Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

I tracked down the second season of The Sinner after hearing it pretty much unanimously praised as a step up from S1 and....I don't agree! I love Carrie Coon but I didn't find her or the cult especially interesting, and basically the entire reveal set was easily guessed less than halfway through the season.

I concur

It was ok and was a little less topsy-turvy compared to the first season where they threw in more intrigue as it went on, but it lacked in charm

yeah it took me like 6 months to get through. i really did not like the acting from the kid, it was pretty distracting for me.

pullman was good tho

Yes, though the sexual antics of s1 were more novel than the kiddie trauma of this one (yes I get that they're connected)

agree. i frame the show solely as a character study on Ambroze and that helps me enjoy it more.

Ya for sure. Pullman is good at the sputtering sad guy thing.

My other long train ride watch was the "No-End House" season of SyFy's horror anthology series Channel Zero, which didn't quite blow me away but did impress me enough to seek out the two following seasons. (I watched the first ep of the first season, starring Paul Schneider, some time back, and it didn't grab me,)

New season of Endeavour started up on PBS this week, def one of my current favorites

Agreed. I liked the overall arc of the season with the mixing of the old/new police forces and the resolution of "justice for George" plot. Was nice to see one character's relative redemption. Maybe a bit disappointed that the bad guys weren't of larger scope, given their impact on the Morse character to date. Thaw's Morse always struck me as having a tragic love in his past driving his bachelorhood, which they may or may not use Joan Thursday to explain. Was happy that she started a new career this season and was more independent, as that eases the "Joan in fridge" worry. Wouldn't be unhappy if they didn't directly connect the two versions' romantic sides.

The final note of Endeavour's new digs being recognizably Morse's apartment was cool. Surprising, too, how Bright has evolved into a favorite character.

I've only heralded The Sinner in the context of its genre (of which I've seen enough other examples at this point to say it's just not my thing). Outside of that context, yeah, it's a fairly boilerplate show which gives Pullman a chance to do that unbalanced shtick he does so well. More than anything, it made me wish he'd done a Daryl Zero series.

Having seen a fair amount of gritty murder mystery type series, I do think S1 was a cut above. S2 was a bit more standard-issue, and the plot really didn't hold up to even the slightest scrutiny. (Without spoiling anything, the Hannah Gross character's predicament could have been much more simply/easily solved, for example.)

Of course, S1 has the luxury of leaning so heavily on the absurd but well-acted conceit of almost total memory loss that gets "fixed" at a pace that suits an eight-episode season. S2 does the same with characters strategically withholding information, which *feels* more contrived even though it isn't, really.

Jessica Biel was surprisingly pretty good in the first season, too.

Yeah she was way more compelling than you'd expect, cementing my suspicion there are v few bad actors, just shabby material and unimaginative casting.

Unjust
https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/tuca-and-bertie-cancelled-by-netflix.html

Fucksake

https://savetucaandbertie.com/

don't think there's been much talk about Succession on ilx. I think it's the best thing HBO have done in some time. Anyway, it's back on August 11th

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9TKHvvaMfE

yeah, it's fucking great and i'm hyped to see if they can maintain the quality. previews look suspiciously like it's season one run back though.

I tried watching that and only lasted like two episodes. I hated everyone, and not in a fun way. I think I hated the man-child from the poor branch of the family most of all - I kept waiting for him to fall out of one of their helicopters or get shot by a private security guy who didn't recognize him.

it does take a while to get going

the first episode in particular is kind of rough

i evangelized about succession to my friends and two of them finally watched it and at least one of them hates it. does it make it more fun once you realize it has the same plot and characters as arrested development?

i think if you're the sort of person who can only enjoy a show if there are a few characters for you to root for/identify with, this isn't going to work for you. i mostly enjoy watching the clan eat themselves.

the weird thing for me w. succession is that in the first and last episodes of that first season, it felt like a serious drama abt ppl I am supposed to care about, whereas in the other eight episodes or however many there were they seemed to figure out that it works best as a pitch-black comedy where we root for these assholes to fail spectacularly

i read that as:
First episode - look at these assholes, don't you want them to fail?
Every episode to the end - They fail
Last episode - okay let's take a moment and get serious so we can walk this back and do it again

xp can't say I really cared about them in the first of last episodes tbh.

