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Michael is terrible and keeps being terrible, but I am still surprised by how well that show holds up having never watched it before, and also how prescient it is in a lot of ways. There are definitely a lot of Trumpisms in that character, and also it shows just how blatantly and nakedly Corporate just doesn't care about people and how it continually ruins lives. The little arc about the mom & pop paper company shutting down because of their corporate espionage was heartbreaking to watch, and it was SUCH a small aside. That's the kind of stuff that elevates it for the modern day, I think. When it gets into big weddings and babies and and has to have its sugary sweet sappy moments it's less tolerable for me at least. Hakkesshu fucked around with this message at 17:07 on May 8, 2021 |
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May 8, 2021 17:03
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Speaking of Trump and Michael Scott, the pilot episode of The Office aired immediately after The Apprentice, and in a couple interviews I've seen people involved with the Office say that without the bump they got from The Apprentice, The Office probably would have gotten canceled after its first season.
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May 8, 2021 17:26
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EL BROMANCE posted:Yeah nobody who is a fan of things like Kimmy Schmidt, 30 Rock and stuff like that should be skipping this, it’s great fun. Can see me binging it across the weekend. Most laugh out loud dialog I’ve heard in time. It definitely has a lot of the best weird Kimmy Schmidt DNA. A large amount of the third episode is taken up by this concept of a “New York Lonely Boy” and it’s strange as hell but also hilarious
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May 8, 2021 18:25
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CBJSprague24 posted:I mean, the Jim and Pam stuff, everything Ryan, and most of Kelly's scenes are fun and I've genuinely enjoyed them. It's almost like the show would be much better if they'd found a way to make the boss and his desperate for attention sidekick at all redeemable. I'd say by the end of the show, Dwight is one of the most self-actualized, successful, fulfilled, content people in the office. He definitely grows outside the role of Michael's sycophant and I enjoy the arc of him losing respect for Michael over time. I'm with you on generally seeing Michael as an unredeemable character the moment you place him in any grounded situation, especially today. For that reason you might enjoy Scott's Tots more than usual, it's a pretty late season ep but I reckon it works fine stand-alone since it's Michael face-to-face with some long-time coming consequences tied to some extremely-Michael thing he did outside the office.
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May 8, 2021 18:31
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watching Criminal Minds now because I needed some shlocky procedural and I'm a bit burnt out on SVU seems like half the time their involvement doesn't even matter, the killer keeps outing themselves publicly right before the team "catches" them
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May 8, 2021 19:08
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Khanstant posted:I'd say by the end of the show, Dwight is one of the most self-actualized, successful, fulfilled, content people in the office. He definitely grows outside the role of Michael's sycophant and I enjoy the arc of him losing respect for Michael over time. This is surprising as, at the point I've reached in the show, I could totally have seen 2021 Dwight incessantly posting on Facebook about how The Election Was Stolen.
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May 8, 2021 19:25
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Yeah, Dwight gradually gets humanized and more sympathetic and well rounded. Eventually he moves past the all consuming rear end kissing and selfishness and actually connects with people. He's still kind of an rear end, but I think they find a balance with him where he's one you can laugh at and still hope things work out for him. I hated Michael the whole way. Gradually he gets more sympathetic and people connect with him, but they always do an episode where he's just a selfish rear end in a top hat ruining people's lives and he's trying to squirm out of it or blame someone else. They never stopped thinking that was funny. But eventually the likable characters like Jim, Pam, and Darryl start to figure out how to deal with him and get through that and it helps. The Office is weird because there's probably like 4 places you can just stop watching and feel like you saw a satisfying ending, but then it just keeps going. I don't think it ever really gets bad enough that you have to bail, especially in a binge as opposed to week to week. Even the late seasons have some fun stuff like James Spader. But like when you're watching if you reach a point where you're like "that's nice, this would be a good place to stop" you probably could if you want to. It would save you seeing the Andy/Erin stuff.
