Those are just written by Gaiman though. Pratchett is entirely a humorous author (he wrote the Discworld series).

I don't know him or his style at all.

I remember watching HBO Big Love for a 2-3 seasons back in the oughts and then didn't keep up. Nowadays there is HBO Go at hotels so enjoyed the series finale tonight (just the finale, didn't have time to watch from approx season 4 onwards).

Still fond memories of Bill Paxton as a space marine in one of my all time favorites in Aliens. The ending seemed unsatisfying but at least it brought some closure (are you listening Sopranos?).

HBO did have two of the best finales ever with the Leftovers and Six Feet Under. They seek to either be great or really bad at them.

Cop Car (Netflix) was a really good movie. I didnt think it would be anything, and the 1st 15 minutes kind of fed that. But it turned out to be a really good ride.

A lot more then I expected.

Just got into Billions and I'm hooked. I don't know how I missed that one - right in my wheelhouse.

Murder Mystery was quite fun. Just a nice way to spend the evening!

I think the show actually gets better season to season. I mean it's kind of out there but definitely a fun show.

I noticed that this hasn't been mentioned, but Netflix released the latest season (#3) of Designated Survivor.

Enjoyed it a lot. They seemed to make it more like The West Wing, and less like The Blacklist.

Yeah, this was way better than it had any right to be. Grudgingly watched it with the wife, and we both ended up enjoying it.

In words I never thought I'd type, Zendaya is fantastic in Euphoria, but it's a scary fucking show for parents with a girl about to start high school.

I saw the first episode of Euphoria, but it was just lame to me. Also it tends to fly in the face of what is being reported - that GenZ is far less into drinking / doing drugs / having underage sex than previous generations.

Knowing a fair number of Gen Z'ers, I'd say they're still heavily into drinking, heavier into drugs than the gen before them, probably less into sex as a primary motivation (not to say they have it less, just saying they invest less effort into getting it / are less concerned about it if they don't)

It depends on what drugs, IME. Pot, sure. Harder stuff? Not really.

And granted, take the reporting with some grain of salt, but:

https://www.businessinsider.com/gene...g-study-2017-9

fwiw ... I think -- on the whole, individual situations vary, etc etc -- it's probably justifiably less scary than it would have been if you dropped a teenager from my era into the modern landscape.

Emerging HS'ers have generally been exposed to so much more than I was at that point that they're better prepared to make decisions/choices than I would have been if you timeshifted me. Basically they've been preparing for this all their lives & the world they face is the one they know.

(Not sure I was able to word this as clear as I'd like, hopefully it made sense)

YMMV I guess.

Pills are as about as common as aspirin in that world (more, probably, since they're an Advil / Tylenol generation)

And coke certainly made a helluva comeback (though anecdotally maybe less right now than say five years ago)

It does feel like culturally cocaine has shifted back from being considered a hard drug into something like a party/social drug in the last 5-10 years.

Hasn't it been that way since the 1980s? I mean it was a party/social drug when I was in college (1998-2002) and through the 00s.

When did it go back to being considered a hard drug?

According to my strictly annecdotal evidence I'd say kids of the 'just say no' era were taught that cocaine was a hard drug, for better or worse, and that attitude stuck around in US culture til around the turn of the millenium.

I suppose it comes down to how you define culture as well....twenty-year-olds have probably always considered cocaine a party drug, regardless of the era, but I dunno if that's the standard I'd use. In my mind I feel like there used to be ads and warnings about cocaine within pop-culture, whereas these days it seems like it's practically dropped entirely off of the public concern radar.

From my perspective locally, my generation (graduated HS in 2001) was a coke generation. That probably ran through the late 00's and then the opiates took over. Now opiates are thankfully on the decline and judging by the way my friend's little brother was grinding his teeth at my buddy's wedding, coke has made it's way back.

In Australia they released some numbers taken from wastewater samples in different cities earlier this year, and Sydney was the coke capital of Australia (not surprising), with weed/meth/heroin coming out on top of our other major cities. I say not surprising because, especially not all that long ago when I was actually going out at night in Sydney as opposed to being in bed watching true crime shows on Netflix, coke was so prevalent that it would have been difficult going to go to any half-decent night spot in Sydney without seeing people doing it openly. Definitely viewed as a recreational/soft drug socially here. Very expensive however, and the odds of it being cut with something nasty are high.

