What was the last TV show you watched?

[Zombie_61]

Is that the Welsh (?) actor who was in Ringer a few years ago with Sarah Michelle Gellar?

Yes it is.

 

[MisterCairo]

Sharpe's Sword. I had forgotten most of the story, and that James Purefoy and Emily Mortimer were in it!

 

[Fading Fast]

Second episode of Burns' "Vietnam."

Documentary great and - and I knew this would happen - I'm getting mad at everyone all over again.

 

[HanauMan]

Still sticking with season one reruns of Lost in Space. That show was so bad it was good! The story lines are complete nonsense but I guess the show was based on Silver Age comics, so not surprising.

 

[BlueTrain]

I watched the entire thing. I didn't really plan to, but I got sucked in and watched almost all of it on the nights it premiered. It's outstanding. I didn't think I could stand 18 hours of Vietnam, but soon discovered it was necessary.

Having grown up in those days with news junkie parents, I recall a lot about how things unfolded... and seeing those events treated in comprehensive detail, with an objective approach from multiple viewpoints and well-observed hindsight, was quite moving for me.

My wife watched some or all of it but I didn't, not any more than I could help (because her TV is always on). I knew it would bring up too many painful memories. Moreover, no one lives live with multiple viewpoints, nor do we rarely have well-observed hindsight, not when we need it the most. Besides, there's bound to be things left out. I don't know if it was mentioned or not, but there were more troops stationed in Europe at the time than were stationed in Vietnam. Of course, you didn't stay in Vietnam as long as you would had you been sent to Europe.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Second episode of Burns' "Vietnam."

Documentary great and - and I knew this would happen - I'm getting mad at everyone all over again.

it made me angry at things now. We didn't learn one single thing besides learning to hate each other. I was again made aware that we are a nation that despises protesting. A nation built upon protest detesting protesting. Brilliant.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Second episode of Burns' "Vietnam."

Documentary great and - and I knew this would happen - I'm getting mad at everyone all over again.

it made me angry at things now. We didn't learn one single thing besides learning to hate each other. I was again made aware that we are a nation that despises protesting. A nation built upon protest detesting protesting. Brilliant.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

On Netflix, starting watching The Andy Griffith Show from season one, episode one.
Streaming When Calls the Heart: bought season four, and am eking it out one show a week.
...aaaannnnd, just yesterday, discovered that Poldark is back on the PBS service: we're a show behind.
NB: Hallmark Channel series of mysteries is much appreciated around the house-

 

[MisterCairo]

Supernatural is back! Awesome start to the, what, 13th season?!

 

[MisterCairo]

Oh, also episode two of the current season of Gotham. We love this show!

 

[Zombie_61]

For any fans of the Netflix series Longmire who may not have heard yet, it has been announced that the sixth and final season will premiere on Friday, November 17th.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Watched the first 2 episodes of "Outlander" last night. (In short: immediately after WWII, woman stumbles into some sort of Druid time vortex and finds herself in 18th century Scotland.) I liked the first episode with all its 1940s atmosphere... the second episode was all in Scotland in the 1700s... I hope they do a bit more of the jumping back and fourth in time business, as the two plots are somehow linked. Not sure at this point if it will hold my interest...

 

[Fading Fast]

Completed watching the first (and only - it was cancelled) season of Amazon's "The Last Tycoon."

The show - very loosely based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the same name - got off to a slow start, but the last three episodes were outstanding. Shame it's cancelled.

 

[Edward]

Sorry, I can't agree with you guys. I thought that episode was awful. Especially because it was so sure it was a serious inquiry into a thorny issue, when it was completely superficial and confused.

What is the Orville? Is it the new Trek series that is on Netflix, or something else? **Ah, I see - it's a Seth Macfarlane quasi Trek thing. Is it meant to be a sitcom, or is it dramatic?

It was bad enough back in TNG when they didn't have the COURAGE to let the member of the sexually neutral J'naii who loved Riker become/remain female, but had to have her "cured"...

