Be Excellent To Each Other

Anyone watching the new season of Vikings?

Luckily I have no idea which show he was referring to so I'm safe.

I mean, I think it's Mr Robert*, but I have no recollection of this happening in it.

*That's what it's called in the Fop House.

Yes! I am watching it and I...

Yeah, still really enjoying it. Binged the season in two evening with Mrs Z.

Yeah, they really should have read the contract when they signed up DeVito...NSFW obviously.

We started the second series last week. Cheryl is almost making me dislike the show. She’s too flat a caricature.

They seem to be using her less this season which is fine by me.

Pfff

I think we’ve got to about episode four-ish (just watched the one with the Red Circles) and I don’t think we’re going to carry on with it. It’s really dragging its feet compared to the first series, the characters are somehow completely one dimensional and yet still doing things that completely hard with the characters as established, and nothing much is happening. The most exciting thing was me thinking ‘oh yeah, that’s Luke Perry’ only in episode four. I knew from last season, but he looks so different now that I re-forgot.

Watched the first episode of The Marvellous Mrs Maisel (Amazon Prime). It’s brilliant and allegedly heavily influenced by the early life of Joan Rivers.

I...I....

Couple of recent Netflix documentary series watches from me.

'ROTTEN' which focuses on one food per episode, and the problems with production/forgery/sourcing etc, so there's a chicken episode and a peanut allergy episode and a honey/bees episode and so on. TBH it's a bit uneven and a couple of the episodes are a bit too 'human interest' but overall it's a solid and interesting documentary.

'DIRTY MONEY' focuses on shitheels in the world of corporate culture/finance/banking/etc, again one per episode. So there's a VW Emissions episode, a payday loan episode, a pharmaceutical gouging episode and so on. This is really good and I'd very much recommend it. The VW Emissions chicanery is gob-smacking. Clearly corporate corruption right the way to the top.

I like documentaries more than pretend things these days I think.

It's cool, but why is her brain crying?

Edit: His.

I’ve not watched Parks and Rec.
Should I?

Yes.

It depends, do you hate joy?

Yes, but power through to season 2. We didn’t the first time and we’re now watching it again and it’s the most beautiful and funny show.

I'd just skip season one altogether. Didn't feel I missed anything important in terms of character development by starting in S2.

Noted, ta. I’ll find a few and give it a try.

It’s glorious, but god those first few episodes are tedious. I’m so glad we decided to try it again, though. It’s one of my two favourite recent comedies along with a Brooklyn 99.

It's six episodes which is about two hours of television. It's not amazing but sets up the show. It's not a huge investment of time to get to the really good stuff.

I don't know why people make such a big deal out of it.

Because I watched the first two and they were utter dogshit? You were ready to give up on Altered Carbon without even watching the first ten minutes.

Gaywood said it was really bad

No, a news article said it wasn't great.

That Markg posted, if I recall.

Just finished season 4 of Transparent. It's still a very well written and acted show, but it's already past its prime. Now with Jeffrey Tambor being fired i really doubt there's going to be another. And the Pfefferman's are really the most annoying self-centered people on TV.

Well, first 2 seasons are still excellent, and i highly recommend them.

You do not recall!

My mistake, it was Snappa.

They often swap sleeves though.

2meta2fast

Guilty as charged. Glad you're all enjoying it and that little foreshadowing of dread probably helped
To be fair, I read a couple of the poorer reviews and came to the conclusion that if you've read the book you'll get a lot more enjoyment from it. Still haven't managed to look at it myself yet.

Altered Carbon 3: Innenin Drift

Altered Carbon 4: Stack in the Habit

Altered Carbon 5: Envoy Boogaloo

People make a ‘big deal’ of it because lots of people give up on the series, not getting past those initial episodes, because it’s SO BAD. It’s worth ‘making a big deal’ of because the show is, apart from those initial episodes, wonderful, but anyone viewing might think that they simply don’t agree with the humour. It’s a way of saying ‘yes, we don’t find that start at all good, either, but if you’re willing to trust that we ALSO found it as awful as you, but will trust that the next series is brilliant, then it will be worth it’.

I rather enjoyed the first series, even if some elements struck a little too close to home when it came to the world of local government. The later ones are better, but I don't quite get the hate.

Altered Carbonara - Gino D'Acampo's digital dishes

Exactly. It's not SO BAD in a Mrs Brown's Boys sort of way. It's just not as good as what comes after.

Starting to think Mimi watched a different show to the rest of us.

Also I think every single classic ensemble comedy gets a lot better over the first few hours, as the cast and writers knit together.

My rule of thumb is most US shows peak in their third and fourth seasons.

I found the first handful of episodes unwatchably unfunny.

But you were expecting the henweigh to kick in.

I found your first handful of episodes unwatchably unfunny. Problem was season 2 didn't get much better.

Yeah, I’m not sure why you’re singling me out when a number of people have said that they’ve switched off after the first couple because of them being unfunny, but if you feel you need to make a point somehow, .

I'm picking on Craster if that helps.

Getting into programmes is always tricky. I need to give 'Game of Thrones' another go. And these days, I'd probably recommend ' the 11th Hour' over 'Rose' if I wanted to get people into 'Doctor Who'.
The best pilot is 'Frasier'; it introduces the characters and the situation almost perfectly, and then ends an act with a really dark argument.