The Official, Long Awaited, TV Shows Thread

They released the whole batch all in one go...?

Netflix always does when its their own content. That's whats awesome about thrm. You can watch an entire new season over the weekend instead of having to wait 10 to 16 weeks to see it all. Hulu and CBS All Access releases 1 episode per week to try to keep you paying for multiple months.
 
That's whats awesome about thrm.
Well, um, isn't the anticipation and the fan speculation and the hype worth something? Not to mention, not having to be spoiled by people who rush to scarfle down all of the content in one day-long marathon sitting...? ;)

I for one don't mind spacing stuff out. It helps to pace myself, and I tend to enjoy things more if I don't feel compelled to "just one more episode!" until it's all gone. :p But the kids now, they have to have everything NOW, right away... *sigh* "In my day, we waited a week for the next episode and we were HAPPY about it!"

:LOL:
 
Really enjoyed Stranger Things season 2. It felt more substantial and less like a needlessly drawn out movie. (I thought the first season would have worked just fine as a 2 hour film) It was way more uneven though. Season 2 wastes a lot of time going off on tangents which don't really have adequate payoffs. And why were Max and her sociopathic brother even in it. Besides a bit of last-minute drama, neither of them added a single thing to the plot.

Would really appreciate if the Duffer brothers made trimmed-down movie versions of the two seasons and released them on Blu Ray. The plots aren't complicated by any means (certainly not too complicated for a regular length feature film), and there aren't particularly many characters to develop either.
 
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Honestly, how can you question the role of Max?

Much of what is so good in Stranger Things is how it's also a coming of age story of the 4 guys, even if it's obviously also heavily inspired by all the '80s movies and books (Stephen King, Goonies, ET etc).
Obviously a natural part of this is adolescence, romance and such, and how it effects existing relationships. The boys really needed something like Max to change the group and evolve their friendship and all; not to mention the great payoff in the ending, which was adorable :)

As for the older brother, well, on one hand it's sort of obvious that there are plans for him for the next season and it's nice to have such a character introduced and fleshed out well before anything special has to happen. And on the other hand, he was a great part of changing Steve's character - the guy was so easy to hate in season 1, and now you can't help but root for him :)

I also don't think that it's too long. We could have taken a few more hours of it easily :) mostly because we love the '80s stuff and there was just soo much to get excited about, from the music through the toys to the clothes and hairstyles and the cars... It'd be a lot harder to build that kind of atmosphere in a shorter format. The new It movie was an example of that - very good movie though...
 
Just finished it. I agree, for once this one didn’t feel drawn out, and actually I could have taken a few more episodes very easily. Can’t say the same for most other shows I’ve seen lately.
 
Honestly, how can you question the role of Max?

Much of what is so good in Stranger Things is how it's also a coming of age story of the 4 guys, even if it's obviously also heavily inspired by all the '80s movies and books (Stephen King, Goonies, ET etc).
Obviously a natural part of this is adolescence, romance and such, and how it effects existing relationships. The boys really needed something like Max to change the group and evolve their friendship and all; not to mention the great payoff in the ending, which was adorable :)

As for the older brother, well, on one hand it's sort of obvious that there are plans for him for the next season and it's nice to have such a character introduced and fleshed out well before anything special has to happen. And on the other hand, he was a great part of changing Steve's character - the guy was so easy to hate in season 1, and now you can't help but root for him :)

I also don't think that it's too long. We could have taken a few more hours of it easily :) mostly because we love the '80s stuff and there was just soo much to get excited about, from the music through the toys to the clothes and hairstyles and the cars... It'd be a lot harder to build that kind of atmosphere in a shorter format. The new It movie was an example of that - very good movie though...

I know what Max's role was supposed to be. I just think the writers/directors didn't come any anywhere near close to pulling that role off. She caused a barely noticeable amount of of friction between Lucas and Dustin. And in the end Dustin basically had bis "bros before hoes" moment, told Lucas it's all cool because Steve had given him some Heather Locklear hairspray-based advice. I think that was basically it for changes in group dynamics. I also thought she was a fairly lazily written, safe, contemporary "girl character" (rebellious, too-cool-for-school, great at everything, largely Huff Post hit-piece proof). And Her brother had daddy issues because of course he did.
And considering how everone in the group besides Lucas treated Max like shit most of the time, it was a bit hard to believe why she'd continue to stick around with them.

