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coyo7e posted:I suspect however that if you really made the show as bleak and sort of bland and made the characters all unlikable gits, then nobody would want to watch it at all. That sounds like a much better show than the one we've got though. If what you say is accurate, the show has stripped the characters down to basically nothing and not really done anything to compensate, so instead of a show about terrible people with a magic school as a backdrop we instead get a show about a magic school where nothing happens.
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Mar 23, 2016 02:42
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I don't know. I don't love this show. Its riddled with problems and it doesn't feel like a lot is happening. But from the way you book readers talk I don't have any interest in reading the books and I thank the show runners for making the changes they have. The only things keeping my interested at all are Julia's story and the Fillory/Beast stuff metaplot and from the sounds of it that stuff is all either show created or pushed up in advance from later books. My biggest complain about this show is that the Brakesbill crowd are all self absorbed assholes who don't seem to be doing anything to warrant a TV show and it sure sounds like the group message is "they're even bigger assholes who spend more time doing less in the books!" Which... like, I guess the best comparison I can think of is that a more accurate adaption would have been Girls with magic, and that sounds like the worst show in the world to me but I guess a lot of people love Girls. vseslav.botkin posted:Mageina Tovah. The Shield! She was the angry prostitute! Wow, I never would have figured that out without Wikipedia/IMDB.
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Mar 23, 2016 02:58
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STAC Goat posted:I guess the best comparison I can think of is that a more accurate adaption would have been Girls with magic, and that sounds like the worst show in the world   One terrible show that would have been better with Magic was Weeds.
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Mar 23, 2016 03:17
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Imagine the kind of damage Nancy could have done to everyone and anyone who ever loved or even met her if she had magic at her disposal instead of just the power of being a hot lady suffering a midlife crisis.
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Mar 23, 2016 03:21
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STAC Goat posted:Imagine the kind of damage Nancy could have done to everyone and anyone who ever loved or even met her if she had magic at her disposal instead of just the power of being a hot lady suffering a midlife crisis. Also the younger kid would have been waaaay scarier.
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Mar 23, 2016 03:31
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STAC Goat posted:I don't know. I don't love this show. Its riddled with problems and it doesn't feel like a lot is happening. But from the way you book readers talk I don't have any interest in reading the books and I thank the show runners for making the changes they have. The only things keeping my interested at all are Julia's story and the Fillory/Beast stuff metaplot and from the sounds of it that stuff is all either show created or pushed up in advance from later books. My biggest complain about this show is that the Brakesbill crowd are all self absorbed assholes who don't seem to be doing anything to warrant a TV show and it sure sounds like the group message is "they're even bigger assholes who spend more time doing less in the books!" Imagine if you will, less story than the show is apparently doing in one season spread over 4 years instead of one school year like they're doing on the show. That's The Magicians and Julia's half of The Magician King. You do, however, get a lot more descriptions of magical homework. But the Magician's Land (3rd book) is balls to the wall awesome throughout. The books are my girlfriend's favorite novels and she still loves the show for what it is. We were both surprised that Asmodeus had already been introduced but it makes sense to make her into one of the main characters on the show. Still missing that Josh though.
