The Last TV Show/Episode You Watched... (quick one or two sentence reviews)

[daedal]

Watched the latest Jon Hamm/Juno Temple season of Fargo. It was probably right in the middle if I were to rank all the seasons. It’s a bit uneven and the script could’ve used another pass. But this show is never uninteresting. The final scene/epilogue was almost too on-the-nose as far as communicating the “breaking the cycle “ themes, but it is also one of my favorite scenes of the whole season.

I like what they did with that series. I haven't seen this season yet though. And I think all the seasons are a bit uneven, but everything is in Fargo anyway!

 

[NFBisms]

I liked this season of Fargo too! I found it more engaging than last season, which was too big for its own good. This season was a more simple, even relatively sweet story. The smaller cast this time (or what feels like it at least) was much more fun to follow than even previous good seasons' spread.

Not as good as 1 or 2 IMO, but I preferred it to 3 and 4 for sure

 

[Jrzag42]

The Rehearsal (2022) - Starts off as an interesting follow up to my beloved Nathan For You, quickly devolves into so much more. By the end I don't know if it can still be considered a comedy. Nathan Fielder is a genius, and I look forward to more.

 

[kinnikuman]

The Rehearsal (2022) - Starts off as an interesting follow up to my beloved Nathan For You, quickly devolves into so much more. By the end I don't know if it can still be considered a comedy. Nathan Fielder is a genius, and I look forward to more.

Such a unique show. Almost can’t even talk about it without spoiling it

 

[Jrzag42]

The Curse (2023) - Just binged the first 6 episodes, wowzer. After The Rehearsal, I was delighted to find that there was another recent Nathan Fielder show that I'd missed, this time fully scripted. I didn't know much about it beforehand, just that it was some sort of dark comedy, and I assumed it'd be relatively far removed from his other shows. I wasn't expecting this to literally be about the production of a reality TV show, thus adding a whole other meta layer to it. I can imagine that a lot of this draws from Nathan's experiences with his other shows. There are a lot of moments where I forget that I'm not watching a reality show, that the characters aren't aware of the cameras. There are incidental moments that feel like something out of Nathan For You. Sometime's Nathan's performance has me forgetting that he's not playing himself. It's a fascinating experience, and I can't imagine watching this without already being familliar with Nathan. In any case, I'm really enjoying the show.

 

[Jrzag42]

The Curse (2023) - Just binged the first 6 episodes, wowzer. After The Rehearsal, I was delighted to find that there was another recent Nathan Fielder show that I'd missed, this time fully scripted. I didn't know much about it beforehand, just that it was some sort of dark comedy, and I assumed it'd be relatively far removed from his other shows. I wasn't expecting this to literally be about the production of a reality TV show, thus adding a whole other meta layer to it. I can imagine that a lot of this draws from Nathan's experiences with his other shows. There are a lot of moments where I forget that I'm not watching a reality show, that the characters aren't aware of the cameras. There are incidental moments that feel like something out of Nathan For You. Sometime's Nathan's performance has me forgetting that he's not playing himself. It's a fascinating experience, and I can't imagine watching this without already being familliar with Nathan. In any case, I'm really enjoying the show.

Just finished. The final act was incredibly tense, and I desparately waited for it to reveal itself as a dream. In the end, I'm trying to process what the show was about in terms of themes and messages, I can't help but worry that I missed an underlying point to it all. At the moment I can say that I think I really enjoyed it.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I’m about halfway through Neil Gaiman’s American Gods novel. And I just realized there is a show by the guy who did the Hannibal show. I loved Hannibal so I watched the first two episodes. It’s pretty faithful to the book so far. I see there are three season and I’m not sure if season one is the novel and it takes off from there for the other seasons. I won’t continue watching until I’ve finished the book in a week or two.

 

[NFBisms]

Watched the new Mr. and Mrs. Smith show on Prime Video, starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine and enjoyed it! Very much in the same surreal vein as Atlanta (FX) from Glover, but with spy assassins.

