It’s not hard to understand why I thought I was going to hate / reality franchises, any more than it is for just about any successful yet trashy reality TV series. The genre is still thought of as a disreputable slice of time-wasting nonsense—not without good reason—but it’s also incredibly popular for a reason. The people making The Bachelor (and its spin-off) are very, very good at what they do. If you’re on the outside, it looks like it sucks; yet once you’re in, it’s hard to explain to the others you left behind. Is it mostly frivolous? Absolutely. Do you feel enriched by having watched it? Heavens, no. Does it often come across like the TV equivalent of a bad Greek-system college party? Oh, even when it’s trying to be classy. But those are also the reasons it can be so addictive and fun. To quote another famous fan of silliness: Turn on, tune in, drop out. [Alex McLevy]
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If you want a lesson in how to make a trailer that makes your smart, compassionate comedy feel like it’s made of stupid, childish gross out humour…
Same with the Spy trailer. I needed something to watch on a plane, I hate the trailers thinking it was gonna be one long fat-joke at Melissa McCarthy’s expense and HOLY SHIT was that movie hilarious and hilariously-subverting.
And nothing was more shocking than Jason Statham’s talent for self-parodying comedy.
Isn’t Statham’s whole career self-parodying comedy?[I first knew him from Lock Stock, so the whole idea of him having an action career felt like an extended skit…]
It was neat seeing him lean into a different brand of comedy. Cause I’d enjoyed him in his early Guy Ritchie stuff, but then he switched into no-nonsense badass mode for Transporter and almost never looked back for a while, then he got into the Fast and Furious stuff which is funny at times but obviously a different brand of humor from like “Snatch” or “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” so I was glad that he could do such over-the top self parody after being in completely different types of films for so long. McCarthy was really good too, I liked their rapport. She also had a nice back and forth with Jude Law!
Speaking of similar airplane movies, The Spy Who Dumped Me was super-fun.
Right with you on Spy. A really clever and funny action movie, with some moments of genuine earned drama. I guess I’d known McCarthy was a good actress, but she really shines in this one, and no, the movie is not one long fat joke, and the rest of the cast is used really well. They look like they’re having fun, but never quite winking at the camera.
I, too, needed something to watch on a plane and was glad I gave Spy a chance because it was hilarious. A lot of great comedic acting, but my MVP was Miranda Hart.
Kinda same. I went to movie on a Saturday morning, most of the audience, which was small, were women. I absolutely loved it. I was crying from laughing at some of it. At the end everyone in the theater applauded. Jason Statham and Rose Byrne, who knew they were so funny? To this day, I laugh at this.
Why bother making a trailer? Just take your intelligent, sensitive, complicated show about growing up in the South and stick the title “Teenage Bounty Hunters” onto it. Guaranteed failure!
I watched this one on a whim (which I almost never do! I’m so behind on all my media consumption, I’ve got so much stuff I’m extremly likely to like on my to-watch list, I need to be careful with my ressources), although there was absolutely nothing in the promotion that could possibly attract me, and I’m so glad I did! What a shame this one never found its audience.
Absolutely! Not only is it actually quite good, but there was enough there to suggest it might get even better. I don’t think it was doomed entirely by the title, but I think it was a huge mistake.Though admittedly, it’s hard to know how they should have advertised it. All the things in it would probably have put me off it… the difference is that they did everything just a bit better than expected. They took their ideas seriously and explored them sensitively. Unfortunately, there’s no category on Netflix for “but done well”, so it got lost among all the derivative teenage soap-dramas…
I watched Paddington this past New Year’s since it was the first thing on tv. I thought it was cute, sweet, and the opposite of what the trailer made it out to be.
Lest we forget how utterly unappealing the original Ted Lasso trailer made the show seem.
In general, if I don’t expect to get any enjoyment out of something, I don’t go out of my way to watch it. The closest I’ve gotten lately is that we’re slowly making our way through the live broadcast version of musicals, and Rent Live! was a standout not because I read anything about it but because it’s the only one neither streaming nor available on disc. It was only available on YouTube. Made me suspect there was some level of terribleness. Turns out it was good but understandable why sound mixing was off and performers were singing as if they were saving their voices (because they were).
It was the Assassin’s Creed series for me. I tried the original back in college, and really just disliked it, mainly because my playstyle is not geared towards Stealth gameplay of any kind. Plus, I was a pretentious History major, so seeing the “I get all my history from the AC series” discourse made me the most annoyed.
Cut to AC: Odyssey. That game hooked me hardcore, despite its issues. I like RPGs, so the pivot of the series to an RPG-style system provided the catalyst for me to give the series another chance.
I knew this pivot, however, was seen by some fans as a negative thing, so I ended up purchasing pretty much the whole pre-RPG era games and giving them another chance, and I found myself enjoying them more than I did in the beginning. Do I like them better than the RPG versions? No, I still really hated a lot of things in those series (the Da Vinci flying in 2, the tower defense BS in Revelations, Those fucking stupid unkillable sharks in Black Flag), but I gained an appreciation of them, and now get why people loved them so much.
I haven’t actually played any AC game post-Black Flag. I was just completely exhausted with the concept at that point. But since since I was already in my 20s when the games began, it has always been a running joke in my head that “OMG, there have to be teenagers out there passing history tests just off of their memory of these games” which to me personally … is hilarious To me those post Origins games really feel like the franchise as abandoned being itself, and if the developers at Ubisoft don’t want to make AC games anymore, they should just be allowed The Witcher-style action RPGs they clearly want to make instead.
You haven’t missed much by skipping the post-Black Flag games, although I liked Origins a lot, even though it’s so far removed from its origins (heh) that it barely qualifies as an Assassin’s Creed game. I liked it mainly because it’s an expansive open world that feels really big, and is beautiful to run around in. Hiking around in the mountains really made me feel like I was out in the wilderness, compared to running around the urban areas.My main complaint with later AC games is that they’re so light on the stealth/assassination gameplay, which is what I really liked about the early games. Probably why I like the Hitman series so much, since it never forces you into the “well, you’re going to get into an extended punching match with someone, even though your whole thing is operating unnoticed” thing the way the AC games always do.
The series is basically kept alive by microtransactions and greed now, but I will always defend Black Flag as the greatest pirate game ever.
I get so much hate for this among friends but Episode 8 was the best movie in that train wreck fanservice that was the sequel trilogy. The whole casino/we need to give John Boyega something to do plot was bad but Last Jedi was trying to make the SW galaxy about more than the Skywalkers. Then Kathleen Kennedy and JJ had to go “LOL No Palpetine boned off screen somewhere”. When you consider what the Colin Trevorrow’s Episode 9 movie was supposed to be it makes Rise of Skywalker all the more disgusting
There are many more problems with Episode 8 than just the Casino scenes. The entire plot is completely ridiculous, even within the framing of a battle in outer space with wizards. Rain Johnson played the fans for fools as if people don’t understand things like gravity in space and the fact that a ship being lighter means absolutely nothing when it comes to how fast it could be in space. He makes General Hux a slapstick moron and gives Leia God-mode without anything in 7 subsequent films to reinforce that. I could go on and on about how bad that movie is, but its not even worth my time. It crippled the entire story and gave zero direction on how to end the trilogy. They are all 3 terrible films, and 9 is the absolute worst, but TLJ was a major mistake by the studio putting one of their most valuable properties into the hands of someone who treated their fans with complete contempt.
The problem with the whole new Disney Trilogy is that the setup doesn’t make sense regardless of whether you are a J.J. or Rian fan. Where did this “New Order” come from? Even in TFA, they are already basically the Empire. Instead, it should have been a small uprising on a few planets with the New Republic still controlling 99% of the planets. The drama would be whether this New Order would continue to grow. Making them already in change is just lazy because it allows the heroes to be rebels again rather than the establishment.
That’s the problem with dystopian narratives in general. They never bother depicting the politics that got us to this point. They skip right to the sword fights that save the day
Nineteen Eighty-Four, on the other hand, takes for-freaking-ever to get to the sword fights.
Partly because the sword fights are the more exciting bit, but mostly I think because they’re uncontroversial. Good guy – because we’ve no reason to think he’s not – saves day by killing the right person (you can tell they deserve it because they laugh cruelly and eat babies). Nobody can argue with that!But showing how a dystopia can emerge is immediately controversial. Either it’s clearly related to modern politics, in which case you immediately offend half the audience, or it’s not clearly related to modern politics, in which case both halves of the audience are worried that you’re talking about them in code and you offend everybody. And almost invariably, on the road to a dystopia the ‘good guy’ is going to do something (even if it’s just inaction) that’s very bad (we know it’s bad because it leads to dystopia so it’s obvious), which makes them hard to root for.
Right, it was just a lazy rehash. There was a thousand different things they could have tackled, what you mentioned, re-establishing the Jedi order or something along those lines, a threat from outside of the galaxy, etc., etc.But no, it was “let’s run it all back!”
Rain Johnson played the fans for fools as if people don’t understand things like gravity in space and the fact that a ship being lighter means absolutely nothing when it comes to how fast it could be in space. I think there are valid critiques of TLJ, but sorry, this stuff makes me roll my eyes. Star Wars is a space fantasy, and it has always played fast and loose with physics and realism. How can you hear the ships moving around in space? Why do the space ships always line up neatly on the same plane for all the big battles when they’re capable of moving in three dimensions? How has a giant worm (complete with weird bat parasites!) evolved to survive in an asteroid exposed to the vacuum of space? How does Starkiller Base destroy a bunch of planets instantaneously with a light beam from thousands of light years away? It’s the sort of stuff that bothers you only after you’ve already decided you don’t like the movie.
All true, but there were their own rules that were established in space. Things like Gravity still do matter, but Johnson just said “nope” and did away with that when he dropped bombs on the opening scene.
I’m right there with you on your distaste for TLJ, but Star Wars has always played fast and loose with the physics of outer space.All true, but there were their own rules that were established in space. Things like Gravity still do matterIn ESB, Leia, Han, and Chewie are clearly subject to 1.0x gravity on a tiny asteroid (not to mention walking out into what should be hard vacuum wearing nothing but light jackets and facemasks). In all three OT films, fighters and the Falcon bank in spaceflight as though there’s atmosphere and gravity off of which to work.(That said, if the bombs drop through space at the beginning of the film, why doesn’t Leia drop before she wakes up and starts MaryPoppinsing at the end?)
Jesus, people have been explaining this for nearly 4 years. There’s gravity ON the bomber, and that momentum keeps the bombs going. Stuff like this is why I can’t take any complaints about TLJ in good faith.
When did Star Wars create a gravity rule?
the bombs are falling inside the ship, which has artificial gravity, as the pilot and gunner prove. this is something you could easily deduce in the theater, how are you so dense?
I generally know if a complaint about a big franchise movie has anything about “insulting/disrespectful to the fans” the rest of the thing is going to have me rolling my eyes pretty heavily.
I agree that there are plenty of valid criticisms to make of The Last Jedi too, but anything that claims ‘xxx insulted the fans’ is just nonsense. Yes, Johnson was a bit dismissive in interviews, but that’s probably because of the ridiculous level of online backlash he received. Not surprised he was a little ticked off with the Star Wars fanbase.Nonetheless, I like The Last Jedi, and I wasn’t expecting to. It does a lot of things that my favorite pieces of pop culture do (like Moffat era-Who or Mr. Robot), in that it’s constantly wrong-footing the audience with purpose, questioning why we tell the stories that we do in a very clever manner. It’s a damn sight better than the garbage fires on either side of it.
People who make these kinds of complaints forget that momentum is a thing that exists.
Yeah, “space bombers” don’t make a ton of sense, as you’d have to be directly on top of your (stationary) target to ensure any sort of accuracy, but, for the same reason things don’t automatically “drop” in space, even just barely nudging an object “downward” will mean it will keep traveling “downward” until it’s stopped by something else.
lol, still crying
Considering how stupid this comment was (apparently it’s YOU who doesn’t know jack shit about gravity in space nor the fact that Leia was set up in multiple previous films as having Force abilities), I don’t think anyone really wants to hear the rest of your sizzling hot takes.
tlj came out four years ago now, that’s plenty of time for you to have picked up an elementary school student’s understanding of how gravity works, and yet you still haven’t done it?
Leia isn’t “god-mode,” she literally just uses force-telekenesis (a thing that even force-sensitive children can instinctively do) to pull herself through space. She’s only out there for a minute, which is about how long normal, non-Jedi people can survive in the vaccuum, and she still gets comatose for most of the rest of the movie. There is simply nothing wrong with that scene.
I don’t know where you are getting your information from, but someone sucked out into space could survive 15 seconds or so before all of the oxygen was sucked out of them. And when I saw this in theaters the audience erupted in laughter, because the scene on the whole was completely unneccesary and ridiculous. If they wanted to put Leia in a coma there are a million other ways they could have done it that would have worked better than that scene.
“I don’t know where you are getting your information from, but someone sucked out into space could survive 15 seconds or so before all of the oxygen was sucked out of them”
That is the first thing that comes up on Google, yes, but recent experiments show that people can likely last a couple of minutes. You’re complaining about the most realistic part of the movie.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/survival-in-space-unprotected-possible/
“ And when I saw this in theaters the audience erupted in laughter, because the scene on the whole was completely unneccesary and ridiculous. If they wanted to put Leia in a coma there are a million other ways they could have done it that would have worked better than that scene.”
Your audience was dumb and the scene worked fine.
Lol, Ok. So because you see the film as intelligent and with good story telling no one else can have a different opinion? You sound like someone from the Disney marketing team. “Smart people love our film.” Yeah they loved it so much that the following film tried to correct the disaster that Johnson created.
