Good TV (aka, the TV series spamthread), the second series

[Raid]

Always Sunny is fantastic, though going back through it it didn't feel right until Frank joins the cast.

[Wrathbone]

Yeah, that's when it finds its feet.

I'm having to try not to look at the episode names when a new episode plays on Netflix, because often one of the best bits of each episode is the jump cut after the opening to the title.

[Snowy]

Will have to look Always Sunny up, seen it on Netflix but never watched it.

Shout out to Bosch, great police procedural show based on novels by Michael Connelly with Titus Welliver in the lead role. Great cast, great plot arcs, great show. The last series has just recently arrived and maintains the quality of the earlier shows, well worth your time.

[Sly Boots]

Will have to look Always Sunny up, seen it on Netflix but never watched it.

Shout out to Bosch, great police procedural show based on novels by Michael Connelly with Titus Welliver in the lead role. Great cast, great plot arcs, great show. The last series has just recently arrived and maintains the quality of the earlier shows, well worth your time.

Always Sunny is great, as is Bosch, which I just finished watching.

Has there been any word on a potential spin-off show, which the ending leaves a door ajar to?

[Raid]

Always Sunny perhaps doesn't have universal appeal; the main characters are all horrible people, and it skirts so close to racism and sexism that I sometimes can't decide whether those are the real opinions of the writers.

[Wrathbone]

If the really nasty stuff was coming from anybody but the main characters then yeah, it'd be extremely problematic. But the entire premise of the show is following the antics and idiocy of the gutter-scrapings of humanity, so I think it's a given that you're not meant to root for them or agree with anything they're saying at all.

Thinking about it, Charlie is the only character who has anything remotely resembling a redeemable quality, as he's not inherently malicious. He's just so overwhelmingly pathetic and dumb that the slightest nudge will send him in a disaster spiral. You have to feel somewhat sorry for his mere existence.

[Sly Boots]

If the really nasty stuff was coming from anybody but the main characters then yeah, it'd be extremely problematic. But the entire premise of the show is following the antics and idiocy of the gutter-scrapings of humanity, so I think it's a given that you're not meant to root for them or agree with anything they're saying at all.

Thinking about it, Charlie is the only character who has anything remotely resembling a redeemable quality, as he's not inherently malicious. He's just so overwhelmingly pathetic and dumb that the slightest nudge will send him in a disaster spiral. You have to feel somewhat sorry for his mere existence.

He's illiterate, but not dumb per se. There's one episode in one of the later episodes that's basically one long take of a day in Charlie's life, and shows all the little things he does that keeps everything ticking over while the rest of the gang generates chaos.

He's probably my favourite character, for the kitten mittens if nothing else.

And the whole background plotline about his history with his uncle and Mac, which culminates in his Day Man/Night Man magnum opus, is brilliant and heart-breaking in equal measures.

[Achtung Englander]

Fargo Season 4

The ending 3 episodes are superb. This season is very much a slow build up and it has recieved a lot of criticism that it is not very Fargo like. It could almost be a normal gangster show but here are some elements that can only live in the Fargo universe such as Jessie Buckley's character Nurse Mayflower, Jack Huston's character Odis Weff and...

Spoiler

the shootouts, the ghost and the tornado is pure Fargo

Overall I thought it got a lot better as it went along. Chris Rock character really grew on me. Ben Whishaw was wasted mind as he brought little for the character Rabbi. The link to Fargo itself is only spoken to at the final last scene in the series (the setting for this show is Minnesota) but that does not bother me too much as it is prequel, so I can overlook that.

Pretty good.
7/10

[Drarok]

Always Sunny perhaps doesn't have universal appeal; the main characters are all horrible people, and it skirts so close to racism and sexism that I sometimes can't decide whether those are the real opinions of the writers.

I tell people it's like Friends, if all of the friends were horrible, horrible people.

The writers themselves all seem pretty decent people though.

[Wrathbone]

Ross from Friends IS a horrible, horrible person. The others each have their foibles, but Ross is a petty, manipulative, gaslighting sociopath from the get go. People always reference the sandwich incident, or hand-wave things like his inability to accept his son playing with a Barbie as "that's what it was like in the 90s", forgetting his completely toxic relationship with Rachel, his extreme selfishness, his double-standards with his closest friends, his constant bullying of his sister and his ego-centric arrogance.

I'd argue that Ross and Dennis from It's Always Sunny are separated only by a paleontology degree.

