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was the comic often comedic ? the thing that really kills this show for me is how unrelentingly humourless it is. literally all truly great shows have really strong comedy - it was integral to every great HBO show from the golden age. so much modern tv takes itself so seriously and it kills me. anyway, I think I am bailing out on this show, gonna go rewatch rome, deadwood, sopranos and the wire for the 10th times
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Oct 5, 2021 12:49
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This show is about 90% dumb poo poo I don't care about. Why couldn't it just be about the politicians? I actually want to keep watching that part. But Yorick's epic journey and the cult? Nope. Not interested. Also, I can't believe we're six episodes in and so little has happened. Everything is so drawn out and slow. Qmass posted:was the comic often comedic ? the thing that really kills this show for me is how unrelentingly humourless it is. literally all truly great shows have really strong comedy - it was integral to every great HBO show from the golden age. so much modern tv takes itself so seriously and it kills me. 
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Oct 5, 2021 12:49
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I feel like some of you are wondering why the show isn’t cramming all 40 plot lines from the entire 9 years of the series into the first season as though that question’s answer doesn’t become entirely self-evident when you say it out loud
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Oct 5, 2021 12:56
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Qmass posted:was the comic often comedic ? the thing that really kills this show for me is how unrelentingly humourless it is. Well, it is about the impending extinction of humanity.
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Oct 5, 2021 12:57
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Bust Rodd posted:I feel like some of you are wondering why the show isn’t cramming all 40 plot lines from the entire 9 years of the series into the first season as though that question’s answer doesn’t become entirely self-evident when you say it out loud I've never read the comic. I'd definitely heard the name before and either knew or assumed what the premise was, but I'm judging the show entirely on its own merits (or lack thereof).
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Oct 5, 2021 12:59
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Qmass posted:was the comic often comedic ? Yes, absolutely. Yorick in particular but even 355 was a lot less grim (and didn't have the "conspiracy within conspiracy" angle) and had some basic personality elements not associated with her job as a secret agent. The comic wasn't a continuous chuckle-fest but its humor was definitely an element of its core identity that the show has discarded. I do feel like Dr. Mann is probably closest to her comic depiction in terms of personality.
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Oct 5, 2021 14:25
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The comic is a lot funnier, and leverages a lot of (not poo poo) flashbacks and (somehow also not poo poo) dream sequences for humour, on top of character based jokes. A lot of the humour comes from the central trio though, who've really only just started coming into focus, of is derived from strange little side adventures that don't feature the main cast. That said, there does seem to be a concious attempt to tone down the book's humour. The Weird Al bit from the most recent episode is based on a longer, and IMO funnier, exchange from the books that they could have used word for word if they wanted. Though that could also be a function of Yorick's changed characterisation in this; he's significantly less competent in this, less educated, which rearranges the focus of the critique a bit. But beyond all this, the comic's first arc is a) its worst, b) basically just establishes the basic stakes involved, c) is so post-9/11 it basically aches. The second arc (IMO one of the strongest) is also gonna appear this season, so it might be worth giving it a chance? That said, the second arc is fairly satirical at points, and I dunno if the show will go there. Tiggum posted:This show is about 90% dumb poo poo I don't care about. Why couldn't it just be about the politicians? Ha! That's the plot I think has been executed the worst, despite the significant contribution from some of the actors involved. I'm not sure the politics of the situation exactly makes sense, and the villains are a bit moustache-y given that we're meant to take them and their points seriously (as opposed to Missi Pyle, who we're meant to see as threatening, but not ideologically cogent). Also, calling it: that kid's got a Y chromosome.
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Oct 5, 2021 14:30
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I honestly felt like the comic as it was coming out was really exceptionally good until it figured out it's own overall plot midway through then bogged down being somewhat boring (and tying every single popular character into having a place in the final narrative). It does kinda feel like this show started with that bogged down ness, of establishing things for later instead of getting the early freeform "we are just walkin around looking at stuff, here is a new cool town every week for a while till we settle what this book is about". I am sure it will lead to a less janky plot to think of it all in advance but it does feel a little dry. It's not the same "throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks" style the comic was even if it's somewhat the same general plot.