No, I’m saying that this particular criticism is ignorant on both science and Star Wars canon. I wrote a blog post about it:
http://chrisreviewstheworld.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-dumbest-critiques-of-that-leia.html
The worst parts of Rise of Skywalker are the ones that try to “correct” The Last Jedi (Rey being a Palpatine, Kylo going back to being an apprentice), so you’re not making the point you think you’re making here.
Not only is The Last Jedi clearly the best of the sequel trilogy, by far – it’s the only one that takes its world and its story seriously, instead of treating as a by-the-numbers nursery rhyme – but it’s also done the world a great service in giving us a shibboleth to swiftly identify arseholes. [obviously, Donald Trump and covid masks/vaccines have since filled a largely-overlapping arsehole-detecting void, but TLJ can still be used to catch out a few of the sneakier arseholes who have learnt to keep quiet on those two…]
Basically yes. It’s one of my secret litmus tests, as well.
This is such complete BS. So if you don’t like TLJ you are an a**hole. You are just what Disney wants, which is a mouthpiece for nonsense.
The empty “The Last Jedi” was a fraud to its core. Total garbage.Straining so hard for praise, the cloying film – so precious and self-congratulatory – managed to hoodwink some people at least, but the dwindling audience managed to see through Johnson’s smug self-satisfaction and storytelling dead-ends.
Colorful to a fault, Johnson’s antics on the film ranged from the obnoxious to the tedious. He flounders over and over again, trying way too hard with extended sequences that are too juvenile for even the most undemanding of children to enjoy. Johnson’s filmmaking, as a result, should not be respected, modeled or championed. It simply makes for tedious viewing. Benicio del Toro’s phone-it-in work gave the material the respect it deserved.
And can everyone please stop repeating his talking points. Johnson didn’t subvert expectations as much as clearly steal its plot wholesale from the recent “Battlestar Galactica”.Opening the film with a chase was not a choice dictated by TFA. In fact, that film ends with the Resistance secure after a mission completed. Johnson’s plot point is stolen wholesale from the “Battlestar Galactica” miniseries.TLJ opens with the Resistance in crisis mode and looking to escape the enemy with the ascension of an unknown leader. That’s the BSG pilot.The inciting incident is the heroes realizing that the villains are tracking them. That’s BSG episode “33″.That plot is resolved when the CO performs a one-in-a-million maneuver that uses the physics of space flight. That’s the conclusion of the New Caprica Arc.Honestly, I’d rather Johnson had just ripped off one episode and that’s it. By jumbling all these stories together, he’s failed to understand why Moore and co made these choices in the first place. Unlike the direct and powerful analogies of the TV show, there’s an emotional and psychological void to Johnson’s writing as he meanders from one clumsy story beat to another that are all ultimately unrewarding. It’s difficult to take him seriously as a thinker – and it’s particularly laughable – when he stops the film dead for pompous monologues about the evils of the unrestricted free market. These diversions are more hypocritical than illuminating, especially in light of the notoriety of his connections to the disgraced Alamo Drafthouse, his recurring legal issues with the manager that was with him since the beginning and the obscene $400 million costs for the “Knives Out” sequels.Johnson had totally dismantled Finn and pushed the Ren-Rey romantic relationship as the key one in this trilogy. Johnson admitted that he saw Rey and Kylo in TFA as the beginning of a “romantic” and “intimate” dynamic. She saw him murder his father and her mentor and Johnson felt that was “romantic” and “intimate”? Jesus. Without pointing fingers at persons, placing the two white characters as a “romantic” and “intimate” coupling is simply what institutional racism looks like. When Kylo and Rey first speak to each other in TLJ, she doesn’t even mention Finn even though he sacrificed himself to protect her, her was in a coma the last time she saw him and he could be dead for all she knows. This is the casual erasure of Finn in favor of a dynamic that was considered more palatable. Racism may have not been the intention but it is the result. I felt sorry for Tran: both for the racist and sexist online sentiments as well as the transparency of her function in the film. The figure of Rose – a later inclusion into the script – was invented to mask the horrible optics of moving on from a Rey-Finn focus to Rey and Kylo. In short, Johnson’s choices are just racist as hell and any notions that he offered progressive innovation is deeply shallow.The only glimmer of hope from Johnson’s film is that his creative failure was so overwhelming that the smirking and patronising Johnson won’t be darkening the doors of LucasFilm again.
Agreed. F you incel sw fans and Disney for caving into them.
It was just a bad movie. period. People are just having a knee jerk reaction, they reject any position incels happen to be behind. If incels announced they liked ice cream, you wouldnt stop eating ice cream. Actually, no-youd probably all of a sudden be against ice cream. GTFO with your bullshit.
The Last Jedi is the only movie I’ve ever fallen asleep to while watching in theaters, in my life. So no, I don’t think you’re right about that. Oh, and it was the premiere night too.
That’s interesting because what you did with the Last Jedi is exactly what I did with the shit show that was Rise of Skywalker
I didn’t like RoS either, I just didn’t fall asleep during it.
This is easy. RDR2. While I liked the idea of exploring more of that world, I hate prequels(in general), and I loved John Marston’s character from RDR1. So about an hour in, I was just mad at the game. It’s a prequel, John sucks, and it seems like your playing a colorless, soulless numbskull. I stopped for a good month. Then I read a couple things, saw a couple friends love it, and returned. It’s my second favorite game ever.(BOTW) I loved the story, I love the gang, I loved the world. But Arthur was such a great character. Cried at the end. A first for video games and I.
I’m not quite in the same boat here. Knowing it was a prequel made me slightly less hyped for it, than I might have been because of this the whole “I know how this story has to end vibe” (while also being resigned to knowing they basically had to make the game a prequel because RDR1 was set at the very very end of the Wild West period, and to go any further forward in time would make it a Mafia game or something) but I was intent on playing before the year was over because of my intense love of RDR1I was instantly on board once I actually got down and started playing it though, and blitzed through the whole thing in about two weeks.It was kind of a boon that I didn’t keep up with the development of the game that much, because it ended up being a huge surprise that the game was taking place within the same world map as the original. I was stunned to see early in the game that I could actually ride down to Blackwater, and that the epilogue let you explore nearly the entire RDR1 map which was some seriously nostalgic *****
I initially read that as “R2-D2”, and was like, “Why would anyone expect to hate R2-D2?
Now, CP30 is smug and has no people skills.
Gun > any RDR
“GAVIN!”
Downton Abbey.
With you on that. Mrs PF77 got into it while I was working away and got me into it on my return. Game of Thrones followed a similar trajectory.
British forelock-tugging blather, created for the American market. Woeful.
My sister told me to check it out. Her daughter (who reminds me of my mopey teen self) loved it. When it was on, I avoided it like anything popular at the time.
In before some asshole dumps hyperbolic videos about how TLJ broke into their house, stole all of their stuff, shot their grandma, and ate their dog in order to “promote discussion” about TLJ…If you wanna talk about Star Wars these days you don’t start by dropping a turd in the punch bowl and try to assure everyone it’s a snickers.
Literally zero idea of what your point is here, but okay!
Whenever Star Wars comes up over on Popcorn Champs some dude likes to spam the comment threads with random youtube video essays—presumably not his own—about how bad TLJ is. It’s annoying and kind of redundant, as he happily and copiously shares his own takes on TLJ in addition to the videos, but I don’t think he’s an asshole and he generally engages in good faith.
I know he’s arguing in good faith, but I’d just rather hear his own opinions on the movies than some asshole’s five hour long video about Space Wizard Movies. Those movies just make him look like he’s not there for a nuanced take because those kinds of YouTubers have negative reputations and nobody’s gonna watch them without risking fucking up their algorithm. Like he shouldn’t be surprised if people think the snickers he dropped in the proverbial punch bowl is a turd.
I don’t see how dropping links to hater youtube videos is “engaging in good faith.”
In that, videos aside, he seems genuinely interested in talking about the movie and isn’t your garden variety “RIAN JOHNSON PERSONALLY RUINED STAR WARS AND MY CHILDHOOD AND SHOULD BE TRIED IN THE HAGUE FOR WAR CRIMES” type of TLJ-hater troll. Like I said, the youtube video spamming is annoying as hell, but I don’t think he’s an asshole—at least not relative to the real assholes who can show up around here.
Well, if you want to engage in a respectful way, go for it. but you literally ruin all of that if you start posting those shitty fucking videos. It’s the polar the opposite of thoughtful, meaningful conversation.
That’s fair. I’ll put it this way: I don’t think they’re trying to be an asshole even though they succeed at being an asshole.
The Sequel Haters (like the people that harass the stars and fans of the sequels) are usually Prequel Lovers who grew up being told how stupid “their” Star Wars is by OT fans like me. Thought it was in fun back in the early ‘00s, but turns out when you tell a 6 year old everything they love SUCKS! it screws with their heads. All that said the Prequels are garbage, look worse and worse as time goes on, and it’s pathetic that the strongest defense for them is “But The Clone Wars!” I can’t even help myself. I’m sick.
This is more of an “industry inside-baseball” thing, but Pitch Perfect.In NYC we get lots of opportunities for movie screenings to the general public. You actually just sign up and if you hit the demo, they’ll email you with a registration link. So before Pitch Perfect came out I got invited to a screening. Then a second. Then a third. Five screenings in NYC in all. This is usually a very bad sign for a movie. So I ignored it, even if it had a few people I generally liked in things in the movie.And then I watched it on a long-haul plane from Asia expecting something dumb to keep me occupied and I had to literally cover my mouth to not laugh too loudly as it was during the sleeping / lights out portion of the flight.
I was forced to watch Breakfast at Tiffanys once for Valentines Day. I was young enough to remember loathing romantic films. Came away really loving that film (aside from Mickey Rooney) and really loving Audrey Hepburn, someone I still admire to this day after all these years.
It’s a much stranger film than its reputation suggests.
Yeah the When Romance Met Comedy segment on the film was on point. The reputation of being a light breezy romcom is really selling it short.
also a lot darker if you consider that Holly Golightly is actually a high class prostitute
On a similar romcom note: Four Weddings and a Funeral is honestly really, really good! Sure, it gets cheesy at points, but it’s a great film nonetheless.
A recent answer, but holy hell could I have not been more wrong about Cruella. What an awesome, fun as hell movie. Great cinematography, great costume design, great soundtrack, Emma Stone absolutely gave it her all.
Pretty much same. I saw the viral clip of the dogs killing her mom and expected it to be not great (as with most of the live-action movies based on old cartoons they’ve been doing lately). But when I went to see it, I was surprised by how not bad it was.
It was a great aesthetic for her! I saw the internet unfavorably comparing her look to Margot Robbie’s in the Harley Quinn films, but I think there is room for two pale sociopaths in fiction. And the soundtrack, as you mention, was also great! And setting.
Same. Just no interest in another cynical Disney updates of their properties. But then I started reading advance word and thought, hmmm, these are awfully positive, all of them. That combined with always looking for things the bf and I may enjoy together, I thought why not? And was just utterly floored by how much I loved it. Like everyone, the music, and the costumes – and not the music and costumes everyone has focused on (the rock/punk etc music, Cruella’s punk-y costumes), but Judy Garland!! Nina Simone?? Doris Day?? And Emma Thompson’s costumes – holy shit, they were freaking GORGEOUS! Not like jokes or something, which I half-expected, but amazingly constructed, those fabrics! One glam outfit after another!
I haven’t watched Step Up—I imagine it’s fun but light and looks like not my thing. But I sign up to film festival stuff these days and once I’ve paid for an all access ticket, I kind of watch everything (I don’t have to, but I do). So in the New York Asian Film Festival this year was The Way We Keep Dancing, a semi-sequel to 2013 Chinese movie about people finding themselves in a hip hop dance crew. I figure, they’ll find themselves again in dance, yeah?That kind of happens, but what it is is the original crew, now a success, splintered into different interests (and plotlines) about social media influence, co-opting of cultures, HK property rights, gentrification, challenging/working with land developers all the while for a small scrap of space in HK…all done smartly I think.I guess I’m asking, should I watch Step Up?
So, I’ll step in here and say that while the movie you describe does sound a bit like the Step Up sequels, the first Step Up is about a hip-hop dancer played by Channing Tatum trying to do ballet. And it is very boring and bad! I didn’t care for it at all………and then I had a *great* time at the sequels, especially Step Up 2 the Streets and Step Up 3, which are both directed by Jon M. Chu. So I would say, those two are worth watching, and the fourth/fifth movies are fun enough, too, though not as good. And even with the sequels, if you expect anything as complicated as what you describe in that other movie, you’ll probably be disappointed. Even 2 and 3 are more sweetly cornball old-fashioned dance musicals than anything really ambitious. But they are very well-directed and fun, while the first Step Up, though, is just a turgid romance that did nothing to convince me that Channing Tatum was a star in the making (and I like him fine now!).
Step Up 2 the Streets was better than Step Up. But Step Up is where Channing and Jenna fell in love so I still enjoy it knowing the back story.
In Bruges. It was an Orange Wednesday (movie tickets were 2 for 1) and everything else was sold out so we went in and you could feel the atmosphere that it was a room full of people who were there for the same reason. No-one knew what the movie was going to be about and that movie had everyone laughing their asses off more than any movie I can remember (except maybe Borat.) The whole theater went in prepared to hate this movie and take out our frustrations on it and it turned everyone around.
I think the only other time I’ve been in a movie where you can feel the atmosphere change the whole audience like that was Inglorious Basterds. Little different since people were having a good time from the start of that, and especially whenever Christopher Waltz was on screen, but a lot of people were drifting near the end since we all know how history plays out for Hitler. Then he was riddled with bullets and from the back of the cinema I could see everyone suddenly sitting up and paying attention.
I wouldn’t generally consume something I expect to hate. Thus it’s far more often that something winds up being a disappointment rather than a pleasant surprise.