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Mar 23, 2016 03:44
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STAC Goat posted:I don't know. I don't love this show. Its riddled with problems and it doesn't feel like a lot is happening. But from the way you book readers talk I don't have any interest in reading the books and I thank the show runners for making the changes they have. The only things keeping my interested at all are Julia's story and the Fillory/Beast stuff metaplot and from the sounds of it that stuff is all either show created or pushed up in advance from later books. My biggest complain about this show is that the Brakesbill crowd are all self absorbed assholes who don't seem to be doing anything to warrant a TV show and it sure sounds like the group message is "they're even bigger assholes who spend more time doing less in the books!" You're not wholly off-base. The thing with the books is that the characters have more depth. Yeah, they're petulant drug addicts, but there's a real sense of listless ennui that can follow when you move on to the next phase of your life. I read the first book shortly after graduating from grad school, and while I never got as extreme as the Brakebills kids, I did empathize with them. The Beast doesn't loom as the Big Baddie throughout the book. I think that what I loved about the first book as that there's the overarching idea that The Next Big Thing will NOT fix your problems. Graduating high school? Still have problems. Going to college? Still have problems. Learning magic? Still have problems. Go to the magical land of Fillory? Yup, still some loving problems. It's a coming of age story for the lovely 20 something that a lot of folks were/are. And I think THAT is what the show is missing. It's focusing on PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT and giving us the broadest outlines of character. They started to show it in the past few episodes, especially with Alice and Elliot, and Julia's plot is one of the better ones of this season. I think that transferring Kady into Asmodeus is somewhat clever. I only wish it wasn't at the expense of having a regular Josh. Does anyone else think that Joe was based on Josh? If that's the case, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 
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Mar 23, 2016 03:46
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No way was Joe supposed to be Josh "That's some D&D poo poo! Dungeons and Dragons, Motherfucker!" Hoberman. He says this after seeing Penny and Alice have created spells out of the D&D handbook. One of the best moments of the book.
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Mar 23, 2016 04:01
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People in this thread are really, really bad at not spoiling poo poo.
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Mar 23, 2016 04:57
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This episode had a lot of awkward sex. Penny continues to be the only reason to watch this show aside from the female scenery.
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Mar 23, 2016 05:44
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Overdrift posted:Does anyone know who played the librarian from last night's episode? She's really familiar but I can't place her. I kept thinking of the Progressive Insurance lady.
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Mar 23, 2016 08:25
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She was Amy Cadingle in You're the Worst. If you haven't watched it then you should.
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Mar 23, 2016 18:39
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How is the thread title not Life is a Unicorn making GBS threads Rainbows of Candy
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Mar 23, 2016 19:37
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More like At Least He's Medicating.
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Mar 23, 2016 20:10
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I'm glad the Neitherlands are part of the show, and the park with fountains is a nice compromise from what it was in the book. Not sure I like the packs of roving angry outcasts, though. I can accept that the show is inspired by the books, and probably won't really follow the books at all beyond season 1. I get the feeling we're gonna be a Brakebills for a loooong time.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:32
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Snuffman posted:I'm glad the Neitherlands are part of the show, and the park with fountains is a nice compromise from what it was in the book. Not sure I like the packs of roving angry outcasts, though. One little nod in the last episode I liked was the librarian's response to Penny. "You always ask that" feels like (book spoiler)a nod to the mention in the books that Jane had been going back in time and trying multiple scenarios to find one in which the gang doesn't immediately die when facing the Beast. Actually, do we know for certain that Eliza and Jane are the same person? Other than her knowing about Fillory, and the Beast knowing her, have we had concrete evidence that they're one and the same?
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Mar 23, 2016 23:05
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I mean, its a three year study so 3 seasons seems easy. The school is mainly just used as a setting anyway so its not a big deal. This isn't Harry Potter where we're spending a ton of time on classes and studying. I mean, yeah, there have been whole episodes around a new lesson or school thing but its all been pretty different and out there instead of just people sitting around reading books and playing with their hands. One of my complaints about the show is that they really haven't done a good job establishing the authority/wisdom of the staff at Brakebills. If they had than Brakebills hanging around would make a lot of sense as a resource for the characters whenever they go off on whatever adventures they're headed in. There's been a little of them going to the staff for help but mostly the message has been "we don't know, figure it out." Which I actually think is an interesting implication since based on what's happening in Julia's and Penny's storylines the impression I get is that Brakebills doesn't really know poo poo. When you start to add up the little things we've heard from people it starts to paint a pretty clear picture. Antarctica Teacher - "using your hands and words is a crutch" Dude from Sex World - "on my world all magic is sex magic" Girl in Neitherlands - "People from Earth always have the weirdest magic" Drug Counselor - "Brakesbills is right that there's a glass ceiling the way THEY do magic" The common message is that Brakesbill's whole study and weird hand motions understanding of magic is really just one way of doing it, and possibly the weakest way. I kind of compare it to when I was a little kid I tried to teach myself to play piano but instead of learning how to read music I numbered each key and learned the order of which keys to hit for songs. It was a tons more work than was unnecessary and wasn't at all transferable to other songs so I never actually learned how to play piano or read music even if I can awkwardly come up with a few songs. That seems like how they're learning magic at Brakesbills. They don't know the code so they're writing their own more complicated code that only gets them so far. They might learn some tricks but most of them have no idea how to "read" magic.