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May 8, 2021 19:38
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Aardvark! posted:watching Criminal Minds now because I needed some shlocky procedural and I'm a bit burnt out on SVU I love dumb procedurals but CM is a bit too dumb for me. Largely because of stuff like this.
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May 8, 2021 19:41
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I love dumb procedurals but CM is a bit too dumb for me. Largely because of stuff like this. A lot of procedurals do this but I really hate when the cast splits up and simultaneously solves the murder via different routes. like half of the episode could be cut out because they were guaranteed to catch the guy through canvassing neighbors or whatever, so hacking a website to find his address didn't ultimately matter. This episode had THREE SEPARATE PEOPLE solve the murder within minutes of eachother 
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May 8, 2021 20:33
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STAC Goat posted:It would save you seeing the Andy/Erin stuff. Definitely the worst relationship of the entire show. Just had one of these seasons on today in the background and I forgot how much time they kill trying to shoehorn in a jim-pam/dwight-angela thing that never works. Andy never becomes an endearing character like Dwight. The best things he does is disappear for episodes to do a Hangover movie, but eventually even that drags down everything else. I like Erin but they really stuck her with the stinkers but at least Gabe was funny to have around
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May 8, 2021 20:35
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Speaking of procedurals, I started watching Major Crimes now that it's on HBO MAX because I really enjoyed The Closer years ago and holy mother of god I want to find the TNT exec who said "we need 20% of every episode devoted to the teenage victim / foster kid from the previous show" and just punch him in the stomach. Every time he's on screen the show just becomes annoying as all get out.
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May 8, 2021 21:05
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In the oral history of The Office that came out a year or two ago a couple of the cast anonymously talked about how people got frustrated at Andy Helms being given such preferential treatment on the set (and salary) despite coming in three years after everyone else. STAC Goat posted:Even the late seasons have some fun stuff like James Spader. I have to disagree because it was clear almost from the start that Spader just immediately lost all interest in being on the show (understandably) and the writers clearly had no idea what to do with him either (because of the need to foreground (potential spoiler) Andy Helms kind of negating the importance of Spader) and he dramatically checked out of the show even before they just decided to drop him as soon as they could.
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May 8, 2021 22:16
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STAC Goat posted:I hated Michael the whole way. Gradually he gets more sympathetic and people connect with him, but they always do an episode where he's just a selfish rear end in a top hat ruining people's lives and he's trying to squirm out of it or blame someone else. They never stopped thinking that was funny. But eventually the likable characters like Jim, Pam, and Darryl start to figure out how to deal with him and get through that and it helps. Khanstant posted:Definitely the worst relationship of the entire show. Just had one of these seasons on today in the background and I forgot how much time they kill trying to shoehorn in a jim-pam/dwight-angela thing that never works. Andy never becomes an endearing character like Dwight. The best things he does is disappear for episodes to do a Hangover movie, but eventually even that drags down everything else. I like Erin but they really stuck her with the stinkers but at least Gabe was funny to have around Steve Carell has always struck me as a try-hard. Ed Helms is that, but worse. Talking relationships, Andy/Erin is worse than Michael/Jan/Carol? I was assuming Michael was going to get "rewarded" with a relationship with Jan, but what we got was somehow worse. Every third episode or so in the S2/S3 stretch (I'm still early in 3) has some sort of segment involving Michael going "Hey, Jan. Listen, we hooked up that one time but, since I'm self-absorbed, I'm going to consider that as a relationship and I've moved on to Carol now and trying to rub your nose in it and we also may or may not be a thing but I think we need to be adults here sooooo you need to move on from this (which wasn't really a thing)." The only amusing thing about any of the exchanges on the phone is Jan instantly regretting having called Michael and hanging up or abruptly ending the call. e- added second quote. CBJSprague24 fucked around with this message at 22:26 on May 8, 2021 |
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May 8, 2021 22:23
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Ed Helms just isn’t a lead. He’s great as a member of an ensemble, but his energy is grating when he’s a major focus. Rutherford Falls is a good example of this.
