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Similar question, has a murder mystery/"who is the bad guy?" show ever made the initial super obvious decoy bad guy the actual bad guy/killer? If so, has it been done effectively or does it just not work from storytelling/emotional payoff perspective?
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Jun 6, 2017 03:45
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Well, this isn't quite that, but the go-to example for this sort of thing is Prime Suspect, in which the guy they think did it is always the guy that did it, but they still have to figure out how to nail him. So it's not really a "who is the bad guy" show, and it's episodic. So it's not remotely what you asked for. I just love to post. sorry.
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Jun 6, 2017 03:48
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I thought the answer to the mystery in the first season of Wayward Pines was pretty good. Too bad the second season just sucked.
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Jun 6, 2017 03:49
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Both Lost and Battlestar Galactica are shows that had explicit, overt supernatural and religious elements from minute one of the pilot onwards yet somehow cultivated fanbases that were surprised and upset that their endings had fantastic elements and not everything had a grounded rational explanation. -Blackadder- posted:I wonder has there ever been a "central mystery" show whose ending/reveal actually lived up to the hype? I feel like there must have been some, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. Obviously a lot of shows had great endings such as the aforementioned Breaking Bad and Justified, but they weren't really "central mystery" shows. Gravity Falls. It had the mystery planned out from the beginning and was dropping hints the entire time, revealed the central mystery 2/3rd of the way through, and then used the show's last stretch to expand on it further and let it reach its conclusion. Also Fringe fell apart in later seasons but it benefited from their ratings bombing and them making the parallel universe reveal at the end season 1 and then spending the rest of the show building on it instead of dragging it out.
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Jun 6, 2017 03:50
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STAC Goat posted:I don't find I have the same problem with Game of Thrones because like, there's no real clear meta plot or anything. Like, I get frustrated when they go down roads I don't like or take characters or stories in directions I don't like. But in general Game of Thrones is basically a free flowing world that just keeps moving along so I don't get too wound up about individual story arcs the way I would with an overriding one like Lost and BSG had. Game of Thrones is literally based on a series of novels where the last decent book was released almost 20 years ago and the author has since taken 15 years to poo poo out a disappointing-at-best book missing half the characters and another 6 to release half a book that was just completely terrible in every way. This is no surprise, I actually think the tv show is doing a pretty good job outside of the star wars prequels level awful action sequences. Guy Mann posted:Both Lost and Battlestar Galactica are shows that had explicit, overt supernatural and religious elements from minute one of the pilot onwards yet somehow cultivated fanbases that were surprised and upset that their endings had fantastic elements and not everything had a grounded rational explanation. Cool someone busted this out. No, the supernatural elements surprised nobody and aren't why the endings of these two shows sucked poo poo.
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Jun 6, 2017 04:07
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Rhyno posted:Jack and Sawyer's conversation about fathers in season one made me sob for hours. And Jack begging the desk attendant at the airport aired the night before we buried my grandfather and just wrecked everyone in the room. Along these lines (and after watching Leftovers last night), what TV moments have made everyone bawl like a baby (or if you prefer THE ROOM WAS REALLY DUSTY THAT NIGHT)? Six Feet Under series finale is a given, season 1 finale of Leftovers for me when that loving dog walked onto the screen, and the ending of Lost's "The Constant" are what I'll always hold with me.
