Season 6 wasn't that great. I hated the step-sister-possible-incestuous-thoughts angle. I did like how she found him in the act and have started watching some of Season 7 already ... so far how she goes about reconciling and accepting (so far at least) is pretty interesting.

Dexter season 7 was pretty okay, better than 6.

The last episode and the choice that Deb had to make was great.

What's the deal with Dexter and blondes? They should give him a little more variety.

The incest stuff lost me on that show. Just felt weird watching scenes with those two after that. Glad you're enjoying it still.

The thing you mentioned about him shifting from a serial killer to a cop is spot-on. What I found most fascinating about the first couple seasons was that Dexter was a sociopath/psychopath. He didn't know how to act around Rita or other people because he had no empathy. I can't remember any other show that had a protagonist playing that role.

But then they sort of just dropped that angle. Dexter suddenly found empathy and instead of being a fascinating psychopathic serial killer, he turned into a vigilante supercop. Not boring, just not unique.

Maybe that was the point. That Dexter never really was a psychopath. But I think the show would have been much better if they continued down the path of showing us how a person who lacks empathy navigates the world.

I'm halfway through. Just not feeling it. Maybe the rest of the season will provide some decent payoff but it feels like a TV show they had to scramble to re-write after Spacey was removed.

Finally finished Season 8 of Dexter. I enjoyed it, the psychoanalyst/psychiatrist was great and it really brought more depth to Dexter's backstory.

The ending with Deb seemed rushed and although I would have preferred a different ending for Dexter, I thought it was fitting (albeit sad).

Season 5 was the worst, Season 6 was weak. All the others were pretty good to great IMO.

If you like lawyer shows with politics and corruption, watch Rake.

I love his character. And the others in the show.

I almost get a californication vibe from the show.

I love this show.

If you like Showtime style shows, you might like Ray Donovan.

Finished House of Cards last night. Didn't realize it was 8 episodes. Which is bad because after the 8th episode it just ends leaving a ton of storylines open. I had to look up and see if they would be releasing the 2nd half of this season at a later date. No, apparently that was the series finale.

It's one of the worst seasons of a show I've ever seen. Really enjoyed the first few seasons and while the later ones weren't as good, they were still fun popcorn TV. This was just a disaster.

There was nothing satisfying about this season. Building up characters only to have their plots just left open or end in the most mundane ways. Wasting a really talented cast harping over Frank the whole season instead of just letting Claire do her own thing.

Caught a break from binge watching and watched "Outlaw Kings" by the younger Kirk.

Here's a review 'Outlaw King' Review: Chris Pine Digs Deep on Netflix - The Atlantic

It was entertaining and okay but I wouldn't have liked paying $8-$10 for it in the big screen. Apparently 20 min was cut from the Netflix version which may have helped.

It did get me reading up on Robert (vs Wallace) but my eyes did kinda glaze over with the wiki entry Robert the Bruce - Wikipedia

Finished the Haunting of Hill House last night. Really glad the story wrapped up, and not just a "stay tuned, for season 2!" finale. Best horror show I've seen in years I'd say.

These 6-10 hour series are one of the best trends in 'TV' for me, undoubtedly helped by the digital services getting so popular. There's always been series like that and obviously plenty on normal TV, but still think the amount has risen sharply since about 5,6 years ago.

Looks like it's time for me to subscribe to Netflix again

They spent a fortune making it. Looking forward to seeing it although sad to see it getting negative reviews. Was hoping this would be a nice follow-up to Braveheart (yes I know Braveheart is light on historical accuracy).

I've thought Daredevil was a solid show for the first 2 seasons but season 3 has been terrific. The show really found it's footing and is just a great watch. And this coming from someone who isn't a huge fan of comic stuff.

If this show is even somewhat up your alley, I highly recommend it. Especially for people who like darker stuff like The Dark Knight. Vincent D'Onofrio is so good in it.

