Series on TV or the Internet

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-01-15, 18:42

Varislintu wrote:Archie Bunker

You mean All in the Family? Great show. :)
Although Little Mosque on the Prairie was an unexpected delight, at least for the first season. It's the only one I've watched in probably 10 years.

I've heard of that but never seen it. (See, I don't have cable either, so I never got to see that show). It sounds pretty good.

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Varislintu » 2015-02-05, 14:58

vijayjohn wrote:
Varislintu wrote:Archie Bunker

You mean All in the Family? Great show. :)


Yeah, that's the one I mean. :) It had some unmemorable Finnish title that I've forgotten. But I figured everyone's heard of Archie Bunker. :P

Btw, I completely forgot one sitcom that I really liked back in the day: Third Rock from the Sun. I think I watched all seasons of it. It was really good, and I still think so. I loved Sally's character. :D Well, all of the characters were good.


Hmm, I finally got around to watching True Detective to the end. It was a liiittle bit weak in the very last episode*, but overall I think it turned out to be a splendid series. There's something about the American "South" that I like.

And gosh do I love the intro theme of the thing.

Admittedly, the series is a sausage fest. And the women in it were mostly very neatly on the virgin-mother-whore axis. But there was something that made up for it, something in the way the women characters were written. The things they said were... to the point. As if they had minds and wants of their own. Like reality. I like that.

*My beef with the ending was that they overdid the whole "crazy inbred white trash in the bayou" cliché. I had been expecting it to be about something more inspired. And they made the cynical atheist detective have some kind of afterlife experience and even make a weird spiritual life-affirming observation at the end. For, what I could tell, very little reason.

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Aurinĭa » 2015-02-05, 16:15

Varislintu wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:
Varislintu wrote:Archie Bunker

You mean All in the Family? Great show. :)

Yeah, that's the one I mean. :) It had some unmemorable Finnish title that I've forgotten. But I figured everyone's heard of Archie Bunker. :P

I haven't. :P

I started watching Broadchurch series 2 yesterday, and it promises to be good again. It's made me want to re-watch series 1, though, because it's been nearly two years since that was broadcast and I've forgotten a lot, but of course none of the library copies are available.

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-02-06, 0:25

Varislintu wrote:Btw, I completely forgot one sitcom that I really liked back in the day: Third Rock from the Sun. I think I watched all seasons of it. It was really good, and I still think so. I loved Sally's character. :D Well, all of the characters were good.

I definitely have seen all seasons of it. :lol: I thought it was good. Just kind of silly sometimes. :P I like Frasier more, although that's probably mostly because he's so nerdy and because my brother and I are like him and Niles without the competition.

But yeah, I agree, Sally was badass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFaPGvuBPW0
I wanted to post another video of all the languages they speak (it's UniLang after all :P), but I can't seem to find it anymore. :?

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Varislintu » 2015-04-29, 17:37

I started watching Fortitude on TV last week and it actually seems interesting.

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Lazar Taxon » 2015-04-29, 17:49

So Hulu has gotten the streaming rights to Seinfeld, and will have it up in June. I'm not a fan of their service, but all the same I'll definitely be binging this. I think I've seen all or most episodes of the show, but it was ages ago and I probably didn't get all the jokes back then.

And best of all: they'll be showing the original versions, not the sped-up and trimmed syndication versions that they play on TV these days. Yay for artistic integrity!
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Tenebrarum » 2015-04-29, 18:06

Varislintu wrote:Btw, I completely forgot one sitcom that I really liked back in the day: Third Rock from the Sun. I think I watched all seasons of it. It was really good, and I still think so.

I only watched it for a peripubescent Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and felt like a pedo afterward).
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Ludwig Whitby » 2015-04-29, 19:40

Lazar Taxon wrote:So Hulu has gotten the streaming rights to Seinfeld, and will have it up in June. I'm not a fan of their service, but all the same I'll definitely be binging this. I think I've seen all or most episodes of the show, but it was ages ago and I probably didn't get all the jokes back then.

And best of all: they'll be showing the original versions, not the sped-up and trimmed syndication versions that they play on TV these days. Yay for artistic integrity!

Seinfeld's truly one of best shows in television history.

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Marah » 2015-04-29, 20:12

I've been watching the first season of True Detective and I recommend it to anyone. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are so awesome that I wonder how the second season (which will have completely different actors) can be anything but disappointing.
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Varislintu » 2015-04-29, 20:21

Tenebrarum wrote:
Varislintu wrote:Btw, I completely forgot one sitcom that I really liked back in the day: Third Rock from the Sun. I think I watched all seasons of it. It was really good, and I still think so.

I only watched it for a peripubescent Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and felt like a pedo afterward).


Hehe, he's like three years older than me so I think he was pretty much my age in the series when it aired (here in FInland, at a delay). I found him quite attractive, but I wasn't the type to harbour crushes. He seems to have grown into quite a decent human being, props to him for that.

