Yet we are no closer to an answer for anything. I can barely think of what happened in the last two episodes to advance the story…
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Yeah, I’m waiting on you guys to keep taking the bullet on this show until the season finishes before deciding if I’m going to watch it : )
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Prudent, but for a change I am confident they will stick the landing.
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I am rather Disappointed with Outer Range.
I can live with the weird. Why does Billy sing all the time? Why does Autumn kissing look so gross? Why is Royal so stoic that he can’t answer a single question all season long? Obviously they are going for a weird aesthetic and that’s fine.
But after one season I don’t have a clue what is going on. Forget Chechov’s Gun; this show brought the whole armory. There are hardly any answers for anything, and when they do try to provide an answer at the very end it only raises a dozen more questions.
I don’t know; this show asks for a lot of investment with seemingly little payoff.
But then again, maybe I’m stupid. Maybe I’m missing some deep allegory that the writers are trying to convey. They certainly showed the billboard with the metaphysical message on it enough times for me to think that they are trying to convey some deeper understanding about our world that I just don’t get…
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Now see, this is what I was afraid of. I’m happy to go along for weird and lots of mysteries, but if they don’t give you something after one season, that sounds a whole lot like the writers are just throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks. Plus it sounds like there’s singing, which I can’t abide with on my TV shows. I will go along with a lot of nonsense, but if characters start singing for no reason, we’re done.
Did anyone stick with Tokyo Vice? I watched I think 4 or 5 eps and just never went back to it. I had the perhaps unfair expectation going in that this would be like Miami Vice but set in Tokyo. But instead, we get this slow-burn character study show, focused on a not-very-charismatic reporter who doesn’t even carry a gun, much less drive a Ferrari. Also no Jan Hammer. WTF Michael Mann?
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The character who sings is kind of the black sheep of the family and would rather be on American idol than on the ranch with his brothers. It is intentionally awkward and out of place.
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I was excited by the first episode of outer range, but I’m struggling to see it through to the end. “Supernatural cowboy” should be a great genre crossover, but I’m 100% sure I’m gonna be blue balled by the end of the season. It’s just not going anywhere, and I don’t care about any of the characters, if the had any character to begin with
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I really really wanted to love that show though
Not me—I just finished season 1 of Outer Range, and I really dug it. I think it’s absolutely fair to be disappointed that it doesn’t solve enough of the mysteries or not relate to any of the characters. But, to me, it felt like there was progress on the major plotlines, with appropriate amounts of resolution. It feels like the show is about a big enough central weirdness that it’s fair for it to take a few seasons to get the full extent of it, but it isn’t so enthralled by weirdness for weirdness’ sake that it just tips over into everything being unconnectedly weird. And it feels like they’ve both cashed out and set up a few themes which were/could be very strong.
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Have to say, I was fairly interested early on, but the last episode, despite the fact little was ‘explained’, has convinced me the writers know what they’re doing. I am going to assume the second series will have the same writers and stick to their plan, and if so, I will remain completely riveted. Everything has linked up nicely and the characters are well-written and acted. The ideas from the first episode onwards, including things like non-linearity (blink and you’ll miss it, it starts in episode 2, IIRC), have all been followed up on to my satisfaction.
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Severance on Apple TV+
I am torn on recommending this. At the heart, there are some really great ideas here, and some cool philosophical questions that I spent a few morning showers recently pondering.
That said, I think most of the writing/editing decisions throughout the bulk of the season are just too slow paced. While the season finale pays off, it’s just does not feel big enough for the long slow burn to get there.
At the heart of the show our main characters have ‘Severed’ jobs. Meaning that they have a chip in their head that creates a different version of them that has to go to work every day at Lumon Industries. At the end of the day, they clock out and when they leave, they return to their main self and go about their lives. That ‘severed’ work period is like they were asleep, so in essence, it is like they don’t work. They just have a life without having to think about work and work stuff.
We are asked to suspend disbelief on that from the get go, and I am willing to do so. And this technology is built into a world that seems to be mostly the one we live in, cars and stuff seem just like ours. The problem is that there is a whole lot more going on that they want us to suspend disbelief on, and that is where I just found flaws. What is interesting is, that we just came off watching all the seasons of Doom Patrol on HBO which is nutso absurd at every minute, and I don’t mind that, because it never tries to pretend to be anything it is not.