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Oct 5, 2021 14:42
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Open Source Idiom posted:I'm not sure the politics of the situation exactly makes sense, and the villains are a bit moustache-y given that we're meant to take them and their points seriously (as opposed to Missi Pyle, who we're meant to see as threatening, but not ideologically cogent). Will Yorick get to the lab? Yeah, probably. It's kind of implied in the premise that he's not going to be killed. And even if he was, it wouldn't really have any immediate effect since almost no one is aware of his existence anyway. Will his sister and her friends stay with the cult or get to the capital and meet up with her mum? Who cares? They're just random people. They could be anyone. It makes zero difference. But the politicians? They've still got access to power and authority. They're the ones best placed to explore the full impact of the story's premise. They could save the world or condemn it. Once you've introduced them, they kind of need to be the focus of the story. Either them, or some people who are directly dealing with the consequences of decisions those politicians make. But there's no clear connection between any of the three plot threads. Occasionally they'll meet up in some inconsequential way, but most of the time they might as well be different shows. And (at least) two of those three shows are boring as gently caress.
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Oct 5, 2021 15:33
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I only really like the political stuff because of the extremely sassy black and Indian women who hate the CHUDs and don’t mind their P’s and Q’s. It gives me the impression of the writer’s room for this show, a bunch of women just having fun and enjoying themselves and not giving a poo poo what CHUDs and conservatives think about their plans. Also President Brown is a house, she’s doing so good in this show, I love her and her assistant!
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Oct 5, 2021 15:38
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Bust Rodd posted:I feel like some of you are wondering why the show isn’t cramming all 40 plot lines from the entire 9 years of the series into the first season as though that question’s answer doesn’t become entirely self-evident when you say it out loud I think people just wish the show was interesting and had a personality, like the comic did
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Oct 5, 2021 16:38
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The *political tension* angle is what's weakest for me right now. In the comic the Republican wives "storm the White House" armed with guns, demanding they be given their husband's jobs, and when one of them kills a woman with a shotgun because of lovely trigger discipline and adrenaline they sheepishly gently caress off back home out of guilt after Yorick's mother tells them their *husbands* were elected, not them. The only other political aspect of the comic has already been hinted at - the militia women taking control of a vital interstate bottleneck out west. I also really hope they don't turn 711 into a villain, since I'm guessing that's the house 355 went to.
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Oct 5, 2021 16:45
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Escobarbarian posted:I think people just wish the show was interesting and had a personality, like the comic did The show I am watching IS very interesting and has a very mournful, curious pace that I find very engaging, I’m sorry that isnt working for you.
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Oct 5, 2021 17:12
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BIG HEADLINE posted:In the comic the Republican wives "storm the White House" armed with guns, demanding they be given their husband's jobs, and when one of them kills a woman with a shotgun because of lovely trigger discipline and adrenaline they sheepishly gently caress off back home out of guilt after Yorick's mother tells them their *husbands* were elected, not them. Along with this, it's also worth bringing up again that in the comic, Jennifer Brown is never the president. She's a low-ranking congresswoman who is an anti-abortion Democrat which is partly the source of why Hero doesn't get along with her. And the president after the apocalypse is a Republican. All of which I think sets up fuel for a more interesting political scenario than "what if the evil Marjorie Taylor-Green and Megan McCain decided to plan a coup against the virtuous President Nancy Pelosi" which seems like about the same sort of interesting or nuanced political scenario as a Trump-era SNL skit. The bit about there being an actual "Republicans storm the Capitol/White House to try and overthrow the elected officials" storyline in the comic I think also reflects some of the problems I have with the politics in the TV show. Before the show debuted there was a lot of talk about how the writers were going to update the politics of the comic to reflect the Trump era, which always seemed to me like part of the wider memory-holing of the Bush era, how terrible politics were then, and how the comic reflected a lot of the issues that were present back then but now get portrayed as only having emerged after Trump. So the updating of the politics to reflect the "Trump era" ironically took out part of the comic that anticipated a major Trump-era political development and replaced it with a simplistic "Pelosi and Democrats good, Republicans bad" narrative straight out of MSNBC, while also removing stuff that might cause mainstream Democrats unease, like a positive Russian character or the criticism of the Israeli military.
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Oct 5, 2021 17:18
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Yeah, I really hope we get Natalya in some form. She rocked in the comic. It is ~kinda~ interesting the tack they're taking, and I'm going to spoiler text this since even though the show's following a different formula. I think the way they're going is that the cop that blows her brains out right after The Event occurs is meant to be Missi Pyle's character. The cop not blowing her head off means we're probably never going to meet Alter and the rogue Israelis hunting Yorick aren't going to be part of the story. What I *do* worry about is that the tack they'll take is Yorick becomes "the most wanted man alive," and the show becomes a blatant ripoff of a Sliders episode ("Love Gods") where a biological weapon killed almost every man and those who are left are forced to become breeders. I remember that for some reason in that episode that Australia was a "world power" because for some reason they were able to save the most men from the bioweapon. It should also be noted that this episode predated the publication of the Y comic by...about five and a half years.
