What was the last TV show you watched?

[Fading Fast]

Amazon's new TV pilot for "The Last Tycoon." Set in 1930's Hollywood and based on Fitzgerald's book which was loosely based on Irving Thalberg's life, the pilot - as many pilots do - attempts to do too much in on episode: introduce a lot of characters, a lot of background history and multiple plot lines while also wrapping a full episode story inside.

It becomes a mishmash that doesn't really work, but also doesn't mean the series (if it gets made) would be bad as, then, they'd have the time to flesh out the characters and stories. The period sets and details were well done, but overall it felt a bit too modern and "Disney-a-fied." That said, the clothes - the women's dresses in particular - were stunning. My girlfriend wanted several of them.

 

[Touchofevil]

Another episode of The Night Manager

 

[Fading Fast]

Another episode of The Night Manager

It's getting really, really good - isn't it?

 

[Touchofevil]

It's getting really, really good - isn't it?

It is another sign that a big chunk of television has greatly improved even while a chunk wallows in a pile.

 

[Stearmen]

Worlds Biggest Beast.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

UFC Fight Night

 

[Zombie_61]

Star Trek: Enterprise. I've spent the last few weeks going through all four seasons on Netflix because I hadn't seen them since they originally aired. Except for the last episode, which was just a bad idea, it was a little better than I remembered.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Hell on Wheels. Ridiculous at best. Pedophilia at worst. Maybe that's the point. His emotional maturity is that of an early teen.

 

[Fading Fast]

Star Trek: Enterprise. I've spent the last few weeks going through all four seasons on Netflix because I hadn't seen them since they originally aired. Except for the last episode, which was just a bad idea, it was a little better than I remembered.

I remember liking it in a less-cerebral, more-action-adventure way than say "The Next Generation" was with all its angst and political correctness. "Enterprise" and "Voyager" feel to me more like offshoots of the original series than the first offshoot - "The Next Generation."

 

[Touchofevil]

Preacher, The Night Manager, and UFC Fight Night

Great fight by Cerrone.
Entertaining episode of Preacher; especially Cassidy.
Credibility issues with The Night Manager. Lame relationships. A tossed longtime relationship on the word of one man. The starting of a new relationship during a dangerous mission. The risks, the stupidity...annoying. Still, I have to finish the show.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Credibility issues with The Night Manager. Lame relationships. A tossed longtime relationship on the word of one man. The starting of a new relationship during a dangerous mission. The risks, the stupidity...annoying. Still, I have to finish the show.

It is riddled with that sort of absurd foundations for relationships. They had around six hours to develop the relationships, and they failed at doing so with nearly every one of them. That's the thing: in story like this, I'm fine with suspending reason in the physical sense, but not in the relationships. If you want to jump a car at 100MPH and have it flip 2.5 times and land balanced perfectly on two wheels at it skips across a pond, great. I'm there with you. But you better have the relationships and all those personal investment twists happening on concrete, firm ground. The only believable, and with chemistry, relationship that really worked for me was between the pregnant agent and the black fella back at the call center (sorry, I can't remember any of the names right now). And since this mini-series wasn't about action sequences, betting it all on the relationships, that is an utter failure. Even that first kiss was a bungled, awkward, she wouldn't do that in the first place, but especially in that moment, nor would he situation. We get it. We know they're going to fall for each other, but you haven't given a single good reason why they would. Okay, love is about chemistry. We do stupid things at stupid times. They had no chemistry on screen. So I'm not buying any of that, either. Then again, they established that in the first tens of minutes when he had this sudden affinity for the concubine with the dog, which would then affect the rest of his life. Really? None of this begins to address the ridiculousness of the weapons story.

 

[Zombie_61]

I remember liking it in a less-cerebral, more-action-adventure way than say "The Next Generation" was with all its angst and political correctness. "Enterprise" and "Voyager" feel to me more like offshoots of the original series than the first offshoot - "The Next Generation."