Sort of the same for me, but sometimes I will consume something I expect hate just to confirm my bias (and be more informed about why I’m correct, haha). However I still get my fare share of pleasant surprises.
I’m pretty stubborn, and generally avoid things I think I won’t like, no matter how much people urge me to try them, but I suppose Seinfeld qualifies. I was familiar with Jerry’s act, and wasn’t a big fan. And the first few episodes I saw only reinforced this (the first season really isn’t very good, at least relatively speaking). But I eventually came around. The parking garage episode was a big turning point, and the “Jerry and George are gay” episode sealed the deal.
I was pretty much that way- I really disliked Jerry Seinfeld and his entire comedy schtick and it so it took me a long time before I finally started watching it. Then, once I got what the show was doing, I watched it obsessively
I was in the same boat as you guys. I liked Seinfeld okay, but he was one of those guys like Jay Leno who are reliably funny (back when Jay was just a stand-up), but kind of lacking in edge, and you get the feeling that once you’ve seen them once, you’ve seen everything they’ve got. The first season didn’t help much because the show took a while to find its feet, so I didn’t become a regular watcher until maybe the third season, but then I quickly got into it.
They also definitely sharpened up the lacking-in-edge part; it was sometimes just silly, but other times, about as transgressive as US network standards and practices allowed.But, yeah, it did take the cast a while to really inhabit their characters and get their timing down. A number of my betters have asked whether a show that gets off to a slow and shaky start like that would make it through the first season today. A world without “Seinfeld” would be a distinctly less funny place.I was not even really aware of the show during its actual run (and am kind of glad I jumped into the middle rather than starting at the beginning). Now we’ve both seen almost all of ‘em multiple times, with more to come.
I think part of the thing is that they weren’t sure what they’d be allowed to do and get away with and the more they realized what they could do, the more the show came into it’s own. This is true of both being able to be allowed to be about “nothing” but also in the edgier tone and language. I also think the show changed a lot when Jason Alexander realized that George Costanza wasn’t supposed to be Woody Allen but Larry David
“They also definitely sharpened up the lacking-in-edge part; it was sometimes just silly, but other times, about as transgressive as US network standards and practices allowed.”
Yeah, any debate about that should end immediately when we note that they aired an episode whose plotline was entirely “the main characters try to temporarily stop masturbating and fail miserably” in 1992.
The looming spectre of censorship may have improved things — working around it led to comedy gold.Interesting too, as you remind us, that it’s the main plot. Many Seinfeld episodes seem to have pretty much co-equal and often intertwined A, B, C, and sometimes even D plots, usually riffing on the same theme, for all the main characters (which of course is insanely complex for a half-hour sitcom). This episode is pretty much just the one plot with a few other things all in support of it, and is widely considered one of the best in not only the show, but the genre.
“As much as Rory still makes me want to throw things at my TV”She had the worst taste in men.
She had the worst taste in men. And in real life she’s married to Angel’s whiny son/Don Draper’s whiny colleague! (He might be a really nice guy, I have no idea.)
https://www.avclub.com/vincent-kartheiser-accused-of-disruptive-juvenile-beh-1847485572
Damn, I missed that when it came out. He’s the best thing about this season and now it’s tainted. Such a pity he had to act like an ass.
He’s also a whiny Nazi collaborator in the TV series of Das Boot (yes, there’s a TV series of Das Boot)!
Who is knocking it out of the park as Scarecrow on Titans right now. You would not believe how he has single-handedly elevated this season.
I was OK with Dean. Many of us have had a hot dumb boyfriend who was actually kind of great but just a bad match, because, dumb. I stopped watching during the Jess relationship because I wanted to kill everyone. That guy sucked, and I could not watch. I’ve been watching Never Have I Ever, and it’s shaping up to have a similar dichotomy between sweet, dumb hotty guy and smart but neggy asshole. I can feel the show pushing me to like the neggy dude, and I’m just like, OK, dumb hotty is not so smart, BUT AT LEAST HE’S MOSTLY NICE TO HER.
Yeah, if you put a gun to my head and force me to choose, I’d go with Dean.
Same, at least Dean wasn’t an entitled dick who lashed out at everyone around him for his own amusement like Jess and Logan. He just wasn’t quite as innately intelligent as Rory and definitely didn’t have her wealthy relatives or educational opportunities. Ah well, at least he got to smack Jess after he got too fresh with Rory.
Logan was actually a pretty good match for her, and I think he challenged her specific blind spots. Jess was only nice to her after they broke up. Logan called her out on thinking she was somehow a more special kind of rich kid.
I always hated how much they had to ret-con Dean into the hugest douche just to make Jess look a little more appealing.
Same! One of those dumb TV tropes where the couple suddenly starts getting into a ton of silly fights right when the hot new guy comes into town. The hot sociopath who is only nice to Rory and treats everyone else like garbage.
Rory is just the worst, period.
I’ve only seen the first season, and a bit of the second… but ye gods, if Rory does something to somehow be more annoying than Lorelei, I’ll be impressed. Lorelei is just… the worst. She’s all the tropes of lazy romcoms stuffed together and made worse. She goes beyond annoying and into outright abusive at times.And the plot is so repetitive! Lorelei overreacts to something, acts abusively and narcissistically, and then at the end of the episode she admits she was wrong (until the next episode) and everyone forgives her.
(so far, Rory’s not bad. She makes some stupid decisions, but realistically so given her age and naivity. Lorelei makes decisions that would get you involuntarily committed to an institution.)
Unfortunately, I get the sense that the things I was interested in in the show – like Lorelei’s relationship with her parents – were not what the writers were interested in (formulaic romcom stuff).
I’ve only seen the first season, and a bit of the second… but ye gods,
if Rory does something to somehow be more annoying than Lorelei, I’ll
be impressed. Lorelei is just… the worst.
Rory gets just as bad in the later seasons but, you’re right, Lorelei is a fucking monster from the get-go.
When I first watched the show, I was so enamored of fast, funny dialogue and Lauren Graham that I didn’t notice how Lorelei was rude, selfish, and treated everybody like crap. When I rewatched the show, a decade or so later, I wanted to run her over with my car and then set the body on fire just in case she was supposed to be a demon or the undead or something.
Gilmore Girls is actually my choice of answer for this article as well. I had a girlfriend who binged it a lot and I liked it so much more than I thought I would….except for Rory.
Honestly all the Gilmores were intolerable to me, but Rory especially being just an amalgamation of so many over privileged “gifted” kids who don’t deserve any of the opportunities they got hit too close to my own childhood. My girlfriend was constantly mad at me for rooting against Rory at every opportunity and being immensely pleased at all the men Rory lost because even as annoying as they were they deserved so much better than freaking Rory.
Ironically that girlfriend ended up basically being my own Rory. One of those girls I thought I was so lucky to have because they were smart and cultured and sweet but ended up being profoundly selfish and naïve.
One of the things that annoys me about Rory is she’s very much a—and pardon the cruelty, but I can’t think of a better way of expressing this—stupid person’s understanding of what a “smart” person. What makes Rory “smart” is that she reads books. She goes on and on about how much she loves reading and books. She will exhaustively name check all of the books and authors she’s read. At no point does she ever express an opinion or offer a critique of those books, or apply any critical thinking skills to much of anything. In fact, she doesn’t seem to have any viewpoint whatsoever. But she reads books and knows a lot of books and can recite what’s in the books so she’s very smart.
Rory is the exact type of cute-hot, bookish but not outspoken girl that a guy can feel flattered but not threatened by. Then again, to TV writers, pop culture literacy is the pinnacle of intelligent discourse.
I think that part of that is if they switched Rory’s dialogue from mentioning books and movies she likes to actually offering in-depth critique they would have lost a lot of their audience on the CW. The show sort of built itself on quick, snappy dialogue with tons of references and allusions instead of lengthy, singular critiques of like, “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Chinatown” and while I would be down for the Alexis Bledel book review hour, it wouldn’t have played to a broader audience and would have seemed kind of clunky if she talked about one subject for enough time to offer a proper critique. Especially in comparison to the rest of the fast paced chatter.
Eh, I’m not sure I buy that. E.g., this scene from Freaks and Geeks:Where the writers establish Lindsay’s intelligence in the space of about 30 seconds. The audience doesn’t have to have read Jack Kerouac in order to understand that Lindsay is smart enough to improvise a cogent “On the Road” critique on the spot, and all in service of standing up for her friend. In one scene she demonstrates more intelligence, agency, and willingness to stick by her own convictions than Rory does…well, ever.
Unfortunately, for Rory to give a 30-second opinion on The Brothers Karamazov, the writers would have had to have actually read The Brothers Karamazov…
True, she was a much better character than Rory. Would have liked them to somehow meet though.
For me it was Elementary.“You’re going to modernize Holmes, relocate him to NYC, and turn it into a 22 episode network procedural? Fuck that.”Boy, was I wrong.
My relationship with this show is complicated. Because I was skeptical, but intrigued enough to watch and ultimately enjoy the pilot.But the show just got hard to watch because while I loved the dynamic between Holmes and Watson, the show ultimately get too damn same-yThe first season has great story arcs tying it together like Watson learning to become a detective, and the Moriarty mystery which have an amazing payoff.But after that is over repetition inherent in its extremely procedural format couldn’t sustain it for me, even with characters I liked … and Natalie Dormer barely ever reprised her role after that, so the show was robbed of ever actually getting to use its established main villain.IT WAS SO FRUSTRATING. Even the series finale teases Moriarty. But doesn’t actually give us any damn Moriarty.
I should probably point out that my enjoyment of Elementary comes not from the plots, but the chemistry between the leads and its frankly remarkable (for a network drama, anyway) treatment of mental illness.
I did like it a lot, but that was my one disappointment with the show, not enough Moriarty, and that’s not only because of Natalie Dormer…
Ha, literally watching an episode right now. At the time, I was loyal to Sherlock in the great “modern Sherlock Holmes retelling” wars at the time, but since then Sherlock’s stock has fallen precipitously with me and I’ve grown to appreciate Elementary far more. Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock might actually be the most book-accurate portrayal of them all, and I appreciate how they don’t try to give him supernatural observation powers or try to blame his anti-social tendencies on some undiagnosed autism spectrum disability, a la Cumberbatch-Sherlock.
For me, Sherlock S3 was brilliant, with its Rupert Murdoch allegory, and the rest I can take or leave. Same with Elementary S1. At least with Sherlock though, though it often shows off Moffat’s worst impulses as a writer, I find those more interesting failures than post-S1 Elementary, which is just a bland, dull procedural indistinguishable from most CBS shows.
Well, to be honest, I like procedurals, and if you’re going to adapt Sherlock Holmes into a TV show, a mystery-of-the-week format makes the most sense. I agree that season 1 does the best job balancing the episodic stuff with a serialized arc, but even post season 1 I’d still say the performances and writing put it a cut above your typical episode of NCIS. Gatiss/Moffat, meanwhile, are ambivalent at best toward the whole mystery side of things, and seemed much more interested in making an adventure or even superhero series. There’s a lot to like about Sherlock, including the dialogue, characterization, and production values, but I tapped out once I realized that they were more interested in writing Sherlock-themed Doctor Who than the real deal.
Yeah, I get that criticism. At the same time, though, pretty much every Holmes adaptation (and the originals) have some crazy deductions no human could possibly do. Silly deductions and ridiculous solutions to mysteries that the audience could never have guessed are present in the original stories too.
I don’t mind procedurals. Elementary S1 was a damn good one, and I really like it to this day. I don’t mind mystery stories that focus on the pleasure and logic of an Aristotlean mystery where all the pieces fit and you could have put all the pieces together but didn’t because the writer is just that good. I also don’t mind when shows use the framework of a mystery set-up to explore other things.
The problem with mysteries is that it’s incredibly easy to write a passable one – we could all do it, we know the tropes by heart – but really, really hard to write a genuinely good one. There’s only so many possibilities, and the audience is so wise to all of them, that it’s almost impossible to write something that makes sense AND is suprising. So writers tend to resort to a lot of distracting hand-waving to gloss over the fact the plot makes no sense, or to make the boring plot seem less boring. So often, the actual cases of the week end up feeling like a penance that writer and audience alike have to go through to appease the studio gods, in exchange for getting some glimpses of the things we’re actually watching for and that the writers actually want to write.It doesn’t help that the genre is basically incompatible with US TV formats: first, because you’re almost certainly doomed in trying to tell a good mystery story in a less-than-an-hour episode; and then also because the worst thing for a genre in which the authors are struggling against cliche from the start is to make them do it 22 times a year for several years in a row. This is one genre in which the British approach – four or five episodes a year, each episode two hours long – is really better suited (British TV rarely measures up to the US, but the two-hour murder mystery is one product we do excel at…)
Right. I agree with all of that. That’s why I’m fine with writers who put characterization and meta-fiction first, and handwave away the mysteries with super-power like deductions.
Scandinavia is pretty good at crime dramas/mysteries too. The Killing (original Danish version) is pretty damn impeccable (so much better than Broadchurch it’s not even funny), and it’s not even the best crime show to come out of that peninsula.
We’ve done it right on occasion. Columbo comes to mind. Aside from Peter Falk’s iconic performance, it was an hour and a half long (net; two hours with commercials), so they could break out of the formulaic structure and pacing of a one-hour procedural, and it only came out about once a month in a rotation with some other cop and cop-adjacent shows, so they didn’t have the relentless pressure to pull ideas out of the halfbakery that afflicts pretty much any full-traditional-season weekly show.
