[Tin Star - General Discussion]

I can't believe Christina Hendricks appears to look exactly like she did in Mad Men. How is it possible she doesn't appear to have aged at all in 10 years when most other actors seem to age a great deal in that time period?

I've only watched the first three episodes and I don't like it very much at all. The pacing is very slow. The plot seems quite simple-minded to me. But I agree with the poster above about Tim Roth. I have liked him in most everything he's done ever since I first saw him in Rob Roy. He was amazing in that film. But the rest of the cast just doesn't contribute enough to make this very entertaining IMHO. I don't mind that it's dark. I just can't get into it because it moves along at a snail's pace. Of course, that is just my opinion and other people may well not feel that way.

One example of something in the plot that didn't make any sense to me was they showed both Roth and his daughter drinking alcohol and then later, they don't seem to show any signs of drunkeness. Roth strikes his deputy in the face. But no one seems to think he's been drinking. No slurring of his speech. No one notices any smell on his breath. Didn't make much sense to me.

[Godless - General Discussion]

1 hour ago, maystone said:

I normally FF through car chases, fist fights, gun battles - pretty much everything that puts the action in Action movies. However, I watched every minute of the gun battle in the last episode of Godless. That confrontation had been set up since the first episode and then reinforced in just about every episode in between the first and the last. Over the course of the show I came to know and care about a number of the characters. I also saw how outgunned the women (and the few men) in town were compared to the Griffen gang. I really wanted to see how that played out, and once it started, I was pulled in by the courage and determination of the townspeople vs the unrelenting blood thirstiness of the gang. I don't remember it as being particularly gory, but then I've been watching The Walking Dead for eight years; "gore" is now a relative term. All in all I think the length of the gun battle and the explicit nature is supported by everything that came before.

As to favorite Westerns - I'd love to have that conversation in a dedicated forum. If you find out how and where to start one, drop a note here and I'll come running. In the meantime, IMDB has a list of their top 50 TV Westerns. I didn't go through the whole list, but it starts out with Westworld and Lonesome Dove, both of which I highly endorse.

I took a look at that list and stopped after Deadwood. That was a wonderful, superb TV show. It's very difficult to recommend any other show above Deadwood because it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I love watching movies and TV shows that are "groundbreaking" like Deadwood was. No other show is able to compare with Deadwood. I find it amazing that some show runner was able to just pluck that show out of the Ethos (correct word?). It amazes me how they are able to do something like that. Aside from Deadwood, the one other Western that I remember as being at the top of most any list is "The Long Riders". In part, that's because of its terrific quality. But also, if you know a little about the background of David Carradine and his brothers, it puts the movie into a very unique perspective. The stars of that movie include 3 sets of famous brothers who have a reputation of being "Bad Boys" and so I find watching that film is always a great delight. The brothers include: David, Keith and Robert Carradine, James & Stacy Keach, and Dennis & Randy Quaid. These actors all played infamous brothers in the movie which seemed to drive home some of the themes. In addition, there were some fabulous scenes with some "bad" women. I loved the scene so much where Belle Star (I think it was Belle Star) asked David Carradine, "How come no one ever invites me to their dances?" He answers, "It's because you're a whore! You've always been a whore and you will always be a whore!" There is something wonderfully memorable about that conversation. IMO, it was one of the truly great scenes from any movie. I loved it!

[Godless - General Discussion]

On 11/24/2017 at 12:00 PM, OoogleEyes said:

Good LORT this is a gorgeous show!

Agreed. The cinematography was truly gorgeous. But the ideas presented by this show - mainly the way that women were depicted was also quite wonderful.

Almost all Westerns of this era depicted women as weak shadows of the men in their lives. I think this show was far more realistic. If women of this era were truly weak and wholly dependent on men, I don't believe they ever would have been able to survive life in the late 1800s in New Mexico.

I'd love to see more shows like this - shows that give a more accurate depiction of the role women played in that era.

P.S. I'm a man by the way. I have no special reason to cheer for women in the Entertainment industry. I guess I'm just sick and tired of the really stupid and insipid way women are usually depicted in movies and TV shows. A show like this one is long overdue .

