What was the last TV show you watched?

[Frunobulax]

Bates Motel.

Getting weirder.

Weirder is good.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm beginning to think Shikpa is lesser of a young actor than I realized. She's been the blessed benefactor of great to good writing, and it has created an illusion. I often feel she's acting to a mark, rather than creating the feel she's in a conversation or situation with another actor. The episode of Mad Men where she and her father were in a diner, having an argument (she doesn't want anything to eat and then takes a bite of his burger?). The way they filmed that scene was him, then her, then him, then her. I don't think they showed them together in a single shot until panning out. She was acting to a mark, short phrase after short phrase. That scene reminded me of this bite at Serandon. She's not making me believe she's reacting with the other actor. She's not making me wonder if she's talking at the camera. Maybe it's her phrasing, because it never feels natural or fluid. It's robotic and strange.

Perhaps. Watching Shipka grow over the course of Mad Men, it seemed clear that she was an acting prodigy who essentially spent her entire childhood working in a master class. (So many times, Weiner and the cast had said they were surprised by how quickly she became a vital actress, and once they saw, the writers expanded her role.) But in her scenes on Feud, she did seem... stagey.

But as you go on to observe re "Bette", the acting on Feud in general is often broad and stilted. It's verging on a World of Ham!

( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WorldOfHam )

So is Shipka's performance displaying her own limitations, or is it how she's being directed to play her scenes? Stay tuned.

As far as that scene between Don and Sally in the diner, likely they shot it all the way through first a couple of times for a master shot as a two-shot of both of them, then redid it some more times for the closeups on each. Probably they cut it several ways using the best takes on each line, until they came up with what played the best. I doubt that there was a secret technique of mostly shooting Sally by herself... though I guess now it's something I'll watch for in future viewings of Mad Men.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

As far as that scene between Don and Sally in the diner, likely they shot it all the way through first a couple of times for a master shot as a two-shot of both of them, then redid it some more times for the closeups on each. Probably they cut it several ways using the best takes on each line, until they came up with what played the best. I doubt that there was a secret technique of mostly shooting Sally by herself... though I guess now it's something I'll watch for in future viewings of Mad Men.

It's one of my very few complaints about Mad Men. I'm a fanatical, forgiving fanboy. It didn't happen often, but it was an approach, or technique, they used more than once. I really did not care for it, and at its worst, it was that diner scene. You've got THOSE words, that research, that talent, and all the highest echelon makings, and we're going through entire scenes of rather intense dialog with the two actors almost never, if ever, in the same shot. To me, it's a recipe for error. The editing has to be too perfect. The acting has to be too perfect. The cameras and continuity have to be too perfect. It's a conversation. Keep it simple.

 

[Fading Fast]

...the acting on Feud in general is often broad and stilted. It's verging on a World of Ham!...

I'm still trying to feel if it's intentional embracing camp or is only trying to be somewhat camp with the rest being - some - poor writing and acting. My guess is the vision isn't clear (how much camp) or the execution is muddled (everyone isn't on the same page as to "how much camp" there should be).

Regardless, Sarandon is doing well and Lange isn't IMHO.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm also as big a Mad Men fan as possible... And I don't think it's any secret that in its later seasons, the show entered its mannerist period. More self-consciously "arty" than it has been earlier, with things calculated for effect SO carefully in EVERY sequence. Sure, it was a joy to review recap and review, and discuss how every costume choice, every paperback book in the background, every look, was there for a REASON. But it was - especially in the dragged-out seventh half-seasons - TOO carefully perfect, TOO aware that every aspect would be scrutinized for additional meaning. A bit overcooked. So something like the diner scene was presented in a more grandiose manner than the narrative really required.

But let me throw this theory out re keeping Sally and Don in separate shots through most of that sequence: It may have been done deliberately to indicate the sense that they were semi-estranged, still having difficulties connecting after Sally caught Don with Sylvia. Remember, the climax of this episode is when Sally unexpectedly says, "I love you." when Don drops her off - signaling the beginning of a new phase of their relationship. (See, I'm still micro-analyzing it!)

Oh, and re Feud... I think it's undoubtedly embracing camp vs. being in any way tentative about it. That it's so sloppily tonally uneven is one of the things that's made us less thrilled with the series than we expected to be.

 

[Worf]

The Weather Channel... 2 Feet of snow outside and counting. Rassah frassah... rassah...

Worf

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep, there's nothing more entertaining than a blizzard a week before the Vernal Equinox. The local news always has hilarious footage of panic-stricken shoppers rushing the grocery store for batteries and duct tape.

 

[Stearmen]

Americans Underground: Secret City of WWI. Nice documentary, great to see names put to actual soldiers, and the images they carved in stone. Hard to believe, Native Americans were still not recognized in WWI, even though they fought in all our wars!

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Humans. anyone else still watching this? There's some really smart conflicts and compounded conflicts explored under the synth gaining consciousness and self-awareness premise. I'm impressed with the story and the synth characters they're developing. A lot of shows wouldn't bother with such a keen sense of the minutiae. Another quality British show.

