![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
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.
no subject
no subject
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...
no subject
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.