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What TV SHOWS are you watching?
Shellhead wrote:
charlest wrote: I enjoyed the season despite its faults. The one thing, however, that really bothered me is the tease of character death. The one thing that's held true in this show is that no one is safe and anyone can die. This season, it seems every episode they want you to think someone has died but they miraculously make it out. It's a de-evolution in writing and is pretty unsatisfying.
It was easier for Martin to be heartless about killing characters, because they were just book characters. The show runners relate to these characters in terms of real actors playing their biggest roles of their careers.
Sure, then don't trick me into thinking they've died. It's just toying with my emotions. For instance, when Tormund pulled a Glen and was being dragged down by White Walkers, I was bummed. But I was MORE pissed when they pulled the fake out and he was rescued.
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- Black Barney
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I'll use spoiler tags so i can safely talk about the show.
I LOVED the scene between the Hound and his brother. It's moments like that which make this show great. I really dug that, it felt deep.
I also really liked the scene with Bran and Sam where Sam actually told something to Bran that he didn't know! And then we get to see how his vision-thing works. Sam asks, "can you verify that?" and Bran is like, "yeah, just let me google it" and he goes and checks. SO COOL. I don't know why everyone is crapping on Bran. I think he's way more interesting now.
I hate that Cersei reveals that she intends to betray everyone. Why would they tell us that? It's better for us to just assume between the seasons that she is going to probably betray, and that way we can be maybe shocked when it happens. But now we know it's coming so it makes the whole Tyrion scene really confusing since they're maybe holding information from us. I guess they had to do it so that Jaime could leave King's Landing and they want us to talk and speculate about that now instead. Which is cool. If he goes to Winterfell, by the way, I would LOVE to see a scene with him and Bran. Since Bran knows now who pushed him. But he has also seen Jaime's catharsis.
Also, why the HELL is Tyrion looking at Jon/Dany's bedroom door with such concern? I can't figure that out. Why would that bother him? Did the scene call for Jorah to be there but Peter Dinklage accidentally showed up instead and they filmed it anyway? I don't get it at all.
i must not be a little boy anymore cuz the Ice Dragon thing did NOTHING for me. The entire time I'm thinking, "hey, this is a nice special effect. Oh look, he's riding it just like Dany rides Drogon..." and it didn't scare me, or amaze me or anything. i honestly just didn't care. Like I said, Hound facing his brother was HUGE compared to this (for me).
And what the hell was Theon's scene doing in a season finale? That kind of thing should have happened two episodes ago. It's totally not important and doesn't belong in a finale. ESPECIALLY because it was lame af
anyway, a total dog's breakfast of an episode. Lots of stuff I liked. Lots of stuff I didn't.
2019 until the next one?!
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charlest wrote: ...pulled a Glen...
*thumbs up*
This season did pull a lot of Glens.
...
*awaits a joke from Black Barney.
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Shellhead wrote: I noticed the geographic similarity 20 years ago when I first started reading the first book. It's always a nice touch when the author includes maps in the book. But I disagree with the specifics. I think that Dorne is Wales and Stark territory is Scotland. I agree that the Wall is originally inspired by Hadrian's Wall, but even allowing for stretching and distorting, I think that the raiders and land north of the Wall in the series are meant to correspond in a general way with viking invaders and their homelands. Ireland is just missing and Pyke is not meant to represent Ireland.
The prevalence of red hair north of the wall is a clear indicator of Scottish flavour. Sean Bean as Ned Stark tells you everything you need to know about "where" Winterfell is. It's my land, and I know it well. Arryn is quite a Welsh sounding name. Dorne is really something like southern Spain by way of Cornwall. Clearly Westeros has issues with extreme weather variation, or Martin just wasn't thinking too geologically when he put it all together in his head. I had the Iron Islands in my head as being a proxy for Danes of some type.
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I agree that it's very predictable... had very, very few surprises, and the things that did really didn't surprise me that much. I think a lot of character relationship was sacrificed for more action scenes.
But the strongest impression I get is that it's like a season of reunion. Everyone meets everyone, each episode is as exciting as the others (no down time), and much less fragmented scenes (understandable since characters are starting to gather in big groups).
For me the finale was not much of a cliffhanger, I'm fine waiting 2 or 3 years for the next season.
But I really enjoy this season, in the way that I enjoy fan service. A lot of things I want to see happen, happen.
And they did the dragons fucking awesome.
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Sevej wrote: And they did the dragons fucking awesome.
