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It’s not been awful but the story of these four episodes so far should have been over in two at most
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Aug 30, 2023 16:54
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One of my favourite plotlines in season 1 started with Westhead exploding "WE'RE NOT LOSING THIS loving GAME" then turning things around and gaining the respect of the team, so yeah the way he's been portrayed this season has been a little tough to watch. I think you could charitably look at it as this is what always happens when someone with no true leadership experience is thrust into a role they're not prepared for except magnified by a million due to the profile of the job and amount of pressure; like the majority of those people lose their minds but are given the elbow room to learn lessons and improve, except everyone above Westhead is making it abundantly clear that they don't want him in the job and are trying to gently caress him over, and he feels like he needs to lay the smack down on the only person sincerely trying to help (Riley) as he's below him in the hierarchy. It's fun watching Westhead's frustration at Magic acting like he's above and beyond the good of the team because of his prestige and the money he's earning, considering all the rumours surrounding Segel's conduct near the end of How I Met Your Mother.
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Aug 30, 2023 18:02
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Henchman of Santa posted:It hasn't been great but that's a really weird take. It's a show about the 1980s Lakers glory days that opens with Magic announcing his HIV diagnosis in the early 90s. Why would they only make it about the 1980 season? Well to me, it was an excuse for John C. Reilly to ham it up and it had a very "one season miniseries" feel to me. I liked the first season, it was pretty solid, but it just didn't feel like the premise was enough to sustain a full series
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Aug 30, 2023 19:34
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escape artist posted:Well to me, it was an excuse for John C. Reilly to ham it up and it had a very "one season miniseries" feel to me. I liked the first season, it was pretty solid, but it just didn't feel like the premise was enough to sustain a full series So far the second season seems to be proving that point.
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Aug 30, 2023 19:51
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I'm up through the first three episodes of s2, but so far I'm a little underwhelmed after thoroughly loving season 1. Although I did really enjoy the Bird-centric third ep. Whether or not this take on Bird is accurate seems irrelevant, because he's my favorite supporting character in the show so far. I love what a surly rear end in a top hat he is, but I definitely remember in real-time back when he was playing how he was the bane of so many players' existence because he was just that loving good and never failed to let the other team know it on the court. Other than that, I really think the first two episodes could have been condensed. I know we're building to Westhead's firing and being replaced by Riley, but in real life that happened about 6 or 7 games into the 1981-82 season. I'm also very ready for Magic vs. Bird to get ramped up now. That was the best sports rivalry of the 80s, by far, and I'm just ready to see this version of it.
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Aug 30, 2023 20:17
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The characterisation of Bird is loving amazing and he isn't in the series enough. Him being a beer-chugging redneck who looks and behaves nothing like a professional athlete should yet completely pisses all over everyone with bare minimum effort is pretty accurate, my hope for the series is that they're able to portray how he and Johnson's relationship eventually developed into a deeply respectful rivalry then a close friendship..
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Aug 30, 2023 20:50
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Doronin posted:
Unless the next episode is like 1 1/2 seasons they are running out of time, I know this season began with a flash forward to 84 but they haven't even given whoever plays Moses Malone a line yet
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Aug 30, 2023 21:38
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I still find the series entertaining and a lot of that is Larry Bird owning everyone all the time.
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Aug 30, 2023 23:36
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I think it would've been more interesting to be a series about the NBA of the 80s rather than a biopic of Jerry Buss and Magic Johnson, there's just not enough gas in this particular tank.
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Aug 31, 2023 12:07
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Buss’ arc this season is pretty lame. One of my major issues this season is feeling like it needs to give just about every lead from s1 an arc, even when they weren’t really doing anything major irl, rather than focus on the important stuff and let some characters be supporting for a while.
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Sep 1, 2023 07:29
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It definitely feels like Buss is "supposed" to be the main character but they don't know what to do with him now that he's settled in as the owner of the team. Pat Reilly would probably be a better main character at this point, or Jerry West, or someone involved with the on-the-ground stuff.
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Sep 1, 2023 10:29
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While there have been a lot of pacing issues this season, I still very much enjoy the show and this was a great episode. Jason Clarke is also giving one of his best performances here.
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Sep 5, 2023 08:04
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I am an epiaode behind but Segel's meltdown has been great.
