What TV Shows Are You Watching?

I powered through Bojack and can confirm that it is by far the best season. Most enjoyably experimental and changes up the formula a bit. There are three episodes I’d put on tier with “Fish Out Of Water.” However, no more Todd and Mr. Peanutbutter dumb wacky subplots. They are not needed anymore and just get in the way.

I thought the latest series of Bojack was absolutely phenomenal. The attention to detail was amazing, you can look back and see clues to every plot point.

The two main flashbacks were beautiful and brutal.

I particularly love how they portrayed what was left of the grandmother after her… procedure.

The more I hear about Bojack the less I have any desire whatsoever to watch it, it sounds like a massive bummer.

Season 4 of Bojack provided one of the best depictions of depression and thought spirals in media.

Its poison is buffered by ridiculous hijinks and animal puns. It lets the show draw you deeper and darker than you realize. Then there aren’t any more puns, and you are alone with mundane and complex personal tragedy.

I finished the second season of Halt and Catch Fire last night. I really enjoyed it. I still think that the Mutiny plot is more interesting that Joe’s storyline, but I’m glad that the show seems to be taking him away from being a kind of Don Draper clone like he was in season one. I’m looking forward to season three and the change of scenery. Also, I know he’s somewhat of a minor character, but I love Toby Huss as John Bosworth.

Finally, maybe I’m just being crazy, but has anyone noticed that the credit sequence for this show, while certainly showing how a spark travels to light up the power light on a PC also looks very similar to a digital version of sperm impregnating an egg? Like I said, it could be just me, but besides the credit sequence literally showing the spark of light (inspiration), it also seems to be showing the birth and genesis of a new electronic and computer… something.

I don’t know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKd4gh8WTdc

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Pretty sure that’s what it was going for :-p

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Apparently, I’m not as crazy as I thought:

“We had a very long storyboarding process — much more extensive and iterative than usual. We created stacks and stacks of boards. Our amazing art director Eddy Herringson played with geometric shapes inspired by everything from Saul Bass to retro video games to sex ed videos. We bounced between digital sperm to missile command and back — all in 8-bit.”

Also, I did not know that a site like Art of the Title existed, but now that I do, I need to seriously read up about more awesome title sequences. This website is pretty awesome.

I guess I’ll have to pick this show up again, I was starting to watch it after a great NPR interview but I got distracted.

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I’ll be honest, I thought the first season was good, but not great. Like I wrote above, the Joe McMillan character, at least in season one, came off as a “share-ware” Don Draper, i.e. a cheaper knock-off and of less quality than the retail version of a more popular game. That said, I like what they did with him in season two and I’m looking forward to seeing where the show will go in season three.

And for the record, I am mildly proud of myself for using the “share-ware” analogy in a discussion about a retro-computer show :slight_smile:

Gotham is mostly a collection of characters, which range in quality from “the Penguin being awesome” to the ever-tired “crazy bisexual femme fatal”. Unfortunately even Gordan kinda sucks.

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I saw about four or five episodes of Gotham, realized that it was cheesy garbage, lamented that it wasn’t Gotham Central, and stopped watching.

Yeah, but I really, really like the Penguin in this.

Hey, one person’s cheesy garbage is another person’s guilty pleasure show.

You do you :slight_smile:

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I’ve watched through every single Treehouse of Horror in preparation for a podcast recording. Some observational notes:

  • Treehouse of Horror V is still by far the best and one of the best Simpsons episodes of all time. What’s fascinating is that out of all the segments from the classic era of The Simpsons, “Nightmare Cafeteria” is completely original.

  • Treehouse of Horror II is so much better than I remember and likely 2nd. Bart’s segment is hilarious and Lisa’s predicted a lot of Simpsons hype.

  • Treehouse of Horror III is much weaker than I remember but still funny mostly due to the happy endings and atrocious animation that doesn’t sync with most of the dialogue.

  • James Earl Jones is one of the most underrated celebrity cameos in The Simpsons.

  • Treehouse of Horror IX is where the quality starts the fall as “Hell Toupee” and “Starship Poopers” are not very funny and use time very poorly.

  • Treehouse of Horror XIII is the last episode where every single segment is great.

  • “Stop the World, I Want to Goof Off” from Treehouse of Horror XIV has one of the best physical gags The Simpsons has ever done.

  • Beyond Season 15, the only good Treehouse of Horror segments that ever come up are “Dial ‘M’ for Murder or Press ‘#’ to Return to Main Menu” (A Hitchcock Parody), “Don’t Have a Cow, Mankind” (A 28 Days Later Parody), “Oh The Places You’ll D’oh” (A Dr. Suess Parody), and “School is Hell.” Everything else goes from meh to absolute unwatchable garbage.

  • There is a canonical Halloween episode from Season 27 called “Halloween of Horror” that is easily the best episode in decades. Features Homer and Lisa bonding, Lisa feeling like an 8-year-old again, great world/character building, fun song, and very satisfying ending. I’d recommend it to any Simpsons fan.

I don’t need to rewatch to know V is the best. One of the best Simpsons episodes period.

How does Star Vs. the Forces of Evil get away with the things it does?

It’s weird how far the show has come from what it started as. With how they’ve made the monsters represent minorities and indigenous people with some actual follow-through feels apt culturally right now.

So I just finished Mindhunter, on Netflix. While I feel that the earlier episodes were unnecessarily graphic, and I question the decision to make another tv show about serial killers, I found the plot and acting engaging. Unlike a lot of shows centering on the topic, the show delves lightly into the social theory (mostly namedropping) in a fictionalized version of Robert Ressler’s study of serial killers. It’s well done, and worth watching, but serious trigger warning.

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