The Official, Long Awaited, TV Shows Thread

[milk]

I just recently discovered The Larry Sanders Show, and got hooked. What are your guys thoughts on it?
It was pretty ahead of its time, using a mockumentary style comedy as in "the office" with naturalistic acting and non punchliney/winkey writing in the early 90's. Thematically, it reminds me a lot of curb your enthusiasm. I've bingewatches two seasons in a week. All its characters are depressing miserable self absorbed assholes. Just my cup od tea, hahaha.

 

[Davros]

For me Larry Sanders just reminded me of a cheap Billy Crystal

 

[tangey]

Sky in the uk are promoting the westworld series very heavily. The movie was great in its time, I guess it's one of those experiences that got me hooked on sci-fi and the like. I'm hoping the series doesn't disappoint.

 

[London Geezer]

Watched the first couple of episodes of Luke Cage. LOVE.

 

[Davros]

The movie was great in its time

Go watch the trailer for the movie it's awful

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Watched the first episode of Westworld yesterday and I think it has the potential to be pretty good.

 

[lux44]

Watched the first episode of Westworld yesterday and I think it has the potential to be pretty good.

I think the first episode is a very good movie by itself. I really liked it and rewatched a couple of times.

Only thing I'm worried about is their planned material for 5-6 seasons total. These maybe take place in alternative locations, but nevertheless could ruin the ending for the first season. If there is no watering down the content to fill additional seasons, I remain hopeful.

 

[Michellstar]

Apparently second season will take place in a futuristic amusement park, and the third one on an island with dinosaurs...

 

[tangey]

I was kinda disappointed with the 1st epsiode of WW. It's story lines seems be pretty dark/bleak and set an impression to me that it's going down a road of humans creating their own downfall. I was hoping we'd get at least some initial re-enactment( from the film) of the wonder from the players side of just how realt the whole thing was. But it's pretty much in break-down mode from the get-go, and I suspect heading towards an anarchy. If its frankly just a re-imagining of the film, but over 5-6 years instead of a couple of hours, this is really going to drag out. How wrong can it go ? THe only novel element indicated so far is that WW is a testing ground for some bigger plan.

Also, is there a reason why the bots or whatever they are calling them, are actually interacting with each other when there are no humans anywhere near such as the multiple re-runnings of the Daughter waking up and chatting to the father. Clearly that's done for the purpose of the viewer, but it requires the tech which otherwise is fabulously lifelike, to be totally dumb. Inter-bot interaction is just software talking to software.

And then we have the god mode arena where the techs can see everything going on, but strangely can't see a human scalping a bot and what appears torturing a bot to see if he can find more about the inside workings

Yeah, yeah, I know it's just a story etc, but they are spending I guess many £10s Millions on it. Can't they make even the first episode have some logic and cohesion ?

I'll stick with it for a while, in the hope that it gets more intricate and subtle, but it certainly didn't engage me like The Night Of or Stranger Things.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

There is only one TV show in this season that really matters.

 

[tangey]

I felt for the last several years TG turned into a caricature of itself, increasingly stupid and contrived set pieces, with scripted dialogue passed off as adhoc conversations.

And those 3 remain one rather loud, annoying and self-centred git, plus 2 followers, which is apitomised in the frame above.

 

[wco81]

I was kinda disappointed with the 1st epsiode of WW. It's story lines seems be pretty dark/bleak and set an impression to me that it's going down a road of humans creating their own downfall. I was hoping we'd get at least some initial re-enactment( from the film) of the wonder from the players side of just how realt the whole thing was. But it's pretty much in break-down mode from the get-go, and I suspect heading towards an anarchy. If its frankly just a re-imagining of the film, but over 5-6 years instead of a couple of hours, this is really going to drag out. How wrong can it go ? THe only novel element indicated so far is that WW is a testing ground for some bigger plan.

Also, is there a reason why the bots or whatever they are calling them, are actually interacting with each other when there are no humans anywhere near such as the multiple re-runnings of the Daughter waking up and chatting to the father. Clearly that's done for the purpose of the viewer, but it requires the tech which otherwise is fabulously lifelike, to be totally dumb. Inter-bot interaction is just software talking to software.

And then we have the god mode arena where the techs can see everything going on, but strangely can't see a human scalping a bot and what appears torturing a bot to see if he can find more about the inside workings

Yeah, yeah, I know it's just a story etc, but they are spending I guess many £10s Millions on it. Can't they make even the first episode have some logic and cohesion ?

I'll stick with it for a while, in the hope that it gets more intricate and subtle, but it certainly didn't engage me like The Night Of or Stranger Things.

One theme seems to be that while the robots are wiped and new programming is loaded, the "hosts" are starting to remember what they went through. Some of it can be PTSD but the guests are sadistic and engage in sexual abuse. So this bug they're worried about could be leading the way to a revolt by the robots, as happened in the movie.