As for Steve: how much more redemption did the poor guy really need after season 1. He was your stereotypical bullyish bad boy for a couple of episodes in season 1 at most, but they changed him fairly quickly and rather thoroughly. He was nothing less than a knight in shining armor throughout the latter half of season 1 already. The show established him as a principled stand-up guy a long time ago, and him getting his face smashed in didn't change the way I regarded him in the slightest. Sure, he wasn't particularly nice to Jonathan all the time, but then Jonathan was also a real fucking creep.

I also wasn't particularly thrilled about the way they handled Eleven in this season. When she wasn't angry because Hopper grounded her, her screen time was mostly spent on telling us details about her mom. Too bad we pretty much knew all of that already. Then there was poor number 008. She got quite the introduction, but besides starring in one heck of a momentum killing episode towards the end, she endep up doing little more than nudging Eleven's character towards a more righteous path. The kind of path nobody ever doubted she'd follow anyway because she was never portrayed as the vengeful type.

Oh, and Mike spent most of the season sitting on his ass moping.

The big stand out character for me in this season was Bob. Poor bob :(

I still really liked season 2, but I thought it was rather uneven. Really stuck the landing, though.
 
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I thought season 2 of stranger things was ok. Most of the other Netflix content I've watched has gone way downhill, so I'm pleasantly surprised that it's even decent.
 
Watched the first 4 episodes of American Horror Story season 6 and it's been quite entertaining so far. Definitely a lot more straight-forward and far less baggy than the series has been in the past.
 
Never seen HoC but I've heard that Borgen from Denmark is better.

I've seen that series and it was okay.
 
I enjoyed ST2. A good sequel to the first series and still nicely quirky, if slightly less coherent than the first one. One or two things in there obviously setting up another series for next year and I expect I'll watch that as well.

Have to admit that I think HoC has already jumped the shark so I'm not sure it will be such a loss.

Mindhunters next, I expect, judging by the positive comments on here.
 
I'm laying claim to exposing Stranger Things to B3D :)

I was eager to see ST2. I think it was pretty impossible to outdo ST, and ST2 didn't do it. in ST they had the whole opportunity to introduce a great bunch of characters, and the quite novel idea of eleven and the place were she was 'created' and also the whole vague approach of slowly revealing the storyline and the enemy.

ST2, using the same characters and the same scenario, did not have the same body of newness to reveal to us. So it had to wander off in side stories. Whilst they were interesting, they didn't ultimately add a lot to the storyline, and for me did feel a little bit like fillers. We didn't need the amount of time devoted to MAX/her brother. The introducing of their parents seemed entirely pointless. The brother was in some moments a new "old steve", and in others the focus of comedy (his scene with Mike's mom).

I was really happy at the time when ST2 was confirmed to be in the same realm/story as ST, but it did limit the ability to enthrall and create wonder, the way ST did.

Can eleven in an ST3 (if there is going to be one), after 8 episodes once again bleed her nose, and potentially sacrafice herself to kill the baddie ? The first time was great, especially as we were unsure if "that was it" for eleven/ST. The 2nd time was a bigger foe, two hands, and a big scream, but a 3rd time would be a formula not unlike a video game with just a bigger boss level.

It was ALWAYS going to end badly for BOB. I thought he was a very superficial character.

Far too much time was spent on the Chief of Police.

The fact they felt they could only re-unite eleven with the rest of the gang in the last episode, re-inforces my belief that the writers struggled within the limits of progressing the existing storyline.

I wonder will ST3 include the redemption of "8", which would be a bit predictable.
They need to shift ST3 in a different direction. Also the core group of actors likely don't have it in them to be young/awkward much longer, a little like seeing the transition from the first Harry potters, to the last few. They need might need to start portraying them as young adults, instead of kids.
 
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Yes, binged through Mindhunters while down with a flu, and really liked it. And if you need some cheering up, The Good Place is really fun.
 
Taking my sweet time watching things. Am only into the third episode of Stranger Things S.2, and I have noticed a definite tonal shift compared to S.1, in that there's more poorly conceived humor injected into the show this time around. Samwise's character is also just...terrible, all around. He's a good actor I suppose (haven't seen him in anything since fucking lord of the rings tho, but I assume he is), but here he's just so astoundingly goofy and boring. There's all these little beats where people have a silly or awkward expression and you're supposed to laugh, or Curly showing off his new chompers and going "Rrrrrr!", or a dozen other little things I'm getting hung up on.

It just feels off, and bad, and I don't appreciate it. And injecting another Bad Boy now that they disarmed the original one at the end of the series...why? I don't see the point. Like, there HAS to be this archetype in a TV series involving kids and teens? No, it doesn't!

*sigh*
 
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