I fidn it interesting that the natural reaction is to view this one in such a different way nowadays as it was back then. I remember it being viewed back then as an allegory for being gay, and that the "asexual" (standing in for heteronormative) society wasn't ready to cope with "gendered"(standing in for gay) people. Interesting now it chimes in a different way these days when gender is considered differently than sexuality, and the audience wouldn't see this as a gay allegory at all now.

or not allow Beverley to still love the Trill symbiant when it was transplanted into a female host. But okay, that was thirty years ago, when TV and our society were in a very different place.

In some ways, the interesting choice nowadays would be to have Crusher similarly unable to view her old flame as the same person given the gender-swap of the symbiant. Could be used to focus an episode on the position of people whose partners suddenly (to them) come out as trans and how they feel about reassignment. I'm inlcined to agree, though, that back in the day it was less a reflection of the fact that that's just how many people would react, and more the only "permissible" resolution. I think it wa Babylon 5 which had a high profile gay relationship first, though I have a half-gone memory that that led to the show being quite censored in the UK.

I've got a gay son and a daughter who identifies as bisexual. She's got friends who consider themselves "gender fluid". It's not 1988 anymore, and a treatment of gender this simplistic and regressive is an embarrassment.

Not having seen the show, I can't comment on how it treats these things, though your kids are clearly blessed to have your support (all too many don't in these circumstances). The other thing I've seen, which I found worrying, were the parents of a young boy I saw intereviewed once. They claimed that their son was transgendered because he liked doing "girl thingS" like playing with dollies and wearing pink. It almost seemed as if they were afraid they had a "defective" - or gay - son and that by reassigning him to a gender the stereotype of which better fit his behaviour, they were somehow "fixing" him. Which is to say that clearly a lot of people still confuse gender and sexuality, making dramitic consideration of these and their differences all the more significant. The review you link to is interesting; it sounds like it was something that is ineresting, if flawed in the ways you note.

As for the other, I don't recall it as well. But it was pretty honest, again for those times, to admit that Beverly would have limits to what she found attractive in a mate, just as we the viewers do; that there were limits even to ST's optimistic view of the human future.

That's how I'd certainly read it now, and I don't think that would necessarily make it a "wrong" or "bad" ending now, though I do think it is fair to say that back in, what, 1987/88? , it was edgy enough to imply even the possibility of sexuality being a bit more fluid; evne in the nineties, the gay characters were never leads, and often had a lot of misfortunes caused by their sexuality. I'd be surprised if the network had really allowed the option of Dr Crusher having a long-term gay relationship back then. (Not sure about the US, but here in the UK, for example, schools were expressly forbidden by law pased in 1988 from teaching that being gay was equally acceptable right up until 2003).

But you must know that the endless WHY ARE THERE NO GAY PEOPLE ON STAR TREK? discussions that have gone on in the years since continually focus on those episodes as being cop outs. So I am guilty of having a sense of their "failure" drummed into me after all my years on the Trek mailing lists, bulletin boards, and forums. I repeat, I don't think they "failed" when they were first made.

Popular media can certainly give a real sense of how times change; certsinly, in British television the gay characters of the esrly eighties who were celebrated as ground breaking then would, by now, as often as not, be seen as offensive stereotypes.

BTW, did anyone watch the pilot for the new Star Trek series?

Not as of yet. FRom what I hear from folks I know who have seen it, it takes an episode or two to settle in, one of the main difficulties apparently being the thing with which Enterprise struggled: current TV effects and such making the future look less retro than TOS, despite being set ten years earlier. THe general vibe seems to be that it's got to find its feet yet, but it shows promise.

Just started to watch the Brit series on Netflix..."The Detectorists"....a wonderful, low key comedy with two of Britain's best in the leads.

Yes, for all its misses, BBC Comedy has turned up some real low-key gems over the years, including that one, and The Smoking Room.

Started season 4 of "Line of Duty", a Brit Netflix offering. This season the plot is a bit convoluted and there were a few jump the shark moments but it is only 6 episodes so will see it through to the end.

It's a good series. I think it's setting up a lot of stuff for future seasons as well, the same way some themes ran for so long in the first three series.

