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muscles like this!)
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Khanstant posted:Nobody knows anything about being anything else and it's not all that interesting to think about how things might be if you weren't dead and also were not capable of having thoughts, thoughts like " I wonder what it would be like to be something else and why didn't this TV show explore this thing nobody knows about." Are you having a stroke?
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May 2, 2024 01:09
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| # ? May 27, 2024 23:41 |
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Worse, responding to someone who already knows their idea doesn't make sense and why it wasn't the show.
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May 2, 2024 01:18
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Lopez vs. Lopez is the funniest sitcom currently airing that I've seen. Night Court, Extended Family, and even most episodes of Saturday Night Live don't make me laugh, but Lopez vs. Lopez does. It is also heavily serialized, but with enough exposition that you can start watching from any episode. It airs on NBC, so it's be on Peacock. The scene from this week where George pretended to be a priest in a confession booth was hilarious, and the scene where George pounded a pinata designed to look like him made me tear up.
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May 2, 2024 01:18
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Khanstant posted:Worse, responding to someone who already knows their idea doesn't make sense and why it wasn't the show. That showed me. What I don't know, because you are babbling some real loving nonsense, but I'm sure it showed me.
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May 2, 2024 03:19
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Human beings only understand how to think like living human beings. You are wanting the writers to write some inhuman thing they are biologically incapable of doing. You argue that they are dead, therefore not humans. Cool. They still functionally exist and think like human beings. That's a very common conception of a soul or existence beyond life. Other religions or media have things like dissolving the self to become part of some ideas of everything or ascend into "higher" beings of light or thought or whatever, or just getting to reunite with God and experiencing their eternal glory, and other abstract things. Usually by design those things are impossible to truly grasp and often you're not really meant to, which is great because you also cannot. And in fiction exploring those ideas doesn't leave you much besides some flashy cg and some unanswerable what if questions. The show wasn't framing the afterlife as essentially eternal life just to make one big point about life. They make a lot of points and explore a lot of thoughts regarding life, death, and the afterlife. The Good Place clearly is exploring an amalgam of afterlives involving the typical conscious soul that is functionally a magical human to allow this persistence of thought and memory and all the other stuff that gives us the experience of being alive, feeling, and thinking. The thought experiment is "how will people deal with eternal life, even given the nicest ethical version of it where they can have everything people could dream of wanting?" Their conclusion is people obviously we're not evolved or created for eternal life, humans are an animal that can't even really conceive of numbers or quantities of things past a certain number, cannot really grasp the size and age of the universe they have briefly existed in, let alone meaningfully grasp infinities. It offers a solution in the form of a door that lets people go from eternal life to... Something, anything else. And they also show it as well as anybody possibly can, by not showing it. You're free to imagine whatever, but it's pointless, since anything you imagine will be in the framework of being a living human, thus, not really what it could be beyond that door. Sounds like you're criticizing them for exploring the relatable human stuff instead of the abstract inhuman stuff they can't even explore. Instead, they explored what that theoretical non-existence might look and feel like to the eternally living left who remain eternally living.
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May 2, 2024 04:14
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I'm not completely current on it but I've been watching Sugar and it is a very odd show. Like the actual mystery is very standard noir but then there's whatever is actually going on with Sugar himself.
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May 2, 2024 04:35
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Khanstant posted:It offers a solution in the form of a door that lets people go from eternal life to... Something, anything else. And they also show it as well as anybody possibly can, by not showing it. You're free to imagine whatever, but it's pointless, since anything you imagine will be in the framework of being a living human, thus, not really what it could be beyond that door. I mean we were kind of making a point not to just post that for the people who are watching it for the first time, way to read the room. And no, it's very clear on what is happening. You stop being. The end. There is no "something else". Her energy returns to the universe, and she's done. That's the entire point. The cure to the ennui of those in heaven is "You can stop whenever you want", rather than leaving them trapped there forever. You die, you get a victory lap, you clock out. It's in no way subtle about what is happening. It's the entire point of Chidi sharing with her that Buddhist expression, to show her another way of seeing the end of self. And it's not quote:Sounds like you're criticizing them for exploring the relatable human stuff instead of the abstract inhuman stuff they can't even explore. Nah, I just think think they ran out of ideas in the back half and kind of had to find a way to phone in an ending setup. But if you liked the setup good for you.
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May 2, 2024 05:30
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Well I finished Shogun. Was I the only one who couldn't get over all the stupid facial expressions Anjin made the whole time? A perpetual look of surprise and stupidity.
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May 2, 2024 08:15
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That’s half his appeal 
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May 2, 2024 09:20
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cryptoclastic posted:Was I the only one who couldn't get over all the stupid facial expressions Anjin made the whole time? A perpetual look of surprise and stupidity. Turn your monitor on etc
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May 2, 2024 09:23
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cryptoclastic posted:Well I finished Shogun. He rivaled early TWD Rick Grimes. I also loved his gutteral, indignant screaming. I say this unironically, I loved the show.
