What TV SHOWS are you watching ARCHIVE

I've been watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand on Netflix. It's filled with crass dialog, LOTS of blood, violence, unlikable characters, dicks, titties, swords, carnage, boobez, mayhem, shirtless men, buttcheeks, sex, hammy acting, boobs and soap opera for men story lines. It's complete trash.

I love it.

I love the way they talk on that show. RIP Andy Whitfield.

Yeah i'm loving the show. Though, occasionally my mind wanders and I start thinking about Andy Whitfield. It's strange watching a guy onscreen who is in such great shape and looks so full of life. Then you remember that a disease cut his life short and he's no longer with us. Damn shame.

I recently finished the whole series of Spartacus. Fantastic show that has it all, if you can forgive the absence of car chases.

JEM wrote: I love the way they talk on that show. RIP Andy Whitfield.

The language starts off really clunky and artificial, but it grows on you over time (and the writers and actors get better at it too). It's like they were striving for something like Deadwood (which truly turned profanity into poetry). They never reached those lofty heights, but they definitely came up with a unique style.

The new actor playing Spartacus is okay, but I really miss Whitfield in the role. He was great at bringing that rage and menace . The new guy is a bit of a pretty boy, and never had that edge.

Last Man on Earth is pretty great. Gimmicky premise, with Will Forte as the only man alive, and it was really fun for a while as he's living like an animal and crashing cars for fun and otherwise reveling in being completely alone... but I was starting to wonder how they could sustain that beyond an episode. Well, I won't spoil it, but they found a way to take it to another level, and I'm amused to see where it goes from there.

First three eps of the new House of Cards season, and I'm liking the pacing better this season than last. I liked season 2 in a lot of ways, but it also felt over-the-top in some respects. This is more believable, so far, but still interesting.

I agree with Grudunza on both shows.

Will Forte's humor can be a little esoteric, but fortunately for me, I think he's hilarious.
Minor joke spoiler:

At a friend's suggestion, I started watching The Jinx last night. Holy shit, HBO and true crime stories go well together. This is covering the story of Robert Durst, a NY real estate heir who seems to keep having murders and disappearances happen around him. I didn't listen to Serial, but this is apparently what a lot of people wanted that to be.

Otherwise the tube's been showing Better Call Saul, Three's Company, Newhart, Seinfeld....

The library had Arrow season two, so I binge-watched that last week. I hadn't seen season one, but heard good things about the show from friends, so I gave it a shot. Fortunately the DVD set included a special one-hour recap of season 1, so I wasn't lost in sorting out the sizable cast of recurring characters. I was concerned that Arrow would be just like Smallville, but it turned out to be much better. The show is roughly a mix of 1/3 soap opera and 2/3 action, and I can live with that. Surprisingly, the title character is a reluctant hero who spent much of the first season operating instead as a murderous anti-hero on a revenge spree.

For genre fans, there are some enjoyable performances by familiar faces. The actors who played Simon and River Tam from Firefly both show up in season two, and it's surprising to see how little the girl who played River has aged. Her ruthless executive character looks like a young 20-something, but her performance is suitably tough and confident. For fans of Spartacus, the guy who played Crixus plays a major character, and his former squeeze Naevia get an occasional appearance as an anorexic version of Amanda Waller. And certain characters from the Birds of Prey show of a decade ago are back again in somewhat altered versions.

Speaking of Waller, it's interesting how this show makes so many references to the DC universe despite following a completely different continuity. There are also some fun little easter eggs for serious DC fans, like the time that Waller drops a reference to the "Ostrander Suite," foreshadowing the eventual appearance of the Suicide Squad. With the apparent success of the Flash spin-off and an upcoming Suicide Squad movie, it looks like DC has got a series success on their hands.

The guy playing Arrow is an interesting case. He is blandly good-looking, but tall and physically impressive. During the opening credits and a couple of times during episodes, he does this crazy salmon ladder kind of pull-up that must require fantastic strength as well as a certain amount of skill. It's like a regular pull-up, except that you need to rise with such speed and power that you are able to push the bar up to the next level of notches on the ladder, while somehow briefly defying gravity. Despite my advanced middle age, I am currently able to do sets of 10 unassisted pullups, but I doubt that I have any hope of ever doing even one of these salmon ladder pullups. And according to various interviews with people involved with the show, this actor really does these pullups without cables or anything, and was doing them before he even got on the show. So it would be easy to expect him to come up short in the acting department, but he actually delivers at an above-average level for network television. He is poised, articulate, and at times even menacing.

The rest of the cast is pretty decent as well. Mostly attractive young people, as is typical for the CW network, but the woman playing Arrow's mother is an exceptionally attractive woman for her age. The acting is generally good enough to get the job done and carry off the more melodramatic scenes. However, a couple of the actresses is are visibly anorexic, and I wish that tv execs would stop putting people like that on tv where they can serve as a negative influence on impressionable young females.

