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Okay so there are a lot of things that I like. Things that are, in general, looked down on around these parts. (My Little Pony is not one of them.) However, among the shows and movies I like, there aren't many that I would recommend; sometimes I'm aware that a program only succeeds on my own low standards, other times I keep quiet because it's a cult-y kind of thing that only appeals to certain tastes. Anime definitely falls into that latter category: if I find myself liking an anime show, I shut the gently caress up about it around my more general circles except for very rare occasions. I know how anime is perceived and for the most part, it's earned its reputation. As I said earlier in this thread, good anime is entertaining and even fascinating, but bad anime is creepy melodramatic garbage that overpowers everything and even leaks into good anime somehow. So please understand that I do not say this lightly, and I am aware of how far out on a limb I'm going here. Space Dandy. Episode 4. The one that aired tonight. You don't need to watch any other episodes. They all stand on their own. All you need to know is that there's a guy, a robot, and a cat-like creature. They hunt aliens, they kind of suck at it, and they like to hang out at a Hooters-esque restaurant when they can afford it. There's no real continuity to the episodes; the crew actually died in the first one, and the second episode was back to status quo with no explanation. So don't worry about what you missed. Tonight's episode dealt with a zombie outbreak, and while the first half plays out like the comedic version of a standard zombie survival story (with aliens), the second half...is just loving nuts. In fact, I'd probably invoke Douglas Adams here; its dry delivery of these absurd ideas about zombies gave me some strong Hitchhiker's Guide vibes. Regardless of the statement's accuracy, it's an awesome tonic to the avalanche of serious, gritty zombie stories that we've only just started to claw out of. Just check this out if you see it available online and you have 20 minutes to kill, even if you don't normally go for anime. I am VERY curious to see how this plays outside the bubble.
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Jan 26, 2014 08:50
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To add to DivisionPost's post, Space Dandy is brought to you by the same guy responsible for Cowboy Bebop. That's why I checked out the show in the first place
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Jan 26, 2014 09:16
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I can also confirm the sheer batshit awesomeness of Space Dandy. Just watch it. Get really high and watch it.
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Jan 26, 2014 09:30
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B.J. Novak of The Office wrote a book, and made the greatest trailer ever for it (also featuring Mindy Kaling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FxhTn9cEhI
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Jan 26, 2014 11:13
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Stanfield posted:No I got that part. I guess I just don't see a problem with having a couple of episodes with similar character focus, considering the situation. I felt there was enough of a difference that it didn't really bother me, not nearly as much as it would have if they'd chosen to ignore Chevy leaving. raditts is kind of a contrarian fwiw
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Jan 26, 2014 11:17
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Speaking of batshit stuff and going out on a limb with a potentially unpopular opinion. I just got done with a marathon of Seasons 1 and 2 of American Horror Story and I've come to a conclusion. I hate American Horror Story. I can't think of many other shows I hate. I don't like Girls but I just don't watch it or think about it unless someone else brings it up. I didn't like Dexter but that wasn't always the case and when I really started to hate it I stopped watching. I don't hate watch shows, that just seems like a weird waste of time to me. But I sort of hate American Horror Story because there's this good show that I think I'd love buried under all that Ryan Murphy batshit. Like Season 1's Murder House actually has a really tragic and gripping family drama with some really strong acting performances and using a haunted house and ghosts to put pressure on the family is a really cool idea. But it ends up getting tossed around and lost at times to the sheer insanity of a zillion sub plots and wacky characters, most of whom don't really serve any great purpose and could be cut out without that main story losing anything. And Season's 2 Asylum actually has a really great story with Jessica Lange's character and the general story of human compassion, kindness, and cruelty. And again, using a little horror to spur that on makes sense. But all that gets super lost under Aliens, Nazis, Anne Frank, Satan, mutant cannibals, Santa Claus serial killers and other insane stuff that just kind of distracts from that principle story. Then all the strong acting performances and characterization has to be wound up franticly at the end while a ton of that crazy stuff just gets tossed aside because it was never really there for much except shock and awe. Which is kind of how Season 1 played out too. But now I say all this and I know what the AHS fans are thinking. They LOVE that zany poo poo. They hate me for saying the show would be better if it cut that stuff out. And I get that totally, but that's why I kind of hate AHS. Because there's a show I'd really like and I think could do some really great stuff if it just trimmed the fat and if Ryan Murphy was able to control his impulses. But then that would ruin an insane show that people like and I would never want to do that. I can't bring myself to just skip Coven because I think from this experience there will be strong acting, characterization, and a principle story that I really enjoy. I mean, it adds Kathy Bates to the cast. But then I'm also confident that there will be dinosaurs or killer tomatoes or dragons or that chick from Planet Terror with a machine gun for a leg that will distract from it and block it from reaching its potential. Ok, that's my rant on AHS. I'm now prepared to be hated by its fans.
