a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3816 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: TV Eats Itself: Welcome to the end of the Golden Era--Grantland

My instinct is to be contrarian and disagree, but at the same time the creativity is bleeding out of the studios. It was bound to happen - once you build up an expensive distribution platform, you can't make risky choices about how to monetize it. So the interesting stuff ends up in cheaper channels.

Not gonna lie. A substantial portion of my income this year is mixing for Youtube. That which is not being paid for by Youtube is being paid for by major multinational corporations for Youtube. I've got a 72-channel mix for a Youtube video hot in the other room right now.

Dunno. Orange is the New Black isn't half bad. That Kevin Spacey thing is shit. Hemlock Grove is crap, and I used to hang out with Brian McGreevy regularly. If Netflix can stop shooting for "slightly better than Lillyhammer" and aim for "slightly better than Treme" they'll have something. HBO wasn't shit until OZ so it'll happen.





Kaius  ·  3814 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Dunno. Orange is the New Black isn't half bad. That Kevin Spacey thing is shit. Hemlock Grove is crap, and I used to hang out with Brian McGreevy regularly. If Netflix can stop shooting for "slightly better than Lillyhammer" and aim for "slightly better than Treme" they'll have something. HBO wasn't shit until OZ so it'll happen.

Orange is the New Black is pretty poor to be honest, It can be summed up as lesbians in a cage, sure they are interesting to watch but its still shit. I liked House of Cards though, except for that god awful episode where they returned to his college days. I haven't seen Lillyhammer but the picture on Netflix alone is enough to put me off until someone tells me its worth a spin.

Treme, I tried to watch it after finishing The Wire as it has several of the same actors/writers and it didn't click. Same thing with The Corner. I must give them a second shot sometime.

thenewgreen  ·  3813 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I liked House of Cards though, except for that god awful episode where they returned to his college days.
-that episode was particularly horrid. I'm not a big fan of the series thus far. There aren't any redeeming characters. I get that we are all fallible and stuff but these people are despicable. -even DC has some redeeming people in it.
Kaius  ·  3813 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ok so maybe the reason I enjoy it is that it is a remake of this which is the original BBC series upon which the US version is based. The original suffered hugely from poorly defined characters (His wife for example reaction to his decision to sleep with the Reporter character was roughly "Whatever you think is best Dear", The Reporter character is similarly 1 dimensional and by the end is suffering from some kind of Fatherless Woman syndrome and refers to the main character as "Daddy")

So it was awful, but its one redeeming quality was how it broke the fourth wall with the main character speaking directly to the audience which at that time (80's) was a new technique (at least to me). It was a step toward bridging the gap between TV and Novels as mediums for delivering a characters internal dialogue.

So the US version has taken BBC version and expanded every aspect of the original and improved it by rounding out the supporting characters. Its still a one trick pony I guess but its a decent trick which moves it a step above the likes of Orange is the New Black in my book (where the only trick is the ones the inmates sell for an extra dessert pudding).

prospider  ·  3813 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I like House of Cards. I thought it had pretty universal acclaim.