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Mycelia Board Game Review

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What TV SHOWS are you watching?

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26 Jun 2018 13:55 #276260 by Joebot

hotseatgames wrote:
Also finished season 2 of Westworld. Ugh. Utter nonsense. Also, there is an end credits scene, fyi.


I've said this before about Westworld and I'll say it again -- just tell the fucking story. It's probably a good story. But the manner in which they're telling it, with nested time loops and flashbacks and other confusing narrative tricks does NOTHING to inform the story or the characters. It's all just gimmicks, to try to create this veneer of "serious, prestige drama" in a show about cowboy murder-bots.

My overall reaction to the season is pretty much the same as the first season. It's interesting. I'm curious to see what happens next. But I have ZERO emotional engagement with the story or any of the characters.

Battlestar Galactica dealt with a lot of similar themes and story beats (who's really a robot???), and did it with a lot more style and craft (in the first two seasons anyway, before it all went off the rails).
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26 Jun 2018 14:47 #276263 by Jexik
After somehow avoiding it for a long time, wife and I recently finished season 1 of The Wire. Everything it's cracked up to be; television at its finest, etc. Been told that Season 2 is weaker, and so far 2-3 episodes in I'm inclined to agree.
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26 Jun 2018 15:31 #276266 by Shellhead
Season two of The Wire is still great television. On first viewing, I was initially frustrated because season two seemed to be getting too far from the story of the Major Crimes Unit, but it became compelling as the season went on. Plus the show doesn't abandon the unfinished business of season one, and keeps it simmering. Really, none of the seasons are optional if you enjoyed season one, and season four is incredible. Season five is shorter and less enjoyable than the rest of the series, but still worth watching to see how various storylines play out.

The important thing about The Wire that isn't obvious from just season one is the focus of the show. Jimmy McNulty is not the star of The Wire. Neither is Kima Greggs, or Avon Barksdale, or Stringer Bell. The main character of The Wire is the City of Baltimore. This series will show you the institutions of the city through the people that work for them. The city is dysfunctional because the institutions are dysfunctional, and change is difficult. Many elements of the series are based directly on real people and events from Baltimore.
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26 Jun 2018 16:17 #276271 by ubarose

Gregarius wrote:

charlest wrote: The most recent episode of The Handmaid's Table really bothered me. I really enjoy the show but it just struck me in a way which was very upsetting, something that is rare for media to do (Room is the only other thing from the past few years which bothered me nearly as much).

I'm kinda surprised it took that long. I gave up about a third of the way through Season 1, when I realized the show only made me depressed and angry. Please do not feel the need to tell me what put you over the top.


I read the book ages ago. It stuck with me, and not in a pleasant way. I can't imagine watching it. Just seeing the ads for Handmaiden's Tale upset me.
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26 Jun 2018 19:00 - 26 Jun 2018 19:01 #276289 by Gary Sax
Agree with Shellhead, but I had your exact reaction, Jexik. To my mind, season 2 is less narratively compelling---the first, third and fourth seasons are just compulsively watchable on just a shallow level re: characters, plot, and dialogue.

otoh, season 2 has grown on me too to be about equal to the others on future viewings. I do think it serves an important purpose in the tapestry of the show, showing the up and down ripple effects of the drug trade in different communities, in this case white working class communities who are set directly against black communities politically in some respects... and who may not see any through-line between one another in almost any way. These communities are obviously doing "better" objectively than the other areas we visit deeply during the show but grievance runs deep within them too---nobody assesses how hard things are or how bad things are going with some absolute referent to how other people are doing.

Or that's what I think...
Last edit: 26 Jun 2018 19:01 by Gary Sax.
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27 Jun 2018 15:12 - 27 Jun 2018 15:15 #276397 by Joebot

Jexik wrote: After somehow avoiding it for a long time, wife and I recently finished season 1 of The Wire. Everything it's cracked up to be; television at its finest, etc. Been told that Season 2 is weaker, and so far 2-3 episodes in I'm inclined to agree.


I just started reading "All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire," and it's making me want to rewatch the whole show again. The funniest part of the book so far is Idris Elba (Stringer) and Dominic West (McNulty) busting on each other for their American accents (both actors are British).

I liked Season 2 more than most, but I do agree that it's generally weaker than seasons 1, 3, and 4. Even so, mid-tier Wire is still better than anything else on TV. I think my biggest complaint with season 2 is that the events and characters don't end up having much impact in subsequent seasons (other than the Greek).