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May 2, 2024 11:32
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Mulva posted:I mean we were kind of making a point not to just post that for the people who are watching it for the first time, way to read the room. It's one thing to be smug, it's another thing to be smug and this incredibly wrong. e: this feels like a refusal to admit you just have a philosophical disagreement with the show and trying to rationalize it away Arist fucked around with this message at 13:19 on May 2, 2024 |
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May 2, 2024 13:14
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Been rewatching Hacks now the third season has started and man I forgot how good this show was
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May 2, 2024 13:54
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Escobarbarian posted:Been rewatching Hacks now the third season has started and man I forgot how good this show was Yeah I'm psyched to start this. It annoys me how we'll go through months of dribs and drabs and then suddenly get ten different good shows come awards season. I'm still catching up on The Sympathizer and A Gentlemen in Moscow. Plus there's this new Jeff Daniels thing and that Hulu bridge murder thing and everyone won't shut the gently caress up about that Irish cop show... ...meanwhile I'm over here, finally catching up on Bojack.
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May 2, 2024 14:10
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Open Source Idiom posted:this new Jeff Daniels thing Do you mean American Rust, that just had its second season drop? Or is there some other new thing with Jeff Daniels?
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May 2, 2024 14:39
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Probably the new David E. Kelley thing, “A Man in Full”
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May 2, 2024 15:07
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EricBauman posted:Do you mean American Rust, that just had its second season drop? Or is there some other new thing with Jeff Daniels? Escobarbarian posted:Probably the new David E. Kelley thing, “A Man in Full” Yeah, this.
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May 2, 2024 15:08
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Knuckles show was legit super funny tbh
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May 2, 2024 16:09
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Escobarbarian posted:Knuckles show was legit super funny tbh It just had so many little jokes that hit 100% to me. Even though it was less the Knuckles show and more the Adam Pally show, I was fine with that. God I laughed so hard at the motorcycle/bike duel with the close up of the bounty hunter "You're gonna need a vehicle!" all smarmy, only to have it zoom out. "I can't hear a word you're saying"
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May 2, 2024 16:16
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Escobarbarian posted:Probably the new David E. Kelley thing, “A Man in Full” That's a weird book to adapt.
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May 2, 2024 17:35
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I have a problem. I can't stop watching The Good Place. It's so good. I had things to do today!
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May 2, 2024 20:26
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That's how I was yesterday with The Dead Boy Detectives. I never do this, but I binged it and finished the series in a day. Super entertaining and SUPER gay.
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May 2, 2024 20:42
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So last night I noticed that there was a season 2 of The Jinx (about Robert Durst, who killed his wife, a female friend and a neighbor and got away with all 3 murders, at least as of 2015 when season aired) that just came out on HBO and is on whatever the name is of the HBO streaming service now (Max I guess but that's the stupidest name for a streaming service ever in my opinion). Only 2 episodes so far, and it starts right about the time period that they aired season 1 of The Jinx. And I'm hooked yet again, and baffled by how many people around this man felt so much pressure to "protect" him. I mean, by 2015, as my husband said, he looked like The Cryptkeeper, because he was this skinny, creepy looking, old man and really didn't evoke any feelings of sympathy from me. Anyway, the guys who do HBO documentaries knocked it out of the park yet again, and I recommend it for anyone who likes true crime, even if at this point the only mystery is "how the gently caress does he keep attracting the love and protective instincts of all these people?"
raven77 fucked around with this message at 20:56 on May 2, 2024 |
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May 2, 2024 20:50
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Arist posted:It's one thing to be smug, it's another thing to be smug and this incredibly wrong. I totally agree with Mulva There's shitloads of sci fi that deals with stuff that's hard to conceive and that's what I expected from the good place when it went high concept like this.
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May 2, 2024 20:52
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Some examples might be helpful to make it clearer what you're wanting from it.