The dragons were absolutely the stars this season. Next would be Jon. The rest? *shrug*
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- Black Barney
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Best subcharacter has to be The Hound. i can't get enough of that guy. I always enjoy Sam and Jorah as well. Bronn is ok.Varys needs to be playing off Tyrion to be really interesting, but they've isolated him a bit too much this season.
I also don't find the imposing presence of The Mountain ever gets old. I'm always VERY aware he's in a scene and feel nervous he's there. That scene with Jaime had me trembling. I thought they did that really well, especially because of an earlier scene with Tyrion that set it up.
Sansa is really bad, but i never liked her, The Greyjoys are pretty dull now.
Main character I miss the most:
Subcharacter I miss the most:
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But I don't agree with all of the criticisms of this season:
And as for Tyrion's concerned reaction to Jon and Daenarys' booty call, I read it as him being worried about the political fallout. Jon swearing fealty to the queen is one thing, a (potential) marriage between two self-styled monarchs is something far more serious with different consequences. That being said, I'm pretty sure I could safely wander blind-folded into oncoming traffic if I had the plot armor Jon wore this season.
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- Jackwraith
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Overall, I thought they took too many shortcuts this season, but condensing the season to seven episodes probably had something to do with that. While it allows for more elbow room with longer individual episodes (i..e how much can we cram in and then conclude in each show), it leads to a hurried nature to the overall plot which I found somewhat disconcerting. But I think there's a certain amount of franchise fatigue setting in, too. Benioff and Weiss wanted to be done in seven and HBO talked them into eight, which now won't be done until 2019.
I also watched the pilot for The Deuce, which I haven't written anything for yet. I liked it, because it fairly screams "David Simon production." If any of you have seen The Wire, you'll have a grasp of the atmosphere almost instantly and not just because Lawrence Gilliard (D'Angelo Barksdale) and Method Man (Cheese) both appear in this show, as well. It was just too much boilerplate "origin story" for me and I've never been a huge James Franco fan, so with him in the lead and playing a dual role, I'm not sure how interested I'm going to be if I feel like I have to tune out half of each episode just so I can get to the parts with the pimp crew and Maggie Gyllenhall. I'm willing to watch more, but I wasn't sold on the pilot.
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- Colorcrayons
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Actually quite good, and even better if you understand a bit of Norse history (the ridiculousness of the norse version of Holmgang for example) and how they parody it and entwine it into contemporary issues such as relationships and such.
Best analogy I can give is the dry wit of month python, without the overt silliness.
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- hotseatgames
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Jackwraith wrote: I also watched the pilot for The Deuce, which I haven't written anything for yet. I liked it, because it fairly screams "David Simon production." If any of you have seen The Wire, you'll have a grasp of the atmosphere almost instantly and not just because Lawrence Gilliard (D'Angelo Barksdale) and Method Man (Cheese) both appear in this show, as well. It was just too much boilerplate "origin story" for me and I've never been a huge James Franco fan, so with him in the lead and playing a dual role, I'm not sure how interested I'm going to be if I feel like I have to tune out half of each episode just so I can get to the parts with the pimp crew and Maggie Gyllenhall. I'm willing to watch more, but I wasn't sold on the pilot.
I also watched this. I'll watch another episode... I'm not totally sold on it yet. On Netflix, season 3 of Narcos is now out. I'm looking forward to checking it out tonight.
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Colorcrayons wrote: Norsemen on Netflix
Actually quite good, and even better if you understand a bit of Norse history (the ridiculousness of the norse version of Holmgang for example) and how they parody it and entwine it into contemporary issues such as relationships and such.
Best analogy I can give is the dry wit of month python, without the overt silliness.
It does have a Python flavor. When the slave asks for his cloak back made me laugh quite a bit.
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They really botched their plot. Sure the ending is satisfying, but it could have been so MUCH more. A lot of tension ramping up only to be ended with a single word. Tyrion does *nothing* clever this season. He just sort of go with the flow.Black Barney wrote: Tyrion and Arya both were really uninteresting this season and they were my favourites since season 1.
I think he has the best character development throughout the series.Best subcharacter has to be The Hound.
The thing really scary about him is that he's Cersei. Whatever Cersei wants he does. And we all know what kind of bitch Cersei is. I wasn't scared of the mountain, but I do get a shiver when Cersei said she doesn't care about the people or the kingdom, just her family.I also don't find the imposing presence of The Mountain ever gets old.
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