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    #51
    Sharp Objects has kind of grown on me. Slow's OK provided it's with purpose. It's kind of modern Tennessee Williams style Southern Gothic, where everyone is at least somewhat insane, and at least one or two clearly batshit crazy.

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      #52
      I guess that's not all that interesting to me, since I grew up in that environment. I'm not entirely serious, but also not entirely joking.

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        #53
        That makes perfect sense. I sort of felt that way about The Sopranos.

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          #54
          That’s how I felt about Friday Night Lights. It was about Texas but it could have been about Pennsylvania (Tom Cruise and Leah Thompson made *that* movie) and it just felt a bit too real and sad, even though it was supposed to be uplifting.

          Adults taking high school football - or any level of any sport - so seriously makes me anxious. Especially now that it is becoming clear that nobody under the age of 16 - and maybe nobody at all - should be playing helmet-football.

          As for Southern crime stories, Ozarks is a bit more to my taste. It’s a bit more straightforward and not really gothic.


          I gave up on Orange is the New Black after an episode or two. I could just tell that I’d find it a chore. Kinda grim and Jason Schwartzman’s character was so irritating.
          Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 24-08-2018, 02:17.

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            #55
            See, for me Ozarks is typical Netflix drama by algorithm. Well enough produced but all too predictable. We gave up about four or five episodes in.

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              #56
              It gets more interesting, but maybe not enough.

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                #57
                Unfortunately, Jason Schwartzman never gets interesting.

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                  #58
                  Mad Men
                  The Sopranos
                  Lost

                  ... all basically long drawn-out soap operas, I got out well before the end. True Detective season two I didn't even start, because the reports about it and the warning signs were so dire there was obviously no point.

                  Everyone should watch The Wire till the end, it being the best TV programme ever made and stuff.

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                    #59
                    I hated The Wire*.

                    *No, that's probably not true. I don't like Dominic West, didn't get as far as Idris Elba, and if Aidan Gillen were any more wooden, he would be fired from a bow.
                    Last edited by Gerontophile; 24-08-2018, 06:30.

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                      #60
                      Legion...I tried, seemed quite interesting and different but ultimately, it was just plain silly to persist with...

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                        #61
                        Unfortunately, Jason Schwartzman never gets interesting.
                        On the plus side, he disappears entirely eventually.

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                          #62
                          I don't think I've ever liked him in anything, yet his ability to keep hanging around is remarkable.

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                            #63
                            Originally posted by Moonlight shadow View Post
                            Legion...I tried, seemed quite interesting and different but ultimately, it was just plain silly to persist with...
                            Same.

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                              #64
                              Broadchurch, which brings up an issue I infer from this thread: how angry do you feel when you realize you've been sucked in to something that is rapidly turning into crap? It feels like a con: write 6 good episodes then go on auto-pilot, phoning it in. Or convince the producers you have enough good ideas for three series when really you've got an idea that could stretch to 6 good hours at best.

                              Soaps are different because I think viewers like the ritual in a different way. It's a substitute community and what not. The lack of resolution, and the fact that characters often act out of character, seems to be part of the fun of it. Then it becomes part of the viewer's own biography, which can also be shared: where were you when Ernie Bishop was shot?
                              Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 24-08-2018, 14:12.

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                                #65
                                I don't remember Ernie Bishop but when Alan Bradley got hit by a tram in Blackpool I was in a pub in Amiens street Dublin packed with Friday night drinkers who cheered like Ireland scored when he met his maker

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                                  #66
                                  'Ernest', please. Emily would never have stood for 'Ernie'.

                                  As mentioned in the OP, that was my Corrie birthing, of course. What was I doing? Well, I should've been revising for my 'o' levels rather than developing soap habits that would take me forty years to kick.

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                                    #67
                                    Originally posted by Eggchaser View Post
                                    Anyone who gave up on Capaldi Who, at least watch Hell Bent, but on no accounts watch the next episode, because it's absolute garbage.
                                    I suspect you might mean 'Heaven Sent', the one with the Doctor trapped alone in the shifting, resetting puzzle-box castle? Which was brilliant, in an annoying kind of way. Then 'Hell Bent' is the followup, season-ending episode set on Gallifrey, and I can't remember anything of what happens in it to be honest.

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                                      #68
                                      Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                      Same.
                                      Also Gotham. Is it even still on?

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                                        #69
                                        Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                        Also Gotham. Is it even still on?
                                        Yeah. I got through season 3, I think and was planning to keep going when more of it is on Netflix. I think one has to care about Batman to get into it. I don't see how a normal person could like it.

