the story could have been done in 45 minutes of tv. the problem was filling up all the insterstices from one panel to the next with live action.

the solution was a total rewrite as far as i can see. which makes it like a whole new story, but with characters you know. and it's good. it's not GREAT, but it's good. the acting though by the dude that plays cassidy is dementedly great, i mean, it's the irish vampire come to life-- and one who does tulip (the woman w/ the flower dress in agents of S.H.I.T.) just makes such a great & original characterization i thought. like really i stand up & applaud those too.

as for luther: it's idris fucking elba! and he makes a great character


come on sir, no. unfair. what you say is true but only to an extent. this has more dimensions. great writing and acting. usual middling production values from british tv shows but the writing and acting beat 'mericas cop shows.

but yeah, okay, it's not a "new" thing that way. but it's better.

the brooding, the yelling. just boring....yeah, though, Elba is good, one of the best things about the Wire, and he was also good in RocknRolla, but the Beasts of No Nations and Luther, nah, you're only as good as the writing lets you be....

it might be that i have a tragic angry side with a tendency to brood and yell that makes him highly relatable for me.

i don't see him as "alien." know what i mean?

but anyway ok we all have different tastes

i'll go brood now & yell at something.

make sure it's a Trumpian and we're good!

You've sold me. I love the comic but I barely remember it. Sounds like this would be a good re-introduction.

(I still like Agents of SHIELD. I think it's only gotten better since the crappy first half of season one. Hope you didn't give up on it. Any show that can make ME actually WANT to see a fucking shit character like GHOST RIDER, or the Patriot, is doing its job. Love Fitz and Simmons. I'd marry Simmons if I was that knuckleheaded Scot.)

@ sev - i know you didn't say yes to this but i should warn you about luther - if your girl doesn't tolerate ultraviolence & paranoia then it's definitely not for her. mudering psychopaths are luther's bread & butter. so, disturbing/gory. hey maybe that's a selling point ha ha.

I'm much more likely to be unsettled by things than she is. Like American Horror Story with all its rape shit. I couldn't take it, missed big chunks of the first season because I said fuck this and walked off. She didn't bat an eye.

Thanks though. I've been trying to get her to watch. The only things that bothers her are fucked up, sudden deaths of beloved characters (True Detective, season 2) and senseless extreme horror with no purpose (House of 1,000 Corpses is the only example I can think of. She hates it.)

Sounds like she might actually be more into the idea of watching this now. Hahaaa!

yesterday finished season 1 of PREACHER

while the season as a whole didn't always hold my complete attention, the final episode was fucking great!!! i can see it now. i thought i was being strung along but no. here it comes.

and today started season 2 of BETTER CALL SAUL. just first episode. loving it. yeah yeah, it's not walter white, it's not ultraviolence and heart attacks all the time, but it has such great characters, so well written-- plus bob odenkirk is so good in his role.

I LOVE BETTER CALL SAUL!!

Yes, it's differen, but just as compelling!! And the (future) spectre of Walter and future Saul looms large over the whole story, giving it a sense of creeping dread. Some folks can't wait for "Jimmy" to become "Saul," but I'm all for taking it slow, and savoring this guy's story.

Plus, you know all hell is going to break lose for the poor bastard. Hopefully we don't see "Saul Goodman" until the last possible moment.

I didn't know season 3 had started! Yay!

almost done w/ saul -- it's been so great so far

meanwhile

SUNNY

season 9



yes yes, i'm behind the curve

but the dvd has such a great menu

I totally misunderstood you when you first brought up Better Call Saul. I thought, for whatever reason, that you were saying the new season was about to start. There were clues certainly... clues I ignored (like, I dunno... you absolutely NOT saying that, or the fact that season three is the "new" season, and you were taking about season two.

But anyway. Season three is apparently coming, but AMC is being very secretive about it and no date has been disclosed yet. However, I guess Gus Fring (from Breaking Bad) will be part of S3. Interesting.

I just watched the most recent season of Sunny to come to Netflix and even it is old, as a NEW season just started like two weeks ago or something.

Great show though. Has its ups and downs. Definitely has throwaway episodes here and there, and why do they do only 10 episodes a season? Seriously, what's to gain from that with a ½ hour series? I get it with the hour-long ones. Sure. Makes it like a long movie. But 10 episodes of 30 minute shows that are ⅓ eaten up by commercials? It's bullshit to give people no more than that, once a year.