Agreed. Some of my favourite shows over the last 5 or so years have been a lot of the 6-10 episode "one shot" BBC series, to be honest - especially the drama/crime stories.

The never ending soap operas that stretch on until cancellation with no focused ending in sight are a drain.

I loved season 1, but never made it past halfway point in season 2 before getting distracted by something else and not picking it back up. I thought season 2 got a bit silly despite them nailing the Punisher casting, glad to hear it picks up again in season 3. Agree on D'Onofrio - I loved his right hand man in season 1 as well.

Yeah, season 2 lagged a bit and I wasn't terribly excited for Season 3. But this season has gotten me back on board. They fixed a lot of the issues the show had.

Just started watching the 90s, really enjoyed the first episode, looking forward to more.

If anyone is a fan of The Purge keep an eye out fr it to hit Netflix, really well done and stays true to the source materiel.

On Hulu, not Netflix, but I've been binging a Canadian comedy called Letterkenny. I'd say it's a cross between Trailer Park Boys and Goon, if Aaron Sorkin was helping write some dialogue.

Are any of the Amazon shows good? I've seen Man in the High Castle and Jack Ryan. But they seem to have so many more.

I enjoyed The Tick

I havent got very far into it, but Hand of God started strong.

I was very surprised and impressed by Amazon's dark comedy Patriot (which just started its second season). It's gotten practically no hype/marketing, which I don't understand, it's better than any of the other Amazon products I've watched.

Tick didn't seem to be up my alley. Hand of God looked interesting and the cast looks great. Patriot I've heard was phenomenal but forgot that was an Amazon show.

I'll probably give Patriot a go this weekend.

Has anyone watched the new Homecoming show they've been advertising a ton?

Rake was amazing.

I had to look up Hand of God in order to remember that I'd watched both seasons of it, for whatever that's worth.

I did try watching it but didn't get into it.

Watching House of Cards now.

It's on my list of things to watch.

Finished the Haunting of Hill House.

Two thumbs way up for me. Brilliant show, that will stick with me for some time. It's creepy, smart, sad, and yes, scary at times. It doesn't rely on gross out crap. It legit had me looking behind me at times well watching.

The Nel episode, ep 5, is just amazing!

Bosch and Poldark are great from the seasons I saw when I had Amazon Prime. The show I felt weirded out by but couldn't stop watching because it was so fascinating was Transparent.

The kid is home so I get random Netflix viewing.

Picking up Bloodline at the start of S3 -- even with the kid explaining S1 & S2 -- is NOT the way to pick it up.

Surreal shit.

Letterkenny is incredible.

Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is fantastic! One of the best comedies I've seen in ages (and looks fantastic in 4k UHD). Catastrophe (which is a British show that Amazon brought over) is hilarious. I really enjoyed Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, which is Black Mirror-esque, but more dedicated to the "twist". The Tick was great.

Agree. And it is different than most of the prestige TV out there right now. There's a bit of sameness to the high-end shows. This breaks that mold.

I'm really enjoying running through the original Unsolved Mysteries episodes on Prime. It's my current "on in the background of my PC as I do stuff" show. There's an online wikia recapping all of the episodes including updates that have occurred long after the show ended. And some of these updates have been included at the end of the segments in the show itself. I'm 8 episodes in and already two suspects eventually got apprehended in my town. Other mysteries remain unsolved, but have been subject to years and years of internet speculation. I've gone down more than a few rabbit holes reading about this stuff. And Robert Stack, the music, the production is just as good at setting the mood as I remembered.

I finally signed back up for Netflix (at least for the free month). The new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 comes out today and I also wanted to watch Disenchantment.

Cancellation of Daredevil yesterday = cancellation of Netflix subscription.

I'll stick with my 99 cent Hulu for a while, thanks.

I actually saw that .99 deal & signed up.

I'll be curious to see whether my household combined manages to get at least that much value out of it tbh.