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Oct 5, 2021 17:43
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Chairman Capone posted:The bit about there being an actual "Republicans storm the Capitol/White House to try and overthrow the elected officials" storyline in the comic I think also reflects some of the problems I have with the politics in the TV show. There's a lot that's a bit cloying about the adaptation's politics. The way that the boo-hiss Republicans are characterised -- particularly the way they're consistently concerned with their make-up and clothing in a way the Democrats are not -- is A Choice. BIG HEADLINE posted:I think the way they're going is that the cop that blows her brains out right after The Event occurs is meant to be Missi Pyle's character. The cop not blowing her head off means we're probably never going to meet Alter and the rogue Israelis hunting Yorick aren't going to be part of the story. I really think that all book chat should be spoiler bar'd tbh. Particularly since Jennifer's aid and the Woman-Who's-Actually-Meant-To-Be-Acting-President-But-For-Some-Reason-Isn't appear to be riffs on two different comics characters; the pregnant astronaut and Alter, respectively.. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 18:04
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BIG HEADLINE posted:The *political tension* angle is what's weakest for me right now. Chairman Capone posted:So the updating of the politics to reflect the "Trump era" ironically took out part of the comic that anticipated a major Trump-era political development and replaced it with a simplistic "Pelosi and Democrats good, Republicans bad" narrative straight out of MSNBC, while also removing stuff that might cause mainstream Democrats unease, like a positive Russian character or the criticism of the Israeli military. 
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Oct 5, 2021 18:11
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Tiggum posted:Well, that sounds boring and pointless. It's a single issue and change.
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Oct 5, 2021 18:13
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will this show contain magic rings and/or amulets.
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Oct 5, 2021 18:59
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Tiggum posted:Well, that sounds boring and pointless. I think the left leaning ones appear to actually want to fix things and save humanity while the right wing just care about being king of the burning poo poo pile and/or purging their enemies by holy fire. So like real life. Sorta kidding but there was a conscious choice by the writers and all I ask is they also address that it isn't about any party nor just surviving but try to be better than what came before. That said: any party that cozies up to Nazis and says "gently caress your feelings" and calls for violence/control on others all the time are bad and you shouldn't stress about finding middle ground with. Discounting their parties completely, people in general trying to go backwards like the world never changed is, at best, foolish and at worst, as destructive as the plague itself. You also can change for the bad like Missi Pyle and the Amazons so should avoid that. The traditionally human attitude of FUGM will just lead to the extinction of life so they gotta think not just different but better. I honestly barely remember the comic, though I loved it at the time, and hope this series explores that particular train of thought... if it lasts that long. Enjoying it although I will back up it's moving at a slow pace. Liked the wake for mankind and singing Karma Police. I, again, can't really remember the comic but I swear the "Weird Al is dead" part hit harder in the comic. Going to rewatch that episode as I felt like I missed some things. Dr Mann and 355 are still amazing and want the road trip to start. Wish more post apoc tv shows had road trips. I might be wrong but it feels like the only one that did a large amount of road tripping was Z Nation. I'm still on board with the show but I can see why this show could lose people... which worries me as I want the show to get to the end. I weirdly remember details from the last issue and want more people to be as touched by it as a younger Dog. DogsInSpace! fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 21:14
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355/Yorick/Mann is the only remotely interesting plot line. I don't give a plugged gently caress about the dipshit politics or the Walking Dead levels of stupid that is the Girlpower Cult. I'd rather stuff horse paste up my rear end than watch that. The good news is that it means each episode is now about 10-15 minutes long.
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Oct 6, 2021 07:23
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It really seems like they're making three different shows for three different audiences and then trying to force us to watch all three of them if we want to watch any of them.
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Oct 6, 2021 08:27
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Tiggum posted:It really seems like they're making three different shows for three different audiences and then trying to force us to watch all three of them if we want to watch any of them. It's almost like the world is bigger than one man.
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Oct 6, 2021 09:10
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Jedit posted:It's almost like the world is bigger than one man. true, but I only wanna pay attention to the most important man- Ampersand.
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Oct 6, 2021 09:27
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Jedit posted:It's almost like the world is bigger than one man.
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Oct 6, 2021 09:46
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SimonChris posted:Minor comics spoiler: Totally forgot how Yorick's cloak and gloves situation really pushes the loser dingus stage magician schtick in the early goings. He's the last man on Earth and he wears a cape sometimes for... disguise. Yeah. That's the ticket.