 

[Stearmen]

The Weather Channel... 2 Feet of snow outside and counting. Rassah frassah... rassah...

Worf

Was 71 today, suppose to hit 75 tomorrow! I'll think of you tomorrow Worf, while wearing my short sleeve shirt. If it makes you feel any better, I will be shoveling out tomorrow, need to get some more dirt out of the basement.

 

[MisterCairo]

I will probably give it a shot again at some point. It was weak in so many ways so it will be some time before it gets that chance.

Given what you've said so far, don't bother.

As a make up, may I suggest either (or both) Line of Duty or The Fall. Both are on Canadian Netflix, perhaps you've got them available too.

 

[Worf]

Was 71 today, suppose to hit 75 tomorrow! I'll think of you tomorrow Worf, while wearing my short sleeve shirt. If it makes you feel any better, I will be shoveling out tomorrow, need to get some more dirt out of the basement.

You know.... you're lucky they've Moderators on this here site or I'd be a tellin' you where you can stick that 75 degrees!

Worf

 

[Touchofevil]

Given what you've said so far, don't bother.

As a make up, may I suggest either (or both) Line of Duty or The Fall. Both are on Canadian Netflix, perhaps you've got them available too.

Thank you for the recommendations. We are always looking for more good tv.

 

[Touchofevil]

More: Fear the Walking Dead and The People vs. O.J. Simpson.

 

[MisterCairo]

Thank you for the recommendations. We are always looking for more good tv.

Line of Duty is an internal affairs based series. The first season has Lennie "Walking Dead" and "Snatch" James as the subject officer.

The Fall is set in Belfast, with two very good reasons to watch - Gillian and Anderson.

It centres on a typical sado-sexual killer, loosely based on a Canadian murderer, form RCAF officer Russell Williams. Here, he is played by Jamie Dornan in a creepy fashion.

He is known now for those horrid Fifty Shades of Crap films.

 

[Edward]

Recently we watched, on Netflix, a ten year old series of Project Runway. I'd never seen it before, though the format was very familiar (I'm a fan of RuPaul's Drag Race). I enjoyed it very much - as with the small handfull of other reality tv competitions I can be bothered with,. it was all focussed on people with a skill learning and improving, all about constructive feedback and not Simon Cowell-type, cheap, pre-scripted one-liners at the expense of some talentless kid who has been pushed through several levels of production crew telling them they're wodnerful before being savaged in fornt of the cameras because it's "good tv".

WE're also watching Prime Suspect 1973, an ITV show which continues to provide a pitch-perfect impression of England in 1973. Wonderful sense of period. I'm surprising myself by recognising almost 100% of the cars on the road in it.

Once Easter rolls around, we have almost two full series of the Walking Dead to catch up on, and two series of the spin off as well. Also, at least one series of Game of Thrones. We watch em all on DVD, so we're typically well behind the curve (though I'm an avid reader of the source material for TWD, so I generally know the direction it will take).

Regular broadcast truly has become your Dad's Oldsmobile. Once in awhile, a show like "The Black List" pops up, but it's not worth dredging through the swamp for the one or two good one: you just wait until they come to Netflix or Amazon or somewhere where you can stream it without commercials and enjoy it then. The old model's breaking and networks are going to shattered sooner or later.

I've been saying for ten years or more now that I beleive trditional broadcast will all but disappear by 2025. Radio still seems to be gonig strong - I believe because it's such a different experience with so much of it live and where the lsitener prizes that sense opf immediacy and connection, though the pre-recorded content could primarily shift to a podcast model. In all likelihood we'll see increasing excpansion of "internet radio" as the necessary reception devices become more common. Television, however... The last tiem we watched something on regular broadcast must have been Christmas - 2015. In my own home, anyhow. We sat down to watch something my parents already had on one night when we were over there December just gone, and it felt completely alien to not be able to restart it, or just catch it later.... BBC iPlayer, the first of the UK catch-ups to launch, has been around since only 2006, and it already feels so normalised. By then I was using the VCR only to time-shift TV shows. Now, I haven't even plugged it in in a decade. We just don't need it.

The way I see things going is television largely shifting over to online, on-demand services. It's already becoming difficult to find a new television that *isn't* internet enabled. Then all new programming of a pre-recorded nature will work the same as Netflix and so on. The only things that need to be "live" - certain cultural events (we'll probably have a coronation in the UK within the next decade, only the second to be televised; some UK stations broadcast the inauguration of a new US president live and such), sports coverage, and rolling news. THat said, when you see just how much of rolling news 24/7 coverage is actually looped repeats, that could be done with a managed, updated stream of downloadable podcasts. All live stuff could simply be streamed.

OfCom (UK equivalent of the FCC) folded the subcontractor to which it outsourced regulation of online, ondemand services at the end of 2015, and took that function back in-house, in recognition of the rapid growth of that sector (and, I believe, in preparation for it becoming the norm, as it fast is). The BBC axed its BBC3 youth channel a couple of years ago, and puts all that content exclusively online now. Partly to save money, but also largely because that's where its core audience consume the content. THey've also started experimenting with other, online-only content. A canny move: more people now watch big televisual moments such as the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special on catch-up than do on initial broadcast. We're on the cusp of the biggest transition in broadcast history.

