Kiki17

I was doing a TGW rewatch I had not time for anything else, but I will try again!!

Gelfling

I bet. Six seasons is a long rewatch.

Alwayshappy

Watched Downton Abbey 6x03 yesterday. One of the series best episodes imo. So emotional. It always surprises me how Downton grabs the little moments and is able to make them HUGE and emotional. Wow.

Gelfling

I liked it too. It felt remarkably light and devoid of big drama (which is one of the things that make me crazy about the show).
I also like what they are doing with Edith even though I would have been just fine without her getting a suitor but ok.

I was a bit mad that they spoiled the wedding by making it about Branson coming back though. I don't care about the character, one way or another, but it felt like they were highjacking the moment with something unrelated.

Alwayshappy

To me it made the wedding even more special actually, but yeah, I do see your point
I loved Ediths story aswell

Gelfling

It's not that I didn't want him back but it was awkward. He just shows up when they are making a toast and suddenly, the whole family is like turning their back to the married couple (it's their wedding, right?) to talk on and on about and with Tom and I'm like "ahem, look behind you people"

Of all the Crawley daughters, she was the least likely to break the mold and become an independent woman and yet there she is, because of circumstances, sure, but still embracing the change. Unwed mother, working woman, female boss in that day and age... pretty cool.

I wonder when they are going to get Mary to find out about Marigold and if she's going to make them feel stupid for not telling her or not.

poehler-bear

Sorry again. I was in Canada so computer time was limited. I'm gonna bring back some old discussions, sorry.

I agree! I'm still hoping for more character development tho. I think they are slowly getting there. I especially wanna see more from B. Peters because ofc. And yeah, I'm in love with GGB
I haven't read the book yet. Let me know if you do!

I have so much to watch that I'm not even looking at new shows anymore. Unless they involve talent I like a lot.

I believe they could have done way more with the show. It just seems like they aren't even trying to go beyond the surface. There's so so much that could be done with characters relationships and the psychological consequences in each of them. But it's just tired old cliche every single time.

That sounds pretty great! It just arrived at Brazilian Netflix making it much easier for me so I think I'll watch it soon

IT PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH. Not only for its worst season but every person won except Lena! Uzu is amazing, but Lena had "better" material to work with (*in that one particular ep! And by better I mean gave her more to do in Dramatic fashion). HOW DOES PETER WIN AND LENA DOESN'T??? THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME! How does freaking writing wins????? Ugh. I'm sorry for myself that I care about awards shows.
Hey! I like Jon Hamm's performance a lot! I'm glad he finally won it. I'm just sad Amy didn't win an Emmy for Parks. Did JLD really needed a 3745th Emmy?

Right? I can believe it, but it's insane nonetheless. I started HTGAWM a couple of days ago (all caught up and obsessing over Annalise/Eve!!!!!!!!!! more on that later) and as I was watching it I realized I never watched a show that focused so much on a black woman. The only one I can think of is Grey's Anatomy and OITNB and I've seen a lot of TV.

So... HTGAWM. I have tons of issues with it, but I don't care cause a) VIOLA!!!!! b) ANNALISE/EVE!!!! I'm shipping it so hard ;; Also I love Famke (not enough to watch that godawful Hemlock Grove tho) so that's a plus. I think my head is just a huge line of "<3!!!!<3!!!!AHHHHHHHH!!!!<33333!!!!!" so I'm sorry I'm not adding anything coherent to this.

Alwayshappy

Ha, always glad to see more HTGAWM fans Loving the season so far (though we haven't seen episode 3 yet due to sickness). Famke was great to see; I hope she returns!

Gelfling

Don't worry about it, old discussions are my favorite

I agree. I want more characterization in season 2. Bernadette is fabulous no matter what but I want to know more about her.

It's been on my list for months but my reading time is limited these days. My sis read it though and she loved it

well that shouldn't be a long list. It's all pretty Hollywood even in the casts.

I knoooow! Coming up with a premise like that and doing what they did with it borders on criminal. It's like they thought "ok if we want to have 3-4 seasons of this, let's stretch it as much as possible"

Lucky you. It's not on Netflix here but then again, what is?
Netflix ****ed themselves up pretty good. They just opened in Portugal too but they don't have House of Card or OITNB because they sold the rights to other people so they shut themselves out of their biggest draws

Yeah I agree. I like Uzu and she did a great job in season 2 with Crazy Eyes but Lena's turn was way overdue and she had amazing scenes this season in an otherwise bland season.

