dogg724

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3

I feel like this a low rent Nashville that makes black people look terrible. The music is mediocre, the story generally lazy and hacky. It's like a show that were it given the attention of an HBO or Showtime might make you feel immersed in, but you're left with seeing how much Terrance Howard and Taraji can carry the series. (edit: Nov 2016 I recently finished watching Power which is a glimpse at what Empire might've been like on a different network) Extra points for making me hate Cookie so much, that's powerful acting or character development.

The relationships are soap opera like, the writing fairly blah and redundant. What could be compelling story lines are wrapped up quickly or ignored all together. It feels like the show can't pick a direction. I don't understand why it's so hyped, it certainly can't be from the song quality, and the superficial glance at the scatter-brained roles each character is supposed to play doesn't endear me to any character in particular. There's way too much TV to compare this to for this to stick out for any other reason than Black-ish does. It caricatures black people and requires zero effort to follow. (Black-ish has laid off the accelerator...a bit)

This is a show that has unexpectedly touched me at times. The sincerity and quaint nature of each character and to their relationships matches the enduring spirit of those charged to pursue their faith or bring new life into the world. A subject that could easily be cheesy and procedural actually wraps you up into its world through every complicated birth and to the light at the end of every tragedy. The word "hope" underlies this world's reality. It's a hope that can be found for each and every character. This is not something many shows take the time or care to do. Even with the losing of the main characters or settings you still feel like you're returning home, to a familiar and inviting sensibility that smooths out any one character's rougher edge. It tactfully navigates history and cultural sensibilities while allowing relationships to be complicated but not overwrought. This show feels like art. If you're willing to dive in you can discover how it helps support you instead of the mania of "fandom" we currently employ to keep every shoddy mockery alive and rebooted past their expiration. Could this show have gone that direction? Had it done anything less than create a masterful setting and tone, absolutely. Finding myself drawn to complete it in the face of 200 other shows I'll watch this year I believe speaks to the value and power of its perspective.

Another week, another unnecessary reboot of a fetishized show. A lot of time and effort is put into apologizing for "surrealist" works. When something seems bizarre or off-putting, it's really the symbol of [blank] that has kept the particular reviewer up for many sleepless nights and changes in meaning for them over years. It would be too simple, it is supposed, to only say the plot was weak and dialogue boring. To suggest camp as a lazy crutch to account for bad acting is to just miss the point! It's a flexible genre that not everyone tunes into for its ability to... make sense... or frame its alleged message in a way you particularly care to hear. ::huff:: Fine. There's some truth to the notion that one person's art is another's self-indulgent waste of time and resources. And in terms of "cultural impact," one must concede this is a "great" show that captured the momentum and fervor of its time and has carried such a special place that it's managed to reboot even if the notion of rebooting has smelled sour for longer than anyone cares to admit.

Whatever else I might figure out to say about this show as I carry on, I cannot get over how horrendously bored I am. One dimensional characters bouncing from one boring ass conversation to the next before schizophrenically altering their personality and plot line to be doing something that isn't better or worse than before and probably won't be given a resolution. The main arc and mystery could have ended it all mid-way in season 2, but they keep going...because. The forced introduction of painted-marionette characters to continuously drag the story along must exist in a collective blackout by the show's most ardent fans.

Check out my viewing habits. I watch nearly everything. Across cultures, eras, and languages I peek. I get that some people have very niche voices and that it can be nice just to find that someone does indeed have a voice. I get that some things are complex or difficult. I get that some things are goofy. I just don't get this. It feels bored with itself. Like someone with the resources to make a parody, or pay homage, or experiment in a bend or twist, just threw it all in a blender and poured it out on the table, dryly proclaiming, "eat." I liken it to the kind of "comedy" that comes from Comedy Bang Bang or Tim and Eric. "WE DID SOMETHING! ACCEPT US! NOT ALL COMEDY IS ABOUT LAUGHTER, DUH!" Okay, you complex, tortured souls you. So it goes not all drama has to feel particularly dramatic nor do all mysteries need to make you think, I guess.

It feels like when True Detective got undermined by its own popularity. Forcing more layers and conversations than were ever needed. It feels like if an X-Files subplot got particularly out of hand. It feels like the original college junior script for Fringe before it went through a 95% rewriting process. It feels like Wonderfalls in a universe where the word "charm" never existed. It's Carnivale without the mystery, style, or acting. It's an episode of Bate's Motel where it's 38 minutes of just Norman and Norma folding sheets and sweeping up the hotel before a slightly awkward conversation at dinner andthenohlookabloodstain cut to black. It's so goddamn boring I'm staring at a frozen frame of it because I had to capture the void and every time I look up it makes me feel even emptier. Now, go on, tell me that's Lynch's intent all along and now I'm finally starting to see the inherent brilliance and wisdom of his sad take on life. Or, let the conversation die like the show should have died in 1991, or whenever the middle of the second season aired.

