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Ehh... nope
I usually review things I've seen all the way through, and I thought it would be fun to talk about the things I've noped out on recently. As you can imagine I've been watching a lot of stuff. I'll do some more positive reviews next.
Jessica Jones, Season 3. This was sort of disappointing because I felt like S2 built on and was somewhat better than S1. When you're centering an antihero - in this case an alcoholic who really doesn't want to be a hero - there are always challenges. But the cast was interesting and they did some hard-good things, so OK. Season 3, though... ugh. I gave up because I basically hated everyone. Five or six episodes in everyone is being awful to everyone else and there's just nobody to like and no reason to care if any of them crash and burn.
Bojack Horseman. Didn't even make it through one episode of this. It came highly recommended by several Arisians who, I guess, just have very different senses of humor from me. I found none of it funny; the main character is a raging asshole and again there's nobody to care about, nobody to root for. I don't feel like it's worth my time to watch someone be nasty to others.
Breaking Bad. I really wanted to like this one but it was tough going. Made it through five episodes where I thought they dragged out a number of things that should've been resolved more quickly, but fine. I gave up at the start of 6. The deal-breaker for me was the main character's constant lying. I couldn't see a motivation for it. I thought they did a good job of exploring why a person with potentially terminal cancer would make certain (bad) choices but I just don't grok - and cease to care about - a person who is married to a partner long enough to raise a child to teenager-hood and yet has separate bank accounts and no problem just flat-out lying about crucial stuff.
Altered Carbon:Resleeved. An animated one-shot set in the universe of Altered Carbon. In fact, it's just a rehash of plot elements that the live series did so much better. It's formulaic and copycat. The live series dives deeply into what it means to have a personal relationship with a human when that human can wear any body, and what it means even to be human in a world with effective immortality and sentient AIs. The cartoon has none of that - it's just an attempt to do action anime with characters and settings some audience will recognize. BO-RING.
Black Mirror. Another one that came highly recommended. I watched two episodes. One featured a lot of pointless humiliation and ... just, why? The other walked right up to the line of exploring gender identity and attraction and then veered away because Reasons. Also, spending 60 minutes watching something that would've been fixed in five minutes if adult people had used their adult words to talk to their close adult partners is so very NOT my thing. I dislike how much modern entertainment turns around infidelity to begin with, but seriously talk to each other. I almost shouted at the screen, never a good sign.
Jessica Jones, Season 3. This was sort of disappointing because I felt like S2 built on and was somewhat better than S1. When you're centering an antihero - in this case an alcoholic who really doesn't want to be a hero - there are always challenges. But the cast was interesting and they did some hard-good things, so OK. Season 3, though... ugh. I gave up because I basically hated everyone. Five or six episodes in everyone is being awful to everyone else and there's just nobody to like and no reason to care if any of them crash and burn.
Bojack Horseman. Didn't even make it through one episode of this. It came highly recommended by several Arisians who, I guess, just have very different senses of humor from me. I found none of it funny; the main character is a raging asshole and again there's nobody to care about, nobody to root for. I don't feel like it's worth my time to watch someone be nasty to others.
Breaking Bad. I really wanted to like this one but it was tough going. Made it through five episodes where I thought they dragged out a number of things that should've been resolved more quickly, but fine. I gave up at the start of 6. The deal-breaker for me was the main character's constant lying. I couldn't see a motivation for it. I thought they did a good job of exploring why a person with potentially terminal cancer would make certain (bad) choices but I just don't grok - and cease to care about - a person who is married to a partner long enough to raise a child to teenager-hood and yet has separate bank accounts and no problem just flat-out lying about crucial stuff.
Altered Carbon:Resleeved. An animated one-shot set in the universe of Altered Carbon. In fact, it's just a rehash of plot elements that the live series did so much better. It's formulaic and copycat. The live series dives deeply into what it means to have a personal relationship with a human when that human can wear any body, and what it means even to be human in a world with effective immortality and sentient AIs. The cartoon has none of that - it's just an attempt to do action anime with characters and settings some audience will recognize. BO-RING.
