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[Streaming Services] You love them, you hate them, you have them all.

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    urahonkyurahonky Resident FF7R hater Registered User regular
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Shows should have an option to display everybody's names above their head like in a MMORPG

    Amazon's trivia thingy that pops up when you pause is sort of useful for that

    Given the problem I have remembering names in general I’d be okay if this was a standard life thing too. Come on AR, you have the ability to make this happen!

    Google Glasses did (or does?) something like this but the general public didn't like it. People thought it was a little creepy. Pfft.

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    LostNinjaLostNinja Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Shows should have an option to display everybody's names above their head like in a MMORPG

    Amazon's trivia thingy that pops up when you pause is sort of useful for that

    Given the problem I have remembering names in general I’d be okay if this was a standard life thing too. Come on AR, you have the ability to make this happen!

    Google Glasses did (or does?) something like this but the general public didn't like it. People thought it was a little creepy. Pfft.

    I remember thinking it was a privacy issue back then. Just another case of a product before it’s time :cry:

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    MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Wife and I are watching Another Life and I'm still trying to decide if it's a worthwhile scifi drama or not. There's a bit (okay, more than a bit) of overacting, but I feel like some of it is intended, as a way to show the relative youth of most of the crew. It's also a shitty name for a space drama when there is no afterlife or other alternate reality involved (unless there's something still to come; we're at episode...6?).

    New season of Ozark coming in about a month!

    Also, watched Carnival Row and while I enjoyed it more than I expected, I'm not sure I'm exactly pining for another season.

    I'm personally working my way through TURN and I'm nearly through Season 2. The show takes a LOT of liberties with the book it's based as a general structure of where things are going. There's some decent character progression; which I like. The whole, "I love this woman but I'm married to another woman" thing is starting to get *really* old though. (The book is also called "Washington's Spies" in case you're curious. I recommend it if you're into historical literature. No forlorn love stories involved.)

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    CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Mugsley wrote: »
    Wife and I are watching Another Life and I'm still trying to decide if it's a worthwhile scifi drama or not. There's a bit (okay, more than a bit) of overacting, but I feel like some of it is intended, as a way to show the relative youth of most of the crew. It's also a shitty name for a space drama when there is no afterlife or other alternate reality involved (unless there's something still to come; we're at episode...6?).

    Another Life is a tragedy of interesting ideas and a couple of good actors married to shit-tier writing by people who neither know anything about science nor care to learn and who seem to have drafted scripts based on maximum Drama with no regard for anyone ever thinking about anything for too long.

    It kind of reminds me of Nightflyers, where they appear to have grabbed every sci-fi concept within reach so that every episode can have a dramatic turn based on a newly-introduced idea that will mostly not be relevant again later.

    Also, the whole thing about uniforms makes me irrationally annoyed. I think that was the first episode and despite having watched the whole season when it came out that's still stuck with me as being specifically irksome.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
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    MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Yeah, people wearing straight-up Levis on board made it a bit tough to suspend disbelief.

    Also the whole Gamma ray thing was weird.
    SURPRISE! You're all sterile! Oh, you're a group filled with top tier scientists and no one mentioned it? Sorry!

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    nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    The real twist of Another Life is they swapped the crew of a space ship for the cast of Roundhouse an no one noticed.

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    CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Mugsley wrote: »
    Yeah, people wearing straight-up Levis on board made it a bit tough to suspend disbelief.

    Also the whole Gamma ray thing was weird.
    SURPRISE! You're all sterile! Oh, you're a group filled with top tier scientists and no one mentioned it? Sorry!

    Shit, making the uniform of the ship "jeans and long-sleeve t-shirts" would have been fine. Leaving it up to each crewmember to dress themselves for the mission is just so...dumb. It was clearly just done so that they could sexy-up their crew of bizarrely unqualified 20-somethings. Which they then went ahead and made official by putting the only older people onboard in uniforms.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
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    fortisfortis OhioRegistered User regular
    Gnizmo wrote: »
    So I am going to risk starting a whole thing here. I feel it is important to state I am not trying to start a whole thing, but I understand entirely what the initial reaction to my very real question will be. I just ask that after the initial shock has worn off that people try to engage in good faith.

    When does the Wire start getting good? Or just generally get engaging? I have tried to watch it a couple times but it completely failed to grab me every time. I start losing focus usually part way through an episode and if I am not careful will not even notice as I do other stuff with it as white noise in the background while several episodes go by. It is obviously not a watch it in the background show, but I cannot even manage to pay attention through one episode.

