What’s on TV?

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hulugu

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I really liked the show but the ending frustrated me a lot. Not sure I could re-watch the show after that.

Loved "Lost" and absolutely hated the ending. "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica" have endings that are so bad they almost ruin the entire show.

BSG's ending is arguably worse, even if it's clear that they were telegraphing this end fairly early. Lost's ending just felt lazy.
 

hulugu

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Now, I will also say that "Lost in Space" is a hidden gem of a show. It's done a great job of mining the old series, from getting Robot to say "danger Will Robinson" to having an evil(ish) Dr. Smith played by Parker Posey.

The special effects are cool; the score is beautiful and adventurous; and its characters solve problems by figuring things out, using science and ingenuity. The actors are largely good, even the kid actors, and there's enough punchy dialogue to keep things rolling along.

This is its last season on Netflix, which bums me out because it's such a fun show.
 

DT

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Loved "Lost" and absolutely hated the ending. "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica" have endings that are so bad they almost ruin the entire show.

BSG's ending is arguably worse, even if it's clear that they were telegraphing this end fairly early. Lost's ending just felt lazy.

Lost was always a little bit of a mess, so while I didn't like the ending, I was kind of like, "OK, sure, why not ..." Lost was such a major milestone in TV series history too, it combined a water cooler big event series, and made online sleuthing mainstream - and it was one of the first series where I recall thinking, "Really, they like this?" Like it felt sci-fi nerdy at times, but also managed to pull in all the night-time drama fans, really cross cultural.

BSG definitely irks me more, it was brilliant, until it wasn't at all ...

Endings are tough, so few series have really stuck the landing, talking shows that were for most of their run, as good as it gets. In recent memory, talking hour long dramatic shows, that'd be Breaking Bad, The Americans, and if I'm going to give a 1/2 hour comedy the best ending award, that would be Futurama, what a spectacular, pitch perfect ending to the series (yeah, I know, a "cartoon" :D)

Classic comedy best ending, no contest: Newhart.
 

MEJHarrison

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Lost is the soft-core porn of TV. It gets you all worked up and excited. Then it just abruptly ends.

With that said, it was a fantastic ride. I didn't even mind the ending so much. It wasn't satisfying, but it could have been worse. What bothered me more than the ending were the unsolved mysteries. I kept hearing on commercials that the next episode would answer all my questions. I'm still waiting. And I have LOTS of questions.

That show was the biggest tease I can think of. It didn't end up going anywhere, but the flirting was fun for a while.
 
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I didn't care much for the last season of Lost, but ultimately I felt that the show did explain more than most people give it credit for. Some questions were left unanswered, but most of it was explained, even if the answers weren't always satisfying. I think the ending confused a lot of people (hence why I still hear people say things like "so they were dead the whole time" despite that not being true) and it focused on something that didn't end up being all that important but I didn't hate it.
 

hulugu

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Lost was always a little bit of a mess, so while I didn't like the ending, I was kind of like, "OK, sure, why not ..." Lost was such a major milestone in TV series history too, it combined a water cooler big event series, and made online sleuthing mainstream - and it was one of the first series where I recall thinking, "Really, they like this?" Like it felt sci-fi nerdy at times, but also managed to pull in all the night-time drama fans, really cross cultural.

BSG definitely irks me more, it was brilliant, until it wasn't at all ...

Endings are tough, so few series have really stuck the landing, talking shows that were for most of their run, as good as it gets. In recent memory, talking hour long dramatic shows, that'd be Breaking Bad, The Americans, and if I'm going to give a 1/2 hour comedy the best ending award, that would be Futurama, what a spectacular, pitch perfect ending to the series (yeah, I know, a "cartoon" :D)

Classic comedy best ending, no contest: Newhart.

Yeah, watching "Lost" with people was great fun. And, I think what frustrated a lot of the fans was that the fan-theories were so brilliant and the end was so meh.

Breaking Bad ends really well, as does the Americans.
 

MEJHarrison

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The Americans remains underrated to this day. Justified, too.

I love Justified. I don't consider it great TV, but I do consider it to be really good TV. I tried to watch The Americans when it first came out. Couldn't get into it. It might deserve another try some day.
 

hulugu

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I love Justified. I don't consider it great TV, but I do consider it to be really good TV. I tried to watch The Americans when it first came out. Couldn't get into it. It might deserve another try some day.

"The Americans" is a little slow-going for a first few episodes, but the tension really ramps up by the mid-season and episode 11.
 

hulugu

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I have no, but from context I gather I should probably look into it.

"Longmire" definitely has a similar feel to "Justified" from its central character, Sheriff Longmire. I don't think it's as well-written as Justified, but it's pretty good. I was watching it with "Yellowstone" and kept getting confused because some of the plot arches are similar.

BSG fans will be happy to see Katee Sackhoff as one of the titular sheriff's deputies.
 

DT

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Justified is pretty terrific. It's based on the novels of Elmore Leonard (specifically Fire in the Hole), who is the author that also inspired Tarantino quite a bit, and in fact, Jackie Brown is based on Leonard's novel Rum Punch. You can kind of hear the shared DNA in the dialog between QT movies and Justified (Boyd Crowder would be right at home in any QT film :D)

I posted about this several months back, but the Justified showrunner wants to make a series based on Leonard's novel City Primeval, and kind of re-imagine it with Raylan Givens as the protagonist (who's not in the original book), and of course, Timothy Olyphant would reprise his role.
 

Thomas Veil

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So this afternoon I'm looking for something to watch, and as I'm going by what appeared to be a soap opera on NBC, I see a woman wave her arms and turn a second person into somebody else.

And I had the same question which you would probably have in such an instance: WFT??

I had the closed captions on so as not to disturb my wife, and they referred to the first character as "Demonic Marlena".

Oh! 🤷‍♂️

Best I can figure out from watching a bit more is that this woman is possessed by the devil and, weirdly enough, everybody in the cast seems to know about it and talks about her like she's Gladys from next door.

The show, it turned out, was Days of Our Lives. And what I want to know is, when did it turn into Dark Shadows? 😂
 

Herdfan

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Rewatched the Christmas episode of Tes Lasso last night.

It is certianly one of the best.
 
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Discovered Station Eleven on HBOmax. Three episodes in, we still don't know if it's bad or genius, but following a group of Shakespearean actors in the post flu-caliptic world thus far had blended existentialism and humor pretty well. It dropped some gems about actual arts, astronauts, King Lear and pandemics. It's based on an Arthur C Clarke award winning sci-fi, from a woman author (which adds a unique perspective to the story).

 

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Been binging on The Crown.
@lizkat, @shadow puppet:

By way of a treat to himself, Decent Brother took out a (brief) subscription to Netflix, - given that he is also spending the Yuletide break toute seule - and - having spent Christmas Night watching (binge watching) The Crown, - which he wrote to me about yesterday - he watched three episodes - something we had done together with my own DVDs of Season One & Two, all of two years ago, - when we watched several episodes back to back, armed with wine - which was also the last time (on account of Covid) that he spent Christmas with me, - he suggested, yesterday, that I avail myself of the treats in store, for he arranged for me to "piggyback" on his subscription.

So, yesterday and today (this is serious binge watching), I have been watching Season Three.

This is seriously brilliant stuff.

@yaxomoxay had wondered - in an exchange we both had on MR, when discussing The Crown and Harold Wilson - my (further) thoughts on Harold Wilson and Season Three.

Will return to this; however, the Aberfan episode (especially) was - awesome. Just incredibly powerful.
 
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