I've waited a long time to say anything about Halt and Catch Fire. It seems too easy or pointless to use a word like "underrated." It's hard to say the most compelling aspects are "subtle." No matter how many times I try to dismiss the whisper "masterpiece," it still returns. This isn't a show that wastes time trying to "work its angle" well enough that you get cheap glimpses into "the computer world." It doesn't try to impress you with talk that makes you think of a snobbish adviser they consult with too often. It doesn't try to make profound statements about family or entrepreneurship. Halt and Catch Fire is the grind. It's the thing that gets you to the thing.

I crave entertainment that makes me think. Halt puts me into a kind of meditation. I can adopt the skin of practically any character and feel like I know how I'd react to any other. I want to forgive and grow and try and disappear as they did. I want to root for them, and be cut deeper and deeper each time I try to believe again. I want to feel like my home is where my heart is, and my heart can reside in so many people and everything we've tried to create together. This show can let you feel a dynamic and chaotic beauty and drive for every ounce of the pain it takes to do so.

I've reached a point where I can't find anymore words to wrap the swelling in my chest with that will quell what I'm going to miss now that it's over. What these characters have, what this story shows, is human perfection. Bloody, confusing, tumultuous and heartfelt perfection. While the show can end, what it represents is everything I want my life to be, and I feel humbled that they were able to strike the chord so soundly.

I genuinely don't know if it's comedy snobs or what that's giving this show a low rating. It's immediately an immersive experience of the era. Each character has a strong voice, which is exceedingly hard to do so early in a series. It pays homage to the difficulties of playing the game with your friends (mostly) jokingly rooting for you to fail so they can succeed. It's sincere. I don't know if someone thought a drama about the early world of comedy was supposed to have them in tears the whole time, but the jokes and comments on hand aren't lazy and conversations are funny and feel real. I haven't read the book, but even after 2 episodes I think I want to. Rarely has a new series made me want to perk up and look forward to each episode so quickly. American Gods was the last one if you want to talk about worlds apart style and drama wise. Already it's got great casting, great pacing, great dialogue, and a great ability to embody the material. If the show starts to disappoint, I'll come back and change my rating, but I think you'll be out on more than a few spurious limbs trying to justify an average of 40%.

edit: Oh, I get it. Jim Carrey being a producer on a show means it's supposed to make you feel like you did at 13 when you saw Liar Liar. Grow up.

On IMDB someone compares this to Vinyl. The anti-hero experiencing the same problems every day in a world with no particular plot is precisely opposite of this world. This isn't centered on one person and their problems. This isn't meant to beat you over the head with "just how 70's things are." This is a romance. This is about being in love with comedy as a profession and its roots. If you don't feel like you identify with comics...no shit...that's why you're in the audience. The themes and personalities and conversations are still perfectly human and translate well. I'd hate for unfair naive maligning of this show to get it cancelled after one season before anyone can discuss something wrong with it besides, "But I thought Jim Carrey...!"

It's not a flat out terrible show. I appreciate the scope of what it's trying to accomplish. I agree with the voice and messaging. I like the actors more than I thought I would when I started it. It's not as fumbling forward like Orphan Black, or Heroes as I see myself agreeing with another commenter, but I think it's after the same kind of audience.

What bugs the ever-loving shit out of me is the romance. It's like Beyonce's lemonade video with the amount of slow motion "tension" as 2 characters approach each other with dazzled looks in their eyes. It's a synesthesia-d writer on crack. Every moment is all moments. Every point is also its counter. Every character is open to the highest of violence or sex with seemingly no conflict at all. It's a romance bread from the starkest idealism.

And I get it, that's its voice. But I'm not an endearingly hopeful liberal type who thinks my heart can be trapped by the cute person I just watched murder a dozen people. It's a show where, in the highest rated comment on this page, someone talks about going back through and finding all the "triggers." Yes, because those types pretend, like this TV show pretends, that they're seriously engaging the world instead of their added layer of mythology about it.

This is of course perhaps less a criticism of the show itself, but evocative of the times as to why it can appeal so hard. Oh, how wonderful to connect like that! Oh, how intimate! Oh, sharing and acceptance will always win the day!

