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#oitnb is just grim to me now
weasal · 6 years
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Hey, weasal, what TV shows are you into atm? Can you recommend anything sci-fi to watch? Thnx
Hey friendly anonymous person! 
This past week I’ve been watching the new season of OITNB. But I’m not reccing that because it’s a bit pants really. So dull! We’ll slog through it anyway because I still want to know what happens, but yeah, bit of a yawn-fest sadly. 
Loving The Bold Type again this season. It’s always such a breath of fresh air and an easy, fun watch. I’m in the hardcore Sutton Fan Club. 
KILLING EVE. I’m sure you’re all over it like a tramp on chips, but if not, watch it immediately. Pretty close to perfection. I enjoyed it immensely and just want MOAR. 
My wife has been working crazy hours in her job lately so I binged all of the latest season of Homeland over a few days, because she’s not really interested so I am very limited with what I am allowed to watch without her! It’s getting a bit closer to 24 style nonsense every season, but Claire Danes’ ugly Carrie cry-face keeps me entertained just enough. I want to rip my ears off when they have the jazz sequences though. 
This season of Handmaid’s Tale was pretty incredible. Dark as fuck, but incredible nonetheless. But the three-pronged warning I give out to any new viewers is: don’t binge it, have a viewing partner if possible, and don’t watch if feeling fragile. It’s a lot! 
Glow S2 was better than S1 and I gleefully (glowfully?) lost myself in each and every one of those spandex filled 20 minute episodes. That’s my only complaint; the episodes are too short. It’s fun and easy but shows female friendships in a quality and quantity that’s rarely seen on tv. Also Debbie 🔥
I haven’t started it yet but am reliably informed that Amy Adams’ new show Sharp Objects is very good. Grim, but good. 
I realise that none of these are remotely sci-fi. There’s definitely a lack right now of quality genre shows, cough cough still not even watched all of this season of The100. But these are some that I’ve watched either fairly recently or a while back that I can recommend. 
Jessica Jones - I really enjoyed this last season. It wasn’t quite as exciting as the first, but I appreciated the change of tone and I think overall it’s a really well executed show. For me it’s essentially like Faith Lehane got her own spin-off, so I pretty much love it. I’m weak for hot chicks with superpowers wearing biker jackets n boots, loads of eyeliner and who’ll punch you in the face if you look at them the wrong way. 
Altered Carbon - With Dichen’s parts you can basically imagine you’ve dropped into some sort of futuristic Anya AU. We came for her but we ended up enjoying lots of other elements of the show. Yes, it rips off Bladerunner’s aesthetic and it’s quite derivative of other classic sci-fi. But I kind of liked that about it. It’s a bit clunky and a bit old school and definitely a bit cheesy. But I found all those things just made it more enjoyable. And I liked the sweeping arc of it being set over hundreds of years. I’m glad they’ve got a season 2 and a MOC has been cast in the lead role this time. I just wish we could get more Dichen in the buff throw-down sequences because wow.  
Sense8 - What’s not to love. Hot people, beautiful locations, smattering of questionable science fiction, ORGIES. 
Black Mirror - All the fucked up sci-fi not-so-future dystopia you can shake a sentient selfie stick at. I found earlier seasons stronger than the latest, but San Junipero is of course one of the finest hours of sci-fi tv, or any tv, ever. 
Utopia - Now not a lot of people know this one, British or otherwise. It was on Channel 4 in the UK and had two seasons. Highly recommend. It will absolutely twist your melon though, and be warned, there are some fairly graphic scenes of violence (but none sexual). It’s truly fucked up brilliance and Rose Leslie makes an appearance at the beginning of S2. It’s very stylised and uses a lot of comic-book imagery, and has some low-key sci-fi elements to it. I think it’s on Amazon or you can find it on streaming/download sites. 
And this is about as far from sci-fi as you can get but if you’ve never seen Kath and Kim I would run to Netflix right now and start watching. They just put it on there which when I heard caused my heart to burst with joy. It’s the silliest ever Australian comedy series and it’s the perfect look into Aussie humour. I plan on re-watching all of it. 
But I mean, in response to your question, I don’t really have time to watch much television as I’m sure you can tell from my very brief response…..
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for-peace-war · 6 years
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Gone with the Wentworth
I’ll be leaving my thoughts on Season 6 here, which I’ll be honest has made me rename it Whingeworth.
Without any spoilers, it can be stated that I always took offense with Wentworth being compared on any substantive level to Orange is the New Black from S1-S4.  S5 was largely experimental and S6 has been the first step in what will become of the series.  For that reason, I have to say it: things are looking very grim.
