Telly thread

[wordsfromlee]

Gary Lineker was on The Assembly this week and looked like he hated every second of it.

[LaGoosh]

The Last of Us Season 2 -5 episodes in of a 7 episode season and I will say that it is not going well. Season 1 was a decent enough adaption but I thought they might struggle with the more vast and complex second game. I'm not one of those nutcases who gets mad when adaptions change things. I can understand that when any story adaption happens things need to be done differently for different mediums. However the changes they've made are just weird and slightly confusing. They've taken exact scenes from the game then needlessly altered them to make them worse. They've made story reveals too early which completely remove the steam and tension from later scenes for no clear reason at all. The tone has been considerably lightened which has completely dulled the almost overpowering atmosphere of dread, tension and violence that is absolutely key to the whole story. For a post apocalyptic environment everyone is in pristine, clean clothes with full make-up and perfect hair. The lighting is basic and flat. Plot contrivances happening every 5 minutes. 

No adaption of the game was ever going to be perfect but I've found this one bafflingly bad. Because they've got everything they need to make it good. You can see all the pieces are there but they keep shooting themselves in the foot.

[Mr_Danger]

Hard to disagree with most of that but I’m still getting a kick out of it. I find myself wanting to enjoy it more than I do because they’ve done a bang up job of recreating the scenes and Bella Ramsey is far better than what the incels online are making out.  I enjoyed last weeks episode most so far because it’s the only one that managed to recreate the anxiety and panic you feel in the game. Episode 2 which should have been a slow resignation to a dreadful outcome was needlessly watered down by adding a battle scene. Mad decision.

I like the casting choices for this series though. Especially Jessie and Tommy. Gabriel Luna has a fair bit of presence for a supporting character. Not sure how they’ll fit everything in to one more series and two more episodes though. They probably could have gotten 3 series out of the second game with all the story threads. Can’t see them doing Lev much justice.

Edited May 13, 2025 by Mr_Danger

[LaGoosh]

13 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said:

Bella Ramsey is far better than what the incels online are making out.

Yeah I think she's pretty great, though let down by the writing. It doesn't feel like she's changed or developed between seasons 1 & 2 despite their being a 5 year time gap and she's now an adult and not a teenager. The show has plenty of problems but I don't think she's one of them. As you say, the casting as a whole is pretty great. 

One thing I do really hate though is Catherine O'Hara's character. So on the nose and lazy. A completely unneeded addition. 

[WyattSheepMask]

Sierra, Hotel, India, Echo, Lima, Delta…..

No not that one, the wife & I have been watching actual The Shield recently. I’ve not watched it about 10-12 years and my wife has never seen it, and she is so hooked on it now and I’m loving watching it back.

We’re watching it on DVD which I bought years ago and comes in the best packaging ever back when they used to put some effort into boxset presentation 

 

Watching DVD on a 4K player can be a bit of a mixed bag. If you’re watching something that’s been manufactured recently it upscales pretty well, but stick on an old school disc and it can look grimy as fuck which is exactly the case here, especially the first couple of seasons, but that actually adds to the show’s charm. It is on Amazon Prime in upscaled HD but we’re going to persist with the filthy DVD version. We’ve blasted through the first 3 seasons in about 10 days and will probably be finished by the end of the month at the rate we’re going.

If Dario Cueto is the Mexican Attitude Era Vince McMahon, David Aceveda is Latino New Generation “What a Manoeuvre!” Vince 

 

Edited May 13, 2025 by WyattSheepMask

[DavidB6937]

Rewatching Taskmaster because that's all my depressed brain can take at the moment.

On series 8 at the moment and only two things have annoyed me up until this point:

Phil Wang repeating his stupid haggling joke.

Iain Stirling being so openly desperate to win with the constant mentions and champion of champions.

Other than that I generally find most contestants quite entertaining in their own ways and I can happily put up with them in the format even if I wouldn't necessarily watch some of them outside of it.

[DavidB6937]

Definitely a massive risk bringing the show back but with SMG on board I think there'll be a decent amount of quality control. I know the original show means a lot to a lot of people so it'll be interesting to see what it looks like in 2025 and without Joss (not that that's a bad thing).

 

[Merzbow]

Who's making this reboot? I think Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a great example of what a modern take could be like, I was surprised at just how enjoyable that show was.

Although, Sabrina never had quite a fanatical fan base of the original..

Edited May 16, 2025 by Merzbow

[Devon Malcolm]

Finished series 11 of Taskmaster, which was tremendous throughout, and I definitely couldn't confirm nor deny that I've said to my daughter this weekend "You've got no chutzpah!"

I'm watching the 2021 New Year special and I'd happily watch a whole series of this and not just for Nicola Coughlan.

[DavidB6937]

Makes me slightly more interested but it definitely needs to be better than the last season they did or itll fail miserably.

 

[gmoney]

Should be in the things you know will be shit thread 

[FLips]

I’ve got a soft spot for Scrubs. It wasn’t perfect and JD is an arsehole, but I still get on with it.

[gmoney]

I like the fella who did the acapella singing. Actually, being fair, it started off pretty well, and I can't pretend there wasn't funny stuff in there. But my main memory of it is sugary mawkishness and Zach fucking Braff being really annoying. 

[Chest Rockwell]

I tried to watch Stath lets Flats after all the recommendations I've had but couldn't get through the first episode.

Edited May 22, 2025 by Chest Rockwell

[DavidB6937]

I wasn't sure about it at first but it definitely grew on me. Might be worth a couple more.