American Horror Story: Cult. Honestly, I thought this would be upper-level stupid. I thought it would be beyond trite and preachy. I didn't care for a lot of the new cast. I was wrong. Most of it is interesting in its makeup. The character twists have been solid. It's been genuinely creepy and made-well for October. Really, with its shortcomings noted, it's rather genius. Absolutely better than the past couple seasons, and I liked the past couple of seasons. I've been surprised. I might go as far as to recommend it.

Only seen the first series so far, but we were very impressed with that.

it's likely to be a quick casualty of this era when there are way too many superhero projects.

The superhero bubble certainly has to burst at some point, it's been such a hugely successful trend for so long.

Oh, also episode two of the current season of Gotham. We love this show!

Series 3, or 4? I'm currently working my way through 3 on Netflix. Great stuff. Just enough of the camp in there to keep it feeling in-genre, but the same darkness Gotham works best in. I like it more as it goes along. Penguin's unrequited thing for the Riddler is tremendously well worked in - not only in allowing Penguin once more to be a vicious killer as well as the oddly charming little eccentric, but also in how matter of fact it was - no trumpeting of "And here's the Gay Character". Completely by the by. I like that.

 

[Fading Fast]

....Popular media can certainly give a real sense of how times change; certsinly, in British television the gay characters of the esrly eighties who were celebrated as ground breaking then would, by now, as often as not, be seen as offensive stereotypes.....

And thirty years from now, what many today think are timeless views, cosmically correct morality, intellectually advanced ideas and absolutely right values will look dated, backwards, out of step and / or off in some way, etc.

Overall, I'm encouraged that we are moving in the right direction on many of these cultural / social issues, but knowing how history shows that some of even the most progressive or correct ideas held in a particular period look wrong or "off" today keeps me from being smug about our present pieties - some will prove timeless and some won't.

I recently watched a movie "Son of the Gods" form 1930 that had very advanced (thankfully) views on racism and I have to believe these were the "forward" ideas of the day, but even though the anti-racism ideas were highlighted positively, there were angles, aspects and nuances of that "forward" thinking that is cringe worthy based on today's values.

...The superhero bubble certainly has to burst at some point, it's been such a hugely successful trend for so long....

I thought this would have happened already as for every darn-good "Wonder Woman," we get a lot of retreads and weak efforts trying to simply cash in once again. When it does burst, it might usher in / accelerate a more dramatic transition in the movie industry away from theater releases and to more direct to streaming, etc. ones.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Watched last week's episode of The Orville. It's odd. Many things about it I liked, including the ending: To save an Earth colony, MacFarlane's starship captain, Mercer, has to kill the adults on a ship of the Krill (the enemy aliens, something like ST's Klingons), but made sure that the children aboard (and their teacher) were safe. The teacher, however, points out savagely that while he may have saved the kids, he killed their parents and the other grownups aboard, and that the children will never forget that. Not a comic, or even cheerful ending.

That's the good part (along with some good effects). The weird is the humor. I mean, I laughed at the lines ("Should we tell them their god [Avis] is a 20th Century car rental company?" and "We were just on our way to get our chin horns waxed"). But they didn't fit with the more serious adventure. Yes, Get Smart did that sort of thing. But GS set up its own loony little world, which was only slightly like ours, and then goofed on things within it. The Orville seems as though it wants to create a believable Trek-like universe -- but if they want that, they have to take it seriously when the adventures warrant.

True, I didn't see the previous episodes, and this one might be an outlier. We'll see how the next couple go.

 

[Edward]

And thirty years from now, what many today think are timeless views, cosmically correct morality, intellectually advanced ideas and absolutely right values will look dated, backwards, out of step and / or off in some way, etc.

Oh, absolutely. If not, we'll have stagnated.

Overall, I'm encouraged that we are moving in the right direction on many of these cultural / social issues, but knowing how history shows that some of even the most progressive or correct ideas held in a particular period look wrong or "off" today keeps me from being smug about our present pieties - some will prove timeless and some won't.