    I get the impression it's a slow paced show which I am entirely fine with. I tend to thrive on characters, and character interaction. None of the characters struck me as interesting. They all seem like miserable piles of miserable that I want to fail. There was not one character I remember thinking I would be happy if that one managed to not get completely fucked over. Is that the shows thing? It feels like it might be which is one reason I have avoided going down this road. It doesn't fully explain why I can't engage in this show, but maybe it is because I can't find anything redeeming in anyone.

    Edit: For clarity I am not trying to say the show is terrible either. I avoid rating shows in absolutes whenever possible. Either you like a show or you don't. Objectivity doesn't exist, and if it did would be a dumb thing to apply to entertainment. I just wonder if the show picks up steam in a way I have missed.

    I'm a little late to this, but I'd recommend Alan Sepinwall's episode reviews. You'll obviously want to read the Newbies ones. They can be pretty long, but provide a lot of context and background on each episode and the themes running through them without spoiling what happens next. When I did my last re-watch, I read each article after an episode and found it fascinating to realize the stuff I'd missed or the beats that were being set up. I think it really helps to elevate the show considering the seasons are very much a slow burn.

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    ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    I'd second Sepinwall's reviews for anyone wanting to watch The Wire, and add that they also make it easier to track the characters and the goings-on in the early episodes.

    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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    AtaxrxesAtaxrxes Hellnation Cursed EarthRegistered User regular
    Speaking of streaming services, has anybody had any luck unsubscribing to Disney+ through the website? I've clicked the "login" button on every browser available to me, including on my phone and nothing happens. Like, nothing. The closest I got was going to the ad page for the free trial and then clicking login but it just gives me the spinny graphic that does nothing forever. Am I going to actually have to call customer service?

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    CommunistCowCommunistCow Abstract Metal ThingyRegistered User regular
    wandering wrote: »
    Finished part 3 of Sabrina.

    Random thoughts:

    1. God Devil damn my mind was blown when I realized Aunt Zelda is played by Éowyn

    2. I am pro musical numbers, as always

    3. Theo remains the one character who feels like a real teenager to me, in a sea of, like, TV Teens

    4. For the credits couldn't they have figured out a better illustration for Theo than him on the basketball team, since him joining the team was kinda random, and also the series basically forgot about it as soon as it happened
    5. I like how every single character who dies gets resurrected no matter what....except Harvey's brother. LMAO sure sucks to be you Harvey

    6. I appreciate that the devil becomes both hot and naked

    7. I feel like it was a cop-out to make the devil a bad guy. Give me a series about a good Lucifer and bad heavenly God. I bet there's some good fiction about that. God is a real dick in the Bible, and super overpowered, it'd be easy to make Lucifer a sympathetic underdog!

    8. Bookstore owner is prime husbando material, good job snagging him Aunt Hilda

    Anyway overall, I dunno, it's a solid series. I feel its Buffy the Vampire Slayer except without all the super-great standout episodes like Hush, etc. Basically a whole series of the Buffy B-side pretty-fun-I-guess episodes like the one where Xander gets ensnared by a sex demon teacher

    I've been having such a hard time with season 3. I thought S1 and S2 were good but not great. I feel like these would benefit from being ~40 minutes or less instead of ~60.

    It seems like something super important will happen and they just kind of drop it for the majority of an episode or an entire episode.
    My memory is crap so someone correct me if I'm wrong.
    - Zelda and Hilda find Sabrina hid Satan in the school and they pull him out and then don't mention it for a whole episode after.
    - Satan escapes and people just don't seem to care. Oh whatever no biggie.
    - They dropped the regalia for an episode.
    - They are doing a lot of telling and not a lot of showing with regards to the coven's lost power. Show us some people failing at some spells instead of just complaining about it constantly.

    No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
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    Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited February 2020
    LostNinja wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Shows should have an option to display everybody's names above their head like in a MMORPG

    Amazon's trivia thingy that pops up when you pause is sort of useful for that

    Given the problem I have remembering names in general I’d be okay if this was a standard life thing too. Come on AR, you have the ability to make this happen!

    Google Glasses did (or does?) something like this but the general public didn't like it. People thought it was a little creepy. Pfft.

    I remember thinking it was a privacy issue back then. Just another case of a product before it’s time :cry:

    They were capable of basically streaming everything everybody was seeing 24/7 and recording video/taking pictures everywhere. It wasn't a product before its time, Google Glasses were a really legit privacy concern.