Because of this, I feel it loses its capacity for a level of complexity. If you can remain awed by the "when will 1 meet 2? and 4 meet 7?" game, you'll be able to carry yourself through fairly easily. If you can refrain from asking too many questions as to how their "powers" really work or translate, you'll have a better time as well.

This is an aspiration and ethos show. The "gimmick" if you will provides the same kind of intrigue each time, it's just a matter of location or situation they're supposed to surmount. The characters are a solid half based simply on their cultural qualifier. The "depth" provided by assumptions you make regarding each. Even then though, those assumptions will be undermined by the over-arching themes regarding acceptance, teamwork, and undying empathy, even if the trip from those happening randomly to perfectly executed when necessary is less than clear.

For someone who can see no wrong in any piece of art that presents Utopia like a show this, I'll be the out of touch hateful judgemental person who belittles triggers and Just Fine Entertainment that helps you believe and escape. For someone who genuinely contemplates the degree in which media influences our attitudes and approaches to differences or relationships, I think it's important to consider the chasm between genuinely hard work figuring out someone's differences and it somehow being bestowed upon you the capacity to connect with anyone around the world. What a romantic and beautiful idea that will certainly infect and hurt someone who tries to play it out like they did on the TV show.

This, as well, a fairly menial and obvious observation that only feels a bit grating but for the basket I felt this show was shooting at. Complexity can come from deep appreciation and exposition, or caricature overlaps and cup-and-ball shuffle games. This show walks a fine line. It took a bit for it to get going and for me to catch on, but I'm not particularly thinking it's going to offer much more by way of explanation. You're just sort of along for the ride. Again, it's not an out and out bad show. It's strong in its very particular voice. It's just torrential sentimentality overwhelming sometimes genuinely compelling intricacies.

I was skeptical this was going to be any good after the pilot. It hadn't occurred to me that this was the spin-off (extension?) of the web series I came across years ago. Identity politics is a tough road to travel. At one level we all can understand logically that we're the same and go through relatable drama and get caught in similar dialogue. Then you add the burden of your cultural or sexual identity and sometimes in trying to round out your voice you almost parody yourself. This was my initial reticence. I don't need another "awkward-type" fumbling around in the dark telling me how very awkward they feel and, man, this life thing right? I don't find invitations into the bathroom particularly deep or a source of insight just because that's where you like to amateur rap. It's real, just in a mundane way.

I keep coming back to the idea that this is almost like Girls if Lena Dunham were attractive and exhibited more tact. Girls over time sort of devolved into a self-indulgent screed pretending like it was celebrating and satirizing entitlement, I think because it realized that the voice that launched the show was fundamentally weaker than the expectations for it to keep telling stories. I hope that's not what happens to Insecure, though I suspect given the title, the creator will show an increasingly evolved and intimate portrayal of her characters. On the second to last episode I finally felt it starting to feel more sincere and real. I'm getting drawn in and finding myself curious as to how things will resolve.

The part that feels the weakest is the comedic voice. Again back to Girls, I remember at least pretty consistently laughing my ass off at characters like Adam or some of the physical comedy. Here Insecure feels like it walks a finer line in pawning off a few chuckles to side characters or the idea of "general white obliviousness." Perhaps it's deliberate? In that there's always a kind of tension or stress trying to be black while navigating a white environment, except, even among friends the dialogue leans heavy. Mind you, that isn't a problem in and of itself, it's just that you can feel like there's maybe supposed to be more of a joke there, but it rarely comes.

I think I'd just like to see the show with a little more edge. Had Atlanta not come out, I'd only have white analogues or something like Masters of None to generally pit this against, which I think can blind you to voices it's harder to recognize by being on the outside. At the same time, regardless of culture or skin color I feel a show lives or dies by its ability to dig into the heart of its humanity first and then use the individual voice to color it, so to speak. Leaving aside the consequences of marketing and the hype machine. I'd like to see "more," that amounts to not just an increased episode count.

This is a show with undeniable character work. There are few examples of things that I would call "perfectly cast" and this dives into the heart of that sentiment. Each and every person has a palpable relationship to the next and they are allowed to sit in their flaws. The time given to side plots isn't wasted. The standouts are Mickey, Abby, and Terry.

The haunting power of family is what carries this show. I was a little let down with the "violent tough guy anti-hero" nature of Ray, but the series evolves past the idea that it's about him and his bad-assery. "Rotting' is the word that comes to mind. Like everyone is being eaten from the inside in the best kind of way.

