Monday, October 31, 2016

TV Discussion: 10/30/2016 - 11/5/2016

Hello fellow TV addicts!  This is our weekly place to discuss all non-recapped shows.  I'll see you in the comments!

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

WEstworld--When Dolores said, I haven't said anything I think she was speaking to Arnold. An Arnold who is now part of the system, like Transcendence. I loved the MIB and Ford meeting. BTW, it seems like there is just 1 timeline with the Wyatt character involved in both. Wyatt with MIB and Wyatt with Dolores. Or did I miss something?

Maeve waking is part of her taking over the place.

Very interesting that ARnold tried to destroy the place.

Great info on what the outside world is like--with everything being easy. I wonder if the robots break out how that will turnout? Maybe a season 3 or 4 story--lol.

This ep makes it seem more possible that Ford is a robot. I've said it before, he certainly could be and with the finger power he has it has seemed a more legit theory. And him asking Dolores about his former self. It sure seems Dolores sided with Arnold against Ford.

Richard

MJ said...

Falling Waters - any one check it out ? Intriguing. Kind of Inception-like. We shall see.

Frequency - still liking this one. Loved the GofT reference. Strangely another show - Insecure- had a GofT reference this week.

Insecure - new HBO show - I am liking this one. Hated Divorce with SJP.

Timeless - still decent enough

Exorcist - this show is genuinely creepy/scary.

AHS - SOOOOO far behind. I know there was a big twist and Evan finally showed up but haven't seen that ep yet. SiGH.

NCIS - hey Leslie - are you caught up ? I am behind so just watched the Philadelphia ep - I know they wanted to give some back story on the new

guys but did that make sense that her partner gets shot and she can't deal so they made her a trainer ? LOL And gibbs was very grouchy again.

And since when was Tim so full of testosterone ? odd episode.

DC Legends - have not even seen it since it's premier. Think I have the finale too.

Westworld - quite behind o this one too.

Mike V. said...

WW - probably gonna be a Monday night show for me now with TWD. I'll get to it tonight!

Frequency - have it all recorded. Hopefully can get to it eventually. (Black Mirror is up on Netflix so is season 2 of iZombie and still trying to finish Luke Cage...so eventually maybe! lol)

Insecure - not watching. but can always watch on HBO GO. I guess you recommend?

Timeless - Yeah I like that one but I'm 3 behind all of a sudden...or maybe 3 behind tonight. :-( Seems to happen with these NBC Procedural/lite mythology eps lol

Exorcist - Not watching. No interest!

AHS - I'll withhold my comments...actually I already made them on a previous thread about any said twist. :)

Falling Waters - Gale Ann Hurd (SP) is the producer on this one. She's done lots of well known movies and of course Walking Dead. She was on Nerdist Podcast the other week promoting this and I found the concept interesting enough to set the DVR. So I have them all recorded!

Strain - Got 10 minutes left in the ep..will probably try to finish this morning. one more season!

Mike V. said...

shameless - This episode was better for a lackluster season. I wonder if they were rushed to get the season out early this year or if it's just a 7 year show and it's finally showing it's age. This one had me laughing though. The whole thing with Carl and the girl's dad is hilarious. I could watch a whole show of that. Frank landing into a cash windfall again in the most ridiculous ways is funny. Always want to see Lip succeed but this screams Steve Sanders senior year scandal from 90210. lol

Mike V. said...

The Strain - Wow, stellar acting from Zach. I could really feel the hatred there. He could give Hayden Christiansen a run for his money! :) So Eph kills his vampire wife in self-defense and Zach gets angry and decides to Nuke NYC? hmmmm lol My favorite part was, "quick get behind this 2 foot wall. That will save us from the nuclear blast! Only thing that was missing was Harrison Ford in a refrigerator!

Other than that...what's his face is now The Master's host for the final season. Dutch/Eph/Fet got all their feelings out on the table. And the final battle backdrop will be a nuclear winter NYC. I'm digging it I guess. lol the best part is...I'll forget all of this by the time the next season premieres!

MJ said...

Insecure - I like it. Funnier then the gritty Atlanta. Def different then most on sitcoms on tv.

Anonymous said...

Strain--was that the finale? I'm glad the creepy Mom is dead. The boy nuking NYC was nuts. His dad's reaction was almost as bad. It was like no big deal. The master escaping was of course predictable. Shows that do those things--pretend like they're going to kill one of the 2 or so most important characters--are just laughable. The Mom being killed was a big deal but the show can continue without her.

