High Maintenance - Very good web-series. Discuss.

I'm finding that i prefer episodes that are quite the guy heavy.

Enjoying this season but I'm not sure how I feel about the Guy being a well-rounded human being with emotional needs, etc. In fact, I would say I'm against it.

"breathwork" is a terrible episode

yeah i thought it sucked.

eh, i've spent time both on location shoots and at Grand Prospect Hall where that filmed so I was amused by the verisimilitude. plus i always have time for Amy Ryan (and Jo Firestone!)
but yes, it was by far the weakest of the pack thus far. Still better than most!

past couple weeks have been next level great IMO.

also, here's the instagram page of the woman who played nanny (she's a choreographer): https://www.instagram.com/r_plant/ which has dozens of other similar dance pieces she's been filming in areas around NY for quite a while.

past couple weeks have been next level great IMO.

― akm, Saturday, March 16, 2019 10:52 AM (thirty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree totally

Phew : https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hbo-s-high-maintenance-renewed-season-4-1195721

i've been "getting into" this show for a while and idk what to say other than it's wonderful. i'm excited to get thru s3 so i can start the web series again.

Good essay on High Maintenance, Master of None, and Russian Doll and their relationship to New York: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/magazine/new-york-tv.html

Basically about how these shows self-consciously celebrate the city's diversity in a way that often feels like creative-class fantasy.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

New episode was great!

Oh this started up again? Excellent

I think they have the best casting of any show on TV. So many fun characters!

Larry Owens was outrageously good.

wow the NPR writers' room was nightmarish, what a horrible job!

had no idea that was Ira Glass until the bit at the end lol

Ira seems like he might be very into playing the cool mentor figure, with his long hair and young staff. Also it's always weird to hear his voice (and Zoe Chace's) coming out of a human face.

The Guy's name is Rufus!

this season has been pretty good

pretty sure his name is Uncle Rufus

i liked this episode but it seemed a little anticlimactic for end of the season. also, forgive me, but I didn't get the crash pad; was it an air bnb that is used mainly by people who work for airlines? why were destiny and her sister there?

It's Cosmo Rufus

(I haven't actually been able to watch this season past the first few, our HBO Go plug was disconnected)

i think seasons 2 + 3 are the best ... not sure how to rank the vimeo series with those but it's up there as well, with the asterisk that its a different show in some ways

1 I think is the worst, and 4 a slight step down from 2+3

this show kind of half gives me fomo and half makes me miss my friends & our irl adventures

and I REALLY want to see a COVID season

Series 4 finally arrived on amazon prime in the UK.

Would like to see a few more views on this series. Thought it was a bit uneven - with a few dull episodes ( the sneakers episode, the amazon parcel stealing wife episode, the dental assistant episode and - sadly - even the finale). Maybe the series overall had its run.

Cashed.
https://tvline.com/2021/01/14/high-maintenance-not-returning-for-season-5-hbo/

:(

Sad, in a way.

I have mixed and uneven feelings about it. I’ve just rewatched it all over Xmas, and for me the original web episodes remain the best. And bear repeated viewing.

Series 2 of HBO was a big improvement on the first series. The series 3 premiere set outside New York offered an interesting possibility to develop the series in a new way, with a deeper focus on The Guy’s background. But ultimately, they didn’t choose to do that - though there were some strong individual episodes. Series 4 however was a bit of a disappointment. Especially after the long wait here in the UK for episodes.

a shame cause they're perfectly suited to do a pandemic season

i agree s2 + 3 were actually pretty great and 4 and to a greater extent 1 a bit disappointing

def was looking forward to a pandemic or post pandemic season of this show though :(

Yeah I wanted more

Season 3 of this show was so meh I never even checked out the last season. I still liked the web series format the best, though season 2 of the HBO show was pretty good. Basically, the more the focus of the show shifted to the Guy and away from the customers whose lives we got to briefly know the worse the show became.

Bummer. Even when it wasn’t at its best this show had more love of humanity in it than any other.

It'd be cool if they did a few final 5 - 10 minute web episodes just for the fun of it to mark the end. It'd be good to see life going on- despite the pandemic - for Chad, the asexual (but not romantic) magician, the Ditmas Park couple etc.