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Tenebrarum » 2015-06-01, 17:03

Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 8 "Hardhome"

Now I'm starting to see why so many viewers masturbate to Kit Harington.
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Патрислав Андреевич » 2015-06-01, 20:23

I don't, I don't have that kind of imagination. (And as I'm a guy, I wouldn't) :lol: But the episode itself was superb, especially when compared to the rest of the season that didn't really... speak to me. While some were good, most changes from the books were unnecessary, not to say plainly stupid. Sansa and the Boltons? Seemed awesome at first, were expecting some grand plan... but I lost all my hope with the rape scene. Meh. And I could go on like this but... something positibe: this episode was good. (Maybe because it was the action-filled one, with not much talking, so they couldn't ruin it?)

Anyway, I started watching watched the entire first season of Penny Dreadful. Sodom and Gomorrah. :lol: However I found it intriguing somehow. Victorian era London. Known characters such as Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, Mina Harker, Van Helsing. Their mysteries, motives, and stories. An explorer trying to save his daughter from demonic forces. Horror, occultism, gore, blood, nudity, sex. It doesn't bring anything new, just kind of mashes all of the Victorian penny dreadfuls' motives and tropes together expecting a good result, and... interestingly, they managed to get a good result. :twisted:

Now, get me a priest, I'm speaking demonic tongues*! :preach:

* Arabic and Hebrew, obviously. Yes, they do that in there.
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Sol Invictus » 2015-06-01, 22:30

Tenebrarum wrote:Game of Thrones Season 5 Episode 8 "Hardhome"

Now I'm starting to see why so many viewers masturbate to Kit Harington.

I just watched it, I'm starting to see why many viewers think he's a bad actor I'm about to meet willings, gotta show serious face. Doing diplomacy, gotta show serious face. They are pissed that I killed their king, gotta show serious face. We are leaving, gotta show serious face. Oh, my, we're under attack, gotta show serious face! Leading attack, gotta show serious face. Oh, dear, white walkers, I must find dragon glass and show serious face, while at it. Fuck, I'm injured, this is serious business, gotta show serious face. We need to leave asap, gotta show serious face. He is rising the dead? Gotta show serious face and also that bit was made overly dramatic.

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Tenebrarum » 2015-06-02, 4:12

Oh I'm not talking about his face at all. I'm primarily turned on by the way he swings that sword. (Guy performs the stunts mostly himself. When the producers watched his fighting scenes in the Castle Black battle they thought the scenes were sped up at first. That's how fast he is in movements.)

Was very suprised to see Birgitte Sørensen as well. I still remember her from what little I saw of Borgen. She has this face that just etches itself in your memory.
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Tenebrarum » 2015-06-08, 17:14

book!Stannis: "If I die, you will avenge me and see to it that my daughter is seated on the Iron Throne."

show!Stannis: .....

I really hope they ruined his character for a good reason, and it'd better lead to a satisfying conclusion. Because that was genuinely horrible to watch. The only other time GoT made me feel this queasy was when Joffrey ordered all Robert's bastards hunted down, including the infant son of a prostitute in Littlefinger's brothel.
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Yasna » 2015-06-19, 21:39

Summary of my TV watching over the past year:

I watched 별에서 온 그대, a somewhat unusual drama about the love between an actress and a humanoid from another star system. There were many likable characters, some history, some science... a recipe for a successful drama in my eyes. 9/10

I watched Spartacus with much pleasure. That show had style, especially the first season and the prequel. The military campaigns weren't as interesting for me. 9/10

I watched Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter which was nice and short (three 90 minute episodes.) Definitely the best war related TV series I've ever seen. Tom Schilling gave a great performance as Friedhelm Winter. 8/10

Finally got into GoT. I had been meaning to watch it for a long time, so when I recently got a nasty cold and needed some light fare to distract me, I turned to it. You can count me among the addicted now. I'm on season 3 and loving it.
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Johanna » 2015-07-24, 18:14

Sense8, which is about eight people from all over the world who become linked telepathically.

The people behind the show are the Wachowskis and J.Michael Straczynski, and it really shows, the Wachowskis are really good at all things visual and J. Michel Straczynski is the king of plotting, and really cares about the details, not to mention that he knows how to write very well-rounded characters that truly feel like real people. In other words, visually it's probably the most beautiful series I've ever watched, and the most thought out one since... well, since I discovered Babylon 5 :) I think I heard somewhere that they have planned five seasons in detail, just like Straczynski did with the latter.

It takes place in 9 different cities in total, and everything is shot on location, I don't think they've used a studio at all. There's also no CGI, or at least so little that it's totally invisible, but I'm going to go with none since I don't know where they could even have fit it in, instead the visuals rely on careful editing and finding just the right locations, light and camera angles. So even though it's the Wachowskis we're talking about, it has a very real feel to it.