I don't anymore. They amuse me more than anything now.
Every year is "how low can they go?"

Well there's no accounting for taste

She would have won if her show hadn't been a network show, probably

A drama you mean? Then yeah, no.

I wouldn't even go there with Grey's. They had minority female characters but they weren't by far the lead character, a whitey white white girl. And really it took the second white white female lead to leave for them to develop the other characters.

It's the other way around for me. I would say I love Viola and she does so much with so little (she even shines when the script is against her really) and I love Famke but I have too many issues with the show, "characters", clichés etc (Annalise/Eve not being so much an issue in itself but the hype around it being one) to make it a regular watch

I hear ya! Lili Taylor and Famke weren't enough to make me sit through a whole season of that crap.

Oh and if anyone needs a new comedy, I suggest tuning into Minority Report for a laugh before it gets axed. It's definitely not supposed to be a comedy but wow, it's so bad, it's gotta be hilarious. I haven't seen acting that bad since I was in a high school play.

poehler-bear

She is! The creator said that in an interview. I just don't know when (following all the spoiler websites now )

I saw a spoiler the other day on tumblr, feel free to skip it, kind of a major thing maybe?

I'll add it to my reading list then! After I go through all the bazillion books I've bought and never read (+ all the stuff to read for uni).

Oh, it took some time for things to start showing up here tho. And we've had it for three years? But hey, Frank Capra just got here!
and the Portugal thing is so ridic, especially considering that original content is more and more what sets them apart.

Yeah. But I also don't think I've watched a comedy? Maybe I'm just thinking of protagonists... I've seen other minorities and I've seen black men, but not black women. Oh there's Dee on BSG, but supporting and she was so mistreated by the writers (I blame it on love triangle tho)

Oh yeah, ofc. But I'm even searching for supporting characters and I come up almost empty handed.

What do you mean the hype? The hype outside of the show's world, you mean?
Oh yeah. It bothers me how underdeveloped the characters are, I can't really get into any of them except for Annalise because it's Viola, and Oliver cause . And tbh, S1 was mostly on the background of my post-Canada sadness. I really just payed more attention when Viola had more meaty (even if still poorly written) things to work with and when Famke showed up. But you know, I need a break from all my "prestige" shows so why not some crazy nonsense with a really good actress?

I still consider it the worst pilot I've seen. I still have nightmares.

Are you following the X-Files news? Did you see the new spoilers about the first ep?

Kiki17

Started watching Power, is no Rectify but it does have me at the edge of my seat. I am liking it

Gelfling

yeah it's no Rectify for sure but it's still better than Empire. PLUS the leads are hot (what? I'm allowed *some* superficiality )

those google alerts can be pretty useful

I'm with you. The instances of characters I liked hooking up (or more) not going terribly wrong are few and far between (btw I'm already on the fence re: that last minute Hayley/Rodrigo thing) so I'm always worried but this could be fun.
And yeah Parks & Recs is the only example that comes to mind right now (successful conversion from flirtation to full-on relationship I mean)
Obviously the Xfiles is not on that list

I can't resist Capra. I know most of it is idealistic and sometimes even sappy but it's so genuine in the intentions and so layered in the characters and scripts that I just can't help myself.
It's like he managed to do every time what Disney has been failing at for dozens of years.

shame what they did with that character.

As for black female characters, I agree, they are few and far between. Actually, ironically, I think there were more before 2000 than now. I'm not talking about the Cosby Show obviously but shows like Christie Love (a cop drama with a black female lead! which admittedly used a lot of stereotyping but still did the character justice, imo) and I'll Fly Away (with Sam Waterston as the lead but the show's most prominent female character was a black woman who got more and more involved with civil rights as the show went on so there was a lot of her)

There are a few black female characters even now like in OITNB or Michonne in TWD and somehow they start out as supporting characters but took a larger place as time went by.

However, what I like about Annelise (and even Olivia Pope even though I despise Scandal) is that they are black women but the show doesn't focus on them being black. They avoid the stereotypes associated with black women in general on tv and in movies. They don't pretend they are white either but they don't make their race the focus of their character and if we have Shonda Rhymes to thank for that, well at least there's that

Oh yeah. I'm not saying they wrote that storyline just for the hype, because obviously they didn't need it, but it comes a little out of nowhere and I'm concerned about the number of lesbian/bi characters on tv who have been abused by men. It feels like such a tired cliché by now so I wish they didn't play into that with shows as popular as this one.