In similar ‘lazy procedural gimmick’ vein… Lucifer. It was a terrible, even actively infuriating, idea, and frankly there was a lot wrong with the show at first as well. It’s really carried by the lead’s charisma over some pretty formulaic, shallow procedural stuff. But the writers decided to take their concept seriously and explore some really interesting directions. I don’t think I’d ever call it a masterpiece, and it’s too quick to rely on lazy tropes, but it far exceeded my expectations and is definitely worth watching!
If I’d heard the premise of Person of Interest before it came out, I’d probably think it was like Touched by an Angel, played straight. Was not expecting it to be more about what it means to be human.
Absolutely. Not an example for me, though, because I happily fell into the ideal state for a viewer: I’d been assured by a bunch of people that it was really good and worth giving the time to, but hadn’t been told what happens. So I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did, but wasn’t expecting to hate it either.Similarly, iZombie. Stupid name, unappealing concept. But I expected it to be great because I’d recently caught up on Veronica Mars and knew it was the same writer. [sadly, he must then have been attacked by zombies at some point, since only this can explain the rapid deterioration of the show after S2, combined with the bone-headed, series-killing ending to S4 of Veronica Mars and his fatuous and offensive comments justifying it…]
I came to it because someone recommended it when we were discussing other stuff Amy Acker had been in. I remember they said the show made much better use of her than the under-written Winifred Burkle (love Illyria), and they were absolutely right. Just wasn’t expecting how mind-blowingly great it ended up being.
Yep, what happened to Rob Thomas? The final two seasons of iZombie were pretty atrocious.
Aargh. S1 was brilliant, S2 had problems in hindsight but was a lot of fun… I made it through S3 and didn’t think it was worth it. Everything I’ve read about S4-5 makes me glad I didn’t continue. I think there were two thematic problems there: first, they flanderized Liv, playing to the comedy rather than the character development; and then they went into broad SF territory. I like SF, but I don’t think Thomas thinks like a SF writer – I read some episode reviews of the last two seasons and they all seemed to suggest they were focusing on the wrong things in the wrong way. And psychologically, Thomas took his eye off the ball, resurrecting Veronica Mars and attempting to get his Lost Boys thing going – I don’t know if he delegated on iZombie or just didn’t have his heart in it any more, but it seemed to rapidly lose the… intensity? Commitment?But then there was the VM debacle and his comments around it, which have kind of exploded the myth, for me. Maybe he’s just a good writer of witty dialogue, a capable writer of episodic mysteries, and blessed with two fantastic leads, but not actually that great at seeing the bigger picture? To be fair, ‘witty dialogue writer’ often doesn’t seem to go along with ‘big picture visionary’ – Whedon likewise went off the rails pursuing the wrong big pictures, and I don’t think I’d trust Sorkin in a similar situation either. come to think of it, even Tarantino would probably do better adapting someone else’s plots…
It was weird because the more the show focused on the worldbuilding, sci-fi plot stuff, the less Liv had to do—because the show couldn’t figure out how to get her involved in the main plot in a way that made sense. When they tried, they ended up having her make absolutely baffling decisions while the show cast her as a messiah-like hero, even though what she was doing was pretty clearly wrong by almost any ethical standard.
And yeah, in Season 1 all of the personalities she took on seemed to actually inform her character development. From Season 2 on, they were just overly broad jokes that had almost nothing to do with her as a person or the main plot of the show.
Great point! The SF story they wanted to tell – that had been opened up by Liv’s story – essentially had nothing to do with Liv [thinking about it: of all the main characters, it was LEAST above Liv!]. So either they shouldn’t have told that story (either stop the show, or commit to sticking with showing Liv’s own life in the new world, leaving the high-level stuff to one side), or they should have accepted it wouldn’t be about Liv – made Liv’s story into a ‘book one’, and the post-spread story a ‘book two’, as it were, with Liv as just a guest star, and possibly (as the oldest zombie still alive) an urban legend. Either could have worked (though the latter was probably impossible for contract reasons). [though the best season of The Wire is the one that the central protagonist, McNulty, barely appears in]. But trying to shoehorn Liv into that new story just made no sense from the beginning.Completely agree on the brains issue. The show started off showing how Liv’s new empathy could begin to break through her depression; but it quickly dropped any of that character development stuff, and Liv just became a recepticle for a comedy routine of the week.
I wasn’t prepared to hate it, exactly, because I like Lucy Liu, but I was expecting to disdain Jonny Lee Miller and instead was shocked by how skilled an actor he’s become.
Jonny Lee Miller is the bomb.
30 Rock. I don’t know that I was necessarily expecting to hate it (I wouldn’t have watched it at all in that case), but there were two shows coming out at the same time that were loosely based on SNL – a prestige drama with a cracking cast created by Aaron Freaking Sorkin and a screwball comedy starring Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan – and I knew damn well which one I was going to love and which one I’d check out but probably stop watching after an episode or two.Welp, I could not have been more wrong. I loved 30 Rock from the go, and gave Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip more episodes than I probably should have.
Unfortunately I found both of them insufferable!
30 Rock is definitely in that weird place for me where even though I absolutely loved it I totally understand why people would hate it.
This week, I was rewatching 30 Rock while working. My boyfriend said that he refused to watch it when it came out because he hated Tracy Morgan. After a few episodes, I got him hooked. We’re on Season 5 now.
I didn’t dislike Tracy Morgan’s work as such – I enjoyed several of his SNL characters, especially Brian Fellow – but I questioned whether he was strong enough to co-lead a show. I think they ended up deploying him just right.
Agreed! He was utilized well in the show. I kinda get the dislike of him because it seems like he plays the same character in everything he’s in. I’m just indifferent.
Brian Fellow is one of my favorite all time SNL characters. Still if my wife and I walk by someone with a dog I lean in and with a conspiratorial tone say under my breath, “Did you see the way that dog was looking at me?”
Clueless. I thought of it for years as a chick flick for teen girls, then finally I saw it and realized how charming, smart, and funny it was.
I had a very similar reaction to Mean Girls. I teach high school girls, so a few years ago I figured I should check out this cultural touchstone. It’s so much better, smarter, and funnier than it has any right to be.
I haven’t seen it for a bit, but the biggest “surprise” was that Tina Fey and Tim Meadows aren’t doing sketch characters; it’s “real acting” which I’m sure is insulting to somebody to say but anyway.
Tim Meadows doesn’t always do sketch characters. He’s been great over the years on The Goldbergs and Schooled as the guidance counselor/principal.
I barely saw Mean Girls like six years ago. I stayed away from it because of Lindsay Lohan, thinking it was going to be like every other teen movie that came out at the time. I was so wrong!
Legitimately, not a joke, IMO the best Jane Austen adaptation of all-time.
Literally the only Austen adaptation that understands that it’s satire! The updated time setting definitely helps, but every part of that movie is genius.
If Clueless came out today, I wouldn’t even bother with it. I watched it a few weeks ago for nostalgia purposes (and to stare at Paul Rudd).
Moonlight Kingdom.Wes Anderson’s style annoys me to distraction; A Life Aquatic remains the only movie I’ve tried to finish and failed every time, even eventually with heavy psychotropic assistance. The Royal Tennenbaums was a gauzy piece of fun; I disliked The Grand Budapest Hotel, mostly, as trying too hard. Nothing else of his really caught me as being different from his standard style. So I had no strong expectations except an off-putting style and a overweening sense of self-awareness, with some mild amusement and major annoyance.But Moonlight Kingdom is glorious, sincere cinema. God, I just love that movie. And I don’t even believe in a god.Honorable mentions: The Devil Wears Prada, Warrior, Cats & Dogs, Friday, Bring it On, Silverado. Great stories can be found anywhere; the flip-side of Sturgeon’s law is also always right.
Below Deck
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Nothing about it should’ve worked for me on paper.
We started watching it last year and my husband expected it to be a dumb kinda sitcommy show. He didn’t think he’d hate it but he was surprised at how much he loved it. We’re almost done with our rewatch.
I started watching it last night, thanks for the recommendation!
who knew you could love a show so much with a musical number called “heavy boobs”?
I can’t read music, either.
That’s mine, too! Such a stupid title. I didn’t see it until someone I really trust encouraged me to give it a go. Very shortly, I loved it.
On that note, Jane the Virgin for me. The title alone felt like it was daring me to watch it, and then there’s the fact its on CW, a network where my tolerance threshold is extremely low. Expected to hate it- Now I feel like its a part of me.
I also loved that show but I broke off watching after one of my favorite characters “died” and never got back into it. Just too much of an emotional roller coaster. But it was my jam for a while. Even though the premise prevented me from watching it for a bit, just seemed too silly, the cast is incredible and more shows should have a narrator like that.
Oh hell yeah. I never heard a description of Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend that did it justice. The only reason I watched it was because an LA radio sports show called Petros & Money used to use the “I have friends, I definitely have friends!” chorus anytime they felt someone (including themselves) was name dropping. Their show followed Pat O’Brien’s radio show so they used the song A LOT. I thought the song was hilarious so I looked up the show and was hooked.
I liked all the parts that weren’t signing, but eventually had to give up because of all the songs.
“I liked all the parts that weren’t signing, but eventually had to give up because of all the songs.”
Absolutely insane take.
You’re right, there was no signing! I meant singing.
The songs were the best part!
Yes. It’s one of those titles, like “Cougar Town,” that paints a really repellant picture of the show. But it turns out Rachel Bloom is goddamn brilliant and it has a lot to say, significantly about mental health.Also, whenever my wife and I drive eastward out of LA and pass through West Covina, we play that song from the pilot. It’s just so goddamn good.
Seconded. I had a hard time thinking of one, but that definitely fits.
Came here to say exactly this. And yet, from the very first butter commercial, it totally hooked me.
This was mine as well, and the previews certainly did it no favors but I’ve seen it all the way through more than three times and look like a hero whenever I convert someone who also eschewed it the first time cuz it’s SO. GOOD.
On Neir: Automata: I get the urge to call bullshit whenever people talk about “you have to beat it multiple times to get the real ending”. The truth is that the game is just misleadingly broken up with fake credit screens. SPOILERS:The “second playthrough” is the events of the first playthrough from a different point of view. Then the “third playthrough” is new events that follow both of those. This “third playthrough” jumps between different perspectives, which just reminded me that the first two could have been combined into one in the same way. There is absolutely no reason to break it up like that except to play a trick on the audience.
It is an amazing game. The layers to the story and characters more than justify multiple playthroughs. All the more to get to know the world and get attached to 2B, 9S and A2.
I agree it’s aesthetically amazing. I just don’t agree that those are “playthroughs”.
Not for all of the endings, certainly. I was referring to the bigger, story-intensive playthroughs.
The Last Jedi was a piece of media that I thought I would love but oh my God do I ever hate it.
Sour, by Olivia Rodrigo.As an almost-50 y/o man, the elevator pitch of “17 year old girl’s album about adolescence and breakups” made me think this was going to something that would fall in the very much “not for me” category. But that album is just so good! Honestly probably my favorite of the year.
I really did not expect a song by a Disney star about being heartbroken at the time you get your driver’s license to be anything but awful but that damn song is pretty great. Sure, it’s a long, long time since I had to worry about getting a driver’s license but I that song brought up memories and feelings I haven’t felt since I did have to worry about getting my driver’s license. No matter how old you are, there’s an inner, gawky teenager in there somewhoere
Reagan was President when I got my driver’s license, and that song dragged me right back to getting dumped by my high school boyfriend.
I grew up during Reagan too. That song brings out a very visceral reaction to it in a lot of people and the fact it could do so to us old fogies proves what a great song it is
This is a good answer. I am a 50 yo man, and this is indeed a good-ass record. Even better though, is “if I could make it go quiet” by girl in red. Album of the year by a mile so far.
I’ve never been a big fan of straight slapstick. It can be funny, but in small doses. I didn’t watch Mr. Bean for a long time because I thought I’d be bored by it. As a fan of the sitcom Blackadder, I enjoyed Rowan’s deadpan snark and deft wordplay. Then one day I came across Mr. Bean’s Xmas special on YT and found myself loving it. I came to admire Rowan’s talent for physical comedy (which makes the cartoon version seem pointless, as Rowan as Bean is a living cartoon.). The nativity scene in which he just starts throwing sheep had me crying with laughter.
The Goldbergs immediately comes to mind. Oh, look, it’s another stupid, by-the-numbers network sitcom when that ship has sailed and sunk. Except, it’s kinda both that AND not that? You can set your watch by the places the beats take place (the premise, the escalation, the conflict/sad moment, the makeup, the lesson), but the nostalgia hit is pretty strong, the running inside gags are pretty great, and the weird meta dialogue actually does make me laugh. It’s sweet and nonsensical and really pushes all the right buttons for me. I can’t explain it, I really should despise this show, but now I’m looking forward to season 9.
Episode 1 was the absolute worst for every reason you describe… but it went to snazzy by the next few.And I, too, have always taken my pants off the instant I enter the house. Hit me where it hurts, yo.
I like The Goldbergs a lot, but a lot of the time the writers get really lazy and just rely on references to ‘80s pop culture touchstones to get recognition points rather than going for actual laughs or character development. When they try, though, they’re capable of writing really stellar episodes of character-driven comedy, such as the one where the Goldbergs and Geoff Schwartz go to eat dinner at a steak restaurant. That’s the one that stands out to me as the high water mark of the series.
Oh God, that episode. Erica just kind of matter-of-factly trying to prepare him for the horror that he was about to endure was absolute gold.It will be interesting to see if anything changes this season with Adam Goldberg not being the showrunner anymore.
Well… if the whole thing was kind of a (hopefully) exaggerated roman à clef about his childhood, and he’s stepping back in his level of involvement (and perhaps more importantly, the characters are no longer children…)It isn’t unknown for shows that have been in a comfortable rut to get their mojo back with reinvention (and/or plan to wrap things up) and a newfound energy, but it seems an especially big loss in this case—to say nothing of George Segal’s role as the secret sauce in the recipe. Hope springs a leak eternal…
I personally hate “The Goldbergs”, but okay.