 

[WilliamRedRobin]

I've been watching the new Avatar show on Netflix.
It's pretty strangely edited. The pacing of conversations is way too quick, somtimes people's tone ov voice doesn't match up with the conversation, and theres very little indication of time passing between events. Everything seems to happen immediately.
I get the feeling that it was filmed to be 1hr episodes and trimmed down to be 45 minute episodes.

Other than that, it's pretty mediocre. The adult actors are all great, but the children aren't. The casting and characterisation is pretty good across the board, though.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I've been watching the new Avatar show on Netflix.
It's pretty strangely edited. The pacing of conversations is way too quick, somtimes people's tone ov voice doesn't match up with the conversation, and theres very little indication of time passing between events. Everything seems to happen immediately.
I get the feeling that it was filmed to be 1hr episodes and trimmed down to be 45 minute episodes.

Other than that, it's pretty mediocre. The adult actors are all great, but the children aren't. The casting and characterisation is pretty good across the board, though.

I’m totally confused by this property. There seem to have been multiple high profile attempts to adapt it to live action. Yet, I’m not sure who the audience is. It doesn’t seem to be one of the more popular properties among the various genre outlets on social media/YT, etc. I have literally never met anyone who claims to be a fan of it and I’ve taught primary school. My kids are 11 and have heard of it but don’t really know what it is. This is a direct quote from one of them as I write this: “I think it’s like an anime type thing.” And that kid has been into Naruto and other (to me) similar things. Am I just missing a huge audience that for reasons unknown remain hidden to me?

 

[NFBisms]

I’m totally confused by this property. There seem to have been multiple high profile attempts to adapt it to live action. Yet, I’m not sure who the audience is. It doesn’t seem to be one of the more popular properties among the various genre outlets on social media/YT, etc. I have literally never met anyone who claims to be a fan of it and I’ve taught primary school. My kids are 11 and have heard of it but don’t really know what it is. This is a direct quote from one of them as I write this: “I think it’s like an anime type thing.” And that kid has been into Naruto and other (to me) similar things. Am I just missing a huge audience that for reasons unknown remain hidden to me?

It's huge for people in my age bracket (early-mid 20's). It's basically Gen Z's Star Wars. My username is actually spun off of an old handle I had when I was 12 (NextFireBender, which is a ref to the show).

Don't love the new live action show tbh, it's mediocre in every way technically, but also manages to rush / misunderstand the original show on top that. All while being roughly the same runtime of the season it's adapting.

 

[WilliamRedRobin]

I’m totally confused by this property. There seem to have been multiple high profile attempts to adapt it to live action. Yet, I’m not sure who the audience is. It doesn’t seem to be one of the more popular properties among the various genre outlets on social media/YT, etc. I have literally never met anyone who claims to be a fan of it and I’ve taught primary school. My kids are 11 and have heard of it but don’t really know what it is. This is a direct quote from one of them as I write this: “I think it’s like an anime type thing.” And that kid has been into Naruto and other (to me) similar things. Am I just missing a huge audience that for reasons unknown remain hidden to me?

I'm not sure how big the cartoon was, but it's very highly regarded by it's fans. Personally I think it's one of the best children's shows ever aired.
It had 3 seasons around when I was a kid. It might have been limited by its short run and the pretty lame sequel series that might have turned people off from looking back at the original.

There is a story behind the push for live action. If I remember right, there was supposed to be a feature length animated sequel to the show, but M. Night Shamalayan stepped in because his kids were big fans and offered to produce and direct a live action movie, which would have the potential to pull in much bigger audiences.
That movie was famously terrible even among people who'd never heard of the show, and since then people have been wanting a "proper" adaptation because of that.

 

[Jrzag42]

I have literally never met anyone who claims to be a fan of it and I’ve taught primary school. My kids are 11 and have heard of it but don’t really know what it is. This is a direct quote from one of them as I write this: “I think it’s like an anime type thing.” And that kid has been into Naruto and other (to me) similar things. Am I just missing a huge audience that for reasons unknown remain hidden to me?