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Mar 23, 2016 23:19
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WarLocke posted:One little nod in the last episode I liked was the librarian's response to Penny. "You always ask that" feels like (book spoiler)a nod to the mention in the books that Jane had been going back in time and trying multiple scenarios to find one in which the gang doesn't immediately die when facing the Beast. I started reading the book again last night and only got through the first chapter or so, but even by then it was interesting to see all the details I'd glossed over which were thrown right up ni the fore, such as how the children of Fillory were constantly battling the Watcherwoman, and also I think Martin was the depressed war veteran..? With the emphasis the shoe's putting on front-loading the Beast as a baddie though, I think that the Watcherwoman is probably gone for good. If you haven't read the books, it might be an interesting exercise to just check out amazon's free preview of the first chapter, to see how different and the same a lot of stuff is right off the bat. I'd remembered that Julia was an annoying goth chick but in the novel I had totally spaced that she was pale-skinned, freckly, and with long dark hair. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 00:21
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STAC Goat posted:One of my complaints about the show is that they really haven't done a good job establishing the authority/wisdom of the staff at Brakebills. If they had than Brakebills hanging around would make a lot of sense as a resource for the characters whenever they go off on whatever adventures they're headed in. There's been a little of them going to the staff for help but mostly the message has been "we don't know, figure it out." Well, in the books (God I hate just typing that), there were sort of two things going on about Brakebills and its faculty. One was that Brakebills could teach you the underlying theories of magic (versus the hedge witches memorizing a hodgepodge of individual spells but never learning the patterns), but even they admitted it was more an art than a science and definitely weird and unpredictable. The other was that, yes, the faculty were a bunch of blinkered academics obsessed with their own little arcane areas of study, who were utterly baffled anytime anybody posed larger questions to them like "why are we doing this" or "what is magic actually good for" or "is there a plan to any of this." It's a little weird with the way the show has adapted it, because on the one hand they've invented some sort of Chosen One plot for Quentin and/or Penny and it seemed in the first handful of episodes like Fogg, Eliza, and the other professors had a plan of some sort or at the very least portents and visions. In the books there's nothing like that at all, so it makes more sense when you start to realize none of the faculty has any kind of special wisdom or role as mentors. WarLocke posted:Actually, do we know for certain that Eliza and Jane are the same person? Other than her knowing about Fillory, and the Beast knowing her, have we had concrete evidence that they're one and the same?
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Mar 24, 2016 00:30
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coyo7e posted:More like At Least He's Medicating.
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Mar 24, 2016 03:01
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Joe the Sex Magician needs his own show. What a champion!
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Mar 25, 2016 03:41
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WarLocke posted:One little nod in the last episode I liked was the librarian's response to Penny. "You always ask that" feels like (book spoiler)a nod to the mention in the books that Jane had been going back in time and trying multiple scenarios to find one in which the gang doesn't immediately die when facing the Beast. Does the Neitherlands (book spoiler) persist across Jane's retries?
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Mar 25, 2016 03:46
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Argue posted:Does the Neitherlands (book spoiler) persist across Jane's retries? Well... it's never wholly specified as to whether or not the Neitherlands timeline changes with her loving with things. Since it is the world between worlds, it's certainly arguable that it is exempt from Time Magic. In the books it says that doing magic there is heightened. There's certainly something powerfully magical going on in that place, and it would make sense if the Neitherlands is immune to time magic.