Took, like, light evening of tv watching to get through all of season 11 on Netflix. Felt like a snack break. Lame.

yeah. that's why i consume it in parallel with a "heavy" show.

last night i watched 2 episodes + 1/2 a movie

tonite it's busier so i'm doing 1 sunny + 1 saul. would love to binge, but no time.

if i recall from when i used to see this on tv, sunny is a summer show yeah? short season. so 10 episodes = 10 weeks. plus whatever holi-daze.

most recent ep of sunny at the water park was utterly stunning stuff.


just finished the third season of broad city, similarly stunning.



for some reason I am watching teen wolf and I don't actually know why, the cast are intimidatingly attractive I guess.

Last night I watched the final two episodes of The Fall. I really enjoyed that series. Gillian Anderson is really good, and is consistently so. I'm of course a big fan of The X-Files, and really liked her in Hannibal. So with The Fall, its her chance to finally be the star of her own series, and she did not disappoint. And her next series will be American Gods. So, she certainly knows how to pick a good series.

Wait, who's she set to play in American Gods? I either never heard about or forgot this.

I'm not yet super convinced that AG will live up to the hype. What a tough book to adapt. And while their decision to change up cultural roles is definitely increasing my interest, I still would have absolutely LOVED to have seen Richard Attenborough (before, you know, he died... RIP) as Wednesday. And if not him, Billy Connolly would have done the role justice.

Ian McShane intrigues me though. A dark haired Scot playing a Latino version of Odin. Is that whitewashing, the opposite of whitewashing, or something else altogether? Anyway... for a more ominous and frightening Wednesday/Odin who is nothing like what the book describes, it's a pretty good choice.

Still, I feel like there was a missed opportunity with this one. This should have been made ages ago. As a movie. Directed by Terry Gilliam. With Clive Owen as Shadow, Attenborough or Connolly as Wednesday, and Morgan Freeman as Anansi. Maybe Naomi Watts as ghost-wife whatshername.

Sigh.

the latino business... is very funny

latino is not a "race". sure there are a lot of mestizos as a majority, but it's a very diverse continent. it's mostly a cultural thing.

you have a mishmash of indians, spaniards, africans; various kind of european refugees, asian immigrants, and more-- all of whom interfucked, hard. because there is no segregation. racism sure, but no prohibition to go and fuck the "other". so we're like a litter of mongrel puppies.

in latin america you have black latinos with italian last names, white latinas with chinese last names, quasi-albino latino grandchildren of klaus barbie, amazonian indians who speak no word of spanish and couldn't be "latinos" if their life depended on it, shakira is an arab and so was garcia marquez, etc. etc.

Puerto Rico has black Puerto Ricans with jewish names. Brown Puerto Ricans with German names. Chinese 4th generation Puerto Ricans. All types. I hate the terms used to describe people from Latin America. THey (white folks, you know, the ones who run shit?) like to use one term to generalize about hundreds of millions of people living in wildly different countries with wildly different histories and culture. Latino means nothing. Italians are LATIN-o for Mario's sake. Hispanic means only that your first language is spanish, which leaves out Brazil and several other smaller countries which do not speak Spanish mainly. People from Spain are Hispanic by definition.

I'm confused. I know this. I don't believe I said it was a "race." I think I said something about the American Gods TV show changing up the cultural identities of the characters. :confused:

In any case, I certainly did not mean any offense, and I didn't mean to imply that I am any kind of authority on "Latino" cultural identity. I apologize if I was crass. I was probably subconsciously trying really hard to not be offensive. I am, after all, a liberal white guy ;)


I have to admit, I'm not as familiar with all of this is as I should be. I think I told you once that we have property in rural New Mexico (fucking beautiful place) and I'd love to live there at some point, and I'd like to avoid insulting the extremely diverse people there with my "white dude on vacation" ignorance.

I did know about Gabriel Garcia Marquez though.

no i mean, the idea that gringos have of "latinos" is of a very stereotyped mestizo character. i was just trying to clarify.

mestizo is (like the canadian métis) a basic indian-spanish blend. so you get brown skin / black hair / black eyes and a mixture of european and indian properties. mestizos are a majority in countries that had large native civilizations-- mexico, ex-mayan countries, & the andes.

but people who come from this part of the world are all called "latinos."

the thing is latin america doesn't just have mestizos. black slaves were brought over (and the genetic diversity within africa is greater than the rest of the whole world), waves of immigrants came over, and the fucking never stopped.

a dark haired scot playing a latino version of odin actually sounds very latin american ha ha ha. just like vicente fox,6'4", president of mexico, has not an english last name but a german one (fuchs), and peruvian dictator fujimori fled to the japan of his ancestors when he got into trouble-- now there's a polish guy in charge there.

funny story-- that super hot colombian lady from some lame tv show, family something-- you know the one im talking about-- is actually blonde. but she died her hair dark so she'd get more parts, ha ha ha.

don't sweat it man. a litter of mongrel puppies is what "latino" means.