Richard

Anonymous said...

I thought about letting the Star Wars reference just slide. But, Hayden wasn't bad for all the time he was in the movies. Natalie Portman wasn't great either but had some good moments. BUT, I would take those 2 over almost anybody left(Harrison gone) for the new films.

For Example:
Harrison Ford--really my favorite
Keira Knightly--probably should have been Padme
Liam Neeson
Billy Dee Williams
Ewan McGregor
James Earl Jones
Christopher Lee
Alec Guiness

Richard

Mike V. said...

It's a go to reference you know that! lol He was REALLY bad at parts of those movies...but it's also direction and dialogue that made those moments cringeworthy. "From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" "I wish I could just wish my feelings away" Portman wasn't great either I would agree with that. "you're breaking my heart. You're going down a path I cannot follow!" But hey I guess the lines are memorable if I can keep quoting them!

He had his moments in those movies, but I do prefer the guy from Clone Wars that did his voice in the animated series (he's also a star on Timeless now)

Keira technically "was" Padme...she was a decoy. lol All the actors you mentioned did great in the movies...not really keira..she was barely in it.

I still enjoy the movies for what they are. I enjoy the story, characters and scenery George created. It's the execution that wasn't the greatest. Of course the more I read now there's a lot of retroactive George praise going around. I saw an article recently where he actually asked other people to direct the prequels and no one wanted to touch them. They said no one could do it justice. They were afraid to do it basically. (Spielberg being one of the directors he asked) So, if George stayed on as an idea man and could've pawned off other stuff it could've been a better execution. But his motivation for making the prequels was to mess with the new digital technology. And he sure did pave the way for future great things that happened.

But, I can never pass up a good Hayden joke! lol I still would be all for a ghost vision of Hayden in episode 8. it could happen. With the right direction I'm sure it would be more than serviceable.

Strain - I'll write more later but I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. And yes it was the season finale. lol

Mike V. said...

Westworld – I was tired after all of the trick or treating so I may have fallen asleep during part of the episode. But, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying. I was loving it.

Definitely seems like we’re dealing with 2 timelines. The one actor that MIB was travelling with…he killed him but was talking about past encounters with him…and then all of a sudden he shows up as a person of more power in William’s story. I just read your comment that you think it’s one timeline. I may have missed the Wyatt reference in Dolores’ story. Does that mean it’s definitely 1 though? Wyatt may be involved in both stories.

That was creepy/hilarious when Maeve woke up. Lol

Arnold…yeah I heard a theory on the way in today that he may not be in another host but just part of the Westworld “system” (which is the same words you used) that enables him to still control things…and maybe it’s why Ford has to keep Dolores alive. There’s something in the code that prevents him from taking further action.

It seems of Ford created these hosts that he would’ve built in some ability to control them personally. So he could either be a robot or a human. But the fact that MIB suggested he might be a robot is interesting.

Whatever is going on…I’m still enjoying the ride.

Gotham - Can't have a show without eventually going into a dream sequence! lol And now Gordon's father is pulling the strings to Gotham's seedy underground? I guess I was premature on saying Mad Hatter's time on the show is done. I guess he's the main villain for this "Mad City" sub-titled segment (half season maybe?). Not sure why I didn't connect Mad Hatter with Mad City. lol

Supergirl - I watched it...but nothing really to report.

Luke Cage - almost finished episode 9. Anxious to get on to Black Mirror and iZombie s2!

MJ said...

Shield - just finished the last two - but did not see last nights. Wow - did not see it coming that the new director is an in-human ! But yeah - we all knew Skye/Daisy/Quake would be back.

Flash - same thing - watched the two older ones - not this weeks.

I'm catching up - getting to the point where I might only have 1 of each that I am behind on. LOL Except Blindspot - have 4 of them still. And AHS. Sigh. I'm getting there.