Yeah, I was gonna say that the waves & cycles of popularity/usage are also probably very regional, on macro & micro levels. For instance, Portland has always had a culture built around lots of young creative folks, burning both ends at high-stress service jobs trying to fuel whatever their dreams may be, and in those circles of folks like strippers and late-night restaurant workers coke is practically currency and has likely never gone out of style.

The problem with Euphoria is that it feels to extreme in trying to show kids today. I remember when that movie Kids came out when I was in high school and it scared every parent. Watched it and it was almost comical to see their idea of average teenagers.

Like I'm sure there are kids like that but to me it felt like some 30 and 40 year old writers trying to hard to go for shock value.

I'm on ep 2 of Stranger Things 3 and its not quite grabbed my attention yet. Still enjoyable but not quite 1 & 2. Hope it gets better.

My wife and I are feeling the same way.

I re-watched the 4th season of Bosch over the last few days and I have to say it was a great season. I think it goes on my list as one of the greatest seasons of any show.

Only watched episode 1 thus far (stranger things), been busy. I'm with you, it didn't make me immediately queue up the next episode.

Same here.Two episodes in and it's not hooking me. It feels like the first two episodes were spent 90% on subplots, and has barely started the main plot of the season. Makes me pessimistic about the rest of the season.

Also watched the latest season of Black Mirror. Not great, but I think I still liked it more than most. The 3 episodes this season are on par with the bottom 3 episodes of the previous seasons, IMO.

Edit: Just watched episode 3 for Stranger Things 3 and it's now picking up steam. Much better than the first two episodes.

Anyone have a recommendation on a good site to use for Stranger Things S3 episode recaps that discuss easter eggs but are also spoiler free?

I thought Striking Vipers was a really, really weak episode but I thought the acting and some of the underlying storylines in Smithereens made it a much better watch than a lot of the reviews I've read. I haven't been able to muster up the desire to watch the Miley episode as it sounds awful.

Totally opposite. Best season of the show IMO. I love ti development of subplots and the exchanges between the characters.

Finally watched Ricky Gervais's Life on the Road.

The BBC Office is maybe my favorite show of all time. There wasn't a lot of good buzz around Life on the Road so I put off watching it. The criticisms were that it was 90% solid David Brent cringe, but without the charm and humanity and emotion of the series (perhaps because Gervais did it solo without Stephen Merchant).

I had a different experience watching it. I thought it added a lot to the David Brent character. Yes, it was sad, (and often hilariously cringey) that this character was unable to build on the self improvements he seemed to make at the end of the Office. But he had slightly more moments of self-awareness here, which made it even more sad. And I'm not sure if this was intended, but at the end, I felt like everyone around him was being a dick and that I'd much rather be friends with David Brent than any of the tools around him any day. And he does get a little redemption. In the end, I don't think this character ever really wanted to be a rock star, he just sadly thought that was the only way for him to gain the comradery and acceptance he longed for. When he had that, as an office manager, he was able to let the rock star dreams go. Without that job, he found no other way to get those things other than literally paying people to hang out with him. So the whole thing was uncomfortably dark, which made it a compelling watch. Just like the BBC Office, the movie plays much better if you see it as a sad story, rather than a pure pointing as someone and laughing at them kind of comedy.

And some of his songs were catchy. I'd like to karaoke this one someday.

Please Don't Make Fun Of The Disableds by David Brent - YouTube

I'm 4 episodes into Stranger Things 3. I've really been enjoying it and shit definitely starts getting real in Episode 4.

This is on tonight.

Just finished Stranger Things season 3. Easily my favorite. Was really a coming of age tale with awesome action and sci fi. Easier to follow than the first 2. My wife and I both cried a lot the last few minutes. Hoppers letter was amazing.

Now that I've finished the season, I'm revising my opinion to Really Good. I still think the first season was the best, but this is very close.

Turn around. Look at what you seeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

An actress I went to grad school with is spending the next couple of months shooting the new season of Ozark. She's supposed to be an FBI agent investigating the casino. Jessica Dukes is her name.

I'm 8 episodes in to the current season of Handmaid's tale and it feels well and truly like it's time to wrap it up.