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Jun 6, 2017 04:07
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This makes me cry every time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjB_oVeq8Lo
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Jun 6, 2017 04:09
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Cael posted:Along these lines (and after watching Leftovers last night), what TV moments have made everyone bawl like a baby (or if you prefer THE ROOM WAS REALLY DUSTY THAT NIGHT)? Six Feet Under series finale is a given, season 1 finale of Leftovers for me when that loving dog walked onto the screen, and the ending of Lost's "The Constant" are what I'll always hold with me. Weird answer: The finale of Banshee. That last season was a bit of a shitshow overall, but by the time the actual last episode ran, all the shittier elements (mainly the serial killer stuff) was wrapped up, so all Lucas had to do was settle his business and say his goodbyes. And it worked for me; by the time he sat down for his last drink at The Forge with Sugar...goddamn. Looten Plunder posted:Similar question, has a murder mystery/"who is the bad guy?" show ever made the initial super obvious decoy bad guy the actual bad guy/killer? If so, has it been done effectively or does it just not work from storytelling/emotional payoff perspective? Riverdale. And it works because it actually manages to wreck the town even more, opening up a lot of surprising avenues for drama that are explored in the finale. It's a very soapy kind of CW show, and I don't want to build it up to a standard it could never live up to, but for what it is, these dudes know what the gently caress they're doing. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Jun 6, 2017 |
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Jun 6, 2017 04:20
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Guy Mann posted:Both Lost and Battlestar Galactica are shows that had explicit, overt supernatural and religious elements from minute one of the pilot onwards yet somehow cultivated fanbases that were surprised and upset that their endings had fantastic elements and not everything had a grounded rational explanation. I didn't appreciate the garbage overtly manipulative editing and music of Lost's ending. HEY GET SAD GUYS IT"S SLOW MOTION AND SAD PIANO GET SAD.
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Jun 6, 2017 04:28
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Mu Zeta posted:I didn't appreciate the garbage overtly manipulative editing and music of Lost's ending. HEY GET SAD GUYS IT"S SLOW MOTION AND SAD PIANO GET SAD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLjZjxRVJHM
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Jun 6, 2017 05:10
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Toast King posted:What am I getting myself into if I finally watch Lost for the first time now, after loving every single bit of all 3 Leftovers seasons and wanting some more Lindelof goodness? If you take it for what it is, it's good.
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Jun 6, 2017 05:40
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I' was just watching Fear the Walking Dead (I know it's poo poo, I just like Cliff Curtis) and well I guess I can quit watching as his character got shot and fell out of a chopper in the second episode of the season
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Jun 6, 2017 05:47
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I've said it before but I just really don't like watching mystery shows over long periods of time or especially in threads here. That's a matter of personal taste as I'm not the sort of person who tries to guess the mystery in a novel before Sherlock can. It can be fun but I'm there for the journey the story is telling. So I don't like those threads and long drawn out experiences where it gives everyone tons of time to go through every possibility. Given enough time and enough people the thread WILL guess the mystery. And if they don't they may guess a different one that they're more excited by and make the real one disappointing. Its just setting yourself up for disappointment, IMO. Or at least that's how it works for me. Ultimately that definitely factored into me being unhappy with Lost and BSG since I had too much time to think about them. I mean, I think I was disappointed by their own merits but I also think some of it was my expectations that could have been done away with if I binged the show. I know I had one theory about BSG that I absolutely loved in my head and when they gave a disappointing different answer I was really doubly disappointed. But that's not entirely on them since they didn't make me come up with my own idea. Their idea sucking was one thing, but me getting married to my idea is my fault. IRQ posted:Cool someone busted this out. No, the supernatural elements surprised nobody and aren't why the endings of these two shows sucked poo poo. Yeah, I think that's an overused and unfair generalization. I love supernatural and theological stuff. Its what drew me to BSG in the first place because I don't care at all in general about war or space stuff. I came for the weird stuff. But whether or not I enjoy the theological and supernatural that doesn't mean everything involving or using it is good. I'm still allowed to be critical of it as long as I'm consistent. And like, even if I accept that it is within the supernatural rules of the show that doesn't mean I have to be satisfied with it. Rhyno posted:I' was just watching Fear the Walking Dead (I know it's poo poo, I just like Cliff Curtis) and well I'm very much debating the sunken cost of giving up on Fear the Walking Dead. I'm a big defender of Walking Dead, but Fear has always been bad. Like, to the point where I didn't mind clicking on that spoiler and am unphased by it. I'm just not invested at all.
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Jun 6, 2017 05:49
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At a certain point characters are so stupid and unlikable that it's just better for them to die. Sadly basically the entire cast of Fear hit that point pretty much instantly.