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May 8, 2021 22:38
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Robert California should have been around longer
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May 8, 2021 22:43
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Aardvark! posted:watching Criminal Minds now because I needed some shlocky procedural and I'm a bit burnt out on SVU That show; in my opinion; was the muderporniest of the murderporn shows like csi and ncis etc. It is at its worst when they do their meta-plot arcs because they're very soap opera x tom clancy nonsense. Meta-plot is probably the wrong term for character advancement.
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May 8, 2021 23:01
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Chairman Capone posted:In the oral history of The Office that came out a year or two ago a couple of the cast anonymously talked about how people got frustrated at Andy Helms being given such preferential treatment on the set (and salary) despite coming in three years after everyone else. Yeah in that book it's very clear Spader signed on and suggested doing a whole season because he was broke and desperately needed a good paycheck. The show had zero plan post Michael so they jumped on the offer and hoped to figure it out.
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May 8, 2021 23:59
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CBJSprague24 posted:Steve Carell has always struck me as a try-hard. Ed Helms is that, but worse. Definitely worse. Jan/Michael is at least funny and you can feel some type of way about them individually and their relationship. Jan's really cold and dismissive of Michael, Michael is michael and is inappropriate, desperate, naive, pathetic, etc. Like them or hate them, there's a dynamic and friction there to form the nucleus of comedy. Melora Harding also gets more runway with the character I won't spoil, but Jan is fleshed out more and is her own brand of human tornado like Michael. Andy is a never ending pile of irritating and obnoxious character qualities and quirks, they shuffle him in and out of some romances, but his pathos is never explored or developed like other characters until, like, one episode in one of the "take em or leave em" seasons where they do attempt to engender some sympathy into his origin story/background/family... but it's Andy so you're kind of like, naw, his family is right Andy loving sucks and them sucking to him is fine because "gently caress off, Andy." Seemed like Erin's intended initial arc was deeply tied to Michael and to some extent the Ghost of Pamceptionist, then when Carrell left, they just used her as the testing bed for every hamfisted attempt to recreate jim-pam/dwight-angela, with the latter arguably already being an attempt to double dip. SunshineDanceParty posted:Yeah in that book it's very clear Spader signed on and suggested doing a whole season because he was broke and desperately needed a good paycheck. The show had zero plan post Michael so they jumped on the offer and hoped to figure it out. The Office Ladies podcast sounds like the opposite of this book, I wonder who all said those sorts of things. Office Ladies, are like, relentlessly positive people, reminiscing on one of the best time's of their lives with rose-coloured telescopes, so I have no reason to think they'll ever go into anything but love and abject praise for anyone and everyone involved. Which makes me very excited for them getting to the seasons where the quality was all over the place. Khanstant fucked around with this message at 00:08 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 00:03
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I hated myself for laughing at the scene where Michael is at some party and can't tell apart two different Asian women so he marks one of them on the arm with a pen.
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May 9, 2021 00:05
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Don't hate yourself for laughing at that joke, it's a great joke at the expense of Michael's racism. Only hate yourself if you didn't notice that the two women he brings are completely different than the ones at the restaurant.
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May 9, 2021 00:12
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Sekhmnet posted:That show; in my opinion; was the muderporniest of the murderporn shows like csi and ncis etc. It is at its worst when they do their meta-plot arcs because they're very soap opera x tom clancy nonsense. Meta-plot is probably the wrong term for character advancement. I mean at least it has Mandy Patinkin to give it a slight bit of an air of legitimacy in the first few seasons
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May 9, 2021 00:56
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Criminal Minds was pretty decent imho up to season 5 or so when they kill off Hotchner's wife. I seen to recall it making a pretty quick decline after that. Also lol at Thomas Gibson torpedoing his career be being a complete piece of poo poo on set.
