|
RoughDraft2.0 posted:I experienced some kind of binge-watch drought recently and, being mildly desperate, decided to re-watch Prison Break. As a dissenting opinion, I found season 1 decently entertaining, and each subsequent season an order of magnitude worse than the preceding season, which means that by season 4 it may be the worst show I have ever watched. It's also a weird throwback, in these days of 12ish episode seasons. 20-something episodes into season one and you're like, "ok already, quit loving around and start progressing the main plot" regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Mar 6, 2015 |
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 00:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 19:00 |
|
|
stickyfngrdboy posted:I'd never seen any of this show until recently, and it turns out it's absolute garbage. I honestly don't understand how it became so popular. Part of it may be nostalgia. I was 12 when the first episode aired, so I can't honestly discern how much of my enjoyment comes from returning to that place and how much comes from the show itself. I do remember that the first few seasons felt genuinely compelling and mysterious, but as time wore on it became a thing I watched because I had been watching it since 1993.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 00:42
|
|
|
stickyfngrdboy posted:I'd never seen any of this show until recently, and it turns out it's absolute garbage. I honestly don't understand how it became so popular. I really like it, but admittedly it jumped the shark for me in the episode where the Smoking Man is revealed to have assassinated JFK, MLK, and tons of other shady/significant poo poo. Though it does have one of the best lines in the series. The Smoking Man posted:Life is like a box of chocolates - a cheap, perfunctory gift that no one ever asks for. The movie-of-the-week episodes are usually awesome. The conspiracy ones vary.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 00:47
|
|
|
The X-Files is a great show if you remove basically everything involving the core mystery. The cockroach and two-faced monster episodes are both fantastic.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 00:50
|
|
|
mr. stefan posted:The X-Files is a great show if you remove basically everything involving the core mystery. The cockroach and two-faced monster episodes are both fantastic. I suffered through all the conspiracy episodes when I was a kid in the hopes that the next one would be a one off. I always thought the main story was so boring. Luckily, I think about half the episodes are self contained and worth watching if I remember right. Should be fairly easy to filter out the crap with Netflix descriptions.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 00:57
|
|
|
The problem with the meta-plot episodes is that they were nothing but build-up after build-up, and never any pay-off/resolution. I believe that The X-Files' two major cultural contributions are as a marker of that era's zeitgeist, and as a collection of monster/mystery-of-the-week episodes that range from 'meh' to 'amazing', skewing toward 'pretty good'.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 01:04
|
|
|
Yeah totally. The lack of payoff ruined it. Mysteries that don't get resolved in a reasonable time just start to irritate and bore the poo poo out of me very quickly. Same reason I thought Lost was garbage and quit watching it in the second season. Interesting that Vince Gilligan went on to make Breaking Bad which IMO has a perfect balance of "whats going to happen next!?" and satisfying resolve.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 01:10
|
|
|
stickyfngrdboy posted:I'd never seen any of this show until recently, and it turns out it's absolute garbage. I honestly don't understand how it became so popular. I think a lot of it is "this hasn't been done before". It's like how John Carter was criticized for having a scene similar to Attack of the Clones when the latter in all certainty got that scene from the John Carter novels.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 01:17
|
|
|
A MIRACLE posted:It looks like the new Aziz special hits tonight
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 01:38
|
|
|
yeah
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 01:50
|
|
|
NESguerilla posted:Yeah totally. The lack of payoff ruined it. Mysteries that don't get resolved in a reasonable time just start to irritate and bore the poo poo out of me very quickly. Same reason I thought Lost was garbage and quit watching it in the second season. Probably because Breaking Bad had no overarching mystery to it, which means it never had to constantly perform the balancing act of moving the plot along while also keeping the audience in the dark about what the hell is going on. Closest thing to a mystery it had was the cold openings in Season 2, which didn't interfere with the plot at all because it was all foreshadowing (and was thoroughly resolved at the very end of the season).
