Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

Thanks!

(pretty sure the other song I liked was the Yo La Tengo, btw)

I own (and wear) the shirt Chris wore to the wedding and it freaked me out that he had it.

Mr Veg and I are watching Spinning Out on Netflix. We’re 4 eps in and i like it a lot. Lots of ice skating <3

[spoiler guarded] as Julia's husband in ep 3 of Work in Progress had me laughing loud enough this morning to nearly wake up a sleeping household.

same

ffs I watched 3 episodes of Deadwater Fell and it's really terrible. Save yourselves!
I will obv have to watch the final ep to confirm it's as bad as it is.

i just watched all 4 episodes of Deadwater Fell mistakenly thinking that David Tennant's character was the one who did the rescuing, not the one who was rescued. (rescue itself was at night and one scottish man with a beard looks pretty much like the next in the dark).

odd seeing the woman from the good fight (Cush Jumbo) with long hair and speaking in her original(?) accent.

Mystic Quest Raven's Banquet on Apple is... okay? I'm a sucker for video game centered sitcoms. The delivery is pure Always Sunny and the acting is pretty solid but it's predictable as hell and generally never gets past third gear.

Gentefied, on Netflix, is pretty good. Smart and funny and none of the characters are total assholes whom only the writers find sympathetic.

Beforeigners, on HBO Europe, is a car crash of SF-themed procedurals (Alien Nation comes to mind) - not particularly great, but compellingly not bad either.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/02/review-time-travel-and-murder-combine-in-hbos-riveting-beforeigners-series/#p3

I'm going to be re-activating my HBO subscription next month for the second season of My Brilliant Friend and am definitely planning on watching Beforeigners.

Have watched the first episode of Beforeigners and I'm in

Thanks to whichever one of you recommended Stath Lets Flat. It's been a while since I saw a cast so thoroughly, convincingly dedicated to hilarious idiocy.

Anyone else (still) watching Briarpatch? I'm really enjoying it.

Yes! Really good so far!

josh how are you watching stath lets flat?

i was curious to try it but didn't invest any energy into figuring out how to watch it in the u.s.

I downloaded it from some BBC forum. Wasn't a torrent, was a direct download, and it took forever to find a place that was sharing it.

huh ok

i don't think it's been discussed here but I'm going through the first season of Home on Channel 4 and it's enjoyable and well-written and well acted and often quite funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA8KEVWmd88
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/home

I enjoyed both series. Skirts just the right edge of preachy, but doesn't maybe hit as many comedy points as the commissioning staff might have been promised.

Run was... okay? Coasting on casting imo; not much happening at all. I'll try once or twice more.

Insecure's first episode leaning a little too heavy into soap opera and recycled storylines. I love love love Issa Rae though and am willing to put up with a lot just to get the parts with her doing physical comedy.

New season of What We Do in the Shadows basically picks up where they left off, which is to say it's pure fun without much friction or deep engagement but well worth anyone's time.

Brockmire is secretly the second best show on television right now, behind Better Call Saul.

Slowly going through the first season of Summer Camp Island which is a must for anyone who misses Adventure Time. NB: do not watch more than two 10 minute episodes at a time.

Desus and Mero locked up at home is really the only remote talk show worth a shit in the midst of this plague. Julia has ended up being a major element in the show's structure, she's kinda becoming the Robin Quivers of the 2020's

Three Busy Debras is okay. Beef House is not.

The first episode of Run was interesting in the sense that I'm curious to see where it is going to go next.

Beef House is likely pointless, but hilarious.

I want to be mad at Devs because it bears a very strong resemblance to a project I was developing/writing, but I can't, because it's really fucking watchable.

I would have watched Run if it was a 90 minute movie. A series? Forget it.

Agree re Insecure. Not great out of the gate, but I'm already along for the ride.

kinda feel like that about Devs. after ep 1 i’m like, okay i get it. not sure i need 10 episodes of low-rent spyjinks and this guy pining for his daughter.

Yeah, it's not that kind of show really. Also, only 8 eps!

It’s not what kind of show? hmm 8 eps is better than I was thinking. Still think it would have made a better movie.

The kind of show that focuses on "spyjinks" or thankfully spends THAT much time on the grief angle. Mostly it's a playground for Garland to toy with pet themes and get real weird with it visually

Devs and Dispatches from Elsewhere are shows I've mostly enjoyed moment-to-moment while being generally unsure of where they were going or whether they were ultimately going to add up to anything of substance but I think I've ultimately come around to and will give a thumbs-up to both.

(P.S. It's been a little weird watching Devs and Westworld in tandem as the current season of the latter is exploring territory very similar to the former.)

I thought Devs stuck the landing, unlike a lot of other high-concept limited series I've seen

Ok well I’ll probably watch. the “themes” have been extremely on-the-nose so far tho. And very.... earnest

A friend agreed with me that the coda to Devs fell a little flat. I like Garland's films/show and I'm very into work where the resolution is less than total, but he often crafts a lot of tension that seems to evaporate at the end.

Basically it feels like every one of his stories should end with the protagonist burning a building down and walking away.

I'm also very corny and enjoy the Jonathan Nolan/Lisa Joy dumb-smartness of Westworld. The newest season feels like a mash-up of the prior seasons and his previous show, Person of Interest, which was at times a little boring but surprisingly unpretentious in its presentation, although as a prime time major network show sandwiched next to crime dramas that may have been a requirement.

this is probably a good place to mention that what we do in the shadows is back and the first episode was incredible

i was so unsure about dispatches from elsewhere when i started it but i'm really in love with where it's gone

great characters/performances, full of twee bryan fuller energy (ymmv) but toward increasingly abstract purposes

lmao the more of it I watch the more I hate it, it's sort of impressive

it seems like a show you would hate

I mentioned this on its thread but it doesn't help that in a lot of ways it feels like a more expensive, much less enjoyable Lodge 49, on the same network that just killed it

or really like a show that any reasonable person could approach and say "oh, no thanks"

but since the end of the game i've been absolutely enraptured xp

well i do still need to see lodge 49

yes, you should!

I will allow that Eve Lindley is delightful

i didnt know that it was a Fuller show

i may check it out!

Fuller's not involved but it sure is twee

oh fuller ~energy~ i see now

hmm

oh yeah sorry didn't mean to mislead

goddammit brad

:)

I figured the tweeness would make ILXors gag. It ain't that fuckin twee, tho, really. Some solid, affecting moments and the leads are v good.