    At least when somebody is holding up a phone and pointing it at you at the register, you know whether or not they're trying to record your pin number or something.

    Ninja Snarl P on
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    NosfNosf Registered User regular
    Google glass is creepy as fuck.

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    Atlas in ChainsAtlas in Chains Registered User regular
    Nosf wrote: »
    Google glass is creepy as fuck.

    What bit of social media isn't?

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    ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Ataxrxes wrote: »
    Speaking of streaming services, has anybody had any luck unsubscribing to Disney+ through the website? I've clicked the "login" button on every browser available to me, including on my phone and nothing happens. Like, nothing. The closest I got was going to the ad page for the free trial and then clicking login but it just gives me the spinny graphic that does nothing forever. Am I going to actually have to call customer service?

    Have you logged in on a bunch of devices? I know Disney+ has a hard limit of logins from 10 different devices which is fucking dumb.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
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    Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    I watched seasons one and two of You recently. That was a trip! I appreciate how different and much less predictable season two was. Shame season three doesn't come out until 2021.

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    AtaxrxesAtaxrxes Hellnation Cursed EarthRegistered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    Ataxrxes wrote: »
    Speaking of streaming services, has anybody had any luck unsubscribing to Disney+ through the website? I've clicked the "login" button on every browser available to me, including on my phone and nothing happens. Like, nothing. The closest I got was going to the ad page for the free trial and then clicking login but it just gives me the spinny graphic that does nothing forever. Am I going to actually have to call customer service?

    Have you logged in on a bunch of devices? I know Disney+ has a hard limit of logins from 10 different devices which is fucking dumb.

    Nope, 2 or 3 max. It looks like it may have been a problem with my work intranet. After I got home I was able to log in with no issues. What was weird though was it wasn't the whole page that seemed to be blocked, it was just the actual functionality of the login button. It's hard to describe. It's like there was a layer of the page that wasn't allowed to render. Anyway, problem solved.

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    knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    rewatching Penny Dreadful

    Sometimes I think Frankenstein’s Monster is the best character on the show, and other times I get so tired of his “poor me, life sucks” incel philosophizing.

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
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    XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    Well, his life DOES suck so you can't really argue with that attitude much.

    Penny Dreadful later run spoiler:
    Even though it was pretty dumb of them, when he gave the people who tried to turn him into a freak show their comeuppance it made his suffering entertaining.

    I hope the new show has a more upbeat ending.

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    Smaug6Smaug6 Registered User regular
    Aphostile wrote: »
    jammu wrote: »
    I bet the autoplay trailer data revealed the perfect scenario for Netflix. I would get frustrated with it after a minute and back out of the app. As long as I don't cancel, that's like running an insurance company. Profit goes up when the service goes unused.

    I ended up cancelling. The auto-play wasn't a deal breaker, but I didn't watch enough Netflix to make it worthwhile.
    I started browsing shows less after the auto-play feature, so maybe it contributed a bit.

    Netflix warned me that they gonna delete all my preferences in the fall if I don't resubscribe before then.
    World of Warcraft did the same threat back in the day and I didn't come back to that in 10 years after they deleted my characters.
    Lets see how that works for Netflix.

    Well in this case it’s not a threat and it’s data privacy law. So, cool?
    Ranlin wrote: »
    Aphostile wrote: »
    MegaMan001 wrote: »
    Ketar wrote: »

    Well it isn't as if autoplay features in any medium have historically been universally criticized and lead to drop in consumer engagement.

    Wait. /Checks notes.

    Huh, that's exactly what happened in internet advertising over the last decade?

    Not sure why you think we wouldn't know if autoplay lead to a drop in engagement or retention. Clearly it didn't, otherwise it wouldn't have been a feature for so long.

    Not arguing that point, but it did lead to me personally having next to no engagement, because for whatever reason autoplaying stuff (only on netflix!) would cause my PC to hardlock, regardless of what browser I used. So I'm super stoked about being able to disable that, and frustrated it took so long.

    Yeah that’s no good. Did you ever figure out what it was? That kind of bug seems like it should’ve bubbled up at least a few times in overall testing...

    Next thing you know, you are going to be praising GDPR. At least CCPA, even though it's more expansive, provides a decent framework to effectuate the law between consumers and businesses.

    steam_sig.png
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    NosfNosf Registered User regular
    Penny Dreadful felt like it went off the rails at the end. It was so good and then ... IDK, everything went to shit. Felt like it should have gone a completely different way and lasted a lot longer.