(So far in the first week I think each of us has logged in once, I don't believe anyone has watched anything to this point tho)

If you have Amazon Prime, Braven is a fun movie. Stars Jason Momoa and is just a fun popcorn action movie.

There's some good stuff on there, but it probably WILL come down to what you're after.

My girlfriend has some crime procedurals on there that she loves. There are a couple of Marvel/Marvel-adjacent shows on there for me, and there's some stuff I wouldn't have sought out, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, that I'll watch because it's there.

Like I say, it'll cost me for a whole year what Netflix was costing for a month. I'll watch at least as much Hulu in a year as I would Netflix in a month, easy.

In the fifth season for House of Cards. The earlier seasons were better. Don't quite like the rise of Claire Underwood, somewhat unbelievable.

Have to watch Season 6 just to bring closure though.

Sick Note.

Great British show. Slacker goes to doctor for fake injury. Doctor about to be fired for screwing up. Doctor misdiagnosis slacker with cancer. Mayhem ensues through twists and turns.

2 seasons. A lot of fun.

Oh no

Absolutely loved the Haunting of Hill House but l like many was not overly impressed by the ending. Some incredibly filmed scenes, loved episode 6 and really liked all of the actors.

Wolf Hall on Amazon Prime is worth watching. Six episode BBC period drama, follows the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the 1520s and 1530s.

Season 5 was below par. Finished watching Season 6 Ep 2 and lacking motivation to finished the season.

I don't mind Claire being President but the writing is off. Her speech for the new recruits was excruciatingly painful. It may have been better to do a 2 hour series finale vs Season 6.

The Kominsky Method with Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin is a pretty funny 8 30-minute episode series. It's old people humor/sentimentality and a disclaimer that movies like Grumpy Old Men are right up my alley. About a life long friendship between the two and how they cope after Arkin's wife dies. Nothing I would expect to see on the Emmy's next year or anything but enjoyable and really easy to watch 2-3 at a time.

The last season feels like it was written with Spacey in mind and then they had to just re-work it real fast without him. Doesn't make much sense at all and is just painful to get through.

I'll give this a whirl. Looked decent and am always looking for shorter comedies I can relax to at night.

Did notice it's been nominated for some awards already (best comedy, best ensemble in a comedy, etc), so I don't think an Emmy nomination is far off.

Just finished a second watching if the Christmas chronicles with my daughter. Fun movie. Russell is great as Santa and a really fun reveal at the end.

Meant to write about this weeks ago, but Season 6 of House of Cards was one of the worst television seasons I've ever watched. The writing was absolutely wretched, to the point where not even the actors could save it. And that's without getting into the ending, which, while I appreciate the meta quality of the last line, was laughably bad.

In fact, it was so horrible, if I ever rewatch the series (v. unlikely - I can count on one hand the number of shows I'll rewatch), I'd stop at the end of Season 5.

I think I may just watch the last 2 episodes or so just to bring closure.

I want to take this opportunity to recommend Amazon's Patriot again.

I enjoyed it, but I will say the award buzz just must come from having Micheal Douglas doing tv. It wasn't great in acting or story by any stretch.

Yeah that's kind of what I was saying... beats rewatching the Office or Seinfeld but not something to plan a binge watch around. Something about Alan Arkin for me though that I just laugh out loud at a lot of his lines and not sure they would be as funny with any other actor. Michael Douglas is okay, Danny DeVito is really solid in his guest appearances. I found the scenes with the two of them really funny and kind of tuned in and out during the acting class scenes and his scenes with Nancy Travis.

What a stupid finale.

Anyone see "The Innocent Man" on Netflix yet? Looks right up my wife and my alley - but I always like to hear what people think first

I didn't realize it was only 8 episodes and was confused when the next one didn't start up. Not a good look for a finale.

Watch Happy for some dark humor. And a real dark detective and a child kidnapper. And Patton Oswalt. So far it is awesome.

If you watched the All or Nothing: Manchester City series and want to see how the other of the big club works, I recommend Sunderland Til I Die. Really well done.