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Jun 6, 2017 05:54
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I don't know why Cliff Curtis even does TV. The dude can do a billion accents and can pass for Mexican, Indian, Arab, and New Zealand/Aboriginal. He even played Jesus in a movie.
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Jun 6, 2017 05:54
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Mu Zeta posted:I don't know why Cliff Curtis even does TV. The dude can do a billion accents and can pass for Mexican, Indian, Arab, and New Zealand/Aboriginal. He even played Jesus in a movie. He's among my very favorite actors which is why I tuned in to begin with. I guess he just really loves to act and will take any role he finds interesting.
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Jun 6, 2017 05:58
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Presumably he had to die to finish filming the next FOUR Avatar movies. Jesus Christ.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:06
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He really peaked in that series when he gave up everything for his loser sociopath of a son, and then his son died like a total dweeb instantly after running away with his own little bro murder club. Which may be the only redeeming thing about the show, often it hates the characters as much as you would.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:09
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STAC Goat posted:I've said it before but I just really don't like watching mystery shows over long periods of time or especially in threads here. That's a matter of personal taste as I'm not the sort of person who tries to guess the mystery in a novel before Sherlock can. It can be fun but I'm there for the journey the story is telling. So I don't like those threads and long drawn out experiences where it gives everyone tons of time to go through every possibility. Given enough time and enough people the thread WILL guess the mystery. And if they don't they may guess a different one that they're more excited by and make the real one disappointing. Its just setting yourself up for disappointment, IMO. Or at least that's how it works for me.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:23
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Mulva posted:He really peaked in that series when he gave up everything for his loser sociopath of a son, and then his son died like a total dweeb instantly after running away with his own little bro murder club. Which may be the only redeeming thing about the show, often it hates the characters as much as you would. Fear the Walking Dead sounds like it's basically Hate Watch: The TV Show.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:31
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Cael posted:Along these lines (and after watching Leftovers last night), what TV moments have made everyone bawl like a baby (or if you prefer THE ROOM WAS REALLY DUSTY THAT NIGHT)? Six Feet Under series finale is a given, season 1 finale of Leftovers for me when that loving dog walked onto the screen, and the ending of Lost's "The Constant" are what I'll always hold with me. The day after my cat died, an episode of Mom aired where the husband/father died and it was this mix of dark humor and "gently caress it" and catharsis and it was just exactly what I needed right then. I know I've cried other times at shows both for legit reasons and non (I tend to get hooked on the emotional beats even if it's done badly, that's just the kind of viewer I am), but that's the one that comes to mind for me.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:40
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I didn't cry but there was an episode in The Expanse where a bunch of the poor, downtrodden Belters decided to make a group sacrifice so that at least a few of them could survive. And unlike a similar scene in the pilot of BSG, nobody tried to force their way onto the ship.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:43
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Finishing up Season 2 of F is for Family. Seems like it shares a lot of DNA with Bojack Horseman. Never as funny as Bojack, but gets fairly real.
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Jun 6, 2017 07:57
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Remember all those Lost copycats from the mid- to late-2000s that were predicated on having a mysterious mythology story arc but never got resolved because none of them lasted? Like THE EVENT. I remember one advert for THE EVENT. "You have to tell me about THE EVENT." "I'm sorry, but THE EVENT is classified." "I'm the President of the United States; I need to know about THE EVENT." "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't tell you about THE EVENT." "TELL ME ABOUT THE EVENT!" I also remember a show called Vanished which was about a kidnapping that ended up involving a government conspiracy and (I think) the end of the world. The most noteworthy things about it were a) it killed off its main character; and b) after it ended without resolving its storyline, the showrunner of Bones of all things announced that the story could potentially be resolved in whatever the next season of Bones was going to be (it was not - but that would be pretty funny, if all the cancelled and unfinished Lost-alikes had been resolved in episodes of Bones). (Vanished ran at the same time as another kidnapping-themed show called Kidnapped, which I remember being pretty decent.)
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Jun 6, 2017 09:03
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I watched both The Event and Flashforward. It was a special time in television.