Black Mirror. Another one that came highly recommended. I watched two episodes. One featured a lot of pointless humiliation and ... just, why? The other walked right up to the line of exploring gender identity and attraction and then veered away because Reasons. Also, spending 60 minutes watching something that would've been fixed in five minutes if adult people had used their adult words to talk to their close adult partners is so very NOT my thing. I dislike how much modern entertainment turns around infidelity to begin with, but seriously talk to each other. I almost shouted at the screen, never a good sign.
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For a single episode, I recommend "San Junipero" S3, E4.
I also love contrasting "NoseDive" S3E1 with Community's "App Development and Condiments" S5E8.
Bojack does have its moments, and the characters do develop a lot over time. Mostly to explore why they're so flawed, it might still not be your sort of thing. Some stories still stand out without context, like "Thoughts and Prayers", S4E5.
In Breaking Bad, the lead character steadily becomes less likeable, so, yeah, move on. There's enough other TV out there.
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I also think there's a gigantic gulf between "flawed" and "asshole". I'm OK with flawed characters.
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May I ask? (I have seen no Black Mirror. It always sounded like a more pointedly ironic version of The Twilight Zone and some of my favorite Twilight Zones are the ones that aren't ironic at all.)
Sure
The question then is what's the identity involved and what does it mean for these two nominally cis/het men to have sex while portraying these characters in a heterosexual style. Theoretically interesting but completely overshadowed by the fact that Mackie's character spends the whole time concealing his infidelity and the two men never really get into what their encounters mean in terms of identity and self-image.
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I am much less interested in the infidelity plot than in the identity plot, agreed.
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You watched the entirely wrong episodes of Black Mirror. The pointless humiliation... was that S1E1? Nobody should start with S1E1 of Black Mirror. Yeah, they made a bad decision, starting the series with that one. Recommendations for "San Junipero" and "NoseDive" seconded. I'd also recommend "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too". (That they have an ACTUAL ex-child-pop-star playing Ashley is rich.) I also enjoyed "Smithereens" and "The Entire History of You"; not everyone agrees with me on those. Many of the other episodes are just blah. Fortunately, it's an anthology, so one could just cherry-pick the worthwhile ones.
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As for Walter White, what is he proud of? What is he defending with his lies? As I said it's not just the lying, it's that I don't see the motivation for it. Like, sure, I totally get that you don't tell your straight spouse that you're cooking meth. But I don't get why he dislikes her so much, and yet has been with her for this long and they're having another kid? I don't mind if characters are dislikeable, so long as I can grasp their motives. I'm writing my review in another window for Altered Carbon S1 and in that series the main character's sister (Reileen Kawahara, played amazingly well by Dichen Lachman) is really f'ing bad. But I get why. I don't _agree_ but I see what drives her to do what she does and it's consistent.
As for Black Mirror I think it's hilarious that everyone agrees that I watched the wrong ones (S1:E1 and S5:E1) and if I just watched these OTHER ones (on which nobody agrees) I'd see it differently.
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I had the same reaction you did to the first episode, and haven't delved much further yet. (I did watch one or two more, and they were vastly more watchable, but I've had other priorities.)
But as to this: virtually everyone I've talked to, and every critic I've read, seems to agree that "San Junipero" is worth watching, even if one watches none of the rest of the series. It's the one episode that seems to be pretty universally acclaimed...
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welcome
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That said, I have enjoyed - over time - both the Good Omens 6-episode series and the first season of The Good Place. Neither of them have [too many] just use your words dammit situations and neither of them are out to punish the viewer by sympathizing with bad behavior or bad outcomes.
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But I disagree about Bojack. (NB: I'm not done yet, but early in the last season.) Yes, the title character is a titantic asshole, but he's the extreme in a fairly complex cast. I mean, Diane is basically the number-two character, and she'd be right at home at Arisia. (Her main sin being that she over-thinks things to a sometimes pathological degree, but she sincerely wants to do the right thing.) Moreover, over the course of the story we get very deeply into Bojack as a character -- where that callous shell came from -- and he does, ever-so-gradually and somewhat against his will, start growing up. I can't ever quite sympathize with him, but I've come to find him fascinating and quite human.
It's not often laugh-out-loud funny. (Although it does have its moments.) But it's smart, self-aware satire of a sort that I don't see very often, and it falls squarely in the category of, "I'm glad they wrapped up the story, but I'm going to sorely miss it"...