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Oct 7, 2021 23:49
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Inkspot posted:Totally forgot how Yorick's cloak and gloves situation really pushes the loser dingus stage magician schtick in the early goings. He's the last man on Earth and he wears a cape sometimes for... disguise. Yeah. That's the ticket. Everything spoilered below are heavy comic spoilers that could end up spoiling major plot points should the show survive a single season, so consider yourself warned. Don't forget the fact that the two male astronauts on the Space Station immediately perish in flames upon arrival saving their kids and their fellow astronaut because we can't have two more accomplished and compelling men unseating Yorick as "the greatest man alive."  I mean, at this point given the hard turn into political pettiness and a pathological need for "current eventing," I'm wondering if the final reveal isn't that the deaths of all the men wasn't the work of some hundred-billionaire Elon Musk-type wanting to ensure that only HIS SEED was propagated from henceforth on and not Dr. Mann's crazy-rear end father deciding that men simply needed to die after perfecting cloning. But I'm quite happy that they decided against doing anything with the "Amulet of Helene" angle. I'm just afraid that they'll turn the show into a worldwide game of "Hot Potato" where Yorick's balls are the most valuable items on the planet. I also worry that somehow Crazy Republican Lady and Roxanne will get together and subscribe to each other's newsletters just to ratchet up the divisiveness. I also wasn't too happy with how quickly Hero seems to be falling for Roxanne's bullshit. At least Nora's going along with it only because it means her daughter gets to survive. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Oct 8, 2021 |
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Oct 8, 2021 00:41
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Sperm banks still exist presumably.
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Oct 8, 2021 01:02
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Everything spoilered below are heavy comic spoilers that could end up spoiling major plot points should the show survive a single season, so consider yourself warned. If this season doesn't end with the reveal of the two male astronauts why even make it? Even if that thread goes nowhere, I remember it being the first undeniably effective cliffhanger, however telescoped, and I'd like to think Vaughan and Guerra being involved will prevent another Runaways but who knows. It wasn't at the end of the first episode. There isn't a midseason. So... BIG HEADLINE posted:I mean, at this point given the hard turn into political pettiness and a pathological need for "current eventing," I'm wondering if the final reveal isn't that the deaths of all the men wasn't the work of some hundred-billionaire Elon Musk-type wanting to ensure that only HIS SEED was propagated from henceforth on and not Dr. Mann's crazy-rear end father deciding that men simply needed to die after perfecting cloning. Please no. BIG HEADLINE posted:But I'm quite happy that they decided against doing anything with the "Amulet of Helene" angle. I'm just afraid that they'll turn the show into a worldwide game of "Hot Potato" where Yorick's balls are the most valuable items on the planet. I also worry that somehow Crazy Republican Lady and Roxanne will get together and subscribe to each other's newsletters just to ratchet up the divisiveness. PLEASE NO.
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Oct 8, 2021 01:05
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Collateral posted:Sperm banks still exist presumably. In the comic, *all* gametes that contained a Y chromosome were destroyed along with all male creatures, and sperm banks require power to keep the samples frozen and viable. Inkspot posted:PLEASE NO.  I'm just trying to put myself in the head of a writer that might play to the lowest common denominator. They seem pretty intent on making the story ~super~ relevant to modern day issues.
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Oct 8, 2021 01:08
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Collateral posted:Sperm banks still exist presumably. One of the first episodes, when they were discussing evacuations that was a topic that came up. The Meghan McCain stand in really, really wanted to prioritize securing and evacuating those over people and the president overrode her.
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Oct 8, 2021 01:21
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Don't forget the fact that the two male astronauts on the Space Station immediately perish in flames upon arrival saving their kids and their fellow astronaut because we can't have two more accomplished and compelling men unseating Yorick as "the greatest man alive." I think this is a huge mischaracterisation tbh.
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Oct 8, 2021 03:57
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Finally getting caught up on this week’s episode, it felt the weakest so far. I absolutely do not give a poo poo about the Amazon cult. Between that, and the absolutely absurd conversation between the two blonde CHUDs, I really didn’t care for this particular episode’s voice. That said, I really thought I was totally done with hokey slow versions of sad popular songs getting me in the feels, but the Radiohead choir hosed me up, Fam. Really hope Monday’s episode shakes off some of the cobwebs and raises the stakes a little. 355 taking out 3 operators on no sleep was underwhelming, she just has instant sleep knockout poison? What?