Honestly, I expect you’re firmly in the majority of AVClub readers in that feeling.
Thanks. I mean, that means nothing to me, really. But as long as you’re enjoying something you like and I can crap on the same thing without starting a flame war, we’re all good. 🙂
For sure, people should be able to like or not like whatever without comment section drama. Peace!
Super formulaic, but so fun and hilarious…then the characters got Flanderized into obnoxious, relationship-dominating monsters (except Murray, though to be fair, he’s a hard character to fuck up). Add to that the obnoxious Erica-Geoff nonsense and Beverly going full Karen (to say nothing of George Segal’s passing) and season 9 is sounding more and more like a bad idea.
Yeah, it very well may be, but I’ll wait & see. I expect that they’ll do something really sweet & touching around Pop’s/Segal’s passing.
Season 8 was the season I stopped watching, it just got a little TOO formulaic for me, but then George Segal died IRL and I wondered how the show would handle it. How did they handle it? Pops and Adam were always so close on the show, I was curious how that would play out if they killed off Pops eventually.
Bojack Horseman. Cartoons for adults are a hard sell for me, and the first season starts off pretty weak. But once it really kicks into gear, there’s nothing else like it.
After the first season, I didn’t continue. Sounds like it improves?
Definitely for me, but it’s not for everyone, and I get why. Mainly that some find that its humor/drama combo just doesn’t work. Personally, I adore it.
It improves greatly after the first season.
Hot take time: The best television series of all time. Not animated, the best. Fight me.
Pulp Fiction: I had always thought that it wasn’t as good as people said it was. Then, I did see it. Turns out it is as good.
I saw it when it came out, and I had no reference point because I didn’t really know who Quentin Tarantino was, and I had never seen Reservoir Dogs. I just remember the opening scene and then the cut to the credits and Dick Dale’s “Miserlou”, and my best friend and I turning to each other and saying, “Okay, this is the best fucking movie ever.”
I thought that about Reservoir Dogs. By that time I’d kind of osmosed a sort of understanding of what Tarantino was about and was expecting something… I don’t know, pointlessly self-indulgent and shallow. Instead, I got a really tight, classical stage play, beautifully shot, that gripped me for all but, say, five minutes in the middle somewhere. Oh, I thought. That’s why people think the guy’s a genius.
Happy Endings. Hated the title and the idea of a show that is essentially Friends in Chicago. I was so wrong and it became one of my favorite shows.
if “Happy Endings” is “Friends”, then literally every sitcom ever made is also “Friends” because they’re always about people who are, you know, friends.
Some sitcoms are about families or people who work together. CNN recently covered this –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_SitcomBut, Happy Endings got me by a few episodes, and I’m rewatching it on HBOMax now.
There are AV Club people interviewed on this!
Isn’t that the docu-series that was widely derided by sitcom writers and other professionals who were actually there at the time?
To give a non-US perspective: I associate sitcoms-about-friends overwhelmingly with the US. UK sitcoms are traditionally about people who hate each other but are unable to escape, most often co-workers or bickering families. There are exceptions in both directions, of course, but that seems to be the general rule. At least until the last decade or two, there’s relatively few classic british sitcoms that are just about friends who hang out voluntarily with one another, and even they often have a “start by hating each other but become friends” dynamic.
Community has a pretty good bit about about Abed’s favorite show, (actual American hangout sitcom) Cougar Town, being based off of (fake British sitcom) Cougarton Abbey, which ran for six episodes and ended with everyone drinking hemlock and dying.
I don’t know if you’re aware, but “there are six episodes and then everyone drinks hemlock and dies” is literally the plot of the original Blackadder.
Fortunately they decided to bring the characters back two centuries later, with the same names, but reversed personalities, and made a second season that was lightyears better.
Yeah, I prefer sarcastic Atkinson to bumbling Atkinson so I never bothered watching Blackadder I after enough people warned me off it. I’ve seen Blackadders II-IV and their respective “everybody dies” endings, though.
Blackadder I is… well no, it’s not good. It does have some good moments, even some good episodes. It’s worth watching at some point if you’ve got nothing else to watch. There’s clearly enough talent in front of and behind the screen to explain why it got a second season. Just bear in mind that it’s both worse than, and completely different from, ‘real’ Blackadder.[to be fair, I’m not sure it’s worse than Back and Forth, or that Millennium thing.]
Coupling was a pretty obvious and WAY better take on the Friends model. But yeah, probably an outlier.
Which would mean that every sitcom is Living Single.
Happy Endings is exponentially better than Friends, and it was the only show I can recall where I was seething with rage when it was cancelled: “OK America, you endured 67 seasons of Two and A Half Men, but you can’t make it through this? Really? REALLY?”
The English Patient. It was 2am, there was nothing else on, so I decided to watch it. It ended up being a very good movie.
OH GO TO HELL!Actually, I’ve never actually seen it, and most of what I know about it is Elaine’s hatred of it on Seinfeld.
It’s a pretty good movie, but definitely overblown and overpraised. But Elaine’s hatred of it is the most on-point Elaine thing of all time.
“Glee” … well, most of it anyway. Some clunkers but overall, fond memories.
I’ll co-sign this. The first season or two, anyway. Glee was the type of show that knew people were expecting to hate it, and leaned into that with a lot of self-deprecating humor, and that made it clever. The main imagery of the show is a slushie, which symbolizes the in-universe bullying, and the very character of Sue Sylvester could feel like an unfiltered audience proxy a lot of the time.
Oof. I watched the first season when it aired because it helped me bond with my kid. I decided this year to rewatch and finish it and I just couldn’t. Good idea, interesting first season, one of the most vile pieces of shit I have ever subjected myself to thereafter. (No, I did not finish.)
Buffy, Buffy, Buffy, Buffy, Buffy.Or, how I learned to accept and then become deeply obsessed with something originally seen as a show about teenagers and vampires on the WB.
It helps that the high school element didn’t figure into the stories a whole lot. Penny Dreadful scratched the same itch for me, if you haven’t seen it.
Hot take: the best “Buffy” seasons were the high school seasons.
Specifically season 3, with the Mayor as the main villain.
Not a hot take for me: Seasons 2 and 3 are definitely the best. You could make an argument for 5 as well, but 4, 6, and 7 all have some fairly glaring weaknesses.
Which season had Glory in it? Because that character was the fucking worst.
Season 5. And yes, she was the worst. Well, apart from The First.
S5. But S5 also had Fool For Love, The Body, and The Gift. So it balances out a bit.
5 has glaring weaknesses too. And it’s also… almost an entirely different show? The only good things about 5 are The Body, the final episode, Dawn (I know everyone hates her, but I liked the idea and think it really helps in giving Buffy more dimensions), the brief moments near the end of Willow being badass, and of course the “it’s so shiny” joke. Oh, and is there a brief clip of Giles singing?I suppose we may as well go though them:
1: controversially, I love the tone – closer to both horror and comedy. Some terrible (terrible, terrible) episodes, some really good ones.
2: has the best episodes, is basically the archetypal Buffy. (very icky and problematic by today’s standards; not clear if that’s intentional or not)
3: more consistent, has the best season arc.
4: improved production values and Willow has a haircut. Giles sings, and the weird final episode is very weird. Briefly a nice dynamic between Buffy and the Initiative. Otherwise, spinning wheels, very disappointing.
5: see above. melodramatic and so slow.
6: godawful. Once More With Feeling is brilliant, the five minute Groundhog Day sketch is funny, and the Willow fight at the store is good. The Willow concept is great but terribly executed.
7: the first third is up there with the best Buffy ever. Really brings back the horror, while also upping production values, and having a sense of characters actually evolving. But it goes completely off the rails chasing some idiotic mythology stuff, making little sense, and sacrificing all other characters on the altar of Buffy’s demigoddesness. Plus many of the actors are just going through the motions (inside joke not intended) by this point.The problem once they leave high school is that there’s no longer any grounding for the characters. Although high school was only a peripheral part of the plot, it was a huge part of the setting, making the characters seem real and relatable (and mostly worried about things other than the plot) in a way that just isn’t true of, say, Stargirl now. And giving them a sense of growth – eg it actually feels like a big deal in S3 when they’re old enough to sit around in the light on the grass just outside school grounds instead of always being in the library. One school is gone, and the writers rapidly gave up on actually caring about college, everything (even just having excuses for the characters meeting) had to revolve around the supernatural plot, making the world seem so much smaller and more artificial. They also mostly lost the parents at that point. Buffy was always about growing up, but they made a big mistake in just assuming that that stopped when they left high school.
One of the show’s main metaphors was that High School was literally hell so once they left high school, they lost that central metaphor. College is the opposite of hell and while early twenty-something existence sort of hellish, not quite as fun as a metaphor. I get what they were trying to do in S4-S7, see the thinking behind and appreciate the ambition but the show definitely lost some of it’s sparkle once High School ended. That being said, I will defend S4 to my dying breath
S4 has some of the best one-offs, peak Spike, and great characterization/development. But the stuff with Initiative/Adam is so gummed up and confused. Drags the whole thing down.
One thing that made me laugh (/get annoyed) was at the end of S4, when they basically have a little conversation about the last year, and it’s so clear that the finale is the finale to a season… that didn’t actually exist. That is: I understand what they wanted to do that season, on paper, and it would have been awesome, but they did not actually do any of it. The last few episodes, really, feel like belated catching up on things that weren’t actually the plot until that point. I always kind of had the impression that in the post-3 seasons Whedon wrote some notes down, then buggered off for the seasons and popped back in when he felt like it, not realising that people hadn’t actually been following the notes. Likewise when he popped back for that Tara-centric episode, which is the epic culmination of the big Tara arc that… never actually happened?
Okay, let’s go through them then, why Not?S1 is easily the worst. The production values are awful, the stories are mostly B/C-tier horror movie level, the characters aren’t quite themselves, and it nearly drowns in its own camp. Still easily watchable, just far below the others. CS2 is brilliant but inconsistent. As you say, the Buffy/Angel stuff is icky but still—the arc works wonderfully nonetheless. A lot of dross, but the high points are some of the highest in tv history. The tonal blend of charm and operatic drama is just intoxicating. A.S3 is a well-oiled machine. Has the fewest flaws and just hums along. One of the most consistent king-sized seasons in the history of the medium. AS4 has lots of very good things about it. Some of the best one-offs (Fear Itself, Something Blue, Hush, A New Man, Who Are You?, Restless). Spike at his funniest. Exceptional character development for several of them. But. The Initiative stuff is completely whacked, and sucks the life out of everything when it shows up. B.S5 tries to combine the emotional high points of S2 with the consistency of 3, and for the most part it does. The main problem is that Glory is no Mayor, and there are some real rough spots here—particularly the Buffy/Riley breakup, which has the audacity to frame Buffy as being in the wrong. Not to mention a handful of weak episodes here and there. Still great. A-S6 is an interesting one. Very daring and bold, but there’s a part of me that thinks a show like Buffy shouldn’t be getting as dark. And yeah, the Willow stuff—just no. Just. No. I’m glad the writers tried hard to earn Buffy’s resurrection, though. B.S7’s first third is great, but after that, the writers just lose control of the plot. And since it gets so much focus (along with the excruciating newcomers), there’s not much room for the show’s strengths to shine. Still not bad. B-
To counter your counter:1: I’m OK with the camp. I like the serious darkness (the teenage cannibalism, for instance). ‘The Puppet Show’ is one of the funniest episodes in the whole show. I’d say half of it is good. [the last four episodes all work, through in Angel and The Pack which half-work, and the two-part pilot which isn’t great but isn’t bad by the standards of pilots]. B-!2-3: I agree with you. 3 is consistently great with a season arc that should be taught in film schools; 2 tries to mix melodrama and camp, sometimes fails painfully but sometimes gets it absolutely right. It’s also maybe the funnies season?4: everything about it is just so dead and flat and lifeless with no stakes (no pun intended) and no direction. There are only brief moments that are still good, and I continue to believe that the only reason everyone loves Hush is that it’s basically a Season 1 episode made with Season 4 production values – it’s so much sharper. And then there’s Spike, who I view as basically a cancer growing in the show (along with Anya). Yes, he’s great fun, but that makes the writers focus on him when he should be dead and gone, and certainly not neutered and made into a laughing stock (he gets a bit of dignity back in later seasons, but never the raw menace he had in the classic seasons (he’s the Blaine of Buffy)). And he’s a symptom of a wider problem, which is that 4-7 are basically set in a different – less scary – world than 1-3. In 1-3, a demon is an individually-named, inconceivable thing the very presence of which would lead to mass death; in 4-7, a demon is a likeable guy with a wrinkly face who plays poker down the pub. Everything becomes domesticated. C!5: I appreciate that they TRIED to do something different, but it just worked so badly! It’s clunky and interminable and oh gods the Riley plot no no no (hey, iZombie – plots where the depressed boyfriend gets into drugs temporarily and blames the heroine just aren’t fun, OK?). Since they tried, and the ending is good, they get a B.6: D. There’s one good episode. It’s good that it’s getting back to the darkness of its roots, but it’s worse than season 1 at its worst. It has one good episode. Over time, the campiness the show started with has been replaced by whiny angst. I’d rather watch bad camp than bad angst, because bad angst is painful but at least bad camp can be fun. And yes, I do appreciate that they made the resurrection, despite us knowing it was a foregone conclusion, seem doubtful and dangerous and expensive… but the flip-side of the resurrection plot is remembering that they filled the gap by going back to the season 5 AI sex-slave robo-Buffy plot. Speaking of which, season 5, what the hell, why did you have a sex-slave robo-Buffy plot to begin with!?!? No writer should ever treat “let’s have the heroine fight a robot sex-slave replica of herself!” as a serious plot point with character ramifications! D!7: the first third or so would be A, but overall… C-? D+? I would rather watch S1, even the bad episodes, than S7 including its bad episodes. [and it helps that the worst S1 episodes are the least important, whereas you can’t just skip the bad episodes of S7…]
I think there are many good episodes in Season 6. Normal Again, Dead Things, and After Life, in particular, and throw in Tabula Rasa as well.