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Jan 26, 2014 11:24
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See, to me, the idea of all that stuff in one season of television sounds amazing, but the way AHS is shot and edited makes it so fundamentally irritating that I could never finish more than a handful of episodes per season.
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Jan 26, 2014 11:34
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DivisionPost posted:All you need to know is that there's a guy, a robot, and a cat-like creature. I see that they got Red Dwarf in Japan.
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Jan 26, 2014 11:51
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Yeah, I'm really not a fan of some of the technical aspects of the show and the way its filmed and put together a lot of the time. Just kind of distracting and annoying at times. But I didn't want to pile on. I get the appeal of that craziness. Like I'd never criticize True Blood for being insane because that's what it is. Or Always Sunny to look at a comedy. But AHS has this strong character driven show with great acting performances underneath the crazy poo poo. So that crazy poo poo just seems superfluous and distracting to me. Especially since the show seems to do a really bad job making it feel important or meaningful. It mostly just feels like they're throwing in X just for a reaction. Which would be fine if that's all the show had to offer, but there's something else there.
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Jan 26, 2014 11:54
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STAC Goat posted:I don't hate watch shows, that just seems like a weird waste of time to me. But
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Jan 26, 2014 11:56
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Technically I think I was already inducted while watching Asylum. I spent the last half dozen episodes looking at the Amazon Prime queue and groaning at how many episodes were left. I'm two episodes into Coven and I actually kind of like it more than the other two. It seems less crazy and more grounded, you know for a show about witches and voodoo. Its early so it could go off the rails soon but by 2 episodes into Seasons 1 and 2 there were already aliens, mutants, goblins, gimp rapists, and crying masturbation. The craziest things so far in Season 3 like a voodoo made minotaur and a zombie at least seem to stick to the primary premise and really didn't seem all that outlandish to me. So far some witch hasn't randomly shown up named Hazel or had a house dropped on her just to fill off a check list of tropes and cliches. But its early and I'm watching a Ryan Murphy show so I'm prepared for it to go off the rails. edit: Ok, Episode 3 and we have incest and (sorta) bestiality. There's Ryan Murphy. Disregard what I said. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 14:28 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 12:39
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DivisionPost posted:Space Dandy precision posted:I can also confirm the sheer batshit awesomeness of Space Dandy. Just watch it. Get really high and watch it. I decided to follow the advice from these posts despite not really enjoying anything anime that isn't by Miyazaki or Satoshi Kon and giving up on Cowboy Bebop a couple of episodes in. I can confirm that it is indeed a freaking nuts episode of television. It was a fun watch, but I didn't feel like it really did anything with where it went to; it was all just for the sake of being weird. The life insurance thing was funny, though, and visually it's very nice (outside of the rear end shots and such, which feel gratuitous even though they're meant to represent Dandy being a perv).