I'm 21, I watched it as a kid with my mom and my older sibling. I have somewhat fond memories of it, but I was too young to really be able to remember much of it now. Most fans are people who watched it when it aired, so you probably won't find many people much younger than me who are fans, let alone 11 year olds. I presume the primary audience of the new show is adults who grew up with the original. It is a pretty huge audience, I'm surprised you haven't run into any fans online, let alone on these forums.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I'm 21, I watched it as a kid with my mom and my older sibling. I have somewhat fond memories of it, but I was too young to really be able to remember much of it now. Most fans are people who watched it when it aired, so you probably won't find many people much younger than me who are fans, let alone 11 year olds. I presume the primary audience of the new show is adults who grew up with the original. It is a pretty huge audience, I'm surprised you haven't run into any fans online, let alone on these forums.

Well as you say, the kids I teach and my own kids are probably too young and I’m 53 so my peers are much older than it sounds like this audience is. I’d say 99% of the 20-30 year olds I communicate with are on this site.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

My kids are 11 and have heard of it but don’t really know what it is. This is a direct quote from one of them as I write this: “I think it’s like an anime type thing.” And that kid has been into Naruto and other (to me) similar things. Am I just missing a huge audience that for reasons unknown remain hidden to me?

I'm not really surprised your 11-year-old kids aren't familiar with a 19-year old show. I also wouldn't really expect the 11-year-old kids watching it when it first aired in 2005 to be familiar with a show from 1986 either.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I'm not really surprised your 11-year-old kids aren't familiar with a 19-year old show. I also wouldn't really expect the 11-year-old kids watching it when it first aired in 2005 to be familiar with a show from 1986 either.

I mean kids are still familiar with TMNT. My kids aren’t obsessed with it but they liked the most recent movie. What I’m saying is that for a franchise to get multiple big budget attempts at live action adaptation, you’d expect it to be a perennial favorite ACROSS generations. But it sounds like it’s a moderately popular franchise for an age group that maybe spans 10 years. That seems surprising to me.

 

[Eyepainter]

I turned 34 this year, and I've heard the name of Avatar: The Last Airbender over the past 5 years. I decided to watch the original animated show last year, and only made it to Season 2 before my Netflix subscription got cancelled. I will say that the original animated show was really good, and it's worth a watch. I don't love it, but if I could go back and finish what I started, I would.

I've never watched the new live-action series, but I can tell you that I've been sick and tired of everything being rebooted and remade, regardless of whether I like the original, for what feels like decades now. To me, it's gotten to the point where the best I can hope for is an inferior version of the original. It's a studio ploy that keeps getting more and more cynical over the passage of time. ATLA doesn't need to be remade to be good. The remake is likely just a business move to sucker in the fans.

 

[WilliamRedRobin]

To be honest the entire concept of live action adaptations is kind of pointless.
For books or even games, it could be interesting to see how differently the story is told with a different medium, but for cartoons the best you can hope for is a shot-for-shot recreation. The only alternative is to cut things out which will probably end up making it worse.

 

[unfair]

Love, Nina (2016) - it's a bit of a quirky mini-series about an eccentric babysitter, and while I didn't love the overall structure or quirkiness, I did enjoy the family dinner table conversations, and Helena Bonham Carter was fantastic as an understated mother. I think I've only seen her in more dramatic period pieces or manic pixie type roles, and I quite enjoyed her in a quiet older role where she can just talk and smirk a bit.

 

[NFBisms]

Slow Horses on Apple TV Plus, just got through season 3! Every season has been pretty solid, and while this one went a little off the rails, it was still fun. Something very cozy about how un-ambitious this show is, just no frills, delivering on its premises in a new self contained spy procedural every season. Scratches an itch for something serial but not quite prestige, like 24.

Emphasis on the yearly, it's been nice to not have 3+ years between seasons