[Maturin]

Yeah, when you put it all together, Ross doesn't come across well in hindsight.

Although I imagine the writers at the time were probably just going for a neurotic oddball doing oddball stuff for laughs (because they needed one of them to be a bit weird for variety); not sure they had any notion of building a 3 dimensional character or how his arc might be interpreted.

But didn't Friends have dozens of writers being bussed in each season till they burnt out, before the next lot arrived the following season? I guess the chances of building consistent characters becomes impossible.

[elgaucho]

Will have to look Always Sunny up, seen it on Netflix but never watched it.

Shout out to Bosch, great police procedural show based on novels by Michael Connelly with Titus Welliver in the lead role. Great cast, great plot arcs, great show. The last series has just recently arrived and maintains the quality of the earlier shows, well worth your time.

Always Sunny is great, as is Bosch, which I just finished watching.

Has there been any word on a potential spin-off show, which the ending leaves a door ajar to?

As far as I'm aware, filming for the spin off of Bosch had already started, with a number of returning characters expected to be in it. I THINK it's going to be based more on the legal and Honey Chandler side of things and Bosch as a PI, but we'll see!

Either way, Bosch was excellent from start to finish.

I think Titus Welliver is supposed to be in another show starting up soon, Nova Vita, but don't know much about it yet.

[Sly Boots]

Will have to look Always Sunny up, seen it on Netflix but never watched it.

Shout out to Bosch, great police procedural show based on novels by Michael Connelly with Titus Welliver in the lead role. Great cast, great plot arcs, great show. The last series has just recently arrived and maintains the quality of the earlier shows, well worth your time.

Always Sunny is great, as is Bosch, which I just finished watching.

Has there been any word on a potential spin-off show, which the ending leaves a door ajar to?

As far as I'm aware, filming for the spin off of Bosch had already started, with a number of returning characters expected to be in it. I THINK it's going to be based more on the legal and Honey Chandler side of things and Bosch as a PI, but we'll see!

Yeah, this (particularly the latter part) is the angle I was thinking after the finale. I guess there's also Maddy's career angle as well.

[Raid]

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

I'm not gonna lie, I started this up as a test for my new Dolby Atmos setup, and hearing whale song with such clarity was pretty incredible. Still, I'm a huge fan of Attenborough and his work, so much so that every time I see a new post in our Celebrities Dropping Off thread, I worry that this is going to be him.

This is however a very different Attenborough documentary. His work for the BBC tends to focus solely on the natural world, only very rarely do humans actually show up in the narratives. Humanity though is very much the focus of A Life on Our Planet, and the frankly terrifying situation we've caused in the last hundred or so years. Attenborough himself is 95, and the first half of this 80 minute special is his witness statement for the destruction mankind has wrought during his lifetime. It's about as light and breezy as that statement suggests, and I actually couldn't make it through in one sitting. It has an uplifting ending, sure, but it's difficult to shake the feeling that that final optimism is somewhat misplaced.

But it's still worth a watch, in fact I'd recommend it just because I feel it's something we all ought to watch, just maybe don't do it expecting nothing but natural splendour and incredible videography.

[Snowy]

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

I'm not gonna lie, I started this up as a test for my new Dolby Atmos setup, and hearing whale song with such clarity was pretty incredible. Still, I'm a huge fan of Attenborough and his work, ****REDACTED****

This is however a very different Attenborough documentary. His work for the BBC tends to focus solely on the natural world, only very rarely do humans actually show up in the narratives. Humanity though is very much the focus of A Life on Our Planet, and the frankly terrifying situation we've caused in the last hundred or so years. Attenborough himself is 95, and the first half of this 80 minute special is his witness statement for the destruction mankind has wrought during his lifetime. It's about as light and breezy as that statement suggests, and I actually couldn't make it through in one sitting. It has an uplifting ending, sure, but it's difficult to shake the feeling that that final optimism is somewhat misplaced.

But it's still worth a watch, in fact I'd recommend it just because I feel it's something we all ought to watch, just maybe don't do it expecting nothing but natural splendour and incredible videography.

Sorry Chris, I have had to step in to edit your post, some things cannot be mentioned even in passing for fear of attracting the reaper.

Timely post though, my wife and I were talking about this just the other night, whether Attenborough is thankful for having been able to live the life he has lived, or saddened that he has been a witness and a chronicler of so much pointless damage being wrought by our own stupid species. We ended up suspecting a bit of both.