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Jan 26, 2014 12:56
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DivisionPost posted:Okay so there are a lot of things that I like. Things that are, in general, looked down on around these parts. (My Little Pony is not one of them.) However, among the shows and movies I like, there aren't many that I would recommend; sometimes I'm aware that a program only succeeds on my own low standards, other times I keep quiet because it's a cult-y kind of thing that only appeals to certain tastes. Anime definitely falls into that latter category: if I find myself liking an anime show, I shut the gently caress up about it around my more general circles except for very rare occasions. I know how anime is perceived and for the most part, it's earned its reputation. As I said earlier in this thread, good anime is entertaining and even fascinating, but bad anime is creepy melodramatic garbage that overpowers everything and even leaks into good anime somehow. Who gives a gently caress what other people's preconceived notions about what you watch are? It's their problem not yours. Having to make a weird dissociative preamble before recommending a TV show is really loving odd, and probably not healthy. You like something and want to let others know about it, then do that. If anyone starts poo poo just report them.
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Jan 26, 2014 15:38
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STAC Goat posted:
Hate...do people really feel that way about TV? Books? Movies? I can't really ever bring myself to care about anything enough to hate it, most of the time people are trying real hard behind the scenes or need to pay off some bills, so all I could muster for a piece of poo poo thing is some dislike and boredom. Using the word hate for anything that isn't enjoyable enough strikes me as kind of weird.
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Jan 26, 2014 15:39
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Bown posted:it was all just for the sake of being weird. I disagree. SPACE DANDY never feels like it's playing to the crowd, contrived or done simply for effect. Things tend to be just askew or random and a mess when designed that way as true weirdness come from an organic, flowing place. An example would be AHS, strange in its own right but when you look closer it's rife with elements they threw in just to populate a quota for bizarre, such as the Frankenstein Baby from S01 or the aliens in S02. What SPACE DANDY does seems sincere and the world a (mostly) logical, habitable place- unlike AHS where the characters enter into a bubble universe that doesn't exist to anyone outside of it.
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Jan 26, 2014 16:23
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BrooklynBruiser posted:How I Met Your Mother and Doctor Who. HIMYM certainly was limping along until the final season let them focus on things. As for Dr. Who I guess being consistently bad does qualify as not losing steam. Aphrodite posted:Supernatural, Psych (although the last 2 episodes there have been weak actually.) Never caught these two so I'll have to take your word for it. Timby posted:Out of its 20 seasons, the original Law & Order only has one year (Season 17) that's nearly unwatchable, but everything else is pretty rock-solid. I can agree with that. I figure the Simpsons qualifies as they got at least eight really entertaining seasons before they eventually started the long roll downhill.
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Jan 26, 2014 16:26
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BrooklynBruiser posted:How I Met Your Mother and Doctor Who. Doctor Who I agree with but Jesus, How I Met Your Mother is the go to example for shows that went on far too long.
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Jan 26, 2014 16:42
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Trast posted:I figure the Simpsons qualifies as they got at least eight really entertaining seasons before they eventually started the long roll downhill. South Park is a better example. Going into its 18th season and still as brilliant as ever. Survivor too. 27 seasons under its belt and the last two were among the very best the show has ever had. It's pretty incredible.
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Jan 26, 2014 16:51
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BrooklynBruiser posted:How I Met Your Mother and Doctor Who. Hands off Irish Joe's gimmick!
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Jan 26, 2014 16:51
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Rarity posted:Hands off Irish Joe's gimmick! You wound me, Rarity.  PriorMarcus posted:Doctor Who I agree with but Jesus, How I Met Your Mother is the go to example for shows that went on far too long. I mean, I'm not going to say it kept up a consistent level of quality, but even at its worst it was still pretty okay. It never got bad.
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Jan 26, 2014 16:53
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PriorMarcus posted:Doctor Who I agree with but Jesus, How I Met Your Mother is the go to example for shows that went on far too long. Well that and Scrubs. I would have forgiven Scrubs if it ended with Jan Itor hitting JD over the head with a wrench and throwing him in the back of a van though. I don't know how HIMYM could redeem the last couple seasons of doucheTed though. NPH is the only reason I keep watching.
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Jan 26, 2014 16:55
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BrooklynBruiser posted:I mean, I'm not going to say it kept up a consistent level of quality, but even at its worst it was still pretty okay. It never got bad. It's been downright torturous at times, and Stockholm Syndrome/eventual promise of resolution is the only thing keeping a lot of people watching.