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May 9, 2021 00:59
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Khanstant posted:
Spader himself, and the writers and producers are the ones that talk about that. Some of the other actors get into his awkward fit on set. No one is anonymous in the book it's all direct quotes like any oral history although some were obviously much more candid than others. The book is overall very positive but most of them realize the later seasons when Greg Daniels wasn't around to run everything turn into a mess. One of my favorite things was finding out that the Pam and Jim wedding had to be rewritten after the table read because Greg Daniels really pushed for Dwight to ride a horse over Niagra Falls. At the last moment before production the argument that they shouldn't kill a horse in the wedding episode won out. That's how we got things like the YouTube dance down the aisle because the writers were desperate to fill time with a whole subplot ripped out, and they just said gently caress it and went to videos they'd seen recently. SunshineDanceParty fucked around with this message at 01:20 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 01:12
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I really highly recommend the book. I got it on a whim last year and it was definitely one of the best pleasurable reads I've had in a while: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/605402/the-office-by-andy-greene/ Mu Zeta posted:I hated myself for laughing at the scene where Michael is at some party and can't tell apart two different Asian women so he marks one of them on the arm with a pen. One of those women is Scott Aukerman's ex-girlfriend Kulap Vilaysack.
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May 9, 2021 02:38
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I binged through the final season of Shrill today and it's a shame it was cancelled, especially without letting them know during production so it just kinda ends in a strange place. I didnt hate it though, not every show has to end on the perfect note with no questions and life for the characters is going to go on one way or another so some ambiguity is fine. Overall I really enjoyed the show, I enjoyed the honesty and earnestness of the characters and wish there was more.
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May 9, 2021 03:19
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gave up on criminal minds, now I'm trying How to Get Away With Murder which is just a very strange show tonally
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May 9, 2021 03:34
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SunshineDanceParty posted:Spader himself, and the writers and producers are the ones that talk about that. Some of the other actors get into his awkward fit on set. No one is anonymous in the book it's all direct quotes like any oral history although some were obviously much more candid than others. That's hilarious, why is Greg Daniels of all people pitching some morbid horse killing joke lol. That whole aisle scene is one of the most uncomfortable in the series for me. It's just too out-of-universe-and-character, doesn't logistically make any sense, and then they really run Jim/Pam reaction-face into the ground as it cuts to them mugging after every single character. All things considered the dead horse would've been easier to stomach.
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May 9, 2021 03:47
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I binged Jupiter’s Legacy today and it’s... pretty good. A bit slow at parts but if you like The Boys, I think you’ll like this too.
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May 9, 2021 04:14
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Josh Lyman posted:I binged Jupiter’s Legacy today and it’s... pretty good. A bit slow at parts but if you like The Boys, I think you’ll like this too. It came up in the invincible thread and I'll say the same thing here: first episode is slow, it picks up when they get into the backstory, overall decent but the super power effects are terrible in the fights
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May 9, 2021 04:18
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I started watching that Netflix anime Yasuke and I guess I didn't watch the right promotional material because I definitely wasn't expecting robots and magic powers.
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May 9, 2021 04:24
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Having enjoyed LeSean Thomas's previous show Cannon Busters I'm not surprised by that at all.
