Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

Did that High Fidelity show get dramatically better in the second half? Never watched it, but I seem to remember it getting terrible reviews after the first few episodes, but suddenly lots of people are sad it got canceled.

i think the social media hullaballoo (hula-balloo?) is mostly about losing a show with a black female lead moreso than people enamored with the actual quality of the show
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/zoe-kravitz-high-fidelity-hulu-diversity-1234729635/

I thought the 2-3 episodes of High Fidelity I watched were terrible, it just stole so liberally and unimaginatively from the movie

Finally finished season 3 of Goliath. Pretty unsatisfying overall; it seemed really messy and flailing compared to the two previous seasons, with a lot of threads left dangling but in a way that made me dread, rather than hope for, a season 4. At this point I'm happy to walk away with positive memories of the first season.

it was less than the sum of its parts by the end. no big twisteroo. i still loved it though.

I've been revisiting a comfort series of mine, the MMA drama Kingdom (not to be confused by the more recent series of the same name, or the LvT one of course) w/ Frank Grillo, Jonathan Tucker, Matt Lauria, Kiele Sanchez and the great Paul Walter Hauser. It's incredibly flawed and deeply misery-porny but I love the hangout vibe and (mostly) low-key dialogue. It ran for three seasons and ended in just about the bleakest fashion possible, which was only appropriate.

Just finished S2 of Umbrella Academy, loved it. Robert Sheehan is a doll.

ZeroZeroZero is really great, amazing locales

loved zerozerozero. reminded me a ton of gomorrah

ugh, netflix canceled patriot act. it was by far the best of the left wing talking head news talk shows, i mourn it passing.

i missed South Side when it came out but was curious enough to look into it when i saw it had been renewed for an HBO season... and it's great! Lots of gallows humor and the lead cop characters being bumbling violent assholes on the take come across a bit differently in the current environment but just good writing, good acting and a solid exercise in world building. Kind of everything I wanted from Detroiters but didn't quite get. Worth a look.

The opening scenes of Lovecraft Country annoyed me for the same reason that the recent series Hollywood annoyed me: it seemed too eager to spell out the connections between its historical fiction and the contemporary moment (a discussion of the titular author's "problematic" history was inevitable). Once the characters get on the road, though, it hits its groove. A couple of tense moments worthy of Get Out (Peele is an exec. producer) and a satisfying payoff. I'll keep watching.

I’m tempted to say DARK, but as I inch towards the last 3 episodes, I fear the house of cards will all collapse. I’ve never had to use Wikipedia so much to remember who the hell I’m following

Impractical Jokers has more gravitas and sophisticated social commentary than anything on American network television today

Drunk History - secretly one of the most reliably intelligent and consistently inclusively casted and written shows on television - canceled by Comedy Central as they "pivot away from live action to animation". It had already been renewed and had been nominated for three emmys this year.
Waters has a first look deal with national amusements; doesn't look like the show will move anywhere else and that it's dead in the US until someone reboots it.

Didn't like the second episode of Lovecraft Country at all. I couldn't tell if it was meant to be an act of "world building" or if the whole secret society plot was just a one-off (or at least something that will get less emphasis in later episodes). The James Baldwin sequence in the first episode is repeated here with Gil Scott-Heron--powerful the first time, my reaction this time was "are they really gonna do this once per episode?" The anachronistic musical queues--the Jeffersons theme, some horrible millennial-era modern rock thing--were annoying. I'll see if next week's is any better.

I haven't seen it yet, but everything I've read about the first two episodes comes more or less straight from the book.

Finished Bluey (super great, more episodes soon i hope) and made the natural transition to the predominantly-Black cast and entirely female-directed New Orleans strip club soap opera P(ussy) Valley, as adapted by the playwright Katori Hall from her play of the same name. One episode in, it is hit and miss (some of the dialogue and characterizations are either OTT or just badly chosen) but a lot of potential ideas of merit and interesting plot possibilities. Need to see more and am cautiously intrigued.

My dissenting opinion re: Lovecraft Country is that may be shaping up into something really, really special. I'm generally loath to make such sweeping pronouncements two episodes into a thing but hey. I was very 'yeah, why not' about watching it in the first place but it's got me by the lapels.

Yeah I am all in

I'm all in, I love it. I was also a big fan of the book too though, so I've been anxiously awaiting this for some time.

I've very much enjoyed the first two episodes, but when I saw people saying ep2 was bad, I saw responses in the form of tweet screens from reviewers with advance copies saying basically, "stick with it through episode 3 and you will NOT be disappointed"

So ZeroZeroZero was a big dissapointment, it comes nowhere close to Gomorrah, the ridiculous daughter ruins it all.