I think The Next Generation tried too hard to be socially relevant in the same way that the original series tried to be, but few Trek fans in the late-80s/early-90s cared. As such, it just felt forced. I've tried to give Deep Space Nine and Voyager a chance a number of times over the years, but neither of those shows work for me; I just don't find them interesting on any level. Enterprise has it's flaws, but I find it to be the most satisfying of the spin-off series'.

 

[Stearmen]

If you watch the original pilot for Star Trek, The Cage, with Jeffrey Hunter as the Captain and Majel Barret as Number One, You will see, of all the different incarnations DS9 is the closest to Roddenberry's original vision!

 

[Stearmen]

Full Custom Garage. Got to hand it to Ian, tearing apart an award winning car, to make into a totally different vision. Can't wait to see it finished!

 

[Worf]

Just a GREAT night of Television.

LeBron cries tears of joy.
J.R. Smith explains what REALLY matters in life.
Steph Curry.... walks away mad or sad, I really don't care which.... buh bye! (boy that felt good!)
And last but not least Ramsey Bolton becomes the personal spokesperson for "Bolton Brand Dog Chow It's Face Bitin' Good!"

Worf

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Mapp & Lucia. I laughed. The Mapp actor nailed it. She sort of reminds me of Steve Martin.

 

[Fading Fast]

...LeBron cries tears of joy....

Pro basketball just doesn't work for me as a sport to watch, but I get how impressive they are as athletes, so I have no idea - other than what I pick up ambiently from the sport news - whose who, etc, in basketball. But of course, I know LeBron.

A few days back, I'm mindlessly watching a terrible movie "Trainwreck" on HBO and who pops up, but LeBron. While no Spencer Tracey, the man can act. He wasn't stilted the way many pro-althetes can be and he had a charisma that shined through.

That's it, that's my Lebron story and kudos to him for the championship.

 

[Doctor Strange]

If you watch the original pilot for Star Trek, The Cage, with Jeffrey Hunter as the Captain and Majel Barret as Number One, You will see, of all the different incarnations DS9 is the closest to Roddenberry's original vision!

I don't see this at all. DS9 was explicitly devised to be anti-Roddenberry Trek, purposefully breaking most of his TNG rules (like "no conflicts between our regular cast, the best of humanity has moved beyond petty disputes") and taking a far darker worldview than the essential optimism for the future that was central to both earlier series. The producers literally waited until Rodenberry was dying to create the series, to get out from under the relentless idealism of TNG, a series over which Rodenberry (initially) had the most control. (While he obviously had enormous input on TOS, he was continually compromising with NBC, Desilu, sponsors, censors, etc., throughout its run. Flush with the success of TOS reruns and the feature films, TNG represented his attempt to make Trek his way.)

 

[Formeruser012523]

This reminds me of an interview I read many, many years ago in (I think) Rolling Stone with producer Rick Berman. Just remember the writer saying he had a bust of Rodenberry on his desk with a gag in his mouth, a blindfold, & a tie around his ears.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

As someone who went from playing one sport to another their entire adolescent and teen life (and I played, not sat on benches, which is meant to imply I enjoyed it and had decent aptitude for it), who now watches little sport and is a male in a sports dominated culture and cannot escape it, who knows almost nothing of Curry, I've grown to be icked out by LeBron. I don't care for how he speaks, for how he carries himself, or care for anything about him the media has shared. I'd love to not have an opinion, but I'm not sure how you do that in our culture, so I do. At the same time, I also recognize this guy has been coddled his entire life. He hasn't had a normal life, so we cannot expect him to act normal, to show humility, or to have anything other than his massive ego. Sports doesn't teach that by nature, but many think it does. Wrong. That's about coaching and mentoring, and if you aren't lucky enough to have a coach like that (most aren't, and fewer can probably handle a coddled talent and ego like LeBron), then sport will not automatically teach you humility or keep your immaturity in check. Then they carry those things into adulthood. It's still an ugly sight, but it is also understandable. You don't grow up in such a bubble and then come out rounded or in a normal range. And man, the NBA is as manipulated as the WWE. It's not sport, but entertainment. Yuck.