Overall, I give Arrow a mild recommendation. If you are really into DC comics or cartoons or even just Batman movies, you will probably enjoy this show. If you are a Smallville fan, Arrow will more than entertain you. If you are looking for entertainment on the same level as the modern Marvel movie franchises, you are likely to face some disappointment.

You know what's actually not terrible? American Crime. Never thought I'd enjoy a gritty crime drama on network TV.

charlest wrote: You know what's actually not terrible? American Crime. Never thought I'd enjoy a gritty crime drama on network TV.

Yeah, it's pretty good. And much much better than Secrets & Lies, which I bailed on after the first ep. Mediocre acting and writing.

Last Man on Earth continues to be great, as is Better Call Saul (though I didn't really care for the last episode where they gave Mike's back story... it was great in a dramatic sense, but felt odd compared to the more dark comedy feel of the show so far).

I finished House of Cards season 3 and really loved this season, in particular. Was surprised to read online later that there's been somewhat of a backlash against this season from a lot of people because it's slower paced and not as crazy in terms of Frank Underwood's scheming and all that. But I really felt the writing and dialogue was terrific and everything felt more believable and nuanced. Season 2 was entertaining, but also seemed a little outlandish and unrealistic to me. The way things develop between Frank and Claire during this season is some great drama, with a powerful confrontation near the end and one of Spacey's best performances. I also enjoyed the side story of Doug's recovery and return. Anyway, apparently YMMV, but I loved it.

For a more straightforward sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat is a winner so far.

I'm with you, Grudunza, 100% on House of Cards. Season 2 seemed to be too over-the-top, and all of Underwood's schemes went off without a hitch. This season, almost nothing worked as planned, which I found refreshing. I enjoyed watching Doug's recovery, but the continued existence of the Rachel sub-plot has always bothered me. I was glad it came to a satisfying conclusion.

I really love House of Cards. Sadly, I watched it all and wanted more, and there was no more to be had.

Worse, my wife has taken to watching what can only be described as the most Mamet-esque show ever...Gilmour Girls. Actually, it's just verbose girltripe that reinforces why I hate those shows: It's 99.999999% boring dialogue and "witty" (read: not witty) banter about nothing. Fucking HORRIBLE show.

Watched Marvel's Agents of Shield and hated it at first but now I kind of like it.

Shellhead wrote: Overall, I give Arrow a mild recommendation. If you are really into DC comics or cartoons or even just Batman movies, you will probably enjoy this show. If you are a Smallville fan, Arrow will more than entertain you. If you are looking for entertainment on the same level as the modern Marvel movie franchises, you are likely to face some disappointment.

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote. Arrow isn't up there in the top tier of TV dramas, but it's always solidly entertaining and fun. The action scenes are usually terrific with great fight choreography. The show lacks the budget to do big action set-pieces, so they compensate by using lots of quick, brutal hand-to-hand fighting, and that works well for the character. The supporting cast is terrific ... with one glaring exception (Laurel ... ugh, she is the worst).

I think the lead actor really owns the role. It's impressive when you realize he's playing three iterations of the same character -- young Ollie on the island, Oliver Queen's public persona, and Arrow. He manages to convey all three very clearly. And yeah, the salmon ladder. The dude is built like a brick shithouse. Like Spartacus, the show is an equal opportunity eye-candy provider.

Joebot, you raise some good points that I forgot to mention about Arrow. The fight choreography is good, though it probably helps that the majority of the action takes place in dimly-lit locations.

The supporting cast is good, except Laurel and also Amanda Waller. The actress playing Laurel is fascinating to look at because her anorexia gives her a slightly inhuman look, though still attractive. But she needs to force all her lines because her acting is weak. She might also be using botox, which would explain her limited range of expressions. The actress playing Amanda Waller (and previously new Naevia on Spartacus) is also too thin looking, and an even worse actress. Her expression seems permanently frozen in a dire expression like a Haitian zombie.

I had forgotten to mention the island flashbacks. Unlike most shows that use flashbacks as a convenient background for the current episode, Arrow writers seem to have an entire timeline worked out for the years on the island, and it looks like they are going to gradually reveal it in chronological order, while still having it serve as convenient background for the current episode. It is so refreshing to see long-term stories mapped out like this after the half-assed failures of shows like Lost and the X-Files. For you old school DC fans, I suspect that they originally wanted the island to be The Island That Time Forgot, but realized that even cgi dinosaurs would take too much budget and distract from the main storyline in the present.

And yes, the actor playing Arrow does a great job of playing three variations of the same character so that they are distinctive performances. Young Ollie is emotional, rash, and uncertain. Arrow is cool and decisive, and doesn't talk much except when planning ahead with his allies. Modern Ollie carries himself with the poise of old money and good manners, yet with surprising empathy. In addition, the character has actually developed since the beginning of the show, changing from lethal avenger to reluctant hero. Even with the advent of long-form story-telling on television, it is still relatively rare to see actual character development like this.