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Sep 5, 2023 09:08
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This episode just reinforced that the show's at its strongest when it's focusing on the team itself; I couldn't give less of a poo poo about Buss' private life or his relationship with his family, and barely care about his role within the organisation. Clarke and Brody are both smashing it and I think the story should really revolve around them; I did think the Westhead firing scene was great, with Reilly and Segel doing some of the best acting they've done on the series. Admittedly I've been struggling to keep on top of the timeframe over the last few episodes but it seemed to propel forward to the ECF with no kind of indication. Adrianics fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 10:29
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Hakkesshu posted:While there have been a lot of pacing issues this season, I still very much enjoy the show and this was a great episode. Jason Clarke is also giving one of his best performances here. Between this and Oppenheimer he's had a hell of a year.
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Sep 5, 2023 13:27
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Adrianics posted:This episode just reinforced that the show's at its strongest when it's focusing on the team itself; I couldn't give less of a poo poo about Buss' private life or his relationship with his family, and barely care about his role within the organisation. Yeah, the show rushed through the playoff loss season because Magic's injury made him kind of a non factor, and not that much drama was going on, and used the last episode to speedrun through their next championship appearance. Puts next season at 1982 with James Worthy and Dr J's return.
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Sep 5, 2023 15:52
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Whenever Riley is on screen, show good. Whenever Magic calls his girlfriend, show bad.
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Sep 5, 2023 18:43
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Darko posted:Yeah, the show rushed through the playoff loss season because Magic's injury made him kind of a non factor, and not that much drama was going on, and used the last episode to speedrun through their next championship appearance. Just kind of a weird choice dramatically speaking; very odd to launch straight from Reilly finding his mojo as a coach (his struggles to find his voice relegated to a single scene) to oh I guess now the team is in the NBA Finals and it's several months later? I wasn't sure what the month was when Westhead was fired but got the impression it was relatively early in the season
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Sep 5, 2023 22:02
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Adrianics posted:Just kind of a weird choice dramatically speaking; very odd to launch straight from Reilly finding his mojo as a coach (his struggles to find his voice relegated to a single scene) to oh I guess now the team is in the NBA Finals and it's several months later? I wasn't sure what the month was when Westhead was fired but got the impression it was relatively early in the season You'll be happy to know it was 3 weeks into the season, and they truncated the whole season after, haha.
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Sep 5, 2023 22:25
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Honestly spending so long on Westhead and then skipping over almost the entirety of the rest of the season was loving hilarious. But not, imo, in a good way.
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Sep 5, 2023 23:39
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Darko posted:You'll be happy to know it was 3 weeks into the season
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Sep 6, 2023 00:05
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Darko posted:You'll be happy to know it was 3 weeks into the season, and they truncated the whole season after, haha. gently caress me, and (unless I looked away or something) not even a "six months later" caption on the screen? Just slamming straight to Buss' wedding to that lady we know nothing about
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Sep 6, 2023 10:03
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The whole Honey plot is bizarre and as far as I can tell is completely made up. She's based on someone named Puppi Buss who absolutely did not marry him, she just changed her name? Not like this show is shy about being creative with the facts but it's not like it's adding anything to the show.
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Sep 6, 2023 12:36
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Adrianics posted:gently caress me, and (unless I looked away or something) not even a "six months later" caption on the screen? Just slamming straight to Buss' wedding to that lady we know nothing about They say out loud that they’ve lost 10 of their last 20 when Riley gives his locker room speech, and then they show their record climbing on screen over highlights of the season. Of all the many criticisms of this show it’s hard to say it’s not expository enough.
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Sep 6, 2023 15:10
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It definitely feels like they were struggling to find something for Buss to do this season since now he's actually built the team he doesn't have much to do with their actual successes and losses.
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Sep 6, 2023 17:58
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The guy who wrote the book has been posting like this every week, which is...concerning https://twitter.com/jeffpearlman/status/1699615214361342052?t=Q78Oo5_iiOLeRriy54-B8w&s=19
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Sep 7, 2023 05:47
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Yeah, i feel like Buss and Magic are the least interesting characters in the show right now but they get almost all the screentime and script.
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Sep 7, 2023 09:35
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Henchman of Santa posted:The guy who wrote the book has been posting like this every week, which is...concerning I'm fine with Boston winning.