Humans TV series covers similar territory, about some androids being programmed to be sentient, meaning at some point, they decide they won't take any abuse from humans.

Ed Harris character talks about getting into a deeper level of the game so they're trying to appeal to the same audience as Game of Thrones. But if it's like a futuristic video game or a holodeck, it's pretty unchallenging since the guests can massacre dozens of hosts without worrying about getting killed. Same thing with sex, the guests always score with the robots, so if it's a game, it's like on god mode.

Game of Thrones is hugely successful because it set up sympathetic characters in the Stark family which the viewers connected with immediately, as well as villains like the Lannisters and especially Joffrey. So far, WW is failing to set up sympathetic and villainous characters, though probably the two young pretty hosts are meant to be sympathetic.

 

[Malo]

How could the guns work the way they do in Westworld? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

How could the guns work the way they do in Westworld? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

You mean that they can't shoot humans? They could just have some high tech gizmo in the guns that knows whether a human or robot is holding it and in case of a robot block the firing mechanism.

 

[tangey]

You mean that they can't shoot humans? They could just have some high tech gizmo in the guns that knows whether a human or robot is holding it and in case of a robot block the firing mechanism.

That would allow a human to shoot a human. Gun needs to contain a target identification thingy.

I'll admit that i'll need to flesh that out a bit more before filing the patent.

 

[Mariner]

I felt for the last several years TG turned into a caricature of itself, increasingly stupid and contrived set pieces, with scripted dialogue passed off as adhoc conversations.

And those 3 remain one rather loud, annoying and self-centred git, plus 2 followers, which is apitomised in the frame above.

Not to mention the sheer banality of the scripted 'banter' you have to endure. The set pieces in many earlier series were often quite entertaining/interesting and you could believe much of it actually occurred by chance. The problems began as (no doubt) Clarkson and his flunkies became convinced they possessed some sort of comedic genius when this clearly, clearly wasn't the case.

I haven't bothered to watch any Top Gear for a few years now and didn't bother with the reboot, either as it was clear that they would just continue on in the same vein. Even the advert for Clarkson's new vehicle on Amazon (so to speak) was toe-curlingly bad - some sort of nonsense about sending some Fire sticks to the French via drones (as if Amazon.fr doesn't sell these in any case) - if they can't even manage any hint of wit in the advertisement, what hope is there for the show?

 

[Davros]

didn't bother with the reboot

The reboot followed topgear u.s
they got rid of everything except the challenge and an altered star in a reasonably priced car
and wtf 7 hosts cris evans I thought would be the perfect host but he turned out to be disapointing, le blanc however did surprisingly well, just the right amount of cynicism and sacrasm

 

[Malo]

You mean that they can't shoot humans? They could just have some high tech gizmo in the guns that knows whether a human or robot is holding it and in case of a robot block the firing mechanism.

It fires something as there are puffs of smoke where some kind of projectile hits the human. Those puffs wouldn't be devices embedded in the clothing. I believe it's something they'll never even try to explain as it's a necessary plot device in the world but can't really be scientifically explained with kinetic projectiles.

Spoiler: ep2 gun

Note that at the end of ep2, Dolores is given a gun from her mysterious benefactor. This implies the gun is special and will harm a human. This implies the guns themselves contain the restrictions so the only plausible explanation I can think of is that hosts have explosive rounds embedded throughout their skin which react to the impact of the "bullets". This of course wouldn't work for several parts of the body, therefore not plausible either.

I need to cease analyzing the show in that way so I can enjoy it more (which I already do after just the 1st episode). There's nothing stopping a human stabbing another human mistaking them for a host so the entire concept of selling to rich clients isn't plausible.

 

[wco81]

It fires something as there are puffs of smoke where some kind of projectile hits the human. Those puffs wouldn't be devices embedded in the clothing. I believe it's something they'll never even try to explain as it's a necessary plot device in the world but can't really be scientifically explained with kinetic projectiles.

Spoiler: ep2 gun

Note that at the end of ep2, Dolores is given a gun from her mysterious benefactor. This implies the gun is special and will harm a human. This implies the guns themselves contain the restrictions so the only plausible explanation I can think of is that hosts have explosive rounds embedded throughout their skin which react to the impact of the "bullets". This of course wouldn't work for several parts of the body, therefore not plausible either.

I need to cease analyzing the show in that way so I can enjoy it more (which I already do after just the 1st episode). There's nothing stopping a human stabbing another human mistaking them for a host so the entire concept of selling to rich clients isn't plausible.

Actually the creators said there is a Good Samaritan reflex in the robots. If one human tried to stab another human, the robot would jump in a take the knife plunge.

 

[AzBat]

3 rules safe?

Tommy McClain