I really liked Sunderland Til I Die too, more interesting than the Man City or Juventus versions since so much more went wrong with Sunderland. Especially the Juventus one, which was pretty flat and boring.

Boca Juniors Confidential on Netflix is good too.

Just binge watched the entire series. Excellent recommendation - thanks!

I just started watching Black Mirror.. the first season is awesome.

Some have been good, some have been a complete waste of time. They are mostly thought provoking.

I've enjoyed them all so far, but definitely some more than others. It freaks me out to think most of these could actually be real some day. :eek:

There's a new one-off Black Mirror movie coming to Netflix tomorrow. The trailer is on this link:

Bandersnatch

That's tomorrow night's viewing taken care of anyway.

Bird Box was great.

When will Mark McKinney get an Emmy for Superstore? Cause he straight up has earned one.

Bandersnatch is straight up fantastic.

Give yourself 2+ hours to really enjoy it.

Birdbox might be decent, I haven't seen it.. But the previews make it look like it is just the next step on the way to making a horror movie where if you can experience something through any particular sense, you die.

Will be watching once I'm done with the BM series.

Looking forward to it. Hope it doesn't disappoint.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/01/enter...ate/index.html

Bird Box is solid. Definitely worth a watch.

Bandersnatch was ok. I love Black Mirror and I hope we see more interactive programs like this, but if you compared this to Black Mirror episodes it'd be one of the weaker episodes.

I strongly recommend Murder Mountain if you're into Crime Docu-series type things. This is the best one I've seen on Netflix to date.

I enjoyed it.

But no way she navigated that river couple days blindfolded!

Some of these Black Mirror episodes are f'd up. Like in the end I have to take a few minutes to digest what just happened. Crazy stuff!

I wasn't a fan of Bandersnatch. After going through several endings, it just wrapped up for me. I then looked at the other endings online, and was not impressed. It seems like they would all be rather disappointing.

That being said, I did enjoy the experience that it provided.

Derry Girls was so crazy funny.

Derry Girls is the funniest show I've seen in years. 6 episodes of 30 minutes each = a one night binge.

They've finished filming Season 2 already and are in post-production.

I enjoyed Bandersnatch, but I'm a sucker for things like that. Perfect? No. But I'm excited to see that enter the mainstream space (no pun intended). Hope it leads to similar projects in the future.

I'll join in with the BANDERSNATCH was fine brigade. It was a really fun experience, but not a great episode of BLACK MIRROR.

I did enjoy the meta-commentary that discussed how there was really just the illusion of choice but in the end you were going to go where the storyteller wanted you to go... which was true, as you pretty much always ended up

Yeah, Bandersnatch was just ok. Too much effort for not much payoff.

Now, Season 3 of a Series of Unfortunate Events has started off great (it's probably one of the more underrated Netflix originals, IMO).

Yeah, I thought Bandersnatch was OK. I didn't know what to expect going in, and didn't expect a flashback to interactive movie days, but I was done with it after about an hour with no real desire to push on.

SHIRKERS - 9/10

Outstanding documentary about some girls in a very closed up Singapore who decide they're going to try to bust it open by making an independent feature film. What happens along the way is both heartbreaking and uplifting. Yeah, that's really cliched, but I was near tears by the end, which is HARD to do to me.

Early on, it's about indie culture and zine culture of the late 80's and early 90's, and what the absolute craving and need to express yourself creatively will lead people to do... and how it gets magnified by being in a society so uptight that it banned chewing gum (for real). Do yourself a favor and watch it without learning too much more about it... even the Netflix description is too spoilery.

Not to mention that the style and storytelling of the documentary itself is top-notch... it comes through that the filmmaker has basically been waiting 25 years to tell this story to its fullest. And she makes the most of it.

This is going to be hard to top, coming out of the gate strong this year!

I'd rate Bandersnatch as just "okay" overall as well, but I'd also call it "perfect" in that I think they pulled off the "choose your own adventure" movie as well as any one could.

