The TV Shows Topic, where... we talk about our TV shows

[Puto]

I'm liking The Tomorrow People.

I remember watching the 1990s series of that as a kid, lol.

[Jecka]

I'm liking The Tomorrow People.

I remember watching the 1990s series of that as a kid, lol.

I read about it, but I've never seen it. Might check it out if I don't forget.

[bash7353]

Over a month late, but I was finally able to finish Homeland's third season. It had its weaknesses and inconsistencies, and wasn't nearly as good as the first season, but I liked that it tried to stay close to current issues. Now I wanna get to Hatufim, the Israeli series it's based on. Hopefully I'll find time to get through that faster…

Also, what I've seen of True Detective so far looks pretty good.

[Conan5]

Yeah, I so want to check out True Detective since everyone I know wants to talk about it but damn, I've got my hands full. :V
Also, my friend got me into Justified and I'm liking it so far. Quite...interesting.

[Jd-]

True Detective is already one of the best shows on TV. It is must-see TV. However, it is not for everyone. It is dark and it is a pretty hard-rated TV-MA, so I wouldn't recommend it for the young or those not familiar with this sort of television.

[Kor]

I'm currently watching the Chinese drama "Three Kingdoms", and my god, I actually found a show I enjoy.

The major flaws I noticed so far are:
1) There are some time-jumps happening every now and then, but often it happens without you knowing about it, thus you only realize it after you notice a character is much older than before.
2) Lots of development happens off-screen. While the characters might let you know what sort of development happened, sometimes a sudden fact just jumps up, and you're left wondering how that happened. For example, Between episodes 5-10 Cao Cao had a small military force with him, but about 5 episodes later, he suddenly has a huge army and a city and whatnot, so while I acknowledge that it "happened", I'm kinda interested to know how it happened. Though maybe those bits of information aren't really important in the long run.

[Jd-]

First thing that comes to mind: I'd imagine there are about 5,000,000 shows that would go by the title "Three Kingdoms" on Chinese TV (I'd say there have to be multiple ones running constantly at any given time, actually). Nonetheless, I'm very glad to see the period getting more exposure on the outside. On instinct, I'd imagine it's more in the tradition of Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms than being strictly historical (with Zhuge Liang being near messianic, Cao Cao being generally villainous, and Shu in general being fairly hard to dislike).

If you're really into this period and haven't seen it yet, you really must check out the John Woo movie Red Cliff from a few years ago. It was released in two parts and covers the political as well as action aspects surrounding the foundations of most of the major players leading up to the Battle of Chi Bi/Red Cliff. It incorporates most of the tropes from Romance and has a lot of really, really great performances (the characterizations for Zhou Yu, Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun, Guan Yu, and Liu Bei are especially good). The battles, staging, and costumes are all top-notch and of the highest calibur possible.

[Kor]

First thing that comes to mind: I'd imagine there are about 5,000,000 shows that would go by the title "Three Kingdoms" on Chinese TV (I'd say there have to be multiple ones running constantly at any given time, actually). Nonetheless, I'm very glad to see the period getting more exposure on the outside. On instinct, I'd imagine it's more in the tradition of Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms than being strictly historical (with Zhuge Liang being near messianic, Cao Cao being generally villainous, and Shu in general being fairly hard to dislike).

If you're really into this period and haven't seen it yet, you really must check out the John Woo movie Red Cliff from a few years ago. It was released in two parts and covers the political as well as action aspects surrounding the foundations of most of the major players leading up to the Battle of Chi Bi/Red Cliff. It incorporates most of the tropes from Romance and has a lot of really, really great performances (the characterizations for Zhou Yu, Zhuge Liang, Zhao Yun, Guan Yu, and Liu Bei are especially good). The battles, staging, and costumes are all top-notch and of the highest calibur possible.

On hindsight, I really should have specified to which TV drama I was referring; sorry about that. I'm watching this one, which I actually found by accident. And yes, it's based on Guanzhong's novel.

I'll probably check the movie after I'm done with the drama (which might take a while, considering I have about 70 episodes more to go.)