I’ll grant you Normal Again. After Life is… OK. Dead Things I think is awful, just so ludicrously over the top edgelordy. When Buffy has to actually explain all that stuff to Giles out loud later on, both Giles the character and Head the actor accidentally burst out laughing, and I’m afraid that was my reaction as well*. [although at least Buffy’s angsty arc was better done than Willow’s…] Tabula Rasa had some entertaining moments, but the whole memory-wipe episode gimmick is so overdone, and it’s not even the best memory-wipe episode in the buffyverse…*OK, maybe if that episode had been in a different, much better, show. But in the context of S6 of Buffy it was just trying way too hard. I do get – and even approve of – the idea that resurrected Buffy is going to have some issues to work through, but I just couldn’t buy the execution.
Man, slow is right. The first third of Buffy Season 5 is the show at its most boring and aimless. They introduce every major plot too early and thus spend far too long just repeating the same information at the audience for several episodes. Glory is all-powerful, but we can’t actually have her *succeed* at anything, so let’s just have a million scenes of her sucking random people’s brains to remind us that’s a thing she can do. Joyce is sick. Riley feels lonely because he’s entitled. Joyce is sick. Glory is crazy. Did you know Joyce is sick?
The second half from Checkpoint on is really much better and includes some of the best episodes (“The Body” especially). But the first half is dire.
Agree. As we’ve seen in the years since, that’s the problem with the Big Bad scheme – you have to find a way to have the Big Bad be continually menacing, but also continually not winning. Aside from sheer charisma on the part of the villain, this usually has to involve either “the villain has a complicated plan and is biding their time”, or “the villain doesn’t know about, or knows about and doesn’t care about, the heroes, so has no reason to kill them yet”. The Mayor worked on in all three ways: he’s magnetic on screen, he’s methodically going about his own plan, and until fairly late on he just doesn’t care about ‘those crazy kids’ one way or the other. Glory, on the other hand, failed in all three respects. First, she’s annoying and boring. Second, her goal is just to find The Key, so all she does is stamp her foot and shout “where is my Key!?” twice an episode. And third, although it takes a while to find out who the Key is, it doesn’t take that long for her to realise that the scoobies are getting in her way, so it never really makes sense that she doesn’t bother to kill them earlier.
[it also helps that The Mayor is teased a year in advance and kind of explains a lot of what happened in the first two seasons – just as, for instance, Max Rager is teased throughout S1 of iZombie – whereas not only is Glory completely new, but everything in her plot, from the minions to the worshippers to the idea of a demon god to the whole business with the key – has to be introduced from scratch, which means a lot of infodumps and lack of automatic interest from viewers].
Shout-out here to S2 of Arrow, which has a really ingenious solution to the Big Bad problem: split time-lines. Deathstroke in the present doesn’t do very much, just stand still while ominous music plays; but we relate to him as a character (both understanding his motivations and seeing how dangerous he is) through the flashbacks. Both that and the other successful Big Bad in the Arrowverse, Reverse Flash in S1 of The Flash, also succeed by humanising the villain – in both cases we meet them as (seemingly) good people helping the heroes, before we see the heel turn (for deathstroke) or revelation (for RF). Bad Big Bads, like, say, Savitar in The Flash, or Glory in Buffy, often lack that humanisation – while we in theory “understand their motivation”, we never have a sense of them as individuals outside of supervillain mode.
Well explained. What’s weird is that literally only Buffy Season 5 and Season 7 have this problem—Season 1 is too short for the Big Bad to wear out his welcome, and provides natural limitations to the villain; 2 and 4 don’t even introduce their real Big Bad until halfway through the season! But most modern superhero shows *think* they are following the Big Bad model established by Buffy when they introduce the main villain in episode 1, feature them in every episode, and then have them beaten in the finale.
I think people forget just how little the Mayor is in S3. He’s mentioned a couple of times in S2, but we don’t see him until the last scene of e5. He has a background role in e6, but the scoobies don’t see him, and then it’s just minor cameos now and then until e14. Some of these have nothing to do with his role as Big Bad – in the witchhunt episode, he’s just a politician giving a good but insincere speech about crime. The audience knows something is up with him, but the characters don’t.. It’s only in e15 that they find out that he’s probably evil (because he’s talking to another villain). He decides to kill Willow in e16, but doesn’t care too much when it doesn’t work out. In e17, they get the first hints about ‘Ascension’. It’s only in e19 that the scoobies directly engage the Mayor and they meet face-to-face, and then he sits out e20 again before the big two-part finale. I think if they were making it today, they’d actually make the Ascension plot longer than just two episodes – it could probably work at 3 or 4, but the general ‘less is more’ idea seems to apply. In the whole season (22 episodes), the Mayor is the antagonist of maybe 5 of them, and only 2 of them involve an actual confrontation between the Mayor and Buffy!Whereas, to pick one bad Big Bad: in S5 of The Flash, we meet Cicada in e1. The team meet him in e2. And they have physical fights with him in e2, e3, e8, e11, e14 (repeatedly), before another confrontation in e16, in which they also have a physical fight with Cicada II, and again in e17, e19, e21 and e22… is it any wonder that Cicada is so underwhelming as a villain when he/she (we may as well treat them as the same person) fights and fails to kill the heroes at least 11 times in 22 episodes!?
There’s also the fact that Cicada is just an atrocious villain no matter how many episodes he’d appear in.
Literally the exact opposite of a hot take!
The best season of Buffy is Angel Season 2
Angel Season 2 is like if they did a good version of Buffy Season 6 before Buffy Season 6
It’s so bloody underrated, too. The AV Club’s articles about Angel all most claim that the vastly inferior Season 3 is when Angel found its feet. Just…no. Season 3 is fine, and the Tim Minear episodes are mostly great (plus Waiting in the Wings) but it’s so much less interesting taken as a whole.
It’s been a while since I watched them, but I found S2 a bit melodramatic for me, and thought S3 was the best. And if it had ended there, that would have been the biggest downer ending since Blake’s 7!
S3 of Angel is fine, but it’s overstuffed with filler and far less thematically rich than S2.
And I hate the Cordelia turn in the finale.
Totally underrated season.
I watched one episode from season 1 and decided not to bother with it, but a couple of years later a friend recommended I at least gave an episode from season 2 a shot, and after that I was hooked.
Future Man was way better than it had any right to be, and single-handedly made me start liking Haley Joel Osment
It gave me a whole new level of appreciation for Corey Hart.
Wolf is one of the great fictional characters of the last 10 years
Good lord is that show just ridiculously good. Such deep character development within the midsts of just the goofiest shit imaginable.
I gave up on that about 5 episodes in. Wasn’t doing much for me despite my mad crush on Eliza Coupe.
Wrecked was cancelled too soon
As a fan of Lost, I expected to hate Wrecked, which clearly seemed to only exist just to spoof that show since everyone turned against it now. But it was more good-natured than I anticipated, with some genuinely funny material. I think one castaway was so fargone they created an imaginary friend called Tony Pepperoni?
it had Rhys Darby from Conchords and one of the guys from Whitest Kids U Know, so I was the target demographic, but didn’t have high hopes at the beginning. By the time they cancelled it, it was appointment television and my significant other and I had both developed crushes on Florence.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits WithinI’ve never played any of the Final Fantasy games and everyone told me this was terrible. I found it beautiful and surprisingly moving.
It’s legitimately good and I remain baffled by the negative reception it got.
Yeah, the 3D animated people, although making showing their age today, were superior to a lot of later animations in following years, for example The Polar Express with its dead-eyed uncanny valley faces made three years later. I’ve never played the games either, so maybe the problem is that it attracted fans of the games and I’ve heard that the movie had little to do with them?
I never read any of the games. I know it was pushing the technology at the time and didn’t look perfect, but it still had a great style and I was legitimately engaged in the story.
Still, the choice to model one of the characters after Ben Affleck but have Alec Baldwin do the voice was definitely….odd.
Its negative reaction from most was entirely the Final Fantasy brand attached to it. If it hadn’t given people those kinds of expectations in 2001 when FF to most people meant FF7 or FF6 (FF10 hadn’t even come out yet) it wouldn’t be judged so harshly.
Yes every FF game is pretty much its own thing, but in ‘01 the series had never gone just completely sci-fi. But if you compare the movie to all the different things the FF series has become in the past 20 years it no longer seems so out of place.
Yeah, even the most overtly science fictiony Final Fantasies still had adventurers fighting dragons with swords. Spirits Within had basically nothing of the usual series aesthetic.
FF10 had come out. I remember thinking that the plots of the movie and game should have been switched.
I thought I remembered FFX being out before the movie too, but I double checked it before my post. I seriously remember FFX being out as soon as I started high school, but it apparently wasn’t. Memories are weird.FFX release date in Japan: July 19, 2001. North America: December 17, 2001.FF Spirits Within US release date: July 11, 2001. Japan: September 15, 2001.https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_X
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0173840/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_rdat
That’s fucking nuts. I blame Nelson Mandela
It’s not that baffling. There wasn’t a chocobo in sight!
The Harley Quinn animated show. I was expecting it to be cringey and filled with bad Adam Sandler/Kevin James movie level humor and lazy comic book references. But it turned out to be much funnier and clever. It used the comic book material well. The characters are great. When they have a new interpretation of a character, it works.
Same. I decided to watch it after The Suicide Squad, but the first ep of the show was a bit too broad/”loud” in its humor for me (similar to how I didn’t like the Boondocks cartoon after really liking the comic strip). But I kept watching HQ and it is so good. Once you get adjusted to the over-the-top violence and dark comedy tone, the underlying characters are really great (esp. Poison Ivy and King Shark, for me). Just finished season 1 so looking forward to catching up on the rest of the show.
When I got HBOMax, I watched it to see what the hype was about. The commercials just made me think that the writers were lazy and thinking that a bunch of cursing would automatically make it funny. Nope. The writing was great, the comedy wasn’t lazy and was clever, and now I see Bane in a new light (my boyfriend does a hilarious impersonation of HQ Bane).
I have never bounced so hard off a show in my life. The first episode was way too loud and frantic and none of its jokes landed for me, and it made me depressed the whole rest of the evening after watching it. I thought that it was going to be bad, and it somehow was worse than my expectations. I don’t know why my reaction to it was so viscerally negative, but I do not understand the praise that show gets.
For me, it was “That 70’s Show.” The commercials left me thinking it was American Pie set in the 70s. When I finally started watching it in syndication (one of those “it came on after another show I liked, so what the heck.”), I was surprised at how witty it was and how much it nailed that era. I was a kid, not a teen, in the 70s, but the characters reminded me of the teens I saw in our neighborhood, and it nailed the feeling of that era, especially Red’s job insecurity.
Yes — Red was definitely not a stock sitcom dad, and I read a lot (maybe too much…) into his character as being significantly underemployed amid the economic restructuring of the Rust Belt when the wheels were coming off the postwar economic miracle.In that and many other respects the show is plainly (though AFAIK unrelated in any business sense) a sequel to Happy Days, for one’s compare-and-contrast pleasure.
Absolutely a reflection of Happy Days – and a rejection of that type of nostalgia. It was even set in Wisconsin!
Wonderful. Incredibly well cast, and the first season was absolutely fantastic. Even near the end, where they brought in new characters, etc., it was still pretty darned good.
I can forgive almost all the uneven quality of the latter seasons based solely on the episode in which they steal the clown.
I also suffer from severe second hand embarrassment, so I have never watched the Office for exactly the reasons given, but maybe I should actually give it a shot? How much pain did you have to endure before it got really funny?For me, Lucifer was a big surprise. I remember reading the synopsis when it first came out, and could not imagine a worse idea for a show (a procedural with the Devil? Excuse me?) but what a delight it turned out to be. Caught up in the 3rd season, and have watched the whole series straight through at least twice. Conversely, tried to watch Manifest after seeing it sit atop the Netflix top 10 for so long (after having watched the premiere back when it aired) and really don’t understand the love for it at all. People were clamoring for a final season? I couldn’t even get past episode 7.
Manifest’s popularity is a head scratcher
My problems with second-hand embarrassment made it hard for me to get through the first season of Peep Show – I’d often have to alternate between watching-on-mute and listening-but-not-watching to avoid full, multisensory agony. I don’t know if I’m more callous now or if the show became less excruciating, but I’ve since watched through to the end of season 6 (though the church scene is still hilarious liquid agony).There’s kind of a hierarchy of second-hand embarrassmnt:
The US Office Remake < The real The Office < Peep Show.So worth it, though.
“so I have never watched the Office for exactly the reasons given, but maybe I should actually give it a shot? How much pain did you have to endure before it got really funny?”
Doesn’t look like anyone answered this, but just start with season two. One had its moments but was still trying to just be “the British Office without accents.” It came into its own immediately when Season 2 started.
Thank you for answering! I might actually give it a shot.
I did, but yes I agree. They made the decision to make Michael a bit more sympathetic, Gervais’ David Brent was a full on asshole. TBS Diversity Day from S 1 is great, as is The Alliance and Hot Girl.
Yeah, and I really like the basketball episode, but still that can all be skipped if it gets someone into Season 2 immediately.
You’d be in with all the cool kids if you watch The Office. It is the cat’s meow with the teens. Personally I love it, it’s comfort food tv. Just go into it expecting silly.