Maybe it's that I have extreme fondness and nostalgia for 80s adventure games (Look Door, Get Key!), but I really enjoyed Bandersnatch. It's true that it had a weaker plot than many Black Mirror episodes, but I thought the experience made up for that. And indeed the experience was the point. I loved the meta-ness of it all.

Can you do bandersnatch if you’ve never watched black mirror ?

Yes. You can actually watch any episode of Black Mirror without having seen any others -- each works fine as a standalone. There are often sly references to other episodes but that is just a little bonus, not necessary to enjoy it.

Was very done with it well before it ended. I don’t think it was badly executed, but just didn’t like the story and the meta-ness of some of it was pretty jarring. It felt like it tried to do too much with what they actually had. Other than some nice nostalgia items from 80s Britain, I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t think it really deserved to have the Black Mirror label on it.

Pretty much every episode of Black Mirror is a stand alone episode. To the extent there is any overlap it’s very minor, Easter Egg type stuff. They each stand on their own.

Those liking Derry Girls should also try Love Sick. Definitely different sort of show, but also has a distinctly local (scotland in this case) character and similar mix of deadpan and hilarity along with a lot of earnest and well executed heavier moments.

I always figured that they took place in the same universe, or at least at some point in time, in the same universe. That wouldn't really impact one to the next generally though.

Not on Netflix but am watching The Passage on Fox now Mon 9pm ET. Didn't know they were making a series but I read Books 1 & 2 and thought it was great. Haven't gotten to Book 3 yet.

EDIT: so far so good. Don't really remember the book details to compare with the first episode but I thought it was well done

Not sure if I'd recommend it, but The Last Kingdom is good trashy historical fiction to tide me over until Game of Thrones returns. I read the book (at least the first book, maybe a few others) years ago and the show I'll admit is cheesy as hell, but generally speaking enjoyable in a "turn your brain off and pour a glass of wine" kind of way.

I haven't watched the 3rd season yet, but I enjoyed the first 2 more than I expected. Some parts are terrible, but overall I'd say it's a solid watch when you can't decide on anything else.

I enjoyed all 3 seasons. It's a really fun series that's easy to enjoy - same is true for Frontier.

I'm in the same spot, we just finished season 2 last night. I thought season 1 was much, much better than the first half of season 2, but the last couple of episodes of season 2 were probably the best in the show so far.

I think the dialogue is arguably the most cheesy part (Uhtred and Father Berocca in particular), but overall they do a decent job masking the budget - particularly some of the battle scenes.

Season 3 was worse for me, although mostly the first half of it. One of the few times i was genuinely doing ye olde "but in the book it was so and so ..." thing in my head during a show, because they made some truly baffling choices as far as what characters to include and re-write story archs for dramatic effect only for it to fall flat and seem super unnecessary.
Without spoilering too much, there's a terrific storyline with Pyrlig (the non- Beocca priest) in the books that is given to Beocca in the show for some mystifying reason and doesn't reasonate at all. They are kinda treating him like a composite of both priests despite the fact they actually have Pyrlig in the show, if that makes sense.

2nd half of the 3rd season was a bit better, aside from a comically bad (to me) resolution and battle.

But yeah, overall it is a good, fun show. Works better than it should, despite some glaring issues as far as adaptation goes (like the fact the books have a considereable time span that the show can't capture).

Looks like Netflix prices are going up $2 a month:

Netflix raises prices on all streaming plans in US - The Verge

Thanks Friends :mad:

Seems like it will be immediate for new customers are come into effect in the next three months for current subscribers.

How long until Hulu follows?



If Amazon Prime keeps their pricing down, I could see their streaming getting a bigger market share.

I know Netflix puts out a ton of content, but nothing really seems great. Just shows you binge watch and forget. Haven't found myself using it much the past few weeks so maybe I'll pause it while I catch up on some HBO shows.