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Oct 10, 2021 04:56
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They showed tomorrow's episode at an early screening at NYCC last night as part of the panel. Not bad. It was better than eps 6. They had most of the main cast there (minus Diane Lane) and Brian Vaughan "crashed" the panel. They also had a video from and handed out posters drawn by Pia Guerra based on the show's cast. Pretty neat. I haven't thrown my two cents in yet, so I'll just say that while I'm interested in the show, the changes from the comic have been hit and miss for me. The political part is by far the weakest, and even my roommate who hasn't read the comics complains about how mustache-twirlingly evil the Republicans are (regardless of how true-to-form it is considering recent years). Personally, I think Ashley Romans is killing it as 355 but that is despite the direction they've taken the character. Granted, comics 355 was a bit of a Mary Sue, especially at first, but the way their writing her just doesn't jive with me. Here's hoping they don't drop the **comic story arc spoilers** Israeli, Natalya, or astronaut story lines. Edit: Oh, yeah. There'd another major divergence in ep 7 that I am cautiously optimistic about. AlternateNu fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 15:03
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BIG HEADLINE posted:The *political tension* angle is what's weakest for me right now. Saying that that was the only political aspects of the comics is an extremely spicy take.
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Oct 10, 2021 15:48
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Do you think the mastectomy scar//Amazonian symbolism is too heavy handed and obvious or is there maybe another dimension to it that I’m missing? The cult leader, Rachel I think, is being portrayed as either “dehumanized wild warrior woman” or “fearless but ruthless” but with a definitive “I hate every single man that ever lived” kind of slant and I don’t know if I hate the character because I hate her or if it’s because that actress just creeps me the hell out. Also the nudity in this episode… I can’t shake the feeling that there is something beneath the surface tension of simply “we are all naked and so you are vulnerable” and that there is something else symbolically at work with the “bathhouse” scene but I was… uh… too distracted by the dialogue to sus it out… prob gonna have to rewatch that episode to really get the most out of it
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Oct 10, 2021 16:10
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Bust Rodd posted:Do you think the mastectomy scar//Amazonian symbolism is too heavy handed and obvious or is there maybe another dimension to it that I’m missing? The cult leader, Rachel I think, is being portrayed as either “dehumanized wild warrior woman” or “fearless but ruthless” but with a definitive “I hate every single man that ever lived” kind of slant and I don’t know if I hate the character because I hate her or if it’s because that actress just creeps me the hell out. I think in this case we were supposed to take the nakedness not as an attempt to show vulnerability but pretty much the oppossite, ie those woman are now "free" and feel secure to be naked around each other and while that might sound somewhat insensitive it's the reason why they picked not the most attractive (fit) woman (by TV standards) for that scene, the goal wasn't to intimidate or sexualize it but to show the communal aspect so it's all rather grounded and certainly not titillating. I could also offer another interpretation which might be a bit out there but you used the word "bathhouse" to describe the scene and male bathhouses were a big thing throughout history and could be seen as reflection of male power structures. The casual use of nudity in that case is certainly more in the realm of a display of power but I'd say more in regards to the bigger picture, it's not about intimadation of a person. Nudity can also be seen as the big "equalizer", it removes all status in mere appearance, everyone is not just unprotected when naked but also can't "hide" behind the usual status symbols. I'm not sure if the scene worked a 100% for me, I could see what its purpose was but it might leave a bit too much room for interpretation due to the cult like context. Those mixed signals certainly might be intentional but I feel it could have worked better at a different point in the story. The same is true for the mastectomy scar/Amazonian symbolism angle. That one was really not handled very gracefully. They tried to play it off as the cult leader just being very direct but it still felt like a NPC having to drop the neccessary exposition, it just didn't have the required emotional weight. This sort of reveal should be used in conjunction with an event that relates to the deeper theme, don't just drop it as random info on the character (audience), especially in a conversation that didnt have any emotional or plot related stakes in it. And yeah Rachel (if that's her name, I honestly can't remember either) is so far a bit too one-dimensional/obviously "evil". That doesn't need to be bad but if you want to have your one-dimensional villain then make them stand out or charismatic. A stoic villain is extremely hard to pull off because there isn't much for the audience to work with. LinkesAuge fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 18:09
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Bust Rodd posted:Do you think the mastectomy scar//Amazonian symbolism is too heavy handed and obvious or is there maybe another dimension to it that I’m missing? In the comics, the Amazons all cut off one of their breasts as their rite of passage to joining the Amazons. I think the mastectomy scar was just the show writers wanting to do a callback to that element from the comics without having to depict a bunch of DIY post-apocalyptic mastectomies.
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Oct 10, 2021 21:34
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It's telling that you keep calling Missi Pyle's character "Rachel" when it's Roxanne. It showcases how peripheral the plot is because we haven't been given a reason (yet) to acknowledge her as a main character.
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Oct 10, 2021 23:37
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I haven’t been watching this but I love the comics. The last few posts remind me of Yoricks line in the books about masturbating so much after visiting some communal showers that by the time he was done bone marrow was coming out. Ok that’s all I’ve got for now.
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Oct 11, 2021 03:12
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