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                                          #70
                                          Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                                          'Ernest', please. Emily would never have stood for 'Ernie'.

                                          As mentioned in the OP, that was my Corrie birthing, of course. What was I doing? Well, I should've been revising for my 'o' levels rather than developing soap habits that would take me forty years to kick.


                                          I was recently reading about their rise and fall in the US. There are currently just four daytime soaps on US TV - General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful. The peak was 19 in 1970 and no new ones have been launched in 20 years. P&G, whose sponsorship is why they were called soap operas to begin with, are no longer producing any of them. Guiding Light started on the radio in 1937 and died in 2009. That's a hell of a run.

                                          There are a lot of reasons. They used to be targeted at women who didn't work outside the home. The fragmenting of audiences in general and competition with cable and, now, streaming which makes pretty much everything ever filmed available instantly. The rise in daytime talk shows like Ellen or "reality" shows like Judge Judy which are much cheaper to make. And maybe not many people are interested in investing that much time and brain space to follow a daily show with lots of twists and turns. SOAPNet, a cable channel devoted to them, died. There aren't as many (any?) of those magazines about them that we used to always see next to the tabloids by the register at the supermarket. I read that the Daytime Emmys Award Show, which used to be on in prime-time and was kind of a big deal, is not on TV at all any more. Or at least, not in prime time.

                                          There are still some prime time soap operas and, of course, many shows have adopted that overlapping story-arc format. But even those are not what they were in the 80s when Dallas and Dynasty were massive international hits and we don't have anything that seems to be both endless and universally watched, like Coronation Street or Neighbors. Telenovellas are catching on, however, but my understanding is that, as the name implies, those are different in that they're designed from the start to have a limited run. Not just keep going for 40 fucking years with no end in sight.

                                          I've never been into soap operas - who has the time? - but I find them fascinating, because, as I understand it, soap operas are really fucking hard work to make. Even though it might not look like much, making four or five hours of TV a week - any TV - is a lot of work. And the few times I've watched them, I've been impressed with the actors, as in "wow, they're really selling the hell out of this sister's evil twin faking her own death subplot even though she was probably handed those pages five seconds ago." A number of actors have, I guess, made a nice living out of soaps but there are a fair number of big names that started on them too.

                                          I think some of them are still shot in New York, which would be interesting. I'm not sure that's true though.

                                          They're an example of a form that most "right-thinking" people - even the ones that like it - think is trash, and yet the people producing them are clearly committed to making the most out of it and sometimes that yields really amazing work. In that way they're like comic books, pulp novels, pop music, etc. Someday archeologists, etc...

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                                            #71
                                            Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                                            On the plus side, he disappears entirely eventually.
                                            I'm not sure I dislike him that much.

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                                              #72
                                              HP: that is a very anglocentric point of view.

                                              There are hundreds of terrific soaps for Spanish speakers.

                                              OK... there are hundreds of soaps for Spanish speakers.

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                                                #73
                                                Originally posted by Gerontophile View Post
                                                HP: that is a very anglocentric point of view.

                                                There are hundreds of terrific soaps for Spanish speakers.

                                                OK... there are hundreds of soaps for Spanish speakers.
                                                It's not an anglo-centric view, it's an US-centric view. I thought I was clear on that, but I guess not.

                                                I thought the Spanish speaking world was more into telenovelas which are different than soap operas in that they don't last forever. Some of those are broadcast in the US too - perhaps primarily for a US Spanish-comprehending audience, but not hundreds, I don't think.

                                                All I know about telenovellas comes from that arc on 30 Rock where it turns out Jack looks exactly like a guy playing the Generalismo on a popular telenovella.

                                                I also saw an interview with an actress on one of them - I think it was on Conan - where she explained that the writers don't have it planned out too far in advance, so they can write more for a character that proves to be popular (they can track that like never before with social media, etc) and kill off characters if the actor is being a pain in the ass or trying to change the lines they write. I suppose in that, insofar as they're making them up as they go along, they are like soaps.
                                                Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 24-08-2018, 18:25.

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                                                  #74
                                                  Caro Diario has a funny subplot involving an anti-television university intellectual who becomes hopelessly hooked on a telenovela to the point where it starts to impact his life.

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                                                    #75
                                                    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                                    It's not an anglo-centric view, it's an US-centric view. I thought I was clear on that, but I guess not.
                                                    I think Gero just meant anglophone-centric, Reed. It seemed pretty clear to me anyway that you were talking from a US perspective.

                                                    Speaking of which, we'll remember to pronounce it Dyne-asty if you remember to spell it Neighbours...

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