As I said in another threadc the other day, Arthur Miller put it best when he said "Even a genius is limited by his own time and place. I would rather be treated by the most ordinary medical graduate of today than by GHippocrates himself." (quoting that from memory).

I recently watched a movie "Son of the Gods" form 1930 that had very advanced (thankfully) views on racism and I have to believe these were the "forward" ideas of the day, but even though the anti-racism ideas were highlighted positively, there were angles, aspects and nuances of that "forward" thinking that is cringe worthy based on today's values.

It can be amazing how things date. Hersle recently rewatched TeenWolf and was shocked by the levle of completely normalised homophobia implicit therein.

I thought this would have happened already as for every darn-good "Wonder Woman," we get a lot of retreads and weak efforts trying to simply cash in once again. When it does burst, it might usher in / accelerate a more dramatic transition in the movie industry away from theater releases and to more direct to streaming, etc. ones.

As ever, what will happen will be a few big flops, then we'll see the next thing arise. I'm still hoping Tarrantino will do a superhero film. I personally loved ZAk Schneider's effort at Watchmen, though I'd love to see a Tarrantino run on that material. I gather someone else is currently working it up for Netflix, though, which will give Alan Moore something new to hate. He'll like that.

 

[Benzadmiral]

A couple of episodes of Decades' "Lost TV", specifically a half-hour cop drama called Decoy from 1957-58. Beverly Garland stars as an undercover New York City policewoman, and no, she doesn't only play hookers, at least not in the two eps I saw. In one, the pilot, she moves into a seedy rooming house to try to befriend a woman whose boyfriend is a suspect in a robbery and murder; in another, she is an office temp, trying to get a line on an arsonist. She's good and quite believable. Additional joys: the young Ed Asner as a cop, Joanne Linville (best known as Star Trek's woman Romulan Commander) as a lonely young woman, and -- according to IMDb -- people like Lois Nettleton, Suzanne Pleshette, and Peter Falk, before they were stars.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Edward... I thought Snyder's film of Watchmen was excellent, and as good an adaptation of that "unfilmable" story as we could hope for. I liked his 300 a lot too. But with Man of Steel and - even worse - Batman v Superman: Dawn of a Cast of Thousands, he's stumbled badly. He's incapable of making a comics-based film that doesn't look fabulous, but the conception of the characters and plot were way off model. (I'll take occasional guest star Tyler Hochlein as friendly, optimistic Superman on Supergirl over Henry Cavill's emo Supes anytime. Superman is NOT a grim, depressed character!) Don't get me started on everything it did wrong (for example, having Amy Adams much-smarter-than-past-versions Lois Lane doing one incredibly stupid thing after another for utterly inexplicable reasons beyond the dumb convoluted plot requiring it.)

Following the deservedly successful Wonder Woman, the word on Justice League - which Synder dropped out of directing due to a family tragedy - is that "extensive rewrites/reshoots" being helmed by Joss Whedon are going to produce a different, much better film. Nobody's better at balancing snark and drama with a big cast than Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers), so there's some hope for Justice League.

Getting back to TV superheroes, Supergirl and The Flash are now back, and both have been somewhat retooled promisingly. Gotham continues on its mad way, and though it still rankles me what a mess it's made of the canon Batman backstory, I must admit that its sure sense of its own craziness is entertaining. The Inhumans is frankly terrible, but I guess I'm gonna watch the remaining four episodes.

Paul... The Orville's failure with both drama and comedy depresses me no end. But as much as I'd like to forget it, I fear it's not going away: finally, here's a Trek-lite for all the less intellectual viewers who couldn't get into earlier Treks because they were written on too high a level... now with added dick jokes!

 

[Fading Fast]

...I'm still hoping Tarrantino will do a superhero film. I personally loved ZAk Schneider's effort at Watchmen, though I'd love to see a Tarrantino run on that material. I gather someone else is currently working it up for Netflix, though, which will give Alan Moore something new to hate. He'll like that.

Great idea, it would either be incredibly good or incredibly bad, but yes, I'd love to see what Tarantino could do with a Superhero movie.