Mercy Street canceled. No season 3. In great part due to funding. season 2 didn't have stellar numbers, but it had the highest numbers since Downton Abbey and good enough numbers to warrant another season. Funding. PBS is clearly hurting. If you notice, they're using every opportunity to fund raise. During the Patsy Cline American Masters, it was broken up to fund raise and offer the DVD sets as enticement. After the final episode of Victoria, they ran a 30-minute program that was basically an opportunity to fund raise and sell DVD sets. It's sad to see PBS in this position. Some say it is a good and right thing that it has to compete in a more normal way, but I don't agree. Quality programming. Substantive programming. Where children, young people, and adults can learn and enjoy without the constant barrage of advertising. It's a good example. It's a necessary example in a world where everything is made to be about commerce and consumerism. It's one of the last examples of programming that demands an attention span. You don't get the opportunity to tune out every 3.5 minutes for another 3.5 minutes of commercials. That alone should be valued on some level, correct? Apologies for the rant, but screw politics.

I think we can keep this one about braodcast quality rather than politics...

Here in the UK, if you own a TV you must pay the TV license (about GBP9.00 a month), and this is used to fund the BBC. There are those who regularly complain about it (the Daily Mail does a nice lined in whipping up complaints about the "TV tax", as one might expect from a paper whose owners hold a reported 25% share in ITV, the BBC's main commercial rival), but I do firmly believe people would miss the BBC were it gone. It's not perfect by any means, but they pump out a lot of quality. I'm hoping that they eventually make the jump to taking subscriptions as an onlinec service, and make much more of their archive material available.

Sun Records. Any way you look at it, Colonel Parker was a first class con man! I always wounder what if Elvis had cut off Parker, and later, The Memphis Mafia?

There are a lot of fascinating what-ifs with Elvis. I've always wodnered what else he'd have sung if he'd not been steered away from political material, for instance - he had to fight for In the Ghetto, and he felt very strongly about doing that one. I wonder how he'd be viewed now as a living artist rather than an icon onto which much can be projected. Is this Sun Records a documentary or a dramatisation?

Humans. anyone else still watching this? There's some really smart conflicts and compounded conflicts explored under the synth gaining consciousness and self-awareness premise. I'm impressed with the story and the synth characters they're developing. A lot of shows wouldn't bother with such a keen sense of the minutiae. Another quality British show.

Very much enjoyed the first series. I thought it was very clever the way they lulled me in with thinking it was another take on the question of sentience.... before I realised, some way in to the first episode, it was really about immigration. The second series I have yet to sit down and watch, but I will get it on catch-up. Well written, well made sci-fi. Sort of thing Channel 4 should do more of, imo.

Line of Duty is an internal affairs based series. The first season has Lennie "Walking Dead" and "Snatch" James as the subject officer.

The Fall is set in Belfast, with two very good reasons to watch - Gillian and Anderson.

It centres on a typical sado-sexual killer, loosely based on a Canadian murderer, form RCAF officer Russell Williams. Here, he is played by Jamie Dornan in a creepy fashion.

He is known now for those horrid Fifty Shades of Crap films.

I've only seen the first couple of episodes of Series 1 of The Fall - couldn't keep up eith the schedulnig at the time. PLanning to watch it on Netflix soon, though. The thing that impressed me the most about what I saw was howm uch they made of the Belfast setting. It was refreshing to see something set there that wasn't either wholly dominated by the troubles, nor trying to pretend their legacy didn't exist.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Stearmen said, "I always wounder what if Elvis had cut off Parker, and later, The Memphis Mafia?"

The glimpses we had of early Elvis's acting ability make me wish he had struck out on his own as well. He handled a difficult straight role in King Creole quite well, with singing restricted to scenes in nightclubs. And though it's been a long time, I seem to recall he was good in Flaming Star, playing a half-breed Indian, and in Kid Galahad, that "remake of an old Warners movie tailored for Elvis, and done pretty well", as the TV Guide always described it. He had that star quality and the onscreen presence. Who knows -- he might have picked up where James Dean left off (and been better at the "young rebel" shtick than JD ever was).

 

[MisterCairo]

Here in the UK, if you own a TV you must pay the TV license (about GBP9.00 a month)

Do they still have those detector vans surveilling neighbourhoods?

Cat detector vans?

Go to 2:02

 

[Edward]

They claim to, though I've never seen one. Mostly the cheapskates who don't pay have gone online anyhow...

 

[Touchofevil]

Line of Duty is an internal affairs based series. The first season has Lennie "Walking Dead" and "Snatch" James as the subject officer.

The Fall is set in Belfast, with two very good reasons to watch - Gillian and Anderson.

It centres on a typical sado-sexual killer, loosely based on a Canadian murderer, form RCAF officer Russell Williams. Here, he is played by Jamie Dornan in a creepy fashion.

He is known now for those horrid Fifty Shades of Crap films.

The Fall has been on our "To Watch" list for a while. It will be moved up the list. Once again, thank you and much appreciated.