Wife got totally hooked on it, and watched every episode from the beginning. I could take it or leave it, but the opening credits—images and music—are the best I've ever seen.
Definitely an uneven show, for sure, with some major highs (the Lithgow season), and some major lows (the Olmos/Hanks season + the final season), but all in all, it was a terrific ride.
The first 4 seasons are fantastic stuff no doubt, but I would give major warning to anyone who wants to watch beyond that, as it very quickly become a pathetic, audience-insulting, disaster of a shit-show in the blink of an eye. Looking back at the first 4 seasons, I guess some of the writing on the wall was there for a fall from grace, but boy... it's like the writers, actors, and production team (save Jennifer Carpenter, who only got better as the series progressed) all took a collective dump after season 4 and looked to make the worst show afterwards, in every way possible.
It's almost worth watching in a perverse way to see an epic train wreck the likes of which TV rarely sees, but if you're coming in cold I'd just stop at the high that was season 4 and leave it at that.
Season three just ended on BBC America. If you haven't seen it, go back and watch from the beginning. The actress who plays the part of all the "sisters" is amazing. Each character has her own personality and mannerisms.
If that description doesn't hook you, then you should know it's filmed in Canada and... Stauskus! OK. Nik has nothing to do with the show but still Canada, Stauskus, woo woo!
Yeah, I'll go with this one - my wife and I have spent the last couple weeks getting caught up with "Orphan Black", and it is a pretty cool show. Tatiana Maslany - I think that's who it is - is an incredibly gifted actress to be able to do what she does in this series. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who wants to invest time in some good science fiction.
I could be wrong.
Yeah, no GoT really sucks. But a couple of new shows I've been watching and am now really into are Penny Dreadful (Sunday nights) and Salem (Thursday nights). And I too am looking forward to The Leftovers and Strain based on the trailers I've seen.
Now, if you haven't seen the premier season of true detective, go watch that. If you're into a show that reallllly develops it's characters and has a decent plot, it is the show for you. For me, that single season would win against seasons 3 and 4 of the wire and breaking bad.
I wanted to give up on Orange about 20 minutes into the pilot episode of Season 1. It's just not that good. And episode 2 isn't great, either -- but certainly better than the first one. But by episode 3, I was completely hooked.
True Detective is easily in my top 5 in the past 10 years of TV for me, even though it has a whopping single season under its belt. But wow, what a season it was. I'm just worried that I'm going to be let down in Season 2.
Have they even said that they are doing a season 2? I thought that it was just a one time, stand-alone thing.
there will be a season two, but with a completely new cast and storyline.
http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/true-detective-season-2-cast-three-lead…
it's hard to see it coming close to season 1, but if anyone can do it, it is a team on hbo.
Now that Game of Thrones is caught up through the books that don't suck ass, the show is probably going to start going south. It was already starting to drift in that direction somewhat, although I still liked season 4 a lot. These HBO shows -- they start off tight and then they slowly drift in various directions to the point where there are four or five different stories happening simultaneously, half of which are about ancillary characters that nobody gives a fuck about.
GoT is only about two seasons away from passing George RR entirely. Maybe they can write the last two books for him.
it ate up too much of the major plot stories, skipping many of the smaller stories that really help to solidify character development and choosing instead to jump to later books. It made for great tv, but i fear that without more book material, the show has moved too fast.
The challenge is keeping the cast together long enough for a long run. Especially for a successful show that launches (or re-launches) the careers of the cast. People start getting major offers for movies, people don't want to get typecast, and so on. This isn't a sitcom.
In my mind, the prime example of this is Battlestar Gallactica, which fell apart in its final season for two reasons -- [1] the long hiatus imposed by the television writers' strike, which was just bad timing for the producers, and [2] the loss of Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben), who was integral to the Kara Thrace storyline -- everything leading up to the final season indicated Leoben held the key to that. But they lost him to a major role in the X-Files movie -- he was not available for BSG's final season. Their attempt to redirect Kara's story away from him was a disaster.
So the GoT producers are on a clock. They've got maybe seven seasons to work with before they run the risk of losing one of the core actors. My understanding is they have the approval (i.e., money) for two more seasons, so no doubt the necessary actors are already under contract for the next two seasons. I think much of a seventh season of the series is also feasible, as apparently Martin has already finished the resolutions to the A Dance with Dragons cliffhangers for the sixth book (The Winds of Winter).
The seventh and final book, though, is likely to be more than four years away. I wouldn't be surprised to see an eighth season, built on whatever he has completed of the final book at that point. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the final book come out after the final season of the HBO series.
There are rumors of an eighth book, but if true I think that is likely to be similar to the problem that resulted in the fourth and fifth books -- too much material for a single book, so he splits it into two volumes. Let's hope he has learned his lesson and he doesn't decide to split them the same way...
I am a big Game of Thrones fan, but my favorite show of the past year is Hannibal, just a simply amazing show. Dark, Disturbing, Mads Mikkelsen is amazing as Lecter. I just got caught up on Fringe on Netflix, that was a great show and don't know how John Noble didn't get an Oscar. Person of Interest is another top notch show that I would put up to anything on cable. Season 3 just ended with the second best finale of the tv season behind Hannibal. Parks and Rec is a great comedy that just keeps delivering, and Community had a great final year.
Orphan Black was ok, it was hard to get into. Dexter had 3 great seasons, 1,2 and 4, but really got silly towards the end. Breaking bad was excellent all the way through, and Mad Men is just not that good in my opinion, too many really unlikeable characters.
I can't say it was the best show I've ever seen, but I really thought the two leads were very solid, and it had some interesting twists and turns. It also was a nice "looking" show, and really set the gloomy mood nicely. Definitely Twin Peaks-esque at times, although much more straightforward and less, well...weird. Does it really rain that much in Seattle, though?
Anyway, as I logged into Netflix this evening, I see that it is going to be brought back for a 4th season on Netflix, starting August 1. Gotta love that. I really like Netflix as a medium for continuing quality television shows that were cancelled before their time. It's just too damn bad that kind of option wasn't around in 1999 for, say, Freaks & Geeks.
Still holding out hope for a second season of Firefly...
The Killing was just too slow for me. I loved the wierdness of Twin Peaks, as it was totally David Lynch. I watched the first season of Killing and it just went nowhere, so I didn't invest time in the other seasons. Very well acted though.
They messed up by promising an ending in the last episode of Season 1, and then ended up kinda needlessly dragging out that storyline across Season 2. A decent enough ending was finally had, but the storyline went on far too long.
And yes, I agree -- some of the episodes in Season 1 could have been axed completely; most notably, the episode where Linden's son goes missing/runs off. It's no wonder they couldn't finish the story in a single season if they were willing to bring the plot to a grinding halt.
I actually thought Season 3 was the best, as that season delved into Linden's past (the past that they kept dropping not-so-subtle hints about in the first two seasons) and featured perhaps the finest acting of the entire series to date with Peter Sarsgaard's portrayal of an inmate on death row. It's well worth the watch.