“The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone."
We finished it tonight. I enjoyed it, but there were some part of the story that left me scratching my head. When we finished the final episode we went to Youtube and watched one of those "explained" videos, and there were a lot of details that we did not pick up on. The show is not perfect and certainly different, but we both enjoyed it. Apparently they are shooting season 2 right now and I will be on board for the ride. I read an interview that the plan is for a 5 season story arc, assuming the show gets renewed. The end of season 1 left a lot of things open.
I saw a trailer on YouTube for a series that looks totally off the hook, which I think is called Revelation Road and is about to enter season 2. On a channel called Pure ___. (Didn't get the last part, may have been Flix.) Anyway, anyone seen the first season? Any opinions? The trailer was enticing enough for me to search it out.
Here in the Phoenix market, shows start a minute early on the NBC and CBS affiliates, during the first 2 hours of primetime. I've always had to schedule shows to start recording a minute early.
Here's something completely stupid: when I first got digital cable, the box came with a VCR Commander which would automatically turn on the VCR, and start recording. If I scheduled 2 back to back half hour sitcoms, the commander would stop recording and turn off the VCR right after the first. Then immediately turn it back on and start recording again.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
“The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone."
^ Wow. Yeah, that tamps it down for me too. It looked like an Action / Fantasy drama.
I looked it up. It stars complete and utter nincompoop Kevin Sorbo. I know what the theme will be now. Pass.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 4 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 4 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
Started watching "Mr. Robot" tonight. I know it is an older one, but I have never seen it. Totally digging it 3 episodes in.
Sounds like something I'd like, then. I like these shows that you have to "close watch" to catch every detail. Even if I have to watch a video or listen to a podcast to pick up on the things I missed.
I only watched the first season, and it was really good. But I couldn't tell you why I never followed up on the rest. One of these days....
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
The beauty of the show is it didn't dumb down technical subjects, which otherwise would've treated audiences like morons. If a hospital show had dialogue like, "Doctor! His blood pumper thing stopped pumping blood!" instead of "The patient is in cardiac arrest," audience reaction would be identical to that of most technology based shows. The show CSI Cyber didn't go over well at all because all the hacker geniuses explained technical subjects to each other, as if they were explaining them to their grandmothers.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Finished The Boys the other day. The end wasn't wholly satisfying but I really enjoyed the series overall.
Started Condor on Epix yesterday. As I mentioned the other day, it's "based" on the screenplay Three Days of the Condor and the novel Six Days of the Condor. Got almost half way thru the first episode before I realized a sporting event was starting. After that, I finished E1 and ended up bingeing the next four.
If you liked the movie and/or the novel and/or the AMC series Rubicon, you'll like this show.
Note that it's been updated for the 21st century. Joe Turner is younger (than Robert Redford in Three Days) and a former grad student at MIT, and Joubert (the Max Von Sydow character in the movie) is a young woman who's ex Israeli Special Forces working for the CIA and who is no less lethal. And while some of the characters from the movie appear here [Kathy Haley (Faye Dunaway's character), Sam Barber, etc], there are many new ones, as well. One of the nice touches was naming one of the hitpersons "Deacon Mailer" because the hitman in the movie was simply credited as "The Mailman". Incidentally, The Mailman was played by Hank Garrett who I just discovered got his start on the TV show Car 54, Where Are You?
While most of the cast are young, relative unknowns, the show also stars William Hurt as a high ranking CIA administrator and Joe's uncle, Bob Balaban as CIA Deputy Director, Mira Sorvino as the CIA officer investigating the hit, and Brendan Fraser as a high level manager at a Blackwater-type paramilitary contractor. I'll be frank: his casting in this show gave me pause, but his performance has been excellent.
Anyway, to sum up, this show follows the main plot points of the movie but changes all the details. As someone who mourned the cancellation of Rubicon, I am loving this show. It's very well-written. And if you like spy stories, you'll like this, too.
The two seasons of the show aired in '18 & '20 and was originally produced for AT&T/DirectTV's Audience network. After that went defunct, the episodes were then picked up by Epix who are currently airing them on Sunday nights. The first two episodes are available on Prime for free.
“The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone."