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May 9, 2021 04:30
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Khanstant posted:That's hilarious, why is Greg Daniels of all people pitching some morbid horse killing joke lol. That whole aisle scene is one of the most uncomfortable in the series for me. It's just too out-of-universe-and-character, doesn't logistically make any sense, and then they really run Jim/Pam reaction-face into the ground as it cuts to them mugging after every single character. All things considered the dead horse would've been easier to stomach. I agree on the dance 100% and reading that it was a last minute thing was almost a relief. The idea was some people have an inescapable urge to leap off Niagra and it runs in Dwight's family. So he spends some of the episode resisting that. During the wedding Roy was going to ride a horse into the wedding dressed like a prince or knight to win Pam over, resolving his earlier promise to win her back. When he sees she's pregnant and her reaction he realizes he was horribly wrong, and he also has no idea how to get the horse out of the church so Dwight takes it to return to the rental stable. While he's riding the horse back next to the water he gives and gallops the horse in. People rescue Dwight but there's nothing to be done about the horse, and during a sweet moment with Pam and Jim in the background the horse plummets into the water. They worked on the CGI for the horse in the waterfall and everything that was the plan. Someone in the book puts it best that it was a great Simpsons or King of the Hill idea but it didn't fit the world they had, but it still split the writer's room. What broke it was after the table read Steve Carell stuck around which he had the right to do but never did. He told them if they hadn't jumped the shark already this was that moment, and he thought it was a mistake. That's what broke the argument and how we got dancing down the aisles as they scrambled. SunshineDanceParty fucked around with this message at 05:10 on May 9, 2021 |
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May 9, 2021 04:52
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That's amazing hahaha, oh my god I would love to see that version. Honestly, my biggest issue with that version is the same issue I had with the aired version, have a hard time wrapping my head around just casually back-and-forthing between the falls and the wedding venue, even assuming the venue is like, super close. They just felt like very distant locations to me, but I'm not some anthony boyardee world traveler who goes to exotics places so I've never seen these waterfalls, maybe it's more plausible than I think. I also figure they could just as easily get away showing the horse pop it's head out the water after falling and paddle to shore, which means the horse dying was definitely part of the joke for them. I'm inclined to agree the shark was jumped before then, even if it's still fun post-sharks. I remember when it was still airing, the episode where Dwight stress-tests Jan's stroller was the shark-jump for me. edit: If they had done the horse instead of cringey flashmob, I reckon "jump the shark" would have a rival in "drop the horse off niagra"
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May 9, 2021 05:11
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The fight in the third episode of The Nevers is so freaking cool. The plot is also clipping along quickly and it’s entertaining so far, if a little broad at times (some of the quips are a little eye rolly).
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May 9, 2021 05:14
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My favourite Girls5Eva joke is that every time someone says the band's name, they use a bad Posh Spice accent. taco show posted:The fight in the third episode of The Nevers is so freaking cool. gently caress yeah. Show's loving fun.
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May 9, 2021 05:44
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Man, Final Space is so good.
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May 9, 2021 05:46
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ONE YEAR LATER posted:I binged through the final season of Shrill today and it's a shame it was cancelled, especially without letting them know during production so it just kinda ends in a strange place. I didnt hate it though, not every show has to end on the perfect note with no questions and life for the characters is going to go on one way or another so some ambiguity is fine. Overall I really enjoyed the show, I enjoyed the honesty and earnestness of the characters and wish there was more. Oh, they didn’t know it was gonna be the final season? That’s a shame. Gonna start the season today, and try and finish Girls5eva and Rutherford Falls too. Thank you to everyone who mentioned the Office book! I meant to get it when it came out but then forgot, and just snagged the kindle version on sale for £3.49. Perfect timing.
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May 9, 2021 08:55
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Girls5Eva chat: The full version of the Splingee is much funnier than what they had time to show in the episodes themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii8KPYpjcZ4 The spin it round, spin it round, (Spin it round) Spin it 'till you hear the sound. DONG That wasn't the sound. Keep on spinning.
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May 9, 2021 13:22
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It’s the first show in ages where I’ve watched through the entire credits for every episode. The songs are so good. I wish the season was longer, 8 episodes just ain’t enough.
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May 9, 2021 13:29
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Eight episodes is absolutely too loving short. Particularly for half hour shows (e.g. Generation and Made For Love both really needed to be longer). This was about as long as a film! Escobarbarian posted:It’s the first show in ages where I’ve watched through the entire credits for every episode. The songs are so good. I wish the season was longer, 8 episodes just ain’t enough. Yeah, absolutely. I love that it maintains Kimmy Schmidt's silly-but-slightly-sad tone. They've very similar shows in a lot of ways.
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May 9, 2021 13:59
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