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Jan 26, 2014 17:08
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IRQ posted:Well that and Scrubs. I would have forgiven Scrubs if it ended with Jan Itor hitting JD over the head with a wrench and throwing him in the back of a van though. For me, the final proper season of Scrubs was pretty good and the final few minutes were the perfect end to the show. With How I Met Your Mother I just can't say that. This last season has been torturous to watch, just awful, and knowing that they insist on ending with the actual first meeting just gives me no good will towards them. BrooklynBruiser posted:I mean, I'm not going to say it kept up a consistent level of quality, but even at its worst it was still pretty okay. It never got bad. I really think it's been bad for a while now, not offensively so, but I certainly wouldn't have ever stuck with the show as it is now at the beginning. It bought a lot of good will in the early years that made me stick around until the ending but overall my memories of the show are going to be more negative than positive. Unfortunately.
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Jan 26, 2014 17:11
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I honestly think HIMYM has never been bad. People bring up the Zoey episodes as if they were the nadir of sitcom programming but even then it was mediocre at worst.
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Jan 26, 2014 17:27
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:Who gives a gently caress what other people's preconceived notions about what you watch are? When it comes to recommending anything, I give a gently caress, because healthy or not, what I recommend reflects back on me and impacts my ability to champion other shows. Also, I enjoy what relatively little Japanese animation I seek out these days (I used to be a lot more into it), but I tend to agree that a lot of it makes choices in character design, storyboarding, and plotting that range from "juvenile" to "offensive" and even "borderline criminal." For instance, there's another favorite of mine that's coming to Toonami in March: Black Lagoon. As I described it in the Adult Swim thread, if the love child of Bad Boys 2-era Michael Bay and Hard Boiled-era John Woo made an action movie about modern day pirates, it would be a little more subtle and nuanced than Black Lagoon. But it's fun. It's an obscene amount of fun. And because I have so much fun with it, I'm able to look past the fact that many of the characters are two-dimensional and half of them are there as fetish fuel, including the female lead (a magical murder machine with big tits and a dirty mouth), the gothic chambermaid who turns into The Terminator when her young charge is kidnapped, the gun-toting, hard-drinking nun from the Church of Violence (of course she also has big tits), and the creepy incest twins that show up halfway through the series. When I make a recommendation, though, I want to know that it's not going to burn most people who decide to try it, so I try to step back and look at what I'm recommending with an objective eye. And in the case of Black Lagoon, based on what I know about this forum, I worry that most non-Anime fans might feel uncomfortable with it because -- and forgive me if this doesn't make sense -- when I'm outside of it, I'm a little uncomfortable with it too. So my feelings get a little confused at times, and last night was one of them. So, sorry if I came off weird about it, and I'm also sorry that I couldn't help but not-recommend Black Lagoon above.
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Jan 26, 2014 17:48
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I don't know, Division Post, I know that I hold your tastes in high regard. Your posts about Moonlighting a few years back pushed me to watch the show, which opened me up to a lot of new television. So, thanks.
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Jan 26, 2014 17:54
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DP got me into Friday Night Lights, and I feel like I should get him a gift basket for that or something. I wanted to know if I'd enjoy the show if this is my perception of sports
hope and vaseline fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 17:55
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Tuxedo Jack posted:I don't know, Division Post, I know that I hold your tastes in high regard. Seconding this. You don't need to justify why you are recommending things dude; your post about it got me into Friday Night Lights so you've got nothing but good will from me.
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Jan 26, 2014 17:56
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How's Leverage? I've had it on my Netflix queue for a while but know next to nothing about it.
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Jan 26, 2014 18:03
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DivisionPost posted:When it comes to recommending anything, I give a gently caress, because healthy or not, what I recommend reflects back on me and impacts my ability to champion other shows. I tend to focus on the substance of the recommendation rather than the substance of the recommender because no one has a 'perfect' opinion. See: everybody who likes Arrow. quote:Also, I enjoy what relatively little Japanese animation I seek out these days (I used to be a lot more into it), but I tend to agree that a lot of it makes choices in character design, storyboarding, and plotting that range from "juvenile" to "offensive" and even "borderline criminal." I find that even the most highly recommended japanimation suffers from poor translation/adaptation. Yes, translating anime is grunt work for gross nerds, but a lot of studios and publishers would benefit from hiring someone with a decent grasp of English to polish scripts and make translations more naturalistic.