Also watched episode 1 of Chernobyl last night finally. Took me about 10 mins to figure out why there are so many Brits working and living in the Soviet Union, but once I got over that I really enjoyed it. It's interesting how little I actual know about the accident, so I'm resisting the temptation to do any reading and just watch the rest of the series.

I actually really like Nicolas Winding Refn but his Amazon show Too Old To Die Young is the slowest slow that ever slowed.

So a bit of a redux as I finally watched the Ashley O episode, while I can definitely think it covered a lot of ground they've covered over and over again (consciousness, what is a real experience in the digital age) and the story was a bit all over the place, I really didn't hate it. I don't think it would be close to my least favorite of the three episodes of this season, or in my top 5 weakest episodes overall.

That would be a hell of a fun exercise if we had enough interested in it, btw. Elimination tournament to see what Black Mirror episode stands as FOFC's favorite all time.

Finished watching Madam Secretary S3.

If things were only that simple to resolve. Enjoyed it but wish it was more "complex" by spanning multiple episodes.

Yeah I would be interested in this. Was a little late to the game after season 1 so I "triaged" based on several websites rankings of best to worst and thought 2 of the ones almost always on their worst (Metalhead and Shut Up and Dance) were two of my favorite. Ended up watching all of them and couldn't figure out some of their favorites and least favorites. There were only a couple (Bandersnatch, Black Museum) that I couldn't bother finishing.

Either an elimination tournament or a top 25 ranking depending on the interest.

How who would you rank The National Anthem?

Would you say it was good because it was so well done in making you feel the most uncomfortable watching TV ever? Or the worst for the same reason?

I couldnt make it through this one the 1st time and quit watching the show. But I went back and plowed through it (No pun intended) and am glad I did.

I think that's probably the most fascinating question of all - on it's own merits as a standalone episode that I'd want to watch? Definitely in the bottom quarter I would say. Definitely horrendously uncomfortable watching and IMO more than a bit gimmicky.

But as a groundbreaking episode that set the tone and the one that got all the controversy and buzz that made people watch and probably made the rest possible, it may well be the most important episode they ever made.

Season 2 of Workin Moms drops 7/25. Super excited for it.

just re-watched "justified" on amazon prime w timothy olyphant.... i never see that show mentioned, but definitely one of my favorites... great collection of characters.... winn duffie, boyd crowder, dewey crowe, dickie bennett, lol...

also rewatching "from the earth to the moon", an HBO miniseries about the apollo program.. this one has been unavailable for years, but just recently showed up again.... executive produced by tom hanks... still good....

Justified is in my top 5 list of shows. Great characters like you said, great writing, and it ended when it should have. If you like Olyphant in that type of role, check out Deadwood as well, if you haven't already.

There was a thread for the show that covered many seasons here while it was running. Probably not in my top 5 favorite shows but definitely top 10. Season 2 of Justified with Margo Martindale as the big bad is one of the best single seasons of any TV drama ever imo.

endorsed

I started Justified years back off the back of the thread here, enjoyed it a lot, but got distracted by something else before watching season 2 and never came back to it. Maybe it's time now, outside of Stranger Things and a few episodes of Chernobyl I have zilch on my binge watch list.

Just finished Big Little Lies season 1. Really good watch. I figured out most of it by episode 6, but fun nonetheless.

Outstanding show. Not groundbreaking or anything, but very well done.

The Witcher | Official Teaser | Netflix - YouTube

The Witcher trailer is exciting to see.

Last Chance U dropped. I was disappointed after the first part of the Indy 2 part series.

Wish they had gone deeper into Browns legal issues.

I really want this to be good.

Superman is pretty buffed up. Must be nice to be paid to workout all day long.

Watched the first episode of Altered Carbon last night. This strangely flew under my radar, I've seen it mentioned in passing a few times but didn't know it was a cyberpunk story until I saw it referenced from an article on the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 or else I would've been on board from day 1. Loved the first episode, and thankfully the wife did too meaning we may just work our way through the first season.

I'm watching Netflix "Three Wives, One Husband". I'm into ep 3 where the guy's brother has died and, in addition to all the other drama, he's said he will marry his brother's 2 wives and his current 3 wives seem to accept it if its God's will.

Not sure if his 2 sister-in-laws are for it ... haven't gotten to that part.

