What TV SHOWS are you watching?

Finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. That was fantastic, and it's been a while since I've seen a show that good. I hope there is more to come.

So we finally finished Mad Men...not sure what to make of that finale. I guess it's supposed to indicate that Don had his 1970s awakening of feelings and went back to McCann, making one of the most iconic television commercials of all time ("I'd like to buy the world a Coke"- historically, McCann really did that campaign). But that just didn't feel very authentic to me...which may have been the point. It was pretty ambiguous.

Joan's exit was the one that stuck with me the most. She was such a strong, assertive character and seeing her stick up for herself at the end was great...but I also liked how realistic for the time it was, because she basically had to surrender, hitting that glass ceiling. But she started her own company, so there's that.

Pete can fuck off, I hated everything about him. Trudy should have told him to take a hike. He was one of the kinds of people that screwed up everything in the 80s. Which was, again, kind of the point I guess.

All in all, there were some amazing moments in the show, some great characters, but there again it keeps coming back to being one of those shows about adults standing around talking (as my kids say). Which bored me. And all of the soap stuff was borderline repellent. I think there was a great three hour There Will Be Blood style epic about Don Draper in there somewhere.

And I still think he would have been the perfect Batman/Bruce Wayne.

hotseatgames wrote: Finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. That was fantastic, and it's been a while since I've seen a show that good. I hope there is more to come.

My wife is a big fan of the novel. Where can we watch this?

It's a BBC show.

But don't go googling "my wife wants a bbc".

I am into season three of Mad Men. It's pretty good, but Don is a bit ridiculous. I am saving season four to watch on the 24 hour trip from Qatar to Utah, at which point I may stop watching because I hear it goes downhill after that. I had to hurriedly scroll past the above comments about the show. There's no way to avoid spoilers at this point, really. I just looked at the IMDB page and noticed that several characters only have half as many episodes as others. Hmm...

hotseatgames wrote: It's a BBC show.

I must be an idiot, but I don't see viewable episodes on the BBC website. Just clips. Was this a thing I need to have watched while it aired?

I just finished watching it (torrent, sorry Mr. White). I really liked it overall, but feel like 10 episodes instead of 7 would have been better. I'll definitely check out the book, which is probably the highest compliment I can make to a show/movie based on a book. Does the book end at basically the same point as the series or is there more?

craniac wrote: I am into season three of Mad Men. It's pretty good, but Don is a bit ridiculous. I am saving season four to watch on the 24 hour trip from Qatar to Utah, at which point I may stop watching because I hear it goes downhill after that.

I watched the entire run, and I agree that I didn't really enjoy it after Season 3-4.

I watched Wayward Pines and thought it was trash but at least enjoyable to a point...thought at first that it was a total rip-off of Twin Peaks, then The Prisoner, then of The Village (Shyamalan...). And then there is an episode where you are more less literally shown a slideshow presentation about What Is Really Going On Here. Which is just horrible, horrible writing. I mean, literally, you are shown a slideshow where a character explains the whole thing to you, the audience, while some other characters in the scene look on. Fucking stupid.

Well, of course that may not be what's going on, after all. It's a guilty pleasure for me at this point, as I didn't expect to continue after the first episide. I will say that it's a bit of a return to form for Shyamalan, which is good, but still exhibits the best and worst of his work.