Insecure - might be considered a chick show though - but loving it. Very different

Strain - dang ! They made Eldrige the Master. That was pretty smart. LOL on wall protection and get in the fridge ! Good one. The kid did do good - I remember the early days he got a lot of hate (as did Carl in TWD) but i always said they didn't give the kid muc to do either. I taped the finale on NON Hd and I hold it - I can't remember crap from 9 months ago and so will watch again when it comes back. Nah richard - I don't think any one of us thought the Master would die - we all know we have 1 more season LOL

Ugh you guys - the star wars debates again ??? LOL

Falling Water - good thing is that it is probably only 10 eps long. Just a guess though. The chick in it was CoCo from the Strain. Much better acting from her here though.

Luke Cage - hoping to knock that out in the holiday lull of network tv.

iZombie - I am dying for that to come back ! Like dogs with bones !

MJ said...

Like Dogs with bones was supposed to be under Star Wars - don't know how i did that.

Mike V. said...

I'll hold off on Shield/Flash because I just caught up on last night's eps. lol

AHS - So I guess you saw the big twist right?

Strain - I'm pretty sure they RECAST the kid 2 years ago! lol The whole concept that he'd nuke the city because his father killed his vampire mother...I just wasn't buying it. I get that he was still attached to the mother...but nuking the city???? Couldn't make that leap. yeah I usually keep finales too but never get around to watching them again.

Star Wars debates - Just can't help myself...agreed on the dogs/bones comment. lol

Falling Water - I couldn't even tell you who CoCo was on the Strain. lol

Luke Cage - It's been a solid show. I have 4 more to watch I think.

iZombie - Excited to start season 2. Sounds like there's a going to be some shows off for a couple weeks this month (crazy since it's November) so I might be able to get to this or Black Mirror for a bit.

MJ said...

AHS - nope - have not yet seen that - just knew there was one and that Evan finally showed up

Falling Water - in the gross storyline she became the assistant then girlfriend to Palmer. They killed her off a while ago

Shows off - really ? I know Good Place has the finale this week - but did not know others were going off air for a break.

Mike V. said...

AHS - ohhh...gotcha. I read your post wrong and thought you were only 1 or 2 behind. I just watched last night's. I think there are 2 more to go. I'll stay quiet.

Falling Water/Strain - OOOOHHHH YEAAAAH! All came back to me.

Shows Off - I think it's a few ABC shows...probably because of Awards shows and Holiday specials they always air. CMA Music Awards were last night so Designated Survivor wasn't on. American Music Awards will be on next week or the week after. SHIELD is off until end of November. I'm sure Fox shows will resume with the world series over. Good Place FINALE?? like fall finale?

Scandal - Coming back January 19th or whatever the Thursday around there is.

MJ said...

Good Place - yeas - sorry - fall finale.

Heard that about Scandal - I gave that one up.

Secrets and Lies - any one watching ? I watched the first 2 and now am behind. Wondering if any good or should I dump it. LOL

Mike V. said...

Scandal - A lot of people jumped ship after the abortion/break-up episode. I don't have scientific facts on that, but people I talk to were fed up with the show at that point. Anyway point being, I don't blame you! I'm not too thrilled about it coming back either!

Secrets and Lies - Nope missed that train. :)

MJ said...

Scandal - yeah - I did not mind that story line actually - but I know got lots of hate. I was just tired of the Fitz and Olivia crap - and since it is the main 'love' story - well that meant time to let it go

AHS - thought I was behind by 5 eps - but apparently while away I had a power blip so there was 2 of one episode. Watched 2 of 4 last night. Evan is a really good actor - and I think his name 'Mott' has been in another season of this show. Hotel perhaps ? PS - have been waiting for the gay character to show up - AHS always has one. And another head bashed in ! For me that 3 in under two weeks. LOL Hillbilly mama is also such a great actress. I need to look up her name. Suffice to say it's been 4 weeks for all of you so I won't say much but I was surprised the butchers son is the one who ended it. Than - holy smoles ! They are doing a reality show. How absolutely nuts. As if - why would these idiots even go back there !?! LOL Love it though. And they say right up front - only 1 person survives it all. Dang. Love how when they showed the graphics of how great the ratings were on 'season 1' they compared it to TWD. HA. And they set up the house to have scary things happen - just like we assume in those trashy reality shows. So - the the actress who played the butcher - AKA - Kathy Bates - they are setting up right away that she is ticked that she is not invited and has gone a little kookoo. Is she the new killer ? Funny with Paulsen's brit accent - and the guy Evan now plays is an idiot. But damn - both episoded killed Evan ! LOL It was comical since I watched back to back. Wow - this is really a great season. Read somewhere that Murphy said that Gaga's character is the original coven leader from Coven ? Huh ? that confused me. LOL

Anonymous said...