Fascinating real-life dynamics. The bedroom situation would be weird.

He may be in trouble though per below. You would think they would grandfather current polygamists though.

https://www.iheart.com/content/2018-...-for-polygamy/

Altered Carbon crawls so far up its own ass. Not necessarily in a bad way.

But....wait for it....HIS RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS!?!?!?!?!?

The show said he wasn't really married to all 3 legally. He was married to 1 and the other 2 were "spiritual wives". This was before the now law in Utah that apparently bans the spiritual wives (or the like) so he's in trouble.

I get not being a bigamist/polygamist as that is illegal but can you really make spiritual wives illegal? If a married guy had a couple mistresses with kids and he was taking care of them, got them setup in apartments etc. that's not illegal I don't think.

FWIW, it didn't seem that any of the wives were forced into anything. It did seem to be a loving relationship(s) with some typical jealousy/drama you would expect. They all seemed happily aligned to the orig Mormon faith about this is how man/women get closer to God etc.

Anyone have thoughts on the new Amazon show The Boys? I've seen some of the previews, not sure it'll make my hit list, but I'm curious to see what the opinions are of people here if they watch it.

Been watching Netflix Hart of Dixie. Think of Doc Hollywood made into a TV series with a female Dr. as the Michael J Fox character.

Nothing too deep but entertaining for me and wife. I thought first season was good, lots of love interest drama but also interesting family dynamics - bum father, aloof father, mother with a big lie, mother that left family, insecure daughter(s) etc. and all the reconciliations that happen.

Second season so far kinda sucks. Too much of the love interest drama and main protagonist acting too much like a love sick teenager. If this continues, I'll be skipping to the last couple episodes and hope s3 is better.

I watched the first episode. Visually it was done well. Pretty decent setup but it was a lot darker in parts than what I was expecting the series to be (for example there's a content warning for "rape" among the other content advisers. I thought it was going to be more of a comedic thing but it's definitely more drama.

I've watched the first three, it's well done. It's one of the few comic books I'm aware of, I generally like Garth Ennis's stuff for its mixture of dark humor and ultra-violence, so I've read a few of these. It's fairly faithful to the books, other than the main character Wee Hughie Campbell being an American, and not looking like a stunted Simon Pegg anymore. I should be boycotting for the offensive cultural appropriation of a Scottish character.

The real main weakness is Karl Urban as the main character Butcher, he's awful. His attempt at an English accent is Dick-van-Dyke-in-Mary-Poppins bad, and he's not menacing enough to carry off the main role of a violent hardman who kills superheroes. And they seem to have written out Terror, the fornicating bulldog for some reason.

I'll be sticking with it, though.

I watched the 1st episode of The Boys and it exceeded my expectations. And yet met them WOW. This is exactly how I see a super hero of the 2010s going. Driven by social media and the corporate dollar. With "the little guy" standing up

I love this show already. I cannot wait to watch the rest.

It was not what I expected. I went in totally blind and am very excited.

Yup, paused on Hart of Dixie to watch The Boys based on this thread. Ep 1 was pretty good.

I will fourth that first episode of The Boys is good. Excited to see the rest.


I will also say we just finished watching season 4 of Veronica Mars, after a complete series/movie re-watch. I am big Marshmellow, so of course I loved it. The shock at the end wasn't the biggest shock to me.

Done with Boys Ep 5.

Ep 4 with the plane was brutal. Very fun so far.

Just finished season 2 of Big Little Lies. Holy shit what an amazing show. Streep is a lock for best supporting actress.

Finished the limited series Sharp Objects this weekend. What a phenomenal, creepy, brilliant show. Hard to watch sometimes and hence not truly bingeable as a result, and not something I could watch again alone, but it'll stick with me.

One line synopsis: Amy Adams as an alcoholic cutter and reporter in St. Louis who is sent to her small Missouri hometown to investigate and report on the disappearance of two teenage girls.

We're definitely not in the world of Enchanted anymore. Lots of little things each episode, too. Really smartly written and acted.

Just a heads up that there appears to be a concerted effort to hack into Netflix accounts and change the email addresses assigned to the account. If you have an old password on your Netflix account, now would be a good time to update it, especially if the email you used has shown up in any of the reported breaches.

Saw the first ep of The Boys as well and have to agree with everyone here - that was really good! I'm looking forward to watching the rest of it.