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May 2, 2024 21:35
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thrawn527 posted:I have a problem. I can't stop watching The Good Place. It's so good. My heart, it weeps at your plight and torment
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May 2, 2024 21:54
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Arist posted:It's one thing to be smug, it's another thing to be smug and this incredibly wrong. And that seems like a cheap way to not actually put your thoughts together and make a point, and just say "Yeah, well....you're wrong!" liking a loving chimp before waddling off like you did something here. Like you do know that the entire point of the series up until that point is about how we better ourselves and live together, based strongly on moral contractualism ideas. Morality is not some objective truth on high, morality is how we deal with each other. Entire, entire series up to the very end is dealing with that. With the obvious end goal "Ok, we've found a way to actually change ourselves and others and finally be good people and go to heaven", but of course the end goal is kind of against the previous setup. If morality is how we treat each other, you kind of undercut that by tying it to achieving some objective good. As the show was telling you, if you are only doing it for a reward it's not a truly good act. And thematically, we can't end on the characters doing a good thing and going to the Good Place. The point isn't the payoff, it's doing the right thing.. Great, so plot twist. Entirely with them, have to do something now that literally every possible issue is put aside and finally things can proceed as expected. It's just that there, at the end? I think it's a weak setup. Boredom and lack of fulfillment? Really? That's the final boss of dead people? That's what you came up with? You could have just gone with reincarnation or a more literal interpretation of their energy returning to the universe as a necessity for continuation. The ultimate answer to the question of what we owe to each other. They get to heaven and it's empty because everyone that came before already had to go. Still not great, but at least there's nothing they can do about it. When the solution to your problem is "Have you tried not being bored?" and a magic robot lady makes you not bored, it's hard to get on the team for spiritual annihilation. It's too easy a solve with the tools they've shown up to that point. Takes me out of it for a minute. And that is it. That's my one problem with the finale run, which I quickly got over because it nailed the character moments. But that doesn't magically eliminate the problem I had with it. It was a show never particularly concerned with that side of things. After all we had a ton of returning characters from hell, and dealt with what was going on there multiple times. Heaven was just an abstract goal we spend like nine seconds with before everyone there fucks off and we see what a mess it is. The show was always having fun with the petty office poo poo going on in hell, it had one liberal failures joke with heaven it used, then time to blow it up. The writers quite literally could not conceive of how heaven could work in a comedy, so they just wrote the easiest possible conclusion: It doesn't, move on. Which is fine when it's doing what it wants to do, talk about moral philosophy, but at the very end we actually *do* have to talk about the thing they don't care about. And I just don't think they did a good job. That's all. That's it. 4 years, one note. That's a pretty good run.
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May 2, 2024 21:55
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I'm not engaging with your criticism because you're not engaging with the material, hope that helps The point is not "they're bored" and that you can't even see that means there's really no reason to bother having this conversation. That you think turning off the parts of their minds that are capable of processing anything but bliss, which is itself ego death, is preferable to re-entering the universe in a new form just cements this Arist fucked around with this message at 22:03 on May 2, 2024 |
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May 2, 2024 22:00
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Arist posted:I'm not engaging with your criticism because you're not engaging with the material, hope that helps ...they very clearly are.
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May 2, 2024 22:06
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Open Source Idiom posted:...they very clearly are. Insisting that the writers just ran out of ideas is not engaging with what they actually wrote, no. The ending of the show is about a specific question. Maybe not the question that poster was interested in, but it's a valid question!
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May 2, 2024 22:08
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Arist posted:Insisting that the writers just ran out of ideas is not engaging with what they actually wrote, no. They're giving examples and talking through their thoughts. There would be literally no point to them using spoiler bars if the weren't engaging with the material. They've just got a different read from you that you're being really insufferable about.
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May 2, 2024 22:15
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I'm on the season 2 finale of The Good Place, and I've gotta say, I appreciate the joke of having Michael pose as a bartender.
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May 2, 2024 22:43
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It's a lot of words, but it's all to support the argument that "the writers didn't really think about it and were lazy" which a) is a stupid thing to argue because who knows or cares what the writers were thinking, and b) a lot of people enjoyed and found resonance with the ending, so it clearly worked to some degree. It's fine if it doesn't work for you, but you aren't gonna convince anyone who it did work for that it didn't, even if specific criticisms you are making are insightful or interesting.
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May 2, 2024 22:43
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I assure you that there has never been an insightful or interesting criticism on this forum 
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May 2, 2024 22:55
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Truspeaker posted:It's a lot of words, but it's all to support the argument that "the writers didn't really think about it and were lazy" About that one aspect of a thing they never cared about so they could get back to the thing they did on a Michael Schur show? It's not exactly flat earth theory I'm spitting here. quote:which a) is a stupid thing to argue because who knows or cares what the writers were thinking People discussing the shows they wrote? Did you think this one through before you wrote it, or were you just kind of free-styling? quote:but you aren't gonna convince anyone who it did work for that it didn't Never even tried to. Explaining myself, and to the slightest degree also "Hey, here's why some other people had an issue with that moment". Not "You are wrong, I am right.". And again, I liked the ending a lot. One loving aspect kind of tilts it slightly, I feel like there might have been a better way to get to this place. Literally the tiniest objection.
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May 2, 2024 23:07
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"The writers didn't care about this" would be a dumb line of argument even if that was true. It's pure philistinism. Discuss the art that actually exists.
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May 2, 2024 23:13
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Having a philosophical disagreement with the philosophy show doesn’t mean someone is dumb or disrespecting the writers hth. The writers are just people who wrote a show you like not unimpeachable deities. If they were they would have written The Judge better and not manage to somehow make literally Maya Rudolph unlikeable
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May 2, 2024 23:22
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Escobarbarian posted:If they were they would have written The Judge better and not manage to somehow make literally Maya Rudolph unlikeable I've seen a few episodes of loot. Seems easy enough to me. Honestly, I haven't really seen stuff with her were I actually liked her.
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May 2, 2024 23:23
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Eh I made my point
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May 2, 2024 23:24
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Loot is an ethical nightmare of a show honestly and I wish anyone writing for it would put like even 5% more thought into it
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May 2, 2024 23:24
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