I watched the first two seasons when they first aired. I thought the first was excellent. But then, speaking for myself, I started losing interest because it is one of those shows that has a really short season (10-13 episodes), so you end up waiting anywhere from 39-42 weeks for the next season. After S4 ended, I tried re-watching the 2nd to get caught back up so I could finish the show. For some reason, it didn't hold my attention. Could have been in the wrong mood. Maybe I should I start from S1, again.
“The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone."
Haven't seen it yet. I'll have to find out if one of the seemingly million things my wife pays for offers it.Did you know he plays the same type of character in a movie called Safe House about a retired SpecOps guy who's fighting dementia while being targeted for assassination?One of the nice touches was naming one of the hitpersons "Deacon Mailer" because the hitman in the movie was simply credited as "The Mailman". Incidentally, The Mailman was played by Hank Garrett who I just discovered got his start on the TV show Car 54, Where Are You?
He's a hitman posing as a mailman who tries to gain access to the house by having the assassination target sign for a piece of mail and offers a pen that's run out of ink.
That is most assuredly an homage to Three Days of the Condor. I'd wager money on it. But that's awesome.
Well, season 1 was excellent. My issue with season 2 was probably more about other things, rather than how good it was. I've ranted about this before but how does a network or streaming service expect us to maintain interest when there is so much time between seasons? The viewer loses all momentum in the story arc.
Whoever thought it was a good idea to have a 10 or 13 week season was an idiot and I'd bet anything it's about $$. Bear in mind, shows we grew up on had ~30 week seasons. A season started in the second or third week in September and ran until school was out, around the last week of May or the first of June. So a 10-13 week season is a third to a half of a real season.
What especially doesn't make sense is that once a show has caught fire, why they continue with the short season. Why not have two or three long seasons rather than four to six short ones?
What really pissed me off is when Breaking Bad split season 5 in two. The first eight episodes aired Jul-Sep 2012 and the next eight aired Aug-Sep 2013. WTF. And, in fact, the entire series only had 62 episodes. They could have had three seasons with ~20 episodes each and probably gained a bigger audience, too.
Comparatively, The Twilight Zone ran for five seasons and aired 156 episodes! Alfred Hitchcock Presents ran ten seasons and aired 361 episodes!! Bonanza ran 14 seasons and aired 431!!!!
Of course, back in the 50s and 60s, sports didn't figure as prominently as they do now. Sometime around 1970, a season was shortened to 23-25 episodes/season but that's still the standard for broadcast networks.
I'm sure part of it has to do with the network too. Mr Robot originally aired on USA and advertising dollars aren't as easy to come by for a network like that. I assume TNT, TBS, et al are in the same boat.
But that doesn't explain AMC with popular shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead. Or Netflix's Stranger Things, which is supposed to be a huge hit.
Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all.
</rant>
“The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone."
I totally understand what you mean with the splitting of the Breaking Bad season being a good example. Seems like they did that with the last season of "Lost" too, although I could be remembering that wrong. I think I read where they are going to do it with the final season of "Better Call Saul" as well.
So far "Mr. Robot" seems like a show that works a lot better binge watching all together like we are doing.
As I said, I'm sure it's an homage. OTOH, it could just be the writers couldn't come up with anything original.
Check this out from Hank Garrett's Wikipedia page regarding that scene in 3DotC:
During the filming a tell was needed so that the Redford character would know that Garrett was not a real postman and Redford thought of the idea to have Garrett wear Redford's shoes in the scene, that would raise suspicion. During the filming of the fight scene, Garrett broke Redford's nose.
BTW, did you notice how well that scene is choreographed? These days, there would have been three times as many cuts with the longest shot lasting 10 frames.
“The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone."
Started a show last night on a whim. It's called Made for Love and it's on HBO. Episodes are roughly a half-hour. Here's the synopsis:
When her tech billionaire husband wants to implant a revolutionary monitoring chip in her brain, Hazel Green escapes her toxic marriage and takes refuge with her estranged father Herbert.
It's more futuristic fiction than straight up sci-fi and with a dark comedy vibe. It stars Cristin Milioti, who's probably best known for playing the woman Ted marries in How I Met Your Mother. She was also in the second season of Fargo and the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. Ray Romano plays Hazel's father.
The first three episodes were released on April 1. The next three will be released on the 8th followed by the last two on the 15th.
I liked it.
I had that suspicion when I saw the first two or three seasons on Prime and decided to wait until S4 got to Prime before finishing it. One day I may get around to it.
“The red zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the white zone."
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