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I'll just note that you seem to have latched onto "cruel" here, and that is not Bojack's defining characteristic. (And certainly isn't for anyone else in the core cast: this is by no means a one-man show.) His desperate insecurity *is* his core feature, and learning how to manage that without being a jackass is the heart of his overall arc. He's actually something of a study of abuse (his parents are significant characters in the later seasons), what it does, and gradually breaking out of that.
(And I should note: I'm not at all sure they knew where this was going from the beginning. I adore the latter seasons, as the overall story comes more into focus, but it took a while to get there.)
It may not be to your taste, and that's fair: it's totally reasonable not to be interested in watching a 40-something man-child learning to grow up. It sounds like you went into this expecting a lighter comedy, and it is very much *not* that: there's humor, but it's often rather dark and usually satirical. And even at the best of times, Bojack is prone to being a drama queen. Just keep in mind that there is a considerable amount of arc (for everyone, but especially Bojack): this is *not* a story about him just being cruel to others...
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If Bojack is a study in abuse then it should be much clearer up front. Contrast with Reileen Kawahara in Altered Carbon. We know early on that her parents were murdered and when she trusted the authorities afterward they separated her from the brother she was close to, then sold her into child sex slavery. So she's got trust issues, and a hatred of authority. And she's kind of fixated on her brother. She's an awful human being who does tragic and cruel things, but I 'get' her right out of the gate.
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I watched S1 (plus maybe one more episode?) of Breaking Bad back when the show was still in its last or 2nd to last season and the absolute darling of many folks, and decided that, no, it really was full of people I didn't like.
It doesn't help that I am tired of the 'asshole dude antihero' lead character. I'm not *quite* burned out on "asshole dudette antihero" just because it's less worn out territory. One of the things I loved in "Jessica Jones" besides Jessica being a tire-fire is Jeri Hogarth being a glorious trainwreck. (Speaking of whom, I haven't seen any of S3 but one of my favorite minor beats in S2 was the sex workers sitting around chatting while Jeri's asleep.)
S2 was kind of annoying because I really didn't like how they handled Jessica's mom - frankly, Jeri's story was more interesting to me.
Had a similar response as you to Bojack Horseman. I am told that they eventually turn it into something better and there's good stuff later but, I'll pass for now, thanks.
On a better front, I'm partway through and enjoying "Counterpart", with JK Simmons and also JK Simmons.
Also, not a series, but if you haven't seen "Fast Color", you might want to check it out. It's a superhero movie that's a very different sort of superhero movie.
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I've long said that one of the best things about Jessica Jones is that it features a lesbian character who has a ton of problems... NONE of which are 'she's a lesbian'. I agree the Mom story was awkward AF and Jeri's story is the better of the two.
I have not seen "Fast Color" - shall look.
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Also - If you liked it, and you *haven't* ever read _Memoirs found in a Bathtub_, by Stanislaw Lem, you should do so.
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Striking Vipers was upsetting (infidelity in fiction really triggers me) but they work out an agreement in the end, which I liked.
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That. yes, exactly.
(infidelity in fiction really triggers me) but they work out an agreement in the end
I don't mind infidelity - it's part of human existence. What bothers me is when it's the sole driver of the plot. Like, in this episode you could have dropped out Mackie's wife with no loss and used that screen time for more exploration of the gender and identity issues.
Also, the "work it out" is they actually talk to each other. I am more bothered by plots that wouldn't exist if the characters would just use their adult words. Y'know, like adults.
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I'm OK with people being complicated, but I don't want to spend time with people I wouldn't want to spend time with.
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What excellent wording... I agree completely, and think I'll hold onto that for future use.
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Aside from the generic "we think technology is going to F us over" theme, every episode is standalone and has nothing to do with any of the others. So judging it based on a random sample of 2 is not the best strategy. That said, I found some of them absolutely brilliant and others totally meh. Still havent gotten around to finishing up season 4.
My faves - (season 1) - 15 Million Merits, and The Entire History of You. The latter I think, IMHO, the best episode they have ever done, so you can use it to decide if you should bother listening to any of my recommendations about the show.
Season 2 - White Christmas. While not perfect at all, it has things in it which are just plain philosophically chilling and quite worthy of rumination about.
Season 3 - San Junipero. If this one doesn't suit you, give up.
Season 4 - USS Calister.