I give it a 7 because it is a good show. It's amazingly cast, intimately told, good, show. It's not genre bending. It's not "smart." It's not much beyond its cast's ability to carry out plot lines and scenarios you'll probably see coming. I don't like to give extra credit because the writers aren't lazy as that should be a staple of respecting your creation and those portraying it. The closest analogue that comes to mind is The Sopranos, but there's a reason that show I find practically perfect, and this one "good."

You can't knock the acting. The premise seems relevant (The majority of this is me confusing Andrew Ross Sorkin with Aaron Sorkin). I don't know if I just need to give it more time or if I'm too well-read about these types of people and financial crash that it's hard to for me to feel hooked. The fantasy of a newsroom that didn't suck in The Newsroom I bought. An idyllic President and complicated staff I went in for with The West Wing. Watching rich people spend money and debate numbers and a sort of dreamlike example of a prosecutor to pursue them...I guess it just makes me sad. That's not the shows fault of course, but glorified versions of billionaires that almost celebrates their bad boy getting away with it all maybe hits a little too close to home. I love Damien Lewis after Homeland, but his character I want to burn, and not because he has to work that hard to be hated. I think about Entourage where at least they're childish mockeries of the lavish lifestyle and attitudes and the show could kind of make fun of itself. Or Ballers tends to lean well on the humor to distract from the slackish story. We'll see where it goes.

I have to say it every time, but never compare what you read to what you watch. The comics range from solid to superb and always get more creative than show producers ever care to risk for the screen. That said, as rabid of a Marvel fan that I am, I think the show kind of betrays the source material with too many hokey spots in the language. The parents undermine their villainy, and the kids come across as almost hopeless in their fleetingly small displays of powers. It consistently irks me when I can feel a show aiming for a specific age group and what the producers or writers think that group sounds like. They pull in all of the lazy cliches and simple arcs you'd train aspiring writers on if you never wanted competition. I'd rather have less TV shows and more examples of how alive these characters can feel, than weird mock-ups flapping their arms and moving their gums with the title and clothes, but none of the soul.

Marvel usually takes its characters seriously or gives us depth. Save the corn and cheese for DC. It amazes me that such a large and example-ridden brand can be so hot and cold with whether they bother to build and respect the characters. The work's already been done for you. The second season distinguishes itself from the first in actually moving along and developing the plot. The use of powers is ratcheted up some, and the introduction of more seasoned actors, even briefly, rounds out what the younger players might not know how to bring to the screen. It's an enjoyable series, but I always return to the idea of whether or not I'm doing something else while it's on. I can play on my phone or draw a bath, and not really be missing anything. That's a sad point more than my haughty expectations, because like I said, I'm a rabid Marvel fan, and I want every adaptation to be sincerely spell-binding.

So little of this review has to do with the actual show, it just hits home in too real a way.

The true brilliance of this show is the fluidity and awareness. Most of what Adam seems to speak to aren't even really secrets or ruinous of any half-decently informed person, but he speaks to the people who are on both sides of the equation. I'm Adam, but rarely manage to entertain or endear myself to people. I don't have the calculated and rehearsed TV show, but the instinct to tear down all of the dumb distractions and terrible justifications for behavior and beliefs is at my core. Doing it in service to make things better even more so.

The show manages to stay positive and caricatures without belittling the kind of push back commentary you get from someone who's world you're "attacking." The fact that it tries to remain sympathetic and end on high helpful notes I think speaks to a level of patience and maturity towards the subject matter.

Adam manages to take "check out these factoids!" and turn them into mini-immersive worlds and memorable scenes that can stay with you. For as straight-forward of a premise, the execution and creativity is undeniable. You want other shows to put even half the effort. Going forward, whenever someone wants to criticize my know-it-all-ism or call me negative for being well-enough read, I'll just point them to this show and practice shutting up.

This was a struggle. You want to give it points for quasi-creativity (is it though?), but how you manage to take such a talented cast and put nothing in their mouths to work with is beyond me. There's just nothing else to say about it. People gotta work I guess.

It just sunk in why this is so bad! You know the phrase, "Good artists copy. Great artist steal."? You feel like the people who created this had that in the back of their head with no greater vision or capacity to make it into something better, individual, or worthwhile. They just steal, maybe thinking their idea is great, but end up not even good because it's just a laziest copy you've seen in some time.

On top of that, why hire a bunch of comedians to play in an uninspired drama? It's insult to injury. You spend so much time waiting for the joke or thinking about the funny thing you've seen someone in that you're stuck in a constant reminder that they went out of their way to pack it full of funny people to half-ass do drama? The more I think about this series the more it upsets me.

Elizabeth Perkins playing it straight during her feature is the only time I felt a genuine laugh, so, go her.