Edited to add: It makes me happy to see that Stringer, Avon, Commissioner Burrell, and Wallace are all part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now. I love seeing Wire alumni in other things. The show Fringe must have used the same casting director, as a bunch of Wire actors popped up there too.
Last edit: 27 Jun 2018 15:15 by Joebot.

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27 Jun 2018 15:29 #276398 by Shellhead
One reason that I really liked season two of The Wire was the focus on the union. For one summer while I was in school, I joined a union so I could work for my dad's custom cabinet company on a union-only site. My dad normally hired college guys to work on the big summer installations, but was forced to use only union guys on this job. For me, it was like spending a summer in an alternate reality, aside from hanging out with my usual nerdy gaming crowd on weekends. Anyway, the union guys from season two seemed comfortable familiar to me.

Also, I really liked the use of the original Tom Waits version of Down in the Hole with the season two opening credits. Never really noticed it until then, but that song has a nautical quality to it.

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27 Jun 2018 15:38 #276399 by Shellhead
Fun fact about The Wire. There is a recurring character that first shows up early in season three, a wise old black deacon of a Baltimore church. He is played by Melvin Williams, who was the real-life version of Avon Barksdale.

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27 Jun 2018 16:09 #276404 by Joebot

Shellhead wrote: Fun fact about The Wire. There is a recurring character that first shows up early in season three, a wise old black deacon of a Baltimore church. He is played by Melvin Williams, who was the real-life version of Avon Barksdale.


I did not know that!

Here's another fun fact I just learned: The sergeant in the Homicide department, Jay Landsman, is based on a real-life policeman named .. Jay Landsman.

The REAL Jay Landsman auditioned for the part of "Jay Landsman" and didn't get the part! David Simon told him, "You just aren't Jay Landsman enough."

Instead, the REAL Jay Landsman got the part of Dennis Mello (Bunny Colvin's second-in-command). The part "Jay Landsman" was played by Delaney Williams.

This is like the Seinfeld episode where Kramer sells his life story to J. Peterman!

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27 Jun 2018 16:12 #276406 by ChristopherMD
If we're sharing Wire trivia...the drug-dealing murdering character of Felicia "Snoop" Pearson was played by Felicia Pearson who had been in prison for drug-dealing and murder. She basically played herself.

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28 Jun 2018 02:51 #276454 by JMcL63
Been keeping up with the World Cup, and last night watched the Brazil-Serbia match after getting home from the movie.



What a great game! Serbia had a great second half and were really unlucky not to score. Then Brazil turned it on and played brilliantly to score a clincher for their 2-0 victory. I'm looking forward to seeing them in the knockout stages. First match is against Mexico.

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28 Jun 2018 06:42 #276457 by Matt Thrower
Don't regularly follow this thread, but no-one been watching The Terror?

I've read the book, and while I enjoyed it as a piece of historical fantasy-fiction, I felt it lacked the tension required for a horror story. The TV show has it in spades and is really very good so far. Also I have no idea how it was filmed: did they really build an entire 19th-century icebreaker ship as a set? And all the ice? Can't all be greenscreen, surely?

I hear they've commissioned a second season, obviously not based on the book, but just written as another piece of history-horror as a stand-alone arc. More of this sort of thing, please.
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28 Jun 2018 07:24 - 28 Jun 2018 07:25 #276459 by southernman
Been watching a lot of World Cup soccer while recuperating from a shoulder procedure and shit I hate those cheating, soft fuckers that dive and scream and grab faces in pain as someone brushes by. I'm sheltered from this only being a casual watcher in the european leagues but once the African and South American players arrive it is cheating prime time. And don't get me going on the incompetency of a lot of the refs (many are very good) and the idiots/clowns running the Video Assistant Referees .... God give me strength.

Finished watching Legion and after three or four pretty abstract, wandering, drawn-out, David Lynch-ish episodes the season final was pretty OK, nearly good. But the whole show has changed since the first season (did they change writers or producer) that even the finale wasn't enthralling and I was rooting for David and wouldn't have minded if he had vapourized them all at the end. Here's hoping season 3 turns it around or I may not see it through.
Last edit: 28 Jun 2018 07:25 by southernman.
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28 Jun 2018 22:19 #276539 by trif
There's some Terror talk upthread.

It's one of the best horror series I've seen. The tension in the final episodes was almost unbearable.

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29 Jun 2018 08:37 #276550 by charlest
I loved the terror. The episode with the trial and fog and the mess in camp was amazing television.

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