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nate fisher posted:While several greats shows have been pointed out, I do believe there are no top tier dramas currently (unless I am forgetting one). Succession might be the closest, but when I say top tier I mean like Mad Men, The Wire, Deadwood, and The Sopranos. No drama airing today is at that level. For me Halt & Catch Fire is the last drama that hit that level. quote:Westworld (2016)
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Oct 11, 2021 15:19
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https://twitter.com/sopranosnocnxt/status/1183859425414508544
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Oct 11, 2021 15:21
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Cael posted:Even beyond just the quality level, when you have more streaming options not only are there just more shows but it also decreased the probability of one single network having multiple of the current "it" shows, or even ones people talk about. I was just having this conversation with friends the other day, take a look at current HBO dramas: I think their one offs have been fantastic lately. Sharp Objects and White Lotus were fantastic, and even with he Stephen King problems, I really liked The Outsider. I also really enjoyed 100 Foot Wave.
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Oct 11, 2021 15:34
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Matt Zerella posted:I think their one offs have been fantastic lately. And even though it’s been a few years, Chernobyl. That is a good point, they do seem like they’re killing it way more with limited / event series vs full ongoing shows.
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Oct 11, 2021 15:42
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Matt Zerella posted:I think their one offs have been fantastic lately. Another vote for Sharp Objects. I never got in to The Expanse but I saw a trailer for the upcoming season. Amazon saved that show, right? How has it been since they took it over?
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Oct 11, 2021 15:56
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Cael posted:And even though it’s been a few years, Chernobyl. That is a good point, they do seem like they’re killing it way more with limited / event series vs full ongoing shows. Thanks for reminding me of Chernobyl, also Mrs Fletcher. Completely fine with me as its pretty rare for long running shows to ending a satisfying way. The only one I can think of is Six Feet Under, and even that show had to plod through some uninspiring seasons/storylines. My SIL audibly gasped at the end of Sharp Objects.
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Oct 11, 2021 15:56
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Hughmoris posted:
Great. Effects budget has been better and while Season 4 has some pacing issues, it's still been very strong. Season 6 is the final season (at least for this chapter of the overall story, everyone has expressed interest in keeping the universe going) so there's never been a better time to jump in.
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Oct 11, 2021 16:14
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My Brilliant Friend is fantastic, and is absolutely up there in terms of everything HBO has ever done. It and Succession are both what make that channel worth it right now.
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Oct 11, 2021 16:19
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i only watched an episode and a half of succession because it seemed like just another bad mood show about megarich people being awful to each other and getting away with bad things. i'm not really interested in watching barely fictionalised depictions of the scourge of the earth anymore. just tell me about the real people. there's also something that annoys me about focusing on these people dramatically because they will inherently get sympathetic moments which they don't deserve. i'm being hypocritical because i love mad men and don't apply this in general, but i really just wanted succession to gently caress off.
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Oct 11, 2021 16:30
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roomtone posted:i only watched an episode and a half of succession because it seemed like just another bad mood show about megarich people being awful to each other and getting away with bad things. i'm not really interested in watching barely fictionalised depictions of the scourge of the earth anymore. just tell me about the real people. Mad Men was then, Succession is now, and they're exponentially worse people, in a show that's very much about them making money moves. Is that your problem, because yeah, I get that. (But yeah, My Brilliant Friend might be a better fit for where you're at.)
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Oct 11, 2021 16:33
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"You can't make a Tomlette without breaking a few Gregs" is better than any line in Mad Men. Succession is great because none of the mega rich people in it are good and they're all very easy to hate. It's a low key hilarious show.
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Oct 11, 2021 16:38
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Succession popularity was a subject of a gag in a Family Guy episode last night. If it's gotten that far, I would say it's made it as a cultural touchstone.
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Oct 11, 2021 16:53
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My Brilliant Friend is really wonderful stuff. Watch it if you like Italian teens getting into vaguely melodramatic hijinks!!!!
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Oct 11, 2021 17:11
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Hughmoris posted:I never got in to The Expanse but I saw a trailer for the upcoming season. Amazon saved that show, right? How has it been since they took it over? I think it would have been fine if Season 3 was the last one.
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Oct 11, 2021 17:16
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JazzFlight posted:I think the 2 Amazon seasons were pretty bad, actually. Season 4 didn’t really go anywhere and only the beginning of Season 5 had promise and an “OH poo poo!!!!” moment that they immediately squandered with a really boring last season half. 100% 
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Oct 11, 2021 17:18
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roomtone posted:i only watched an episode and a half of succession because it seemed like just another bad mood show about megarich people being awful to each other and getting away with bad things. i'm not really interested in watching barely fictionalised depictions of the scourge of the earth anymore. just tell me about the real people. 100%
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Oct 11, 2021 17:23
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Heels is garbage. I spent a significant amount of time at these small indy events because I had delusional friends who wanted to be the next Stone Cold and were willing to wreck their bodies for like $100 a week.
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Oct 11, 2021 17:27
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quote:USA Network has announced its two-hour film followup to the classic late 1990s series “Nash Bridges” which will premiere on November 27th. Don Johnson and Cheech Marin return as elite investigators for the San Francisco Police SVU. Who asked for this?