I was pretty skeptical of The Boys. I read the first trade paperback of the comic many years ago and... didn't love it. I really liked Preacher and much of Ennis' work on Hellblazer, but he’s like a very rich piece of chocolate cake. The first few bites are amazing, but it soon becomes just too much and no longer all that pleasant. That’s how I felt about The Boys. The concept is fun and interesting, but it became all too much and too nasty after a while. The “super heroes” were just way too over the top gross and bad and soon the concept of super heroes actually being awful became a bit tired. Other comics - like Powers and Top Ten - did it much better and more nuanced.

Still, I love comics and super heroes and was excited by the cast - Karl Urban, Elizabeth Shue, etc - so I decided to give the show a spin and... I really, really like it! I'm five episodes in and it's pretty great. The cast is very solid, it looks good, and it's much more interesting than the source material.

Perfect summary, actually. Preacher is the only book of his I stuck through to the end, I burnt out on the Boys after the first couple of volumes. I'll give the show a shot however.

It has the guy from Banshee which is cool.

Y'all have piqued my interest.

Also, not enough people watched Banshee, that show was batshit in the best of ways.

The Boys - 9/10. Had never heard of the comics going into this one and just randomly saw it on Prime and hit play. Watched it all in one day. Goddamn its good. Cant wait for season 2.

Cant believe that is the same actor. He really showed what a great actor he is as Homelander.

Not sure where to put this but since ESPN+ is a sub service, I will put it here.

Peyton's Places is without a doubt really fucking good.

Just finished The Boys and is great throughout. Definitely up for a second season.

Finished the Boys today. Enjoyed it but am PO'd.

WTF was the final scene about? I hate these cliff-hangers ... whatever.

Derry Girls S2 is just as hilarious as the first batch and also has a few really poignant and sweet scenes thrown in. Only 6 Episodes of 20 minutes per season, so you can easily breeze through it as well

Reminds me I need to renew my Netflix subscription for another month or two to catch up on OITNB final season and S2 of Derry Girls (the latter of which is fast moving up the fave all-time series list if it's as good as S1 was)

Binged the 1st season of Florida Girls.
What can I say? Its a trashy show. Its on POP TV. Streamed over spectrum TV. Funny but stupid.

But I watched the whole thing. Take that for whats it worth.

Is Vikings worth getting into?

I'm 3 episodes into Killer Ratings and completely hooked. I don't know how big a deal this was at the time it happened, but I have zero knowledge of this whole caper and it's taken all my willpower not to google the people or events until I'm done with the show.

I really liked season 1, enjoyed season 2, but started to lose interest about halfway through season 3 and never picked it up. I think it was a bit of a victim of its own success because a few other shows touched on similar territory and I think a few of them (Last Kingdom in particular) surpassed it.

This really sums up my opinion on Vikings perfectly.

So I guess Last Kingdom is what I should watch!

I watched a show on some channel called POP yesterday. The show was call Florida Girls. It is about 4 lower class girls living together in a trailer in Clearwater. Florida trash. It wasnt the best, but it was a guilty pleasure type show.

I watched the whole thing and enjoyed my time with it.

You liked it so much, you brought it up twice. :thumbsup:

I really enjoyed it. The first two seasons are 8 episodes each and move pretty quick. I'd give it a shot.

LOL. I was impressed by the lead actor. She had 2 prominent skills so I posted twice.

Math and science, right?

Watching The Blacklist now with Spader and Megan Boone (hmmmm, might put her up for HoN). Thoroughly enjoying it.

I'm beginning to realize that I've missed a lot of good TV series and the Netflix format of binging is great vs waiting for next week.

:D

She did try and get her GED.

I just finished The Boys and came here to read all your thoughts. So, that was supposed to be an English accent? I had trouble pinpointing it to either English or Australian, or I don't know what. And Simon Pegg's American accent was just as horrid.

Anyways, that didn't take away too much of my enjoyment of the show. Can't wait for more.

In general, yes, but there's something about the anticipation of waiting for the next week that makes life a little brighter - gives you something to look forward to. And also active participation with at least part of the fandom.

I thought Urban was going for Australian. It's bad, but doesn't detract from the show for me.

You would probably like Person of Interest. I've been binging through that and like it.