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    GiantGeek2020GiantGeek2020 Registered User regular
    Nosf wrote: »
    Penny Dreadful felt like it went off the rails at the end. It was so good and then ... IDK, everything went to shit. Felt like it should have gone a completely different way and lasted a lot longer.

    IIRC it was supposed to last longer. Then they got told 3rd season was last season and had to wrap it up.

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    Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    Watched the first couple episodes of that Hunters show that Amazon has been hyping up. I don't really like it all that much so far?

    Stabbity_Style.png
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    SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited February 2020
    Watched the first couple episodes of that Hunters show that Amazon has been hyping up. I don't really like it all that much so far?

    I took a crack at it as well, because I adore Al Pachino. It's a disease, maybe.

    Also, ever since reading Eric Lichtblau's The Nazis Next Door (which I have promoted on the PA Forums more than once and will continue to do so), the fate of German, Austrian, etc., war criminals and their calibrators (generically reduced to "Nazis") in the west is an interesting (and sometimes very dramatic) topic for me. But Hunters isn't really that...sort of? That doesn't make sense, so I guess I'll try and establish what it is: that is, a 70's-exploitation (mostly) Jewish revenge action flick where the bad guys are, appropriately, Nazis (military officers, doctors, chemists, scientists, etc.) who have successfully immersed themselves in American life.

    Where it breaks from Lichtblau, and technically reality, is the escalation: the Nazis are not content to have "gotten away with it" (which was the overwhelming desire of actual war criminals and callaboraters fleeing to the United States) and live in obscurity. Some of them are in on a plan to resurrect their vanquished Fatherland in an unsuspecting North America, and the (very exploitation-feeling) Hunters--a black militant, a white nun, Jewish Robert Redford, a Japanese-American veteran of the Vietnam War (Jesus Christ, with him I can't tell if the series is completely unaware of the really bad implications of a Japanese-American veteran of the Vietnam War, or is actually just brilliantly setting it up, since I'm still early on), etc.--are out to stop them. Cue very slick, very Marvel-movie-feeling spycraft and subterfuge (with 1970s technology) and much higher stakes than simple vigilante justice against (now) old people who outran the Nuremberg courts. The event that sends everything in motion--the murder of a young Brooklyn Jew's grandmother, and his angst at not being able to prevent it--is genuinely touching, and Al Pacino hams it up on camera at pretty much every opportunity he can (to the point where I sometimes need subtitles to understand him), and I'll probably keep watching for now, but...hmmm...not everything lands as smoothly as the series would suggest it would.

    To start, there's no context where "Fourth Reich" doesn't sound very silly to me. A second-generation Nazi thug, and his mysterious war criminal "Colonel" staring into a starry sky and repeating "Sieg heil"? Scary, sure. Any discussion of "Fourth Reich"? Not scary. We're too many decades into comic book and cinematic Nazi-exploitation genre, its pinnacle in Iron Sky where the Nazis colonize the far side of the moon with their moon-blowing-up spaceship, for me not to feel the overwhelming urge to laugh. Removed from fiction, we're also several decades into the evolution of fascism from a distinctly hyper-Germanic and Gothic rightwing war-state as the dying gasp of a fifty-year German Empire before it was conquered, divided and occupied by the countries that defeated it. Modern fascism has too, which is why actual rightwing political movements (that aren't in Germany) don't care about forcing Poland and Russia to give up East Prussia so much as fulfilling their own very frightening aspirations of a racialist society. Fascism and/or genocide are serious, genuinely worrying things. Another crack at German hegemony in the name of a long-dead Austrian war veteran/amateur painter/novelist, but this time in North America, is kind of a comic book gag.

    Still, it was entertaining thusfar. I'll watch more of it.

    Synthesis on
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    shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Watched the first couple episodes of that Hunters show that Amazon has been hyping up. I don't really like it all that much so far?

    Googling around for reviews, the general consensus seems to be "eh", so you aren't out on your own with that opinion.

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    RT800RT800 Registered User regular
    edited February 2020
    I want to like Locke and Key since it seems like an interesting premise, but the characters are pretty bad and the story is really dragging its ass.

    RT800 on
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    SixSix Caches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhex Registered User regular
    A friend urged me to watch End of the F***ing World and I just raced through he first first season and I’m well into the second. It’s fantastic.

    can you feel the struggle within?
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    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Finished the first season of Barry. It was excellent but I don't think I'm going to watch the second. Barry's not really someone I want to keep seeing.