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Oct 11, 2021 18:45
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Mu Zeta posted:I forgot that Netflix is working on a big budget Three Body Problem adaptation. And it's being produced by Benioff and Weiss so I think Netflix has those Game of Thrones numbers in mind. Sci fi themes are for middle school
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Oct 11, 2021 18:51
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I can't wait to see who they waterboard for 10 hours for a 30 second scene in this one!
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Oct 11, 2021 18:55
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Hughmoris posted:Another vote for Sharp Objects. Disappointing to me. Really slow pacing that drags forever. In comparison seasons 2 and 3 pack in so much stuff. But the showrunner is promising that the final season is intense since they are reducing it to just 6 episodes.
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Oct 11, 2021 18:57
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In the defense of season 4 and 5 of The Expanse it does pretty much follow the books’ main storyline. Still I liked both of those seasons and I would take all The Expanse I can get, but it is telling that on my Expanse rewatch that I stopped on 3 (I will rewatch them before 6 tho).
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Oct 11, 2021 20:42
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roomtone posted:i only watched an episode and a half of succession because it seemed like just another bad mood show about megarich people being awful to each other and getting away with bad things. i'm not really interested in watching barely fictionalised depictions of the scourge of the earth anymore. just tell me about the real people. Succession does for the 0.01% what Sopranos did for gangsters, it exposes them as pitiable (both senses of the word) despite the surface lifestyle allure. It does sympathize with its characters and allows them to be clever but only for brief moments around which it condemns them and punishes them. No character in that show is getting a happy ending, they're hosed even before the pilot.
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Oct 11, 2021 20:48
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nate fisher posted:While several greats shows have been pointed out, I do believe there are no top tier dramas currently (unless I am forgetting one). Succession might be the closest, but when I say top tier I mean like Mad Men, The Wire, Deadwood, and The Sopranos. No drama airing today is at that level. For me Halt & Catch Fire is the last drama that hit that level. Westworld is their flagship prestige show at the moment.
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Oct 11, 2021 21:27
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Westworld is their flagship prestige show at the moment. Is it? Seasons 2 and 3 have been dire. s1 actually had the best ratings. s3 had less than half the people watching. The only times I hear WW mentioned are to mock how bad the last 2 seasons have been.
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Oct 11, 2021 21:31
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I still think the "lack of prestige shows" is just a product of the streaming era as well as its own success. There's lots of shows like White Lotus or Nine Perfect Strangers or Killing Eve or Man in the High Castle or whatever that 15 years ago would have been Sunday Night appointment and water color television. But first the age of the HBO Sunday Night prestige show spurred a bunch of other networks into getting into the game so then all those shows were spread around and there were more to choose from diluting the audience or appointment television aspect. And now most of those shows are on a streaming service you can watch at any time or binge so people are no longer buzzing about episodes, they're buzzing about whole shows you should add your watchlist. I just don't think you can stick that genie back in the bottle. HBO's reign of dominance was a unique point in time when they were taking advantage of no one doing that kind of television at a high level with limited restrictions. Their success led to a lot of other people doing it so now HBO is just one of many and Sunday is any other night.
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Oct 11, 2021 21:35
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Westworld is their flagship prestige show at the moment. It should be Euphoria which is excellent.
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Oct 11, 2021 21:47
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Westworld is their flagship prestige show at the moment. I think my post was confusing. I was talking about quality. For example Halt & Catch Fire was nowhere close to a flagship show (no one watched it), but it is the kind of A+ quality drama show we are missing right now. Even in season 1 Westworld was never on that top level of shows to me. I guess my overall point is right now that is not a single drama airing that would end up in top 20 (just a guess, could be 50) dramas of all-time. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but from like 1999 to 2017 at times there were several shows airing that I would put in my top 20 (if not my top 10). I do agree there are tons of one offs that do reach that level of quality, but that is still not a true drama series. Edit: After writing that I realized The Crown would get strong consideration from me, so I guess I am wrong. Also Succession is close and this new season could push it to the top tier for me. All subjective I know, but what else can it be. Pillowpants posted:Heels is garbage. I spent a significant amount of time at these small indy events because I had delusional friends who wanted to be the next Stone Cold and were willing to wreck their bodies for like $100 a week. Like I said before I would call it SoA level guilty pleasure show. So I don' t think it is total garbage, and I actually like the ending. nate fisher fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Oct 11, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 22:33
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nate fisher posted:I guess my overall point is right now that is not a single drama airing that would end up in top 20 (just a guess, could be 50) dramas of all-time. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but from like 1999 to 2017 at times there were several shows airing that I would put in my top 20 (if not my top 10). I do agree there are tons of one offs that do reach that level of quality, but that is still not a true drama series. But have you watched everything? I don't mean that to be glib either. The proliferation of content goes hand and hand with discoverability. Have you plumbed the depths of HBO Max, Paramount+, AMC+, Peacock, Sundance, Netflix, Prime, Epix, Showtime, Starz AppleTV+ and sampled everything that's out there? Also, when was the last time you went back and watched that show from 22 years ago that you would place in your top 20 or 50 dramas and watched it as the person you are today? Can you really be sure it would hold up or do you have a indelible impression of the worth of the show based on who and where you were in your own life at the time? Above all else, realize that we're also 20 months into production chaos that has deferred or shutdown projects on top of multiple media conglomerate mergers that shape or torpedo things.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:00
