The TV thread

We started Catastrophe a couple of nights ago. 4 episodes into the first season and I really like it -- super smart and funny.

 

So that was the end of Castle Rock?
Not the way I expected it to end.

 

That show is FANTASTIC.

 

Plot wise? You probably need to rewatch it. The second season was fine, even better than the first.

 

Sharp Objects. Anyone watch? We finished it last night. I liked the book but thought the series was about a C+. It was well-acted and shot, but spent too much time showing how Amy Adams’s character was just so DAMAGED, then packed the entirety of the plot into the last episode and a half. To say it had pacing issues is a severe understatement. And I’m sure I’m not the only person on here who would roll my eyes at the show’s portrayal of a newspaper writer. (Which is not to say that Adams did a bad job - it was the writing.)

My other beef was that the show seems to have been created by people who have spent a collective 90 minutes or so in the South. They heard someone mention that “Bless your heart” can actually mean “Fuck you,” fell completely in love with that concept and built half the show’s characters around it.

 

I watched the first 6 1/2 episodes of Jack Ryan on AmazonPrime. Decent, but so completely predictable that I read the wiki episode guide for the ending and sure enough it was exactly what you would think. Very Good cast.

Huge mistake though. There’s a scene where they are eating crabs in Maryland but the crabs are clearly not blue crabs but Dungeness crabs. Clancy lived in Maryland and the Jack Ryan character grew up in the Baltimore area.

 

Yeah, the show could have lost two episodes and been much better. The editor/reporter interaction in the show was by far its weakest point. I was willing to suspend disbelief on that because it was so poorly written that it was unsalvageable.

 

I hear the s3 of The Crown is fantastic. Should I watch the first two seasons? How good are they?

Also just watched the first season of The Deuce. Enjoyed it enough. Really liked James Franco, though sometimes I got mixed up on which brother he was playing. Neat to see a few The Wire alumni mixed in.

 

I wasn't going to watch The Crown but JR and I gave it a shot and really enjoyed the first 2 seasons. Gonna miss some of those actors.

 

I love The Wire but this is low on my to-watch list. I still need to see David Simon's other work: Treme and Generation Kill.

 

Deuce is very good. Not as good as The Wire - pretty high bar to clear, obviously - but still interesting. Just realize that like a lot of post-Wire, David Simon stuff, it is kind of meandering, as opposed to being about a certain case or thing over the course of a season.

 

Very good and very well acted.