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 02:06
|
|
|
The X-Files conspiracy episodes are junk because the plot goes nowhere, but watching again I'm enjoying some character touches with the smoking man and conspiracy people I never picked up when the show was first on. Once they introduce that social club of people in suits, it's clear that they treat the smoking man like he's the janitor, almost like he's their minion rather than a legit part of the conspiracy. I thought that was fun because to Mulder and Scully, the smoking man is like their arch-nemesis and the guy on top of all the poo poo they deal with, but then they cut to the conspiracy group and we see him looking awkward and getting called onto the carpet for being a gently caress-up and getting treated like garbage because his job is just to kill people and hide things and not to make any decisions. It's like being in the conspiracy has the same social dynamics as any other workplace. Also, a possible mistake made in production, but sublime in all the weird hidden history it implies about the world of the show: the smoking man says he's watched presidents die. Like, did Nixon secretly spend his retirement years adventuring in search of aliens and have to get taken care of? Did Gerald Ford have to be replaced by a robot?
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 02:22
|
|
|
stickyfngrdboy posted:I honestly don't understand how it became so popular. Two gorgeous leads and it taps into the exact cultural/conspiratorial mood of the time. Could not be more 90's.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 02:27
|
|
|
The 90s were chock full of shows about conspiracies and UFO sightings. That stuff was big back then.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 02:34
|
|
|
TV always feels like it needs more context than other media, though that's probably not the case anymore.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 02:35
|
|
|
Only True 90s Kids will get this show
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 02:39
|
|
|
I thought the bees and black oil stuff was cool to begin with, but it really went nowhere on the TV show. The first movie was enough of a capper for the show really. At that point you know aliens are definitely real in the X-Files universe, and that was pretty much the point of the show.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 02:43
|
|
|
Looks like they got rid of all the MST3k episodes and gave us Groundhog's Day. I love Groundhog's Day.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 06:03
|
|
|
Mulder searching for his sister was hugely annoying and any episode involving searching for Mulder is downright unwatchable. Any episode that doesn't involve either of those are generally pretty watchable. I think you do have to go in recognising that there really wasn't anything else like the X-Files on when the show first got popular. So a lot of the stuff that is par for the course now was pretty new then.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 06:26
|
|
|
Franchescanado posted:Looks like they got rid of all the MST3k episodes and gave us Groundhog's Day. I guess this should've been covered in the thread earlier: Shout Factory started their own free streaming site. They have 34 MST3k episodes, along with stuff like the full run of Home Movies, selected episodes of Lavern & Shirley, the full first season of Newhart, and some others (just in case you ever wanted to watch a few episodes of the old Supermarionation show Stingray, I guess). Movie-wise it's your standard selection of cheap licenses: B-movies, concerts, a couple old Jackie Chan movies, etc, with the occasional odd inclusion like the Kentucky Fried Movie or A Boy and His Dog. Some of the stuff they have is just embedded Hulu videos, but others they seem to be hosting themselves. Even amongst the MST3k stuff, some are Hulu and some aren't. I dunno why they don't just pick one or the other, but at least they're all in one place.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 07:03
|
|
|
Sort of along these lines, and I'm not sure if anyone using it has any opinions on it, Magnet Releasing has a $3 a month subscription service on Youtube for some of their movies, but I'm not sure how good the selection is and/or how much is already covered on other streaming services.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 07:50
|
|
|
yo at the end of the month they're taking down Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated. you owe it to yourself to watch it, for real
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 07:58
|
|
|
Edminster posted:yo at the end of the month they're taking down Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated. It's seriously great. Udo loving Kier, man.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 08:28
|
|
|
RoughDraft2.0 posted:I experienced some kind of binge-watch drought recently and, being mildly desperate, decided to re-watch Prison Break. And then stop after season 2 because Jesus Christ.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 10:59
|
|
|
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is extremely good, especially if you like David Cross or Will Arnet. ed: oh and Spike Jonze is in it too and I didn't recognize him until the final episode.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 13:45
|
|
|