Been gone. Keira--she had some screen time in ep 1. But yea, that's the point, she would have been a better Padme.

Shield--This Ghost Rider storyline is better than some others they've done. Interesting twist on the bad guy.

Blacklist--Pretty good but have to overlook Liz still tight with FBI.

Gotham--quit watching.

WW-Wyatt was mentioned as a part of the new narrative by Ford with Theresa and MIB(uncovered in the park) as I recall. What I'm not 100% recalling is if Dolores with William had heard of Wyatt. But, I'm pretty sure that Wyatt was brought up with them and Logan. I'm considering rewatching the prior ep but probably won't. Given how Wyatt was introduced as part of the new narrative and Dolores with William is thought by some as a past tinmeline--Wyatt being present in both is key.

Richard

Mike V. said...

AHS - Was waiting for you to get to that twist! I totally called the next phase of this thing to be POST documentary, but never considered them shifting into a "Found Footage" horror show. But the way they have justified cameras being on for the most part is better than any excuse they ever had on Blair Witch. I agree, this season has been fantastic. I made some comments in the last thread or maybe the big fall thread, but forget exactly what I said. British accent stuff was great, the drama with celebrities sleeping with the real people and all of that is good stuff too. I forgot they said 1 survived. I thought none survived. Interesting. I think you're still behind me so I'll be careful what I say. But I think the actress you're referring to with hillbilly mama is the girl that played Juliet's sister on LOST and most renowned for playing Calamity Jane on Deadwood (there's that show again where everyone got their start lol) She has been in a lot though.

Scandal - Understood. If it doesn't impress us this season I could see dropping it too. We'll see.

Gotham - Don't blame you Richard. I'll stick it out a little longer. lol

Blacklist - Finally cancelled season pass and deleted all episodes. It was a pipe dream to try and catch up! lol

Phantom Menace - Yes, I know she was in episode 1. That's why I brought up exactly who she played. lol Considering Portman has won an Oscar since TPM and other actors from the prequels have gone on to have fine acting careers it's easy to draw conclusions to what the issues were with the wooden performances. They were some of the initial films that were filming on mostly (eventually all) digital sets, George was working on having his companies invent technology to make the films possible while also weaving the story together. When directing as long as they got their lines read and everything else technologically was fine I imagine he was just saying, "Cut....great!" He took too much on and it shows in the final product. That said...I still love the story that he put together for the prequels. I just wish the execution could've been better. There were certainly good performances...some people can work with little direction and know how to speak bad dialogue to sell it. Not everyone can do it...clearly. But also, there's not much you can do with lines like Anakin: You're so beautiful Padme: Probably because I'm so in love Anakin: (laughs) No...it's because I'm SO in love with YOU!

As Harrison Ford once famously said: "George, you can write this sh#t but you can't say it!" He didn't have people questioning him as much on those prequels.

SHIELD - It has been decent. Agreed.

WW - I don't remember William/Dolores storyline ever intersecting with the name Wyatt. If so, I would agree with you that this would nullify the 2 timeline theory.

Anonymous said...

WW---I remember now how I came to the conclusion that it can't be 2 timelines for the MIB/William.
Teddy and Dolores were together then got divided up when Teddy went on his search for Wyatt!!!
Then Dolores found her way into William and Logan's camp! So, Wyatt was involved through Teddy with Dolores. It also makes sense that her "awakening" is occuring at a time when Ford is installing a new narrative. And while he's trying to check into what Arnold is/was up to. Also, the MIB and Logan(who is with William) seem to know some of the same info on the business side.

Richard

Anonymous said...

Movies--my son hasn't mentioned watching the new star wars but has plans to see Dr. Strange(I do too).
So many movies lately haven't been very good. Too much CGI, too little dialogue(one of the things I liked about the old Star Wars was plenty of dialogue) and storylines using actors that seem like everything went through an approval committee. I think I've paid to see 2 movies this year, one being Superman which I liked. I think the other was American Sniper. And what's really bad is I havne't used Redbox but maybe once or twice this year.

Richard

Mike V. said...