Lovecraft Country doesn't feel as weighed down by prestige bullshit as like Westworld or Watchmen IMO. It doesn't really fit the image in my head from the book (too glossy) but it's better than anything I've seen from HBO in a while.

x-post *ruins a lot I would rather say. The rest is ruined by the thing where they repeat scenes from different perspectives. With only 8 episodes the show is way too short to develop real characters like Gomorrah does.

i'm going to wait till Lovecraft gets to five episodes.

rizzx - i dont completely disagree. i think they compare accurately in the styling, cinematography, sets and overall mood. gomorrah easily the more superior show.

im also a fan of lovecraft country, tho i understand why people didn't like the second episode. pacing was weird, the hallucinatory nature of the plot made things genuinely confusing, and there wasn't much explanation for the thing that happened at the end (from what i've read, the book is more explicit about exactly what Tic did during the ritual, correct?).

there's still more than enough to keep me coming back. i actually really like the anachronistic music cues, and the spoken word drops are a fairly unique innovation, kind of jarring, but thrilling at the same time.

Spottie - scenery is awesome indeed. Loved the african vibes

The Jefferson's song at the beginning of the second episode of Lovecraft Country seemed highly offensive.

I haven't read the book so I have no idea where this show is going, but the pacing seems awful. Way too much crap crammed into the first two episodes. I will stick it out another episode.

why offensive?

Jeffersons theme song offensive? wtf
No way! To me it’s being deployed really well as a joyful fakeout before the reveal of ... well the whole rest of the episode

whitey on the moon scene was my favorite thing so far; every minute detail was just so perfect

I just thought the implication was that the first thing black people would do in that situation was marvel at the luxuries of a closet full of clothes. "Highly offensive" probably too strong.

And I realize I'm implying that all black people would have a singular reaction, so I'm probably just as offensive.

Did you miss the fact that the cavorting characters are the beginning were all at the mercy of a spell that made them forget all of the weird shit that had happened to them the night before? They literally aren’t in their right minds in that opening scene, as is made clear from the dialogue/events of the subsequent scenes.

This show is fucking brilliant IMO

otm

watched the first episode of Raised by Wolves and it is VERY Ridley Scott right down to the murderous android with white blood. too soon to tell if this could get good but for the moment it's worth watching for the dual android leads who carry the whole thing on their backs, particularly amanda collin who does everything but snap her back in half to hold your attention.

am curious

my Ridley handbrake is firmly in the engaged position though lol

it's only been ~30 years since he made a memorably good movie so I might check this out

Is this the Caitlin Moran autobiog sitcom? I wasn't going to watch it but it sounds better than I thought

me crossposting me from the wrong thread!!

did anyone talk about ted lasso itt? i can't remember (maybe even i did)

this show is a fucking delight. maybe my fave new show of 2020. sudeikis rules and the new character in episode 6 is wonderful and also in ep6 sudeikis paraphrases the greatest monologue in sports history dont at me

Our family just finished all of Steven Universe, including the movie and SU Future. It was awesome and we loved it. So many great things were brought up that we could talk to our kids (5 & 10) about.

I've heard that She-Ra has the same sort of appeal and we started it a few nights ago. Does it get better? I like it okay but the animation is sometimes clunky and the writing is so-so. Maybe it's still setting everything up which can drag a little. I know SU got a lot better as it went along.

African Renaissance has been pretty good. Seen 2 of them so far, Ethiopia and Kenya.

had not heard of that, will try.

Steven Universe Future bored me senseless with its endless supply of wholesome intentions but I liked most of the regular run. (of course I was not watching it with kids so kinda a different thing!)

The Ted Lasso short from when NBC got the Premier League contract was hilarious.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lwf5

presenter is quite striking.
& the art she's looked at has been pretty good.

Also want to see if i can get the episodes I missed of the series on African Civilisations that followed it.

Glad the BBC is doing serieses like this, hope they do more. Though that Africa's Grreat Civilisations thing may have been made elsewher.
Yeah a PBS series but glad to see it being broadcast in the UK.

I mentioned that (African art and history) on the bbc4 thread, briefly. The thing on before it, with Ade, has also been interesting, but a bit more Palin-esque. Kinda curious about the civilisations thing on after it now - didn't watch it at the time because it was another 90 minutes on top of the 120 minutes I'd already watched that evening.

I really want to get some stuff by the Ethiopian artist Wendwesen Kebede, would love a coffee table book of his stuff. Not getting very far with googling him, wonder if a thing like that might exist anywhere. Not sure if African artists are getting much distribution of things like that below a certain threshold of sales etc. But loved his work that was shown in that African Renaissance series.

The big cartoony canvases?