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Sep 7, 2023 15:35
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GoutPatrol posted:Unless the next episode is like 1 1/2 seasons they are running out of time, I know this season began with a flash forward to 84 but they haven't even given whoever plays Moses Malone a line yet That's a very good point. Although in the latest ep, they did jump a shitload of time (which was confusing). But you're right, Dr. J and Moses Malone were the kings for a hot minute in the early-80s, and they've only even been mentioned in passing once this season, I think. Panzeh posted:Yeah, i feel like Buss and Magic are the least interesting characters in the show right now but they get almost all the screentime and script. Very true. As much as I loved them in s1, those two aren't really given anything interesting to do this time. I really think they missed the mark by continuing to focus on them when the real story that should be front and center is Pat Riley. Doronin fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 17:24
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They're about to play that Sixers team in the next episode. Excited to see the obviously 50-something actor playing late prime Dr. J again.
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Sep 7, 2023 17:27
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Henchman of Santa posted:They're about to play that Sixers team in the next episode. Excited to see the obviously 50-something actor playing late prime Dr. J again. They all looked 50 back then. Next season/NBA year is what really makes Dr J really huge. Darko fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 17:51
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When I was a kid starting to pay attention to the NBA I thought Moses Malone was an old-rear end man when in reality he was like 32-33, it was just that he'd been in the league for ~15 years already
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Sep 8, 2023 05:53
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nooneofconsequence posted:I'm fine with Boston winning. Larry Bird is the best part of this show.
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Sep 8, 2023 07:48
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Laterite posted:When I was a kid starting to pay attention to the NBA I thought Moses Malone was an old-rear end man when in reality he was like 32-33, it was just that he'd been in the league for ~15 years already Clyde Drexler looked 40 years old the entire time he was in the NBA.
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Sep 8, 2023 08:12
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Henchman of Santa posted:The guy who wrote the book has been posting like this every week, which is...concerning I’m on the verge of cancelling max and if they cancel this show I’ll pull the plug. The content on max is just jam packed with garbage now that they’ve added all the discovery poo poo. I can already tell they’re trying to push the prestige stuff to the side. I’ve been a non-stop subscriber for years now, but max is about to go into the rotation of apps like the rest.
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Sep 9, 2023 05:02
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After watching the premier and not following up I’ve binged this show over the last two weekends and I have a hard time thinking of a more enjoyable to watch show in the last few years.I think the main cast is a perfect and apart from Riley and Magic everyone seems to be doing an impression of their character in finding one piece of a character to latch onto and then build out from there. So the exaggeration/made up events feels less of a stretch to me because it’s also stemming from the jumping off point for the character not the actual person. I think Riley and Magic have been allowed to be more 3d from the jump. I get not liking the vintage filter but couple it with the fourth wall breaking and my read was that this “true story” is being told by people very aware of their image and how they want to be perceived verse the inherently fuzzy nature of memory. Seconding the Max sucks sentiment. I know it means nothing but when the app prompts me for my opinion I always rate it low and say I don’t like the shift in content. The HBO library is one of the main reasons to keep Max and if they keep deleting their own library it just makes me less and less likely to stick with it.
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Sep 10, 2023 16:25
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GoutPatrol posted:Unless the next episode is like 1 1/2 seasons they are running out of time, I know this season began with a flash forward to 84 but they haven't even given whoever plays Moses Malone a line yet lol Hakkesshu posted:The whole Honey plot is bizarre and as far as I can tell is completely made up. She's based on someone named Puppi Buss who absolutely did not marry him, she just changed her name? Not like this show is shy about being creative with the facts but it's not like it's adding anything to the show. That makes the events at the end of this week's episode extra bizarre.
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Sep 11, 2023 03:06
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What this show really needs is more scenes of Magic whining to Cookie over the phone.
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Sep 11, 2023 03:30
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What the show really needs is more Larry Bird. The next season needs to be a redux of seasons 1 and 2 but everything is from the POV of Bird and Auerbach
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Sep 11, 2023 04:13
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I know I keep banging this drum but it is honestly just so odd to me that they keep choosing to make such ridiculous leaps forward in time, was there really nothing in the intervening time that would make a good episode, like Reilly has gotten basically no time at all dedicated to his development as a coach compared to Westhead. I will say that I loved the playoff montage done via the passes on the court, and the Reilly/Chiklis act-off at the end. Actually got me kind of pumped to see how they portray the Finals next week.
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Sep 12, 2023 10:31
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