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One of the best things I watched over the last few months was the Starz War of the Worlds adaptation so yeah there's untapped veins out there I'm sure.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:06
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Are you sure you don't mean Epix? There were two War of the Worlds adaptations in recent memory. One was three episode thing the BBC did and the other was an Anglo-French one that was made by Fox/Canal+ and aired on Epix in the US and just had the 2nd season this summer.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:17
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bull3964 posted:But have you watched everything? No I don't and you make a good point. To be honest I am relying on this thread, the internet as a whole, even critics, and my own knowledge to find TV shows. I am a sucker for year end list and I read them for things I might have missed. Might I still miss a few? Sure. Euphoria I still haven't made time to watch and My Brilliant Friend I never heard of you until this thread. I tell you what I didn't missed Patriot thanks to this thread. Re-watching what I consider a top tier show? I am currently on season 5 of The Sopranos (my son is watching it for the first time), and I like it better than ever. The Wire (4 seasons only), Mad Men, most of Deadwood, and MASH are a few of my top tier shows I have re-watched. Still I get your point. I tried to watch The Shield for the first time like 15 years later and I couldn't do it. Also there are shows I loved like Six Feet Under (which I don't consider a top tier show, but I still loved it at the time) that I am pretty sure will not hold up on a re-watch. Edit: Ok I will give War of Worlds a try too. I have heard of this version (on Epix), but I thought reaction was mixed. Still it should be right up alley either way. nate fisher fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Oct 11, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 23:29
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Pennyworth is a fantastic, gorgeous, well-acted show that approximately 8 people have seen.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:51
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Talking about prestige television, Joe Pera is back Nov 7th.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:59
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I really liked the BBC War of the Worlds until I realized at the end of episode 3 that it was a mini- and not full series...
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Oct 12, 2021 00:04
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nate fisher posted:No I don't and you make a good point. To be honest I am relying on this thread, the internet as a whole, even critics, and my own knowledge to find TV shows. I am a sucker for year end list and I read them for things I might have missed. Might I still miss a few? Sure. Euphoria I still haven't made time to watch and My Brilliant Friend I never heard of you until this thread. I tell you what I didn't missed Patriot thanks to this thread. Whoops, confused Epix and Starz.
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Oct 12, 2021 00:10
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Evil is fun to have on in the background while I am working, thanks for the recommendation thread! It's good enough that I find myself rewinding semi-often because I missed an important point while writing an e-mail. That's better than, for example, Y: The Last Man, where I am content to just miss stuff. The vow of silence episode kinda hosed me over but I was able to wait until my lunch break to make it work.
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Oct 12, 2021 03:45
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nate fisher posted:No I don't and you make a good point. To be honest I am relying on this thread, the internet as a whole, even critics, and my own knowledge to find TV shows. I am a sucker for year end list and I read them for things I might have missed. Might I still miss a few? Sure. Euphoria I still haven't made time to watch and My Brilliant Friend I never heard of you until this thread. I tell you what I didn't missed Patriot thanks to this thread. I think curation has become a huge issue, particularly thanks to the decline in good quality critical writing over the last few years. Either sites have been defunded and hollowed out (the av club particularly, but there are a few others) or because a lot of the "big" names in criticism (Emily Vanderwerff, Emily Nussbaum, Matt Zoller Seitz) have significantly decreased their output, for various reasons, with no real replacements apparent. Like, look, the big cable production company that no one's talking about is BET (Queen Sugar, David Makes Man, a bunch of other shows), and that lack of discourse, plus lack of access, means that it's been easy for me to miss very large swathes of the kind of low-concept prestige family dramas (in the vein of Six Feet Under, Rectify, Survivor's Remorse* etc.) that used to be a bit more central to the discourse. *I mean, even the line of shows I'm charting in this example indicates a decline in awareness. Six Feet Under, very well known, huge legacy reputation. Rectify, more obscure, but respectable. Survivor's Remorse ran for four seasons on Starz with barely any critical acknowledgement of its existence -- and we were just talking about Mike O'Malley's writing (Heels) the other day. I mean, things fall through the cracks, but still. There's no centralised platform, or series of platforms, that helps collate, discuss or just concentrate focus on television criticism anymore. There's space for individual shows, sure, popular shows, sure, some flashy shows, sure. But not all shows. The "Golden Age" of TV was defined just as much by criticism as it was by the quality of those shows as well; "Golden Age" was their term after all. Without them, TV is kinda something else.
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Oct 12, 2021 06:17
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Sorry if those thoughts are kinda scattered, I've been thinking about this for a while without much of a chance to actually express what I'm thinking about.
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Oct 12, 2021 06:18
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The golden age of television lasted from September 14 1985 until May 9 1992
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Oct 12, 2021 07:15
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