Girls 5Eva. I’m way too old for it and always hated that music and I ended up bingeing the whole thing in one night.
I caught the first few episodes on E! one night when I couldn’t sleep. I ended up watching the whole thing the following day. I’m not a fan of Sara Bareilles (I think her music is boring), but that “I’m Afraid” song cracked me up.
I would say the anime/manga Food Wars. There is so much dumb fan service but once I got through all of that, wow, it was a story with a lot of heart and soul to it. I miss it even now.
While these examples are certainly not all-timers, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed “Jungle Cruise” (with the exception of the dreadfully convoluted and tiresome supernatural subplot/backstory.)And, though I’ve been a lifelong Star Wars fan, I was truly shocked by how much I enjoyed “Rogue One.” After the prequel trilogy and the extremely mediocre “Force Awakens,” I was genuinely surprised I could enjoy a Star Wars movie that much again.
The only problem I have with Rogue One is the fan-service ending with Darth Vader.
Likewise. It’s superfluous to anyone who’s seen A New Hope, which is hopefully everyone watching Rogue One.
It also presents the mythological version of Vader, rather than the one who actually exists.
It also presents the mythological version of Vader, rather than the one who actually exists.For people like me who are more than a little behind on the vast supply of both lore and canon (and discussion thereof) in Star Wars land, could you summarize, perhaps with some expertly curated ideas on where to start understanding this difference?
Not much deep Star Wars lore, I just prefer Vader the pathetic, child-murdering bully who fantasizes about killing his boss than the indomitable force of nature Vader.
He can be both. The second can even fuel and sustain the first; great power comes with stunted maturity.
It’s not fan service, it’s the culmination of the movie’s themes.
the movie’s themes were “fuck yeah being evil is the coolest shit ever, nobody should care about the heroes because bad guys are cool”?
I wonder if they were trying to explicitly connect the dots for people who hadn’t seen A New Hope. After all, somebody is discovering Star Wars all the time, and after so many movies, who knows what their entry point will be…I thought it dragged a bit at times (not every idea you have really needs to make it into the final cut…) but overall was one of the best Star Wars movies.And it had the coolest automated tape library ever, even if it was very much in the Star Wars tradition of improbable physical configurations devoid of even basic safety considerations.
You know, I rewatched it after thinking it was kind of both fun and awful at the same time. My feelings the 2nd time is that it’s good but that it should have been a three hour movie, like those long Hollywood blockbusters starring Steve McQueen of yore. If the movie was allowed to be three hours, you get in all the character development the movie was aiming for so you actually care about the heroes. A three hour version of that movie would have ben awesome. Still, it’s easily the best Disney branded Star Wars movie
I’m the jerk who will pick apart the things everyone is talking about it. If it’s on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, I’ll pass on it. So I held off for several years on watching Schitt’s Creek. I ended up binging the entire series in about a week.
I also avoid anything that seems popular at the time, so I avoided Schitt’s Creek for that reason. I’m on season four and enjoying it.
Guy Ritchie’s feature version of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” This was my absolute favorite show as a teenager (well, at least the first season, before it got RIDICULOUSLY stupid) so I had serious doubts about the casting and the approach. The first half hour is DELIRIOUSLY fun, and I wound up loving the fact that Solo and Illya really didn’t like each other and kept trying to outdo the other. I really hope they do manage to make another one (Joel Kinnaman as Illya now?) and actually make it look more like the series (the tailor shop, the stainless steel corridors, THRUSH). And Daniel Pemberton’s score RULES.
Mad Men. I had assumed that the show would be a letter to Penthouse about a time when mediocre white men were still unchallenged, and while it definitely has a whiff of that vibe, it ended up saying something pretty profound about the passage of time. Game of Thrones. It was entertaining even though it was clearly written for virgins who hate women and love war tactics.
Trust me, nobody who has even a passing interest in war tactics liked that element of Game of Thrones…
When I was growing up, something about Avatar the Last Airbender struck me as really uninteresting (I think the live action movie’s reputation permeated my feelings on the show), so I steered clear of it. Then in college my SO convinced me to watch it with her and I was amazed at what I’d missed out on. Ended up loving it and the sequel series Legend of Korra.
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. The trailer made it look awful. Glad I still watched it. My wife has had the little “moral wound” ditty as her phone’s medicine alarm/ringtone for the past 15 years.
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. The trailer made it look awful. Glad I still
watched it. My wife has had the little “moral wound” ditty as her
phone’s medicine alarm/ringtone for the past 15 years.
Alita: Battle Angel. Hollywood adaptations of manga/anime aren’t exactly known for being great. Rodriguez is an extremely hit or miss director. The first reveals of the Alita facial effects weren’t promising. But it’s an exciting, immersive, surprisingly touching movie with a crazy loveable heroine and great action scenes.
Shockingly good. I have zero interest in, and less than zero knowledge of, manga/anime. I was stuck on a long flight and recalled a friend telling me it was worth a watch. I was blown away!
Nailed It! for me. I gave up on reality TV years ago and thought less of this series’ premise about bad bakers competing to be the least awful. It took a year after the first season’s premiere to watch it but better late than never. It’s hilarious but thankfully never at the poorly skilled contestants’ expense. And Nicole and Jacques make for a wonderful duo as the wisecracking host and the knowledgeable pastry chef.
Did anyone say MacGruber yet?
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More than 100 comments and no one has mentioned Ted Lasso? So everyone but me heard about a sitcom set in the world of English Premier League Football featuring a character created for NBC Sports promos and thought, yeah, that sounds good?Also did not imagine I would end up liking Mythic Quest (“douchebro creator of massive multiplayer online game is a douchebro” was my initial impression) nearly as much as I do. But I had a “free” Apple TV+ subscription and read good stuff from reviewers I trusted so….
My first exposure to Brooklyn Nine-Nine was via “stinger ads” on Global, the same kind of 7-10 second clip hits you’d see for a Big Bang Theory or a 2 Broke Girls. So I naturally assumed it was a piece of Chuck Lorre tripe, and ignored it. Only really got on board when they were airing season five. Now one of my favourite sitcoms.
Derry Girls for me. I just wasn’t expecting to be as clever, funny, and unsentimental as it was. Bring on Season 3.
Sister Michael is one of the best characters in any sitcom.
my MVP was Grandpa Joe AKA Barristan Selmy. He was very funny, but also intimidating, even when he’s carrying a wee little baby around all the time. Was very sweet with Orla too. Though yeah, I also loved Sister Michael.
Don’t forget about Colm.
I expected it to be good, but was surprised at how great it was. Legitimately one of my favourite shows of all time.
On paper, it kinda sounds horrible and something that wouldn’t appeal to me at all, but in retrospect that’s only because of how many awful teen shows the US has produced in recent years. Dear God, remember 13 Reasons Why?Eighth Grade was great, though. Derry Girls is in that sweet spot–really heartwarming and painfully real at times while avoiding schmaltz.
For me, it’s the language. As someone with Irish family, I love how the show captures that wonderfully poetic intonation and turn of phrase. It’s like watching a modern Synge! In fact so much of the cultural stuff is so familiar to me, but so little seen on TV – particularly for me because my Irish grandparents (/greataunts, etc) are dead now. [none of my relatives, fortunately, were Grandpa Joe, but some of their friends were. And Colm… oh, Colm is painfully familiar…]
I know it’s from the opposite end of the island of Ireland but Young Offenders is another great one.
On the comedy front (and yes, Derry Girls is much better than I expected), I’ve only recently given in and watched Taskmaster. Aaand…. then binge-watched all ten years of it.I generally just assumed that all game shows on Dave were terrible, but Taskmaster is the most hilarious thing ever. A bunch of mildy-funny nobodies fail miserably at humiliating tasks, and then a freakishly tall man sarcastically but halfheartedly mocks them – how did I not realise it would be gold!? [if anyone tries watching it: it improves over the first few seasons, and in particular they clearly hadn’t worked out what tone they wanted in the first season, which also seemingly had the budget of a cheap evening out and couldn’t even afford proper lighting for the studio. I’d try watching a recent season first and then going back for binging].I also just think it’s inherently hilarious that, despite being a big hit in localised remakes around the world (particularly down under and in scandinavia, apparently), the brief attempt to make a US version of the show was an immediate, catastrophic failure. It’s like the concentrated opposite of US TV…
Wait, will there be a season 3? YES!
I’m not a fan of Hollywood’s ideas anymore, so I always expect to hate a piece of media these days. That’s my default mode. And usually it’s going to apply to anything that feels like a cash grab or anything pitched as a “Re-”. But there have been a number of things that have turned me around:Batman Begins. Before Watching: I still remember the last one. And they think this is the answer? Da fuq are they trying to be realistic for? The costume looks funny. Listen to his voice! Is that supposed to be the Batmobile? Why is Katie Holmes here? After Watching: This is the best Bat-movie I’ve ever fucking seenTerminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Before Watching: Why wouldn’t I expect to hate this? People really need to stop messing with Terminator. The story is so self-contained everything they do to try and continue it just mucks up the lore! After watching: Is Fox crazy? Why would they cancel this?!
Toy Story 3. Before Watching: They’re making another one?! They’re fortunate the last one was good, but don’t ruin it! They are really pushing their luck! Pixar is all about original ideas. Hope they don’t start relying on sequels! Where does another Toy Story even go? After Watching: I’m not crying, you’re crying. Shut up!Cobra Kai. Before While Watching: They know Johnny handed Daniel the trophy at the end, right? Why are they retconning the first film? This dumb. And what’s with all the jokes? The Karate Kid movies weren’t comedies. I hate this. After Watching: *Obsessed with the show. Theorizes about what’s coming up in every subsequent season.*
Not to forget a host of honorable mentions like Casino Royale (A blonde Bond?! Yep, I was one of them), 8 Mile (An Eminem movie makes me embarrassed for the both of us) Rise of the Planet of the Apes (James Franco and CGI because of course. Yea, this will work :/ ) 28 Weeks Later (don’t make the joke a real thing) and even Black Panther (this is going to pander me into oblivion, isn’t it?) All of which I would now classify as some of my favorite movies.I also really thought I’d hate Resident Evil 7’s extreme shift in direction, (first person, no labs or zombies, etc) but it turned out pretty amazing. One of the best, scariest games in the franchise
Hell yeah RE7! Going first person was the best move they could have done. 7 and 8 have been the most fun I’ve had in the last couple of years.
I felt the same way about Cobra Kai. But now I’m very much enjoying an alternate universe where a high school karate tournament impacts everybody’s entire lives. Most of the kids are really good actors and get to go through believable growth arcs, such as Miguel and Hawk turning into badasses in order to not get bullied anymore, but then Hawk taking it too far etc. I didn’t like Demetri or Robby, but most of the new characters are fun. Bring back Ms. Robinson!
I agree about Toy Story 3, totally. I thought they were cashing in, but it was the best one of the series. I haven’t seen 4, but I am sure it will similarly prove me wrong.
I saw 4 a few months ago. Even though the plot was okay and Keanu Reeves’s character is funny and cute, they should’ve stopped at 3. That was the perfect ending.
Oh yeah, Casino Royale is absolutely superb. Easily the best Bond film, and the only one where the two leads and the villain actually feel human. And the action sequences are just stunning as well.
I pretty much immediately felt that “Casino Royale” was the best, but I didn’t really want to commit to that for awhile. I mean, was I just relieved that it was so good, after so long without one being really really good? Was it really the best?But yes, for sure, it is the best. The Best.
Without question.
And yes, as someone said who is greyed out so I can’t reply, “You Know My Name” is the best Bond song. As soon as the opening credits started, and the song had those Bond-ian horn flourishes (unlike the single), my heart started to pound with excitement – “Oh my god, this is…this is SO GOOD!!!!” And the animation too, finally something different that wasn’t crappy and ugly like all the opening credits had been since Maurice Binder’s departure!
“You Know My Name” by Chris Cornell is my favorite Bond song, too.
Spyfall. Welcome to Scotland. And when he takes M to the garage where the Aston Martin is.
Skyfall is great (Spyfall, the Doctor Who S12 premiere, is awful). Definitely on that very short list with Goldeneye.
I knew that sounded off when I typed it, but I had been commenting on Spy with Melissa McCarthy so I’m sure that’s what happened. I just love how they introduced the new characters and reveal Moneypenny, etc.
And what’s with all the jokes? The Karate Kid movies weren’t comedies.
They kind of were though — I mean the idea that learning to wax a car makes you a karate champ is pretty silly. And the bullies were over the top. Yes, I was a high schooler in the 1980s — I know that bullies were tolerated then more than now. But it wasn’t like that!
I finally watched that film last year. And yes, it’s definitely comedic. The characters themselves weren’t in on the joke – they played them straight – but the writers clearly intended many moments to incite laughter among the audience.
The opening of Part II, for example, with the “Honk,” was tremendous. Kreese scared the shit out of me in the first movie as a kid, but once I saw that scene, I realized he’s a joke. I was 6 when I first saw that movie.
I didn’t exactly expect to hate it, but I didn’t expect to be a college-age dude trying to convince people that Babe was one of the best movies I’d ever seen either. 25 years later and it’s still top 3 or so.
Ironically, The Last Jedi is by far the best film of the new Star Wars trilogy. I don’t like any of the new films mind you, but it’s the only one of the three that is a solid original film in it’s own right. Not about to watch it again, but definitely the best that the new trilogy has to offer.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I got the joke in the title; it made me want to see the movie. The movie made me not want to see the TV show. But then I did after some encouragement and I loved it…until seasons 6 and 7.
Crazy Ex Girlfriend–it looked so stupid from the promotions but they didn’t do it justice in regards to its wit and emotional depth.