It really gets time to grow too, it's definitely not about instant gratification, which didn't surprise me since Babylon 5 took the entire first season for the plot to really take off. Sense8 is much better paced though, which I guess is due to the season having 12 episodes instead of 22, so there's much less filler and pretty much everything that happens on screen is significant in one way or another :) Well, except for one or two dialogues which felt they could have been lifted from any of the Matrix films, but they're few and far between.

The characters are great and very diverse, both the eight who are linked and the people around them, sure some things about them may look a bit stereotypical at first, but it's compensated by far by everything else, and it's really easy to connect to them on an emotional level. Its also a series where the gay and trans are simply characters who happen to be gay and trans, and it doesn't shy away from giving them sex scenes either. Sure, they do face some problems that straight and cis people don't, especially since the gay man is a Mexican telenovela actor who plays womanisers on screen, but some of the things in his storyline are definitely problems that a lot of gay men in show business have. And there's no pressure on the trans woman whose mother doesn't accept her for who she is and still calls her by her birth name to reconcile with her, which is very unusual for an American series.

There aren't very many fake nationalities used either, and only among the main cast from what I can tell; a Spaniard plays the Mexican character (the character's dad is from Spain though), and the American woman's equally American girlfriend is played by an English actress (fellow Whovians will recognise her, it's Freema Agyeman), but at least they have the same native language as their characters. There are two characters whose actors don't though, the Icelandic woman is played by an English actress and the Kenyan man by an English actor of Caribbean background. But hey, Naveen Andrews actually plays a guy born in India and who grew up in England, not an Arab, and that is definitely not something you see every day :P
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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Патрислав Андреевич » 2015-08-03, 23:34

Black Mirror. Just finished it, and wow. Not much of a series, since each episode is its own story with different setting, cast, etc. So the episodes can be watched in random order, and there's no continuity. Most of the episodes were absolutely fantastic. Easily one of the best things I've watched.

It's about dark sides of technology and it's unpredicted consequences, it's a satirical reflection of society in the "black mirror" of our smartphones, it's about entertainment and how we're slaves to it. What would you do if you were forced to have a sexual intercourse with a pig, live, on national television? Can you imagine spending your entire life in a small room, with entertainment, advertisements, and porn on every step? Having a "grain" in your brain recording all your memories that you can replay either in your eyes or on screen? Or a world where you can "block" people in real life, just like you can on Facebook?

Those and many more are topics of Black Mirror episodes. Totally recommending. :yep:

Especially episodes: "White Christmas" (last episode, showing what the series is about), "Fifteen Million Merits", "Be Right Back". (The "White Bear" episode is also cool, but mostly because of the ending, the rest of it is mediocre... until you see the ending, that is.)

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-08-05, 1:52

I mentioned this before on another thread once, but one series I've been watching more and more of on YouTube is Meena, a children's cartoon series made by UNESCO in collaboration with the Bangladeshi government, if I'm not mistaken, about a nine-year-old girl named Meena living with her parents, her grandmother, her (slightly younger?) brother Raju, her baby sister Rani, and her pet parrot Mithu in an unnamed village somewhere in South Asia. Meena is not supposed to be associated with any particular South Asian country, and these cartoons are available in English and various South Asian languages. So far, I've found at least one episode each in English, Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, Dari, Telugu, and even Marma (a language spoken in Bangladesh that's basically an archaic variety of Burmese. The first episode, in Marma, is the first result you get if you look on YouTube for "Marma language" without quotes). It's also broadcast in Urdu, though I don't think I've seen any episodes with the credits in Urdu yet.

I like Meena because it addresses all kinds of social issues that South Asians (especially South Asian women) commonly face. I know it's just a kids' cartoon, but it's also a great introduction to these issues for foreigners who are interested but can't keep handling (or at least have trouble always having to handle) all the gory details of these issues like a baby being thrown around several tubs of hot water. :P I'd recommend it to anyone who has any interest in trying to understand what kinds of issues we brown people too often have to face and thus where we're coming from when we talk about certain political issues. I shared one of the episodes with one of my best friends who says her favorite character is Mithu. I think Mithu is cute and also helpful sometimes, but he doesn't usually do much, and I prefer Meena herself because despite being a friendly, compassionate village girl, she doesn't take anybody's bullshit lying down and shows everybody how important certain social changes are.

Another series I've also been seeing more and more of happens to be Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which I was introduced to through the UniLang Skype group, where a certain user occasionally posts episodes of that show. :lol: Like Meena, it also tackles various social issues, but for a (presumably) adult American audience, not for South Asian kids, and largely by just presenting facts that the audience is not necessarily aware of (and showing news clips). I like that show, too, and in fact some of my closest relatives recommend it highly (one of my cousins IIRC claimed to be impressed by the amount of fact-checking Oliver does before each show), but UniLangers are far more likely to be familiar with that show than Meena (in fact I remember a clip from Last Week Tonight being posted once on UniLang), so I guess I have less to say about it. :P

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Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby md0 » 2015-08-19, 9:54

Just finished watching the first series of House of Cards (UK, 1990). Heavy stuff.
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