It's gross, it's dumb and it's one-dimensional. Ugh.

I haven't. I started following spoilers and then all I was reading was making me worry more and anticipate less so...
Is it good or bad?

Oh I should also say here I started watching another great Brit show (what is is with the Brits and me lately??) tonight. It's called River and it's really nice. Anything with Stellan Skarsgård is watchable but this one seems to be a nice departure on the classic cop/mystery show the Brits are so fond of.
Co-starring is Nicola Walker who has been so busy this year, I don't even know if she eats lunch or sleeps anymore

Kiki17

IT CAN'T EVEN BE COMPARED!!! Power is on another level! I mean Empire is a joke

HOT ****ING DAMN

I am going spoiler free on TXF too

poehler-bear

Yeah, I don't think I'm into the Hayley/Rodrigo thing... I liked their relationship before, making it romantic, meh, it was more original before. But let's see, maybe they can make me happy.
Oh yeah, Parks did relationships pretty great, at least with Ben/Leslie and April/Andy. Some of the others are debatable, and god let's not think of Tom/Ann. But two are still much better than none.
Don't get me started on TXF...

That's exactly how I feel. I can even stand his over patriotic ideals because he makes me care for the characters and their struggles.

Hm... and we even have more shows that they did before 2000. How about women? Do you think we have more, less or about the same amount of shows with a lead female character? I wonder if the post-Sopranos era, with its obsession with morally ambiguous white guys, affected the statistics. The thing that feels more different nowadays is that if the series has a minority character (or it you doesn't) it gets analysed and then criticized and/or praised constantly. Just look at how racist some TXF episodes were... if it was nowadays I think it wouldn't be able to get away with that.

[quote]However, what I like about Annelise (and even Olivia Pope even though I despise Scandal) is that they are black women but the show doesn't focus on them being black. They avoid the stereotypes associated with black women in general on tv and in movies. They don't pretend they are white either but they don't make their race the focus of their character and if we have Shonda Rhymes to thank for that, well at least there's that [/quote[
Yeah, exactly.

I didn't think it necessarily came out of nowhere, cause she never actually came out and said "I'm...". It comes out of nowhere if we think within the mindset of our society where heterosexuality is the norm. But yes, that's worrisome. Idk if it makes much difference but I'm kind of glad the revelation about her past came some episodes and a season before Eve showed up.

I should follow your footsteps. It's bad for M/S. Also I'm a bit worried about everybody saying the first ep looks too bright for TXF. I guess we have to wait and judge ourselves. It's close!

Oh. I've never heard of River. My list is so huge rn... don't make me add more stuff!

Gelfling

indeed and not a very funny one

that way I won't anticipate a complete failure

I know, right? I don't know if it's because of the characters or just because they had this great bro/sis thing going on and it was a little out of nowhere.

well any relationship that started or ended with Ann was disastrous so maybe it was a choice

Hey, you started it
I was just watching an old episode (I always do on 10/13 and 11/21, nostalgic thing) and thinking how much I loved that show before it was even cool and worrying so much about how much further they can destroy it before letting it rest. Let's find out

I think maybe there are more dramas with clear female leads. Not one of the leads in a show full of male leads, you know?

I know what you mean. I think the difference is that they were not trying to be racist (and they even skewered some sexist stereotypes) so they got away with it. But I agree it certainly colors perspective (no pun intended) for better or for worse.

You have a point. I was just saying the same thing about Cary in the episode thread last week. He was seen flirting with a guy and I was just commenting that even though we'd seen him only with women... why not? It's not as if he was a homophobe before so there's no reason to believe he couldn't be attracted to a guy.

it's not as if they related both at all on the show. I did see a lot of people saying "I don't blame her for getting into women, seeing what an a-hole her husband was" and I don't know what world those people live in but hey, you can't fault the writers for the moronic reactions of some of the audience.

I knooooow!! I saw some of the BTS pictures and I was like "where's the atmosphere??"
The M/S massacre... Well I guess it was bound to happen since Carter is a troll but I hoped they would at least get the Xfiles feel back. If not, what's the point?

sorry. No hurry, you'll get to it when you need something gloomy and British