Evil, on CBS. From the ungoogleable name to the fact it’s, well, CBS, I really thought it was going to be a dud. Plus, religion + horror/sci fi is my least favorite thing. But damn, it’s sooooo good. The family stuff is so homey and sweet and then the creepy stuff is comfortingly x-filesesque. The second season has been even more solid than the first, IMO.Recently catching up some classics also. Watched the first two Terminators and Predator. Totally get the appeal of Arnie now. For all the muscles and macho bullshit, he just has such an innate goofiness within him that it’s hard not to find him endearing.Also, did a John Waters triptych with Multiple Maniacs, Female Trouble, and Pink Flamingos. I genuinely enjoyed Pink Flamingos. The other two were more meh. But I feel like overall I “get” him now and what he was trying to do.
True Lies, another James Cameron film, takes good advantage of an often underutilized Schwarzenegger quality: he can be pretty damned funny. (Pretty good movie too, though it spends too much of its too long runtime on subplots and comes close to wearing out its welcome for some people. I think of it as, with a transcript of nationalities and lead actor, one of the best Roger Moore-era James Bond movies.)
Tom Arnold should have gotten Best Supporting for True Lies
I still say Arnie has never looked like a better actor than in True Lies.
The bus advertising campaign in NYC seriously scared me. There’s nothing like having a city bus bear down on you when you’re riding a bike with just the word “EVIL” plastered on the front of it. Having said that, really enjoyed what I’ve seen of the show. I’m curious how the daughters’ dialogue looks in script form (they talk over each other constantly like it’s a bit).
You NEED to see Commando!
I watched the Babysitters’ Club series on Netflix with my kid with low expectations. I read one of the books back in the 80’s, but I was kind of old for it and never got into the books. The series was well-done, and I think I cried in one part.
I’m really conflicted about Schitt’s Creek. I’m still on season one and the first 2-3 minutes of every episode’s set up can be described as lazy and amateur at best (ex: “Kids! It’s your mom’s birthday and we are going to throw a surprise party!” “My obnoxious sister! What are you doing here?” etc…). And everyone in this white trash, hillbilly town between the ages of 21-28 is pretty damn attractive and stylish.
But dammit if the four leads are not brilliant actors and addictive to watch. Catherine O’Hara and her bizarre accent are comedic gold! And I’ll watch Chris Elliott in anything. He and Levy are magic together!
Still don’t love SC (my wife loves it so I watch too) and probably never will. But if it’s on I’ll watch!
I felt the same way about Schitt’s Creek. I thought it was a Canadian knock-off of Arrested Development, but it really came into its own and the characters ended up being a lot nicer and more loving than their AD counterparts.
I also didn’t think I’d like Legends of Tomorrow because it seemed like a bunch of second rate DC villains/heroes do Dr. Who stuff and redeem themselves, but once it shuffled the lineup a bit and found a good balance between goofy and compelling, I loved it. Then Constantine showed up and I really loved it.
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Ditto on Schitt’s Creek. I started off expecting another lame comedy show, but came away impressed. Each new seasons just got funnier and funnier and topped off with pitch-perfect finale.For my own takes on media that I expected to hate but came away loving… FX’s Fargo. I thought there’s just no way that anyone could take the movie’s dark sensibility, humor and depravity of humanity and rework them to fit entire season-long arc and still be faithful to the original source materials. But by gawd, Noah Fawley did it to perfection for Season 1 and 2. He stumbled somewhat in Season 3 and 4, though they’re still very good watches for any Fargo fans. I hope that he or someone else get to do Season 5 and more because Fargo feels like it has more stories yet to be told.
I came close to not even bothering with The Sopranos. The initial promotion made it seem like a knock-off of Analyze This. I’ve seldom been so happy to admit I was so wrong. (According to some things I’ve read, David Chase actually had the idea long before Analyze This came along, whereupon it appeared around the same time because of years in development hell.) Apropos all of this, we’re just now getting started on Lilyhammer. After finishing The Handmaid’s Tale, we were in the mood for some lighter fare, and it delivers.
“I came close to not even bothering with The Sopranos. The initial promotion made it seem like a knock-off of Analyze This. I’ve seldom been so happy to admit I was so wrong.”YES! The promos entirely played up the “mobster talking to his analyst” angle, as if it were the whole show. I did not get around to watching it until probably 5 years later for this very reason.
The Luke/Rey/Kylo plot in The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars story of all time.
Luke/Vader/Emperor would like a word
So, I remember first seeing the commercials for Rick and Morty and thinking, “what is this, an animated Back to the Future ripoff?” Hard pass. However, after watching the first few episodes, I was hooked. I can also say the same about Archer, Community, Parks and Rec, and The Orville.
What We Do in the Shadows (the show). I enjoyed the movie, but hearing that the show was going to take place in New York and making it a similar style to The Office just sounded like it was going to be awful. Basically, an American remake of something just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I did like the first season, but the second season was way, way better and memorable.
BSG reboot. I am generally of the opinion that modern remakes are [usually] pointless and stupid, and why in Dio’s name do they have to gender swap two of the characters to pretend like they’re throwing a bone to feminism? Inserting/expanding women into LOTR and The Hobbit were terrible choices, and this is going to be stupid, but okay, fine, I’ll watch the premiere.
Shortly into said premiere, gender-swapped Starbuck turns out to be a cigar-chomping hot mess who flips tables and slugs her smug superior officer, faces consequences for her actions, and OKAY I’M ALL IN NOW.
Suggestion for the next thing to try if you haven’t already: Longmire.
BSG reboot is yet another thing that should have been awful and most probably would have been and yet it somehow was great. All credit goes to the show runner Ron Moore for making the show as good as it was
Brilliant… but so frustrating! Come on guys, couldn’t you have taken the time to actually write a plot in advance? It’s not even that the ending is so intensely rubbish, it’s the couple of seasons of meandering to get there!
Yeah, the show definitely ran out of steam the last few seasons and probably should have ended earlier. Still, those first few seasons were good stuff
They were brilliant stuff. The miniseries (though I know some find it too slow), S1, and the first half of S2 are absolutely top-notch TV. It’s just a shame that the other brilliant part of it – the first three or four episodes of S3 – come after the obvious “pretend the series ended here” ending, the finale of S2.
Yep, for me, although the series mostly goes belly-up after Resurrection Ship, Exodus Part 2 is one of my favorite hours of television.
It’s the exact same thing that happened to the Emissary crap on DS9. At least there, it was only a part of a larger whole. Beware mystical nonsense written by Ron Moore.
My best friend got me to watch by saying the premise was, “What if we made Battlestar Galactica, but good.”
Future Islands, and this was before their appearance of Letterman. The first song I heard was Tin Man. I didn’t care for it. Then, I listened to other songs from In Evening Air and instantly became a fan: Long Flight, Viero’s Eye, Walking Through That Door, etc. I also heard Little Dreamer.They became one of my favorite bands to see live. I first saw them at Subterranean here in Chicago and it was just a huge dance party. When they played Viero’s Eye, you can feel the floor shake. Years later, I’m still a fan.
Y Tu Mama Tambien:
Before: Why the hell are my (female) college friends dragging me to see yet another Spanish movie?
After: Well, I certainly got the most enjoyment out of that one! Oh, and it’s also now one of my favorite movies ever, not just for ‘those’ reasons.
Fight Club:
Before: Damn, yet another soulless third-grade action-thriller hybrid. Well, at least Pitt and Norton will make it interesting and nothing else is on.
After: The person who did the trailers should be fired!
Emperor’s New Groove:
Before: Do I even want to see yet another Disney cartoon? It’s obvious with Pocahontas and Hercules that their form is slipping.
After: This is literally the funniest cartoon I’ve ever seen! How did something this good get past Disney’s execs?
Seven and a Half:
Before: Okay, it seems like a clone of ‘Munje’ (Lightning Bolts), a bunch of Serbian youth aimlessly mucking about and being all ‘artistic’ and stuff…
After: A timeless meditation of human foibles and the associated guilt that comes with them. How did such a fantastic movie get made in Serbia? In particular, ‘Envy’, the final story, is a timeless frikkin’ masterpiece.
The End of the F***ing World.My wife put this on one night and my gut reaction was that I would hate this god damned series.I wanted to hate that main character so bad.
“Oh I’m so depressed”
“Oh I’m a psycho”
“Oh I’m so edgy, so edgy that I’m going to kill someone”
“Can’t you feel my ANGST!?”And then that dead-eyed cunt shows up and I just wanted to fucking loose it.Alas, at the end of the first episode I wanted a little more and by the end of the second season I’d laughed and cried, cry-laughed and laugh-cried more times than I could have ever expected.
If you’ve ever thought about killing yourself, some of the stuff in this series might hit you hard in the Guess-I’ll-Try-Living-Bone, it’s good.
Just a brilliant little show with phenomenal acting from both leads and supporting actors.
And the short length of each episode is a godsend, there’s no needless flab on that show, and you’ll easily binge a whole or at least half a season in one sitting.Fucking loved it.
I had no opinion on the show when I first discovered it on Netflix, so my take on it doesn’t really belong here, but I really enjoyed it. The weirdness kept bringing me back. While I’m not a psychopath like the characters, I definitely related to some of their family struggles.
I have a 10 year old daughter, so I’ve been exposed to a lot of crap over the years. But the standouts are Teen Titans Go!, Amazing World of Gumball, and perhaps the most surprising show she was watching at one point that was funnier for adults than it should have been, Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse.
Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse has no right being as good as it is.
The two big ones for me were Alias and The Sopranos. I didn’t think I would hate them really but in both cases it was like they were getting so much hype and there was no way they could live up to that level of attention. With Alias I was living on my own when season 3 rolled around and didn’t have cable on of the over the air Canadian networks played new episodes on Sunday at 4pm. Since my options were very limited I checked it out and was pretty quickly hooked. By December I had the season 1 and 2 DVDs and had watched every episode.
Hard agree on Schitt’s Creek. As a Canadian, I am aware that CBC comedies are typically execrable (see Corner Gas, with Kids in the Hall being the exception, not the rule). But I finally succumbed after Daniel Levy won all those Emmys and wow was I surprised. The acting, casting and writing is just superb.
The Matrix.
The Good Place. “Ok, so some lady goes to Heaven. How can this possible last more than a few episodes? Hard pass.” And then I started watching it after a few episodes had aired, fell in love, committed fully (listening to the podcast, contributing to the subreddit, etc.) … Loved that show.
I read the question and immediately thought oh, that’s easy for me: Gilmore Girls and Schitt’s Creek. And here we are!
New Girl: I expected it to be nothing more than a vehicle for Zooey Deschanel’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl schtick, which I find somewhat annoying. As it turns out, it’s a nice ensemble comedy with a cast of great characters.The Good Wife: Another victim of poor naming, I had no interest in a show all about a cheated-on wife standing by her philandering politician husband, but it turned out to be an interesting courtroom procedural.The Middle: I expected a lot of yelling and wAcKiNeSs (possibly confusing it with Malcolm in the Middle). I watched a few episodes and quickly became attached to the characters and cared about them. It quickly became one of my favorite shows.
i have to say, i didn’t think i’d like dredd at all. my brother (whose tastes are questionable: he likes the transformers movies) enthusiastically recommended it to me so i grudgingly downloaded it for a plane trip. also all i knew about it was that stallone made his bad movie about judge dredd decades ago so i had rock-bottom expectations. turns out it whips absolute ass
Probably Rick and Morty. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I thought I’d hate it, but I had no interest in it until season three premiered the Szechuan sauce episode on Aprils Fools Day. I don’t know why I tuned into to watch it, but I did, and I enjoyed it enough that I spent the next week finishing the first two seasons.Someone else in the comments mentioned Pitch Perfect… that was one for me too.
The band, CLUTCH. First heard the song, “Careful with that Mic”, on mainstream radio in the late 90s and thought it was pretty annoying. Later found out it wasn’t their actual sound. It was their goofy way of poking fun at Nu-Metal acts like Korn & Limp Bizkit that were so popular at the time. For whatever reason I much later listened to their first three studio albums and one live album and fell in love. They’re my favorite current hard rock band.If you’re actually intrigued enough to hear what they’re all about, listen to their two “Live in Flint, Michigan” albums.
I was thinking about this all week and then I remembered the two shows I had this with: Steven Universe and Derry Girls. For Steven Universe I just saw the pastel bright animation and thought nope. The animation I generally prefer is comedic (in anime too) not “animation that is kid-friendly but also enjoyable by adults”. I had been recommended it for years by a few friends when I randomly found out that Estelle was on it – at which point I immediately gave it a shot (and told my friends they have no clue how to sell me on a show) and loved it.With Derry Girls it is real simple, I just literally thought because of the poster it was like Call the Midwife? There are so many (too many) of these British period dramas and a lot of them honestly don’t hold up. Come to find out it’s actually a comedy – I spent the entire first episode laughing (I literally couldn’t stop laughing) and it skyrocketed to one of my favourite shows ever.
Derry Girls gang.
AP Bio.
I turned it on after I finished Dr Death mini series on Peacock. I was like “oh well I hear this is funny, I’ll check it out”.I binged three seasons in three days. It is fantastic. Also Girls 5 Eva. Didn’t think I’d like it, and I love it. I think Renee Elise Goldsberry sold it for me. I kept thinking “this woman won a god damn Tony for Hamilton, and she is scooting on her butt up the ramp of a Duane Reid”.Andrew Rannell and Busy Phillips “marriage”, and his crab rescue. OMG“This place will look like Jonestown in a week”
I still hate the American version of the Office. The original British version is so much better that I just can’t think of a reason to watch the other version. I also can’t take someone seriously when they say they didn’t like Rogue One but thought the Last Jedi was good. I refuse to believe those people exist.