Aww I like s3

I can't remember at all which seasons are which with this show, seems like a weird one to have strong season-ranking opinions about to me given the lack of any arcs. Obvs the web series is distinct, though even there the transition to broadcast hasn't been that jarring on second watch, and there are things in the web series I'd misremembered as happening later, like his niece visiting

I liked that most of the actors in this show, you'd never see on other shows, and it's easier to slip into buying the "slice of life"-iness of it,
but then I started noticing some actors in other shows...

the john wilson show has sort of taken up that mantle.

yeah I was really hoping for a pandemic season of this show. disappointing, but at least it sounds like they decided not to continue, rather than getting the carpet yanked from under them. I know they also split up quite a while ago so who knows, maybe that working relationship wasn't so great anymore.

i take this announcement as a sign that Blichfeld and Sinclair are now ready to fully uncouple and run their own directions. could definitely see them doing aa special in a few years, no reason not to do a covid flashback then.

I can't remember at all which seasons are which with this show, seems like a weird one to have strong season-ranking opinions about to me given the lack of any arcs. Obvs the web series is distinct, though even there the transition to broadcast hasn't been that jarring on second watch, and there are things in the web series I'd misremembered as happening later, like his niece visiting

― rob, Saturday, January 16, 2021 12:26 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i get this but also i just remember not enjoying s1 at all (first adaption to HBO, felt uneven), then they caught a rhythm and the show developed, and then 4 kinda falls off IMO, it felt like a pretty natural arc to me

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2020 season is nominated in the 2020 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2020 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 29, 2021

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

funny-sad occurrence re: media etc: i got rid of my HBONow because i was sick of flipping thru menus and not watching anything, and none of their new shows were hooking me

i got Mubi in an attempt to be more intentional about how i spend my couch time. i just watched The Cruise from 98, about Timothy Speed Levitch as a tour guide, and *now* i get this extra resonance for having him appear in and narrate the S3 finale (and the title duh) and i can't go back to watch it! i can barely find any commentary about it, nothing has made it to youtube except the trailer

I can't remember at all which seasons are which with this show, seems like a weird one to have strong season-ranking opinions about to me given the lack of any arcs. Obvs the web series is distinct, though even there the transition to broadcast hasn't been that jarring on second watch, and there are things in the web series I'd misremembered as happening later, like his niece visiting

― rob, Saturday, January 16, 2021 12:26 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i get this but also i just remember not enjoying s1 at all (first adaption to HBO, felt uneven), then they caught a rhythm and the show developed, and then 4 kinda falls off IMO, it felt like a pretty natural arc to me

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Sunday, January 17, 2021 3:20 PM (one week ago)

Having moved on to S2, I have to concede that S1 is indeed messy. It's definitely not entirely a wash: Grandpa, Tick, and Ex are good imo. But the first two eps are half good/half not, and "Selfie" is all meh. So yeah if you were coming into that having followed the webseries, I can see being pretty disappointed.

Plus then in S2 they seem to have figured out how to use the longer running time to much better effect compared to S1's tendency to simply combine two short segments. I watched "Derech" last night and the way it sort of floats from story to story is so impressive; "Globo" also does this trick extremely well.

Series 1: meh episodes - Meth(od), Selfie

Series 2: meh episodes -Ghost, goalz

Series 3: meh episodes -Craig, Proxy

Series 4 - meh episodes -Voir Dire, Backflash, Screen, Adelante, Hand, Soup.

Looking at the list of episodes, the first 3 series are pretty evenly balanced - though I think the highs of the good episodes in series 2 and 3 are good.Series 4 was a dramatic falling off - with over half the episodes being poor.

Not enough discussion of series 4 though. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of the ketamine nasal spray (esketamine) featured in 'Solo'?

* highs of the good episodes in series 2 and 3 are greater.

Series 1: meh episodes - Meth(od), Selfie

I get why one wouldn't, but I actually like the hyper-annoying friend couple in Meth(od). The segment with the british actors pretending to be american meatheads falls flat though, that should have been a 2 minute throwaway joke at most. And then I really don't like the sex party / bickering couple segment in Museebat, which I think uniquely and distractingly features three more-recognizable-than-usual actors.

I'll have to check the rest of your list once I catch up rewatching.

I should probably cut Meth(od) some slack as having some good qualities , but it's only episode I skipped when I rewatched the whole collection over Xmas as I just couldn't get past the beginning.. And it was such a disappointment as HBO opener.

def a hugely perplexing decision to launch the series with that episode, the webseries is mostly warm and inviting and even the part I do like is HM at its most acidic

the part *of Meth)od)*

Really miss this show sometimes