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Jun 6, 2017 09:11
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LOST finale still owns bones and BSG finale is mostly fine except for that one ridiculously unbelievable/idiotic plot point, I HAVE SPOKEN
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Jun 6, 2017 09:21
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Escobarbarian posted:LOST finale still owns bones and BSG finale is mostly fine except for that one ridiculously unbelievable/idiotic plot point, I HAVE SPOKEN You know you want to tell us.
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Jun 6, 2017 09:26
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Just the whole "let's get rid of literally ALL TECHNOLOGY and live as cavemen people" element
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Jun 6, 2017 09:44
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There should've been one character that said "gently caress that, I'm going 'sploring with the robots".
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Jun 6, 2017 09:57
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Escobarbarian posted:Just the whole "let's get rid of literally ALL TECHNOLOGY and live as cavemen people" element That's the one that I don't get mad at people for saying. It doesn't bother me because really what they're doing is choosing to die at peace. It's d "Dignified" suicide. Not a smart survival plan.
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Jun 6, 2017 10:10
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At least baby Hera (the first human/cylon hybrid) must have survived though, considering she is the great-great-great-etc.-grandmother of all of us.quote:In the final episode, it is revealed that Hera is apparently the Mitochondrial Eve and lived 150,000 years before the present day. Her remains (described as being those of a "young woman") are recovered by the Smithsonian Institution in modern-day Tanzania.
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Jun 6, 2017 10:46
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For all of it's other problems BSG's ending, succeeded, at least for me, in being pretty satisfyingly cathartic. "You know, I know about farming...", gets me everytime.
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Jun 6, 2017 10:49
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Snak posted:I watched both The Event and Flashforward. ALL THE NETWORK EXECS WERE LOADED, OKAY?!
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Jun 6, 2017 11:00
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I never saw Flashforward, but I watched all of The Event, and let me tell you what: That poo poo was capital B Bonkers.
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Jun 6, 2017 11:01
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I've never watched BSG and I think it's the only big spaceship series I haven't. (Depending on whether Andromeda, Firefly and Lexx count as "big" because I haven't watched those either.)
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Jun 6, 2017 11:34
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Lexx was one of the most Canadian TV shows ever. I am shocked that a young Roger Cross was never part of the cast.
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Jun 6, 2017 11:37
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If you like big spaceship series, you should watch Galactica. It's got its flaws, depending on your taste, but it's solid. Some great performances really elevate it during dramatic moments.
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Jun 6, 2017 11:37
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Wheat Loaf posted:Remember all those Lost copycats from the mid- to late-2000s that were predicated on having a mysterious mythology story arc but never got resolved because none of them lasted? I remember an NBC ad where a group of totally real, hip young people people (definitely NOT actors from central casting) excitedly described the network's new lineup. According to them, Surface was just like "A new Spielberg movie, every week!" Wheat Loaf posted:I've never watched BSG and I think it's the only big spaceship series I haven't. You should rectify that; there are some narrative stumbles in the home stretch but it's compulsively watchable throughout. It's also stealthily a great political drama.
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Jun 6, 2017 11:56
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It's been on my list for years but I've never quite gotten around to it. I haven't really had much of an inclination to watch spaceship shows for a while, tbqh. BSG Series Bible is interesting to read, though; I'm always interested in behind the scenes artefacts like that. I imagine there must be stuff there that doesn't quite carry over to the show, because I think Moore wrote it during the break between the miniseries and the main programme. Do shows still do series bibles? I know some do, but I imagine stuff like Ron Moore's 50 page BSG bible there must be a bit of an outlier. I can't imagine you'd need more than five pages, to be honest (one page for the premise and format; one page for the main characters; one page for the outline of the story; either one or two pages for maybe two-sentence episode summaries depending on how many episodes you're doing).
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Jun 6, 2017 12:03
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I thought I was the only person on earth that watched/enjoyed Harper's Island also surprised to see Veronica Mars not mentioned as far as "incredibly satisfying payoff" to season-long mystery arcs. Most people thought season 2 was a big step down, but I still liked it, as well as the 6-7 episode mini-arcs they tried in the last season.
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Jun 6, 2017 12:22
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