[bluekaitou1412]

I dunno the last time I posted here, but just to keep things up to date. I finished Breaking Bad (good show, good show, only I think my cultural background is in the background keeping me from saying it's awesome). I've only recently started on True Detective and continued Doctor Who from where I last left off. I'm catching up on the second seasons of Hannibal and Bates Motel, though I imagine I'll drop them for the meantime once GoT airs. I also started watching Da Vinci's Demons and Sleepy Hollow, but they're mostly fill-ins for when I get tired of marathons.

Life is good.

[bash7353]

Finished Scandal's third season a couple of days ago. I don't know why I'm continuing to be surprised by how good this show is. I so hope they'll renew. For a while during the finale I thought they were wrapping up and ending the whole series, but given what then happened, there's still loose ends.

It's quite fitting that Game of Thrones came back shortly before Scandal ended. Although, I'm probably pretty alone in seeing similarities between those two shows.

[Kor]

I finished watching the last season of How I Met Your Mother, and unfortunately I have to say that it was one of the worst things I've ever watched (at least of the really bad stuff I can remember watching.)

The biggest problem is that I just don't think it was funny. I barely even smirked a couple of times throughout the season. Has it always been like that and my taste just changed, or is it just the last few seasons?

Another thing about the season, basically being a weekend (besides the finale) is that it felt very static. Worst of all, the finale pretty much made it inconsequential at the end. We spend 20 episodes on this thing that's about to happen, only for the first ten minutes of the finale to eliminate this reality, so this whole journey of the last season was meaningless because of a finale practically made of bullet points and neverending time-jumps. (damn it, I didn't want to talk about the finale). So at the end, this season consisted of 20 episodes of atrociously slow pacing and then a finale of atrociously fast pacing.

[PT]

I finished watching the last season of How I Met Your Mother, and unfortunately I have to say that it was one of the worst things I've ever watched (at least of the really bad stuff I can remember watching.)

The biggest problem is that I just don't think it was funny. I barely even smirked a couple of times throughout the season. Has it always been like that and my taste just changed, or is it just the last few seasons?

Another thing about the season, basically being a weekend (besides the finale) is that it felt very static. Worst of all, the finale pretty much made it inconsequential at the end. We spend 20 episodes on this thing that's about to happen, only for the first ten minutes of the finale to eliminate this reality, so this whole journey of the last season was meaningless because of a finale practically made of bullet points and neverending time-jumps. (damn it, I didn't want to talk about the finale). So at the end, this season consisted of 20 episodes of atrociously slow pacing and then a finale of atrociously fast pacing.

I agree with all of this. Don't even get me started on the finale. I watched it when it aired and I still can't think about it without getting angry. :V

[kholoudsafir]

The Mentalist got back in February here and I am still enjoying it

[Kudo Rei Bond]

The Blacklist is such an amazing show. So much suspense, action, and mystery! James Spader is a great actor.
My theories on the plot of the Blacklist (MAJOR SPOILERS):

Spoiler:

Red is the father of Liz, and the daughter of Berlin is his wife. They faked her death and sent false body parts to Berlin to make him think she was dead so that Red and his wife can live together (yes, this might be sounding like Romeo and Juliet, but it's all just speculation). Now that Berlin thinks his daughter is dead, he decides to take revenge on Red's daughter- Liz. There is evidence. When Liz demands the truth of why Red killed her "father" in the hospital, Red replies that he was about to tell her the identity of her father, which he claims will put her in grave danger. Also, when Tom is shot multiple times by Liz, he says to her, "Your father's alive." Lastly, the story about Berlin is true because, at the end of the season finale, he is holding the locket that was his daughter's that was part of the plan to make him think she's dead.

Anyway. The Blacklist is a really good show.

[mangaluva]

If you ain't watching Penny Dreadful then you need to be watching Penny Dreadful. It's based on Victorian horror, as is probably obvious from the title, and it's pretty chock-full of gore so if that isn't your thing move along, but it also has Eva Green being spectacularly creepy, Billie Piper having a gorgeous Irish accent and Timothy Dalton having his usual epic voice. It has also, in its two episodes thus far, frequently featured vampires, Victor Frankenstein and Dorian Gray among its characters. Get on board.