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Mar 25, 2016 04:13
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Okay, I know they had characters kill themselves in this week's episode but it was still kind of weird to have that thing at the end.
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Mar 29, 2016 03:02
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That last little public service announcement... made me bust out laughing harder than I have at a tv show in a very long time.
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Mar 29, 2016 03:02
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Is Margo a character from the later books, I only read the first. Or did they create a new character to replace Janet, maybe even for the excusable reason of the classy joke of a Margolem?
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Mar 29, 2016 03:15
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HughGRect posted:Is Margo a character from the later books, I only read the first. Or did they create a new character to replace Janet, maybe even for the excusable reason of the classy joke of a Margolem? They changed Janet's name to Margo because having three important woman characters named Julia, Janet, and Jane was confusing. At least to me.
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Mar 29, 2016 03:20
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Well poo poo. The Quentin & Alice stuff was one of the few things I was still enjoying on this show.
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Mar 29, 2016 05:38
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drat, they went there with the threesome. Even showed Quentin kissing Elliott. The episodes are better when they're written by Leah Fong. She really infuses the right elements of the books without too much extraneous fluff.
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Mar 29, 2016 06:58
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M.C. Gainey noooooooo! 
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Mar 29, 2016 07:14
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Mouse Dresser posted:Even showed Quentin kissing Elliott. Not a book reader; was overjoyed.
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Mar 29, 2016 08:04
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Eukodol posted:That last little public service announcement... made me bust out laughing harder than I have at a tv show in a very long time. Same. For some reason, possibly because I just read books 2 and 3 over the weekend*, I found this episode disappointing except for the final scene which was genuinely upsetting even though I knew it was coming. Olivia Taylor Dudley nailed it. Then DON'T KILL URSELF flashed on. The only way it could have been funnier is if they'd added horns.aiff * delighted to learn that my favourite line from the show so far, "this house is haunted as balls" is a direct lift from book 2.
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Mar 29, 2016 14:27
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I'm kind of disappointed they kept in Quentin cheating on Alice because that's my least favorite part of the first book. Really the entire section where they're just kind of bumming around after graduating but before going to Fillory is my least favorite part of the entire series.
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Mar 29, 2016 14:31
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This episode wasn't bad. I liked the scene where they first bottled their emotions, and I like that both plots are actually moving forward. They're making plans and training, and Julia and her friends have a goal and are working toward it. Also, I loved that Cutthroat Bitch just showed up in the hospital and gave Penny that thing because up till that point I'd been asking why the hell they never go to any of the teachers or other experts until their own dumb ideas don't work, and she seemed to exist in that scene to say "Yeah, they're idiots. This is not a mistake on the part of the writers, you're supposed to think that."
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Mar 29, 2016 16:00
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I really liked this episode. I didn't think there were that many more episodes though right? Like two?
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Mar 29, 2016 17:00
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I have it down as 12, which would make next week the finale but they weren't advertising it as such.
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Mar 29, 2016 17:05
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13 episodes total, so two more to go.
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Mar 29, 2016 17:09
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I'm assuming they're saving the traveling to Fillory for the finale. I wonder how much of it they're going to show, though. Like will the majority of the episode be on Earth/Neitherlands and then they enter the Fillory fountain and it's credits rolling? I could see them doing that. Making the second season about Fillory and defeating The Beast.
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Mar 29, 2016 17:16
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This show is getting better and better. The Julia God vision was done fantastically.
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Mar 29, 2016 17:25
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I actually like it more than the books in certain ways. Penny is waaay different and more interesting in the show than in the books. Also, him being a rear end in a top hat makes perfect sense when you realize he's probably went through life hearing peoples inner thoughts. Julia's story is way more interesting in the show as well and it was smart for them to run them side by side. Elliot continues to be the best loving character on the show.
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Mar 29, 2016 22:41
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