Beneath are spoilers.
It has to be said that Wentworth was always a visceral and compelling series because it didn’t put kid gloves on any of its characters.  We were introduced to Bea “Red” Smith and immediately began to watch the meteoric rise of a woman who seemed hard done by to becoming a ruthless,clinical and unquestionable “top dog.”  She was clever and she was willing to do whatever it took to win: between allowing herself to be cut mercilessly, to eventually sacrificing her life as a supposedly final blow to her arch-nemesis.
But that sort of writing came to an end with Bea’s life.
People will laud Wentworth for having the courage to kill off its title character and it’s definitely a ballsy move, but as Caesar said in HBO’s Rome: “It is only hubris if I fail,” and hubris seems to be the result of this brave new move.
Wentworth’s storylines have gone from being focused on one person’s emergence as a sociopathic messiah, to being about a smattering of lives that the writers have clearly developed sentimental attachments to.
The “rules” that we came to understand: don’t snitch, don’t hit the panic button to stop a fight, a top dog has to be fair -- those are all gone.  Odd, “sentimental” morality has replaced otherwise compelling  narratives.
And then we get to the issue with S6: the new cast.
It isn’t bad.  In fact, there are some amazing characters.  I fell in love with Susan Porter’s Marie Winter immediately.  Yeah, she had a bit of “Jax” in her, but in the Bea way where you know there is more that is simmering under the surface and hasn’t appeared yet. 
Rita Conners was also a great character, and Dragovich served a... somewhat hamefisted purpose.
But then there were others: Ruby, whose story was “plucky tough girl” and Allie (who isn’t new, but still doesn’t have a place) just wore thin quickly.
What happened to the heart-wrenching moments? What happened to the jeopardy and suspense? If they just keep putting the new characters on the line, the adrenal response wears out.
My issue with sentiment is that at this point it’s clear the writers are protecting characters which doesn’t allow new characters to expand as they might.  Even Sonia Stevens, with her cat-like smirks and world-class character representation, was thrown aside to further establish... Kaz?  Am I supposed to see Kaz as “more realistic” now that she betrays her morals?  I don’t.  All she had was her morals.  Now she’s just a bad excuse for a Bea, and really she’s never been that compelling as a top dog.  She had Mr. Jackson, but...
Well, much like her spotlight, Marie stole that away from Kaz, too.
And I think that’s the issue.  There’s an almost schizophrenic need for the show to both attack a point and bolster it at the same time.  Is Marie supposed to be sympathetic?  Is Kaz supposed to be “bad” now?  
Kaz’s “great acts of kindness” have become protecting repeated snitch and now dementia suffering liar, Liz Birdswerth.  Yes, we all see the writing on the wall: we’re supposed to feel sorry for Liz, but why? She’s a liar, she’s a snitch, and she does whatever she can to protect herself.  She’s become the death of scenes and their sentiment for her just drives that home further. I wish she’d taken the hot shot, then at least there’d be some drama.
The show is in essence represented by Boomer in that it can’t ever make up its mind and has just descended into Orange is the New Black like character arcs which lead nowhere.  Even the “who’s blackmailing?” reveal left a lo to be desired and the finale as a whole... just didn’t go anywhere. 
Does this face-off mean that Marie and Rita will be going head to head rather than Kaz and one of her potential successors?  Marie lost her enforcer (that loved her -- an odd confession to make randomly!) and now gets to what... build support from a cast of loyalist characters? We saw that with Joan’s arc. Not interesting.  Might as well steal another page from OITNB and just have them switch up the prisons for a new cast that the writers aren’t obsessed with. 
And the finale, the finale was... what was that? Compare it to the previous ones: Joan being buried alive, Bea being killed, Joan Undertakering Crazy Baby Killer, Bea murdering Jax’s son... I mean, these were iconic and in the end, with this one you had a nebulous and drawn out load of nonsense. 
In the end, I just don’t know what there is to look forward to and that saddens me.  Wentworth is definitely one of my favorite series but I suppose eventually if a show doesn’t end peacefully then it will die a slow, agonizing and frustrating death.  Having seen this with Dexter, the Sopranos, and Lost you might think I would look away now and just count my losses, but I can’t...
Because even in its depressingly mediocre state, Wentworth is still a whine worth having. 
So I’ll watch S7, I guess... and I’ll probably be let down then as well.  I don’t think shows, particularly this late in their run, are able to recover from that kind of fall.  But for the sake of 1-4, I’ll have it out. 
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