WW - Hmm interesting. I think I'm losing track of how Dolores ended up with William in that storyline. I know you're telling me, I just don't remember that or the mention of Wyatt. But even so...I guess there's a chance that Wyatt could be involved in both timelines. I know you said it was mentioned as being something "NEW" in MIB/Ford's storyline. But you never know. Until I see intersection between William and MIB's story I think it's still in play.

Movies - Can't argue with the "approval through committee" approach to blockbusters now. With the massive universes these franchises are creating, it requires a group that approves things for canon across stories. Star Wars has the "Star Wars Story Group"...I'm sure Marvel has something similar. I don't know if I associate amount of dialogue with CGI usage though. I didn't really notice a decrease in dialogue in Force Awakens from the originals either. But you could be right. Probably googleable. lol You won't get any argument from me that it'll be tough to ever top the Classic Films. But I'm still excited about each release at this point. I definitely want to see Dr. Strange as well. Just no sitter options so I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

American Sniper actually came out in December of 2014...you saw that in the theater this year?

I definitely haven't seen as many movies as I used to, but that's more of just the phase of life I'm in right now. Too many logistics to get out of the house and in a theater seat. There are certainly plenty of movies I want to see this holiday season. We'll take the kids to see Moana (which will have music from the Hamilton scribe himself!), I want to see Fantastic Beasts (which supposedly there will be 5 films now, but this first one is penned by Rowling)....Definitely going to see Rogue One at least twice (opening preview night, then next day with my son).

I've heard great things about Mel Gibson's new directorial pic Hacksaw Ridge, but if I see that it'll probably be closer to Oscar season.

Mike V. said...

Star Wars - Wish I could do a comparison, but this is a fun video. It's every word uttered in A New Hope sorted alphabetically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GFW-eEWXlc

There are 1695 different words, and 11684 total words

Video is 43 minutes long. The other 81 minutes don't feature words spoken in English. I don't think there is much Hutteese spoken in ANH either. Just Greedo and Jabba(special edition) and maybe some droid speak here and there.

I'm curious to do comparisons now. Stay Tuned lol

Mike V. said...

Star Wars Dialogue Counts - Okay...so I had a little fun digging up a few scripts. Now this may not mean much because there's lots of descriptions outside of dialogue and the formatting was different on each script. But i copied and pasted from imsdb.com (Script database) into WORD and did word and page counts for a few of the SW films. Here we go:

SW A New Hope - 186 Pages, 33,142 Words
SW Empire Strikes Back - 148 Pages, 27,172 Words
SW Phantom Menace - 97 Pages, 28,820 Words
SW The Force Awakens - 155 Pages, 25,699 Words

I guess you could imply by this that the new movie did have less dialogue. But it is interesting that the word count between ESB and TFA are pretty close. I could do the other ones too, but I have to get some work done! lol

Anonymous said...

Thanks, supporting my perception. Due to foreign ticket sales dialogue has been intentionally reduced on all movies. Less to translate. Let the action,CGI,etc do the talking if you will.

A New HOPe run time 2 hours 5 minutes

The Force Awakens Run Time--2 hours 15 minutes.

Words per minute is really what to compare. I know it's not the actual spoken words, so just using what you provided. I tried to search quickly too, but didn't find anything specific. I tried for closed caption words and couldn't find a count. Anyway----

ANH--265.14
TFA--190.36

That's a BIG difference. Almost 40% less!!!!

What does it say that TFA has less info on the script?

LOL on seeing Rogue one twice. I won't see it once.

Wow, Sniper was last December--how time flies. Maybe there was only one movie this year? Or maybe I saw Sniper in Jan HOliday time frame? There could have been another movie but it obviously wasn't worth remembering--lol. Don't know about Fantastic Beasts.

Thinking seriously about Hacksaw Ridge, could be great. We Were Soldiers is one of my absolute favorite movies along with Braveheart. I own Braveheart on BD and haven't seen it again--just too hard. I have some artwork of the battles from history before the movie. I can't buy We Were Soldiers, would love to see it again--just too hard. I go to Church with the LC who was the commanding pilot for that battle. He was shot down 3 times!!!! His stories are humbling. He has one leg 2 inches shorter then the other due to being shot up so many times. He got in a third helo with that shot up leg!!! To deliver supplies and pick up wounded. My Dad landed in Normandy--(pre invasion and awful) and was at the Remagen Bridge battle commanding the Engineers--many heroic stories. They made a movie about it too. Just so hard to watch.

Richard