I don't normally enjoy stories where absolutely everyone is an asshole, but I kind of liked Succession

I’m bummed about Tuca and Bertie. It took me a few episodes for me to get the show but once I did it was great ( and those first few episodes are great on a second watch as well)

I do wonder what metrics Netflix go on, total view, first weekend binge views, proportion of viewers who drop a series.

Super vague spoilers here, but... The dramatic event in the last episode of Succession completely killed my desire to watch any more episodes. They made a big reach and I sort of admire them for it but it did not work for me at all. Considering that the future of the show will likely revolve around it in a big way, I'm out.

given Jesse Armstrong's involvement, I would like to see the second season adopt the Peep Show POV/voiceover aesthetic.

tuca and bertie was promising for 3 episodes (episode 3 itself was p great) but then episodes 4 and 5 were so jawdroppingly terrible that i stopped watching and am frankly unsurprised at the cancellation. and if that seems cruel then...it probably is

Sex Bugs was where it finally clicked for me.

you are literally opposite me and i am outta here

i thought it was not very good

The first minute of Tuca & Bertie was enough for me

the best show on TV is back today, that's right, it's Lodge 49 time again

I love the cast, and the vibe, and a ton of the scene work in Lodge 49. The supernatural overarching plot needs work though. Or just dump it and make a SoCal version of Northern Exposure.

Sex Bugs was a really good episode, xpost. It kind of peaked there.

oh man, did not realize Lodge 49 was back today! I got an email about the new season of The Terror, though

now AMC is best friend again

it's also great timing for me cause I'm trying to write a series (for fun) that is sort of halfway btwn Lodge 49 and Rubicon

It’s back! I have to watch that tonight. It’s pretty much my favourite active show.

I would love to read your series Simon if you need guinea pigs at any point.

"Austerity doesn't work!"

Fuck do I love this show

Succession premiere was good. Lots of scheming afoot

I thought Tuca & Bertie really picked up when Tuca went to visit her rich Aunt with Speckles. Deserves better but otoh having it continue risks the temptation to rule-build or demystify their world to excess (the problem with Bojack is tho it improved and enriched you get to a point where too often the interesting aspects of the humans/animals dynamic are marginalised or reserved just for basic jokes to the point they might as well just all be humans) and in any case maybe it's OK for more good to great shows to just not continue after one season even if they can in the mass production/provision on demand era.

Lodge 49 season 2 is killing it so far. Its characters and set of principles are all so lovely that watching it makes me feel just better about everything. I loved the whole thing about the bartering system in this last episode!

Here's a nice interview about show creator Jim Gavin's influences, which include Muriel Spark and generally being a 'music geek'. Can we be sure he's not an ILXor? https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/09/07/interview-jim-gavin-creator-whimsical-offbeat-lodge-49

Just one more plug for Legion, now that its 3-year run has finished. If you haven't watched it, Legion is an incredibly fun, BEAUTIFUL, inventive show set in the MCU. I didn't love season 2 as much as 1, but season 3 was great. Watch it on a big, high-quality TV.

https://intpolicydigest.org/2019/08/28/in-a-few-years-you-ll-regret-not-watching-legion/

anyone who liked Catastrophe or Fleabag should watch This Way Up on Hulu. Not quite as good as its predecessors and far more predictable but still worth the three hours.

I ended up watching and loving all of The Boys on Amazon prime yesterday, which isn’t something I usually do. It’s not subtle at all but there are several scenes I can’t stop thinking about. Some great casting too.

xp
does the International Policy Digest often weigh in on tv shows?

I tried This Way Up but it wasn't as good as I hoped.

Xp no idea! I just liked the article/take.