My wife, she really likes the show, a lot. I just think when I see too many holes in mundane things, like how the work program at Lumon is run, I can’t help but think the writers were either lazy, or think I am not that intelligent (this is why I only made it 2 episodes into The Black List years ago, I don’t like being insulted by glaring plot holes.)
Anyone else watch this? thoughts?
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The final season of Killing Eve, on Starzplay.
The only redeeming feature is that I get to insta-cancel the Starzplay subscription and delete the godawful Starzplay app off my devices.
Truly awful season, where the writer kept all the stylistic quirks which made the first 3 seasons distinctive, but forgot basic requirements like having a coherent and structured story as a skeleton on which to hang all of the off-beat stuff. It is truly up there with the Black List‘s bad, so bad, so very bad final season.*
On Imdb, the rule of thumb is that 8 stars is probably excellent, 7 good, 6 ok-ish and 5 generally avoidable. The last episode of Killing Eve gets 3.2, and I’m sure that’s not just fans of angry murderous lesbians being upset that Villanelle finally gets shot at the end.
I will rewatch Killing Eve, but apply the Star Wars/Indiana Jones rule, that anything beyond the third never happened.
*yes, i know, not actually the final season. Still not watching it any more.
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I have such a dislike for this show that is disproportionate to the level of emotion it deserves. It’s a show about spies for dumb people. Or people who crave bad acting. Spader is the only thing interesting on the show and he’s not in enough scenes to make it remotely worth it. Utter trash, and not even fun trash.
We don’t have apple plus, so I can’t comment on the thing you actually would like people to comment about : ( Therefore, I agree with you completely : )
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So sad to hear this. Really enjoyed the first seasons. Your SW/IJ rule is one I apply to numerous shows, though. The actual last season of Lost is the 5th season, which finishes the show beautifully. The sixth doesn’t exist in my world. Six Feet Under’s last season is its first season. Stranger Things also has a first season that is its last season. I’m sure you have better examples.
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I liked Severance, but I’m sympathetic. Snowpiercer is one of the most horrible movie-watching experiences I can recall, because my understanding of metaphor is that you use an example with a particular dynamic to suggest that a parallel case has the same dynamic. That doesn’t work if the example case is such total nonsense that all the most salient dynamics are incoherent. The whole idea of getting someone to have thoughts about one thing so they can have the same thoughts about another thing doesn’t work if the thoughts they are having about the first thing are all “this makes no sense” and “what do the bugs eat?”.
Severance doesn’t seem to me to run afoul of quite that problem because it seems to be aiming to give people the mental furniture to pose questions, which is subtly different. The study of philosophy involves lots of silly thought-experiments with that goal, and it’s fine that building a ship out of shitty, decayed boards that got thrown away wouldn’t really work; it gives you a simple way to ask the question about what identity is founded on. Severance also does some kind of fascinating aesthetic work (much like the video game Control).
All of which said, Adam Scott has the most punchable face I can think of. Might be a delightful person, and it does his acting credit that, by the end, I did not want to punch his face, but something about it rubs me very much the wrong way. Maybe just a hangover from Walter Mitty? Also, while I’d bet that Outer Range is going somewhere and knows it, and virtually all the weirdness will eventually be cashed out in a satisfying way, that’s not what I’m expecting of Severance. It’s an emotional and aesthetic setting for some cool thoughts, and if shit needs to go The Prisoner-level weird to get you to that headspace, it’ll take you there and not worry overmuch about cleaning up the loose ends.
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I’m still making my way through Severance, so YMMV but: Adam Scott is extremely punchable, but it’s fitting here as an office drone, and the background cast like Turturro, Cherry, and Arquette, are all perfect as company workers. Like @rinelk said, I’m sure the series will happily ramp up how surreal/absurdist it is in order to tell a story, and won’t feel constrained by “But how does that work, exactly?”
For me it works quite well, because the incongruity with the boring office job behind a literal mental divide is a perfect representation of corporate need-to-know bullshit; even if they don’t know what they’re doing at their jobs, they still don’t need to know what they’re doing. I think it’s visually brilliant and while it’s slow paced, I don’t find that a problem. I think it’s very funny, in a rare deadpan way.
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I’ve been having issues trying to watch youtube videos posted in the forums on my iPad. When I click the play button it turns black. I’m not sure if it’s some privacy or security setting I may have turned on. Anyone have any suggestions or experienced something similar?
I have these issues only on my iPhone, it works fine on my iPad. No idea why. Both devices have last version of OS.