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    KrieghundKrieghund Registered User regular
    Do we count YouTube in this? Because after I put my new machine together, I just cannot go there without them telling me they updated their terms of service and if I want to use their TV service or telling me to log in. Does it take an entire month of me telling them no for it to stop popping up? I have zero interest in any of the services they offer, I absolutely don't want to log in, and I've read the terms twice and it's still telling me to look them over. I don't remember this being a problem with my last machine. Also, the comments won't load. And while I don't want to comment, sometimes there is useful information there. Is it my ad-blocker, because I'm using the same one my old machine had with the same setting and this wasn't happening. Or is YouTube being deliberately annoying to force the issue?

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    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    It never stops.

    It's fucking stupid.

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    RickRudeRickRude Registered User regular
    Since YouTube popped up again, let me restate, a 45 minute video is not an ad it's it's own fucking video and damn near the length of a film. That s bullshit.

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    Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Six wrote: »
    A friend urged me to watch End of the F***ing World and I just raced through he first first season and I’m well into the second. It’s fantastic.

    I went to school with the director of that, so I'll take that credit thank you very much

    His new thing "I'm not okay with this" starts soon

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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    evilmrhenryevilmrhenry Registered User regular
    Krieghund wrote: »
    Do we count YouTube in this? Because after I put my new machine together, I just cannot go there without them telling me they updated their terms of service and if I want to use their TV service or telling me to log in. Does it take an entire month of me telling them no for it to stop popping up? I have zero interest in any of the services they offer, I absolutely don't want to log in, and I've read the terms twice and it's still telling me to look them over. I don't remember this being a problem with my last machine. Also, the comments won't load. And while I don't want to comment, sometimes there is useful information there. Is it my ad-blocker, because I'm using the same one my old machine had with the same setting and this wasn't happening. Or is YouTube being deliberately annoying to force the issue?

    Your ad blocker would be my first guess. There's a chance that while you're using the same ad blocker, you had a different config on the old computer, or you've messed something up. Disabling it and visiting Youtube should make things more obvious, and shouldn't take long.

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    swaylowswaylow Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Finished the first season of Barry. It was excellent but I don't think I'm going to watch the second. Barry's not really someone I want to keep seeing.

    I think you might find Season 2 a bit more tolerable in the sense it deals with his, uh, issues, more directly in S2. But it is certainly the type of show I enjoyed in small doses along with time between seasons.

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    Johnny ChopsockyJohnny Chopsocky Scootaloo! We have to cook! Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered User regular
    swaylow wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Finished the first season of Barry. It was excellent but I don't think I'm going to watch the second. Barry's not really someone I want to keep seeing.

    I think you might find Season 2 a bit more tolerable in the sense it deals with his, uh, issues, more directly in S2. But it is certainly the type of show I enjoyed in small doses along with time between seasons.

    It also contains Episode 5.

    Episode 5 is a masterpiece.

    ygPIJ.gif
    Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
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    lwt1973lwt1973 King of Thieves SyndicationRegistered User regular
    edited February 2020
    Finished S4 of the Wire. Odd shift in tone but I see what they wanted to do. It felt like at the end they tried to pivot a little back to the previous seasons. Still good but a different tone.
    I kept on thinking Omar was going to get killed but nope. Or not yet as there’s still one more season to go.

    lwt1973 on
    "He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
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    TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Everything I'm hearing about Hunters is just eye rolling, taking a simple premise that you just lightly Tarantino around the edges for style and you're good to go, but it's slow and has too much self importance going on, like someone trying to copy The Boys only thinking they get more prestige because it's based on real events (and people already know about Operation Paperclip).

    Makes me wish they would just flat out rip off Silver Sable and go full on hammy.

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    nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    Thing is if your making a vaguely farcical take on stuff like Nazis being a master of tone like Tarantino helps a lot

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    lwt1973lwt1973 King of Thieves SyndicationRegistered User regular


    Huh. So it's splitting it between tv and movies now.

    "He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
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    caligynefobcaligynefob DKRegistered User regular
    TexiKen wrote: »
    Everything I'm hearing about Hunters is just eye rolling, taking a simple premise that you just lightly Tarantino around the edges for style and you're good to go, but it's slow and has too much self importance going on, like someone trying to copy The Boys only thinking they get more prestige because it's based on real events (and people already know about Operation Paperclip).

    Makes me wish they would just flat out rip off Silver Sable and go full on hammy.

    Yeah, I bounced of it hard. Doesn’t help that the actors are doing a terrible job - especially Oscar nominee Carol Kane.

    PS4 - Mrfuzzyhat
This discussion has been closed.