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Jan 26, 2014 18:08
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Tuxedo Jack posted:I don't know, Division Post, I know that I hold your tastes in high regard. Your posts about Moonlighting a few years back pushed me to watch the show, which opened me up to a lot of new television. So, thanks. PriorMarcus posted:Seconding this. You don't need to justify why you are recommending things dude; your post about it got me into Friday Night Lights so you've got nothing but good will from me. hope and vaseline posted:DP got me into Friday Night Lights, and I feel like I should get him a gift basket for that or something. Okay, then. Blindly follow my rear end into Black Lagoon. Be aware that you're in for a little of this, but you're also in for a little of this. MrAristocrates posted:How's Leverage? I've had it on my Netflix queue for a while but know next to nothing about it. It's fun. The villains of the week tend to feel a little more lightweight than they should, and the production can feel a little cheap at times (it was financed entirely by Independence Day's Dean Devlin), but the team has great chemistry together and some of the latter-series plots are fantastic. Definitely give it a shot.
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Jan 26, 2014 18:14
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MrAristocrates posted:How's Leverage? I've had it on my Netflix queue for a while but know next to nothing about it. Watch it until you get bored of it, I'd say. Or better, watch Hustle, which is far superior.
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Jan 26, 2014 18:16
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MrAristocrates posted:How's Leverage? I've had it on my Netflix queue for a while but know next to nothing about it. It's a TNT show, which should tell you all you need to know about it. It's nothing transcendent, but it is a fun show about fun criminals with some serious dramatic moments along the way. If you like White Collar or Burn Notice, you'll probably like Leverage.
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Jan 26, 2014 18:17
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I would watch almost anything DP were to recommend, unless, as Irish Joe says, the substance of the recommendation was especially offputting.
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Jan 26, 2014 18:19
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lelandjs posted:It's a TNT show, which should tell you all you need to know about it.
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Jan 26, 2014 19:02
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BrooklynBruiser posted:I mean, I'm not going to say it kept up a consistent level of quality, but even at its worst it was still pretty okay. It never got bad.
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Jan 26, 2014 19:46
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Leverage is like if you take a little A-Team and mix it with a little Ocean's Eleven. There isn't much at all by way of serialized stories or character development, so it's very light watching.
Lycus fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 19:52
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Bown posted:raditts is kind of a contrarian fwiw Sorry if I the things I like and dislike on television are different from the things you like and dislike, I guess. Lycus posted:Leverage is like if you take a little A-Team and mix it with a little Ocean's Eleven. There isn't much at all by way of serialized stories or character development, so it's very light watching. Is Leverage on Netflix or anything? That's another show I forgot about, because it seemed like it came on at a different time every week. I never did get to see how it ended. IRQ posted:Well that and Scrubs. I would have forgiven Scrubs if it ended with Jan Itor hitting JD over the head with a wrench and throwing him in the back of a van though. I dunno, I think that wedding proposal episode from last season made NPH's character dip into "Dennis from Always Sunny" levels of creepy. The only difference is that at least Always Sunny makes it pretty clear that Dennis is not a character that people should emulate. raditts fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 19:55
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Hey! Archer season 4 is on canadian netflix but not american. That doesn't happen often.
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Jan 26, 2014 20:22
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raditts posted:I dunno, I think that wedding proposal episode from last season made NPH's character dip into "Dennis from Always Sunny" levels of creepy. The only difference is that at least Always Sunny makes it pretty clear that Dennis is not a character that people should emulate. I agree. The show sometimes tries to put across that Barney's way of living is horrible and manipulative and etc, but in that case, it really glamourised him being a horrible conniving pickup-artist as like, this expression of ultimate romance.
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