The TV Discussion Thread

[Winston*]

Hey, didn't realise Rectify's second season starts this week. Excited. Great show.

[Lucky]

The girl who plays Tawney* (Adelaide Clemens) looks just like Carey Mulligan.

*Tawney? Really? And Amantha? Do women in Georgia really have names this stupid?

She's also the girl from Parade's End who woos married Benedict Cumberbatch.

[Mara]

RE: Rectify

The fourth episode ended with a moment of humanity that could easily have felt silly or ridiculous but was played with utter sincerity and actually broke my heart a little.

[

Show Spoiler

It's not just that Daniel's former classmate offered him some human comfort, no strings attached, but also that she never has that awkward, tense look in her face that he's been getting from everyone. You believe that she never for a moment doubted his innocence. She pitied him.

]

The fifth episode... well. The show has always been elegiac and dreamy, but this enough to make me wonder if the whole show up until now has been a hallucination. Like, it's all flashing through his head the moment before he is executed, like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Uh... spoilers for An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, I guess. It's been out for 124 years now; you had plenty of time to read it.

[Mara]

I didn't intend to watch the entire first season of Rectify in two days, but apparently that is happening.

[[ETM]]

I'm watching through "Cosmos", and I'm having a hard time focusing, because I'm always at the edge of tears. It's a very emotional experience for me.

[Henry Gale]

Almost Royal on BBC America is kinda funny.

Almost every stretch of it seems to be oddly remaking segments of either Da Ali G Show, Dog Bites Man, one of Karl Pilkington's shows (except with him it wasn't as consciously parodic, mind you), or Conan O'Brien's done with some of his remotes over the years, but the lead characters here, the naive airheads that happen to be the 50th and 51st in line for the throne on a low-fanfare road trip accompanied with the ashes of their father that wished for them to have a grand American welcoming, are really hilariously played with the actors' improvisation consistently quick and strong, setting just the off-kilter right tone for the show that otherwise does feel a bit familiar.

[Irish]

Holy shit -- Madman, are you still watching Longmire? Did you see this week's episode?

[Winston*]

Finished The Returned's first season. Excellent.

[dreamdead]

Starz is going to air a 13-episode version of The Girlfriend Experience. Haven't seen Lodge Kerrigan's work, but I'll be there for Amy Seimetz. Guaranteed.

[Gittes]

[Thirdmango]

Took me a while to get through season 4 of The Shield. There was some good stuff in there but I was getting a little bored. Glenn Close was great but they seemed to be floundering a little. Then I finally finished it and hit season 5 and oh man this season is really heating up. Forest Whitaker is great and I'm really excited to see where they go with this one.

[Spun Lepton]

Took me a while to get through season 4 of The Shield. There was some good stuff in there but I was getting a little bored. Glenn Close was great but they seemed to be floundering a little. Then I finally finished it and hit season 5 and oh man this season is really heating up. Forest Whitaker is great and I'm really excited to see where they go with this one.

You are on a key season. My recommendation is to avoid spoilers at all costs.

[Thirdmango]

You are on a key season. My recommendation is to avoid spoilers at all costs.

Yeah, accidentally spoiled to the one big thing at the end of the season.

[EyesWideOpen]

I feel really bad for Weevil in season 3. His acne is out of control.

[Spun Lepton]

All right. I have just wrapped season 6 of DS9. I will discuss it behind spoilers for reasons that are obvious to anybody who's watched the show, you know, just in case.

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Show Spoiler

Soooo ... I'd accidentally spoiled the fact that Dax dies at the end of S6. I spoiled it while I was still on Season 2. At that time, I thought, "Nooo! I really like Dax!!" but now I can't help agree with Terry Ferrell's decision to leave. The writers had created such an interesting character w/ the potential for some really interesting stories, but then Warf came along, and she became a side-character, there to support Warf and only support Warf. Every episode that prominently featured her was at its heart a Warf episode, with Warf making all the tough Warf decisions for Warfy Warf Warf Warf.

Now, don't misunderstand. I like Warf! I was pretty happy when he joined the show. But, it shouldn't have come at the expense of any of the other characters. And Dax suffered the worst. Ferrell was right to leave. Her "stories" were disappointment after disappointment.

]

The general mishandling of the female characters on DS9 is ongoing. I've heard Season 7 is really bad, so I'm preparing myself for a let-down. Then it's on to Voyager. The one I've heard most frequently referred to as "the worst Star Trek show," although the premise is ... intriguing.

/NEEEERRRRRRDS!!

[EyesWideOpen]

I've got about 4 episodes of Veronica Mars Season 3 left and I really don't understand the hatred this season received. Season 1 is the best but I think both 2 & 3 are of equal quality.

[Spun Lepton]

DS9 talk w/ some spoilers.

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Show Spoiler

Don't like Dax 2: Electric Whine-a-hoo. At all. Plus, she's not even a very good actor. In her first major episode, she has a moment where she's supposed to cry, but her eyes didn't even tear up. Sorry, but if you can't even do that, you should not be working in television.

]

[EyesWideOpen]

I've been on a TV tear lately. I watched through True Detective which was fantastic and probably the best work I've seen McConaughey do. I'm still working my way through Veronica Mars Season 3 with just a couple episodes left to go. I watched all of Undateable which is still about 60% bad / 40% good but the goods are really funny. Chris D'Elia and Lemonhead are a great pair and they carry the show and Funches always has a couple laugh out loud moments each episode. It's too bad the rest of the cast is given nothing to do. And this weekend we started Orphan Black and are six episodes in to the first season and love it. I'm sure it's been said before but Maslany is amazing. You forget that it's the same actress when you're watching it.

[Thirdmango]

I too went through all of Undateable and agree wholly.

I just finished The Shield. That was a crazy show. Definitely got better as it went along but it always had something interesting to say. The last moments with Vic is a great shot. It was always interesting watching through out with Goggins since I'm such a big Justified fan, watching him knowing what he has in his career after this. I'm glad he got onto Justified cause he's fantastic through out.

Spun I'm excited to see how you like the last 10 or so episodes of DS9.

[Spun Lepton]

Spun I'm excited to see how you like the last 10 or so episodes of DS9.

I really hope they deliver. So far, my S7 experience has been a little disappionting and I'd really like the show to go out on a good note.

[Gittes]

I'm making my way through season six of Seinfeld, and I just finished "The Diplomat's Club": wow, such a great episode. That ending!

[EvilShoe]

Derek isn't very good, is it? Makes sense Gervais tried something different after Life's too Short, but this is immensely cloying.

[number8]

This documentary I reviewed aired on Showtime last night. Should be on demand now. Check it out if you like to watch teenagers being physically abused!

[Mara]

This documentary I reviewed aired on Showtime last night. Should be on demand now. Check it out if you like to watch teenagers being physically abused!

I read your review and watched that preview. Just the idea of it made me very anxious, and I'm kind of worried that I will never sleep again.

BTW the fact that a YA author hasn't written a book about a plucky kid getting kidnapped for Jesus yet is astounding. Cults are big right now.

[number8]

Yeah, I've known for years about these schools existing, but watching the victims speak is something else entirely. Which is why I believe the director's story and found it particularly powerful when I read her saying in one interview how there's a difference between knowing that there are people out there doing bad things in the name of God, and getting to know people who are doing bad things in the name of God.