Erebus posted:I guess this should've been covered in the thread earlier: Shout Factory started their own free streaming site. They have 34 MST3k episodes, along with stuff like the full run of Home Movies, selected episodes of Lavern & Shirley, the full first season of Newhart, and some others (just in case you ever wanted to watch a few episodes of the old Supermarionation show Stingray, I guess). Movie-wise it's your standard selection of cheap licenses: B-movies, concerts, a couple old Jackie Chan movies, etc, with the occasional odd inclusion like the Kentucky Fried Movie or A Boy and His Dog. They have the Weird Al Show through Hulu, awesome! I hope they add WKRP since they just released the whole series on DVD and the first season has been on Hulu since forever. I suppose the music rights might prevent that though. They should also put up Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, so everyone can experience that show. wa27 fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Mar 6, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 17:39
|
|
|
Of course a major problem with some of these newer streaming sites is that there's no easy way to get them playing on my TV, even through a console or Roku or whatever. EDIT: Okay they've got a Roku thing but no console option yet. Uggh.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 20:02
|
|
|
wa27 posted:They should also put up Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, so everyone can experience that show. It would be great to watch all 300 episodes or whatever it was again.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 20:15
|
|
|
X-Files is a product of its time. I guess the only way I can explain it is we left the bubble-gum fun and the government can do no wrong of the 80's and went on into the 90's there were kind of remembered for its mistrust and apathy. X-Files appeal, perhaps, was that it was a monster of the week/government conspiracy show tied all into one. On one hand we get to see the pulpy monster of the week poo poo and oh wow, that there can be scary and who knows what limits mankind has, right? Technology sure is changing! On the other hand government is pretty diseased and even a few people who want to do the right thing are ultimately trapped behind nefarious government machination and/or red tape. But hey, overall its OK because these really aren't threats we created ourselves, the threats are because of some outside force. So the 90's answer to that poo poo, what the gently caress can ya do about that? Fight the future, I suppose. Doctor Butts fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Mar 6, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 22:16
|
|
|
Not sure how you get all that from it, it's very badly acted, badly shot, and really (really) badly written.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 22:24
|
|
|
stickyfngrdboy posted:Not sure how you get all that from it, it's very badly acted, badly shot, and really (really) badly written. The quality of X-Files varies from episode to episode and really varies from season to season. I won't argue that there are some clunkers, but there are also some really great episodes in the mix. I wouldn't write off the entire series based on (what sounds like) your bad experience with season one.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 22:26
|
|
|
Sarchasm posted:The quality of X-Files varies from episode to episode and really varies from season to season. I won't argue that there are some clunkers, but there are also some really great episodes in the mix. I wouldn't write off the entire series based on (what sounds like) your bad experience with season one. Fair enough, I just found it to be very bad so won't bother watching any more. I certainly didn't think there was any depth to it at all.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 22:32
|
|
|
stickyfngrdboy posted:Not sure how you get all that from it, it's very badly acted, badly shot, and really (really) badly written. Watch Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose or Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Really about any episode from season 3.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 22:42
|
|
|
mr.capps posted:Watch Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose or Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Okay
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 22:44
|
|
|
stickyfngrdboy posted:Fair enough, I just found it to be very bad so won't bother watching any more. I certainly didn't think there was any depth to it at all. The depth is there if you look for it. Like the editor who famously dismissed Nabokov's 'Vane Sisters', you just need to give it more credit than you have.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 22:50
|
|
|
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is pretty amazing if you liked 30 Rock at all. It's fantastic in general but that's an easy hook.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2015 23:44
|
|
|
SunshineDanceParty posted:Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is pretty amazing if you liked 30 Rock at all. It's fantastic in general but that's an easy hook. It's good you posted this, because my first exposure to it was when Netflix obscured three-quarters of my screen to blast a startlingly noisy NETFLIX PRESENTS CLICK THIS poo poo advertisement at me, and I wasn't planning on ever giving it a chance.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2015 00:01
|
|
|
Yea, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt owns, owns hard. I didn't even know who Ellie Kemper was but she's hilarious. If you think Tina Fey is funny than this is a funny and good show.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2015 01:13
|
|
|
Kimmy Schmidt thread here http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3704814
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2015 01:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 19:00 |
|
|
If you like 70s conspiracy thrillers like Three Days of the Condor or Day of the Jackal, I recommend The Boys From Brazil. There are several big name actors in it including a young Steve Gutenberg who plays an amateur Nazi hunter!
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2015 03:45
|
|
