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[Snoopy]

I finished it last night. It had it's moments but it was all build up and zero pay off. The s3 trailer looked good though

[benji]

i'm sorry is not great, but kind of okay. The media seems to compare it to Curb because apparently they only have one reference, but it feels more like The League. It has the same pacing and scripted dialogue rather than Curb. It also has a number of shared cast including Rafi, but also a reunion scene along with another part of Human Giant. Unfortunately, he disappears from the show midway through and it's a major loss. The biggest problem, and the major flaw of the show, is that Andrea isn't likeable or funny. She's not remotely like Larry, she's a social climber and wants to be popular. She also frets endlessly over her kid maybe being racist, maybe being homophobic, maybe being not feminist, etc. Her husband never disagrees and mostly exacerbates this. Andrea causes basically all her own problems by being weird and not keeping it to herself, but not in the Larry way where you can sympathize with her or because she's stubborn. Which mostly leads to all the side characters, like Rafi and other moms played by people like Judy Greer, being the best part of the show. Andrea Savage is fine and funny in other stuff, so I guess she just shouldn't write her own show. Some of the other writers went to Always Sunny for a bit, which makes sense since The League is no longer around.

Shooter was the opposite in terms of low expectations, great enjoyment. Especially since it was a USA Network production. Yes, it's the same license as the movie and even produced by Mark Wahlberg, and yes, the first season is mostly the same general plot as the movie. That said, it's much better than the movie. Although if you really know the movie, you'll know many of the twists in the first season because they didn't really change the characters other than their gender or skin color or made their last name their first name or whatever.

What made it work for me is that it seemed very committed to lampshading and subverting every possible trope that would traditionally come up in such a show. And despite the fact that the main character does seem to have a superhuman shooting ability, and along with everyone on the show seems to have superhuman ability to withstand near mortal injury, almost all of the sniping in the show is determined more by positioning, preparedness, etc. A number of situations are handled not by having anyone try to take some silly shot instead of withdrawing. Indeed, one of the recurring things of the show is the wise characters being established by their refusal to do something stupid in a situation asking a person to do something stupid against impossible odds rather than just stand down. Most shows would have somebody go all Batman and shoot like five guys in the head to escape.

If there's one complaint, it does get a little silly about the UNDERLYING CONSPIRACY at times even if it's mostly well constructed and the conspiracies aims are actually appropriately trivial. Also the show does seem to skip ahead at points while otherwise mostly being real-time-ish which makes it seem like characters have teleportation because they'll be in DC and suddenly appear in Texas or similar. The ending also definitely feels like they were told they were cancelled and allowed to shoot some new stuff to conclude things because it's kind of resolved as a season ending to continue on and then a ton of stuff happens in like ten minutes with very compact scenes (both in length and the sets) and there's no expected resolution for any of it. Which does make me wonder if the most shocking part of it wasn't added after they were cancelled or if they were really willing to do it had the show continued. It does more to make the final season villain a real villain than anything that happens earlier other than the fact Gerald McRaney plays him.

Of course, now that I've watched that and Patriot, Amazon is trying to get me to watch Jim Halpert: Super Spy and Reacher.

[benji]

A pair of Showtime shows leaving Amazon Prime to celebrate America's 250th:
City on a Hill was entertaining but almost entirely because of Kevin Bacon's character. The other characters are necessary to the plot and everything but effectively wind up being the reasons for Bacon and the character to act around everyone else. The horrific early 1990's fashions are consistently triggering to me so they must have nailed it. But the historical accuracy wasn't entirely perfect because they refer a few times to the internet like any normies would have known about it yet. Also the wide-ranging quality of Boston accents and whether the actors even attempt them is pretty fun.

Penny Dreadful is justified almost entirely for Eva Green going nuts. The second season is kind of worse despite possibly better general plotting because she does so little of it. The third season is widely condemned but I'm not to it yet. A big flaw in the second season is that the first season seems to indicate that Eva Green got semi-sane and immediately launched into trying to save Mina Harker. Yet the second season basically says, nope, actually she spent possibly years doing some other shit and that was more foundational than anything ever and she just never bothered to mention it. Which, okay, I know it was really because they hadn't thought of this when that season happened, but maybe put some thought into how it might work? Like, maybe, she undertook this to help her with her quest for Mina and she kept being about how she had to get back to that? Nope, just it was this thing that happened and she took her time because it was such a major life pursuit. But also it's completely tied into everything about the first season and was the actual plot all along that nobody ever thought to bring up or discover and this one-time appearing character was actually super important. That kind of "plotting" with nobody caring about actually establishing any of it to preserve "twists" that don't matter. Do better show from a decade ago.

On imdb there's a massive drop in the reviews for a particular episode and if you look at them it's all because there's like thirty seconds of gay sex depicted. The reviews are all "FORCING THEIR AGENDA ONTO US" and blah blah blah. The show had sex scenes from the start and the very first appearance of the character has him lounging erotically with another man, you saw the other guy naked with his dick out earlier, and this is what finally got you upset? "I didn't think they'd actually show it!!!"   Also, this is a British co-production, it's not an "agenda", it's just them being British.

I think I partly like it because despite the horror stuff it kind of feels like a London-set Deadwood with the era and language and monologues and violence and drinking/drugs and prostitutes and everyone scheming against everyone. (Though it largely avoids the obviousness of having the elite aware of or engaged in the supernatural stuff. Which limits just how Deadwood it could be.) There's an aspect of the "dawning 20th Century" running into The Old in its themes.

[Snoopy]

Don't waste your time. The first season of Penny is ok. The rest are shit