of the country's first sewer system? I style myself a "font of worthless knowledge" but even I didn't know that.

I highly recommend it based on what I've seen so far.


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