[Godless - General Discussion]

On 12/6/2017 at 6:54 PM, Ujio said:

Jack O'Connell was also nominated in the lead category and the show itself was also nominated in the Best Limited Series category.

Yep, it sucks that women got ignored. They wererobbed :-(

I had not heard about the fact the ladies were not named for any awards. But for those people who feel this was somehow bad for ladies in the industry, I just want to say that IMHO, this show was a big step ahead for women in the entertainment industry. The show was all about how a group of women whose husbands and other men were all suddenly removed from their lives managed to run their lives just fine. I see it as showing how women were perfectly able to empower themselves and out-fight a large group of murderous thugs and beat the *BLEEP* out of them. I thought one of the main themes of this show was to depict how women in this time frame and geographical area were not just weak shadows of their men. It showed how so many women were actually strong and independent and were able to run their lives and their communities without hardly any help from any men.

I loved it!

I especially loved the scene where one lady challenged a man to "outdraw" her and was clearly a better gunfighter than he was. Talk about surprised!

I loved it!

[Godless - General Discussion]

On 11/24/2017 at 8:33 PM, Cthulhudrew said:

I really loved this show up until these last two episodes. The cinematography remains glorious, but the ending feels rushed, at best. A lot of plotlines seem to just end unceremoniously, leading one to wonder why they were introduced in the first place. The Buffalo Soldiers at Blackdom? Eliminated in short order, in spite of how fearsome they were constantly reputed to be. They didn't end up coming to help save the day, nor did the forbidden romance of Whitey and Louise go anywhere, as Whitey was also killed in an offhand manner. 

Bill's wanderings don't seem to have accomplished much of anything save to perhaps expose the town to the troubles it was beset in his absence. He doesn't seem much the wiser for his journey, and he just came back full circle to where he started. I guess you could say that he learned a bit of bravery when he stood up to Griffin's gang instead of trying to perform "suicide by cop bandit," but that was an awful lot of solo screentime that seemed to do little IMO.

Martha Bischoff and her PI paramour? The scenes of the two of them searching to reunite amidst the carnage might have actually held some pathos had either character actually been given any amount of time to be characters, rather than a broad swath of hastily written- and last minute- scenery.

Mary Agnes and Callie are happily reunited- albeit offscreen. A token wordless gesture of Maggie showing up to help pound nails into churchboards was all that we got there.

All Frank's talk about "seeing his own death" turns into just so much horsecrap as he confesses that the death he gets isn't the one he foresaw. 

Complaints about the ending aside, I did enjoy the show for the most part.

I also have a complaint about the last episode. Remember how people were amazed by the first 30 minutes of "Saving Pvt. Ryan"? Some folks loved it and others hated it. But that kind of carnage had never been seen before.

Well in the last episode of Godless, I didn't understand why the producers would spend something like 30 minutes just showing this endless gunfight in which it seemed to me like a few hundred people were shot dead. I couldn't believe it. 30 minutes of people shooting Civil War era weapons and blowing big holes in other people. What was the point of that? I thought it just went on for far too long.

There are a few Western movies (Long Riders, The Wild Bunch, etc.) that showed terrible violence. But the violence only lasted for a minute or so. They showed these Civil War era weapons that blew great big holes in people. But it was all done in the context of a bank robbery or something else in which it made sense. I don't understand the point of such interminable violence in this last episode. I'd love to hear any opinions from any other people here. What was the reason for dragging out that fight for such a very long time? After 2 or 3 minutes, it just got boring. Very boring.

I can understand if the point was to show some satire about the violence in other shows. But this went on for so long, it just seemed pointless to me. I probably just don't understand the intent.

However, like you, I really loved this show. There was something about the quality of production that lifted this show above most others. I'm not sure what it was. But IMHO, this show was truly superb apart from a couple of minor complaints. However, if I ever watch it again, I will FF thru the long gunfight in the last episode.

On 11/25/2017 at 5:42 PM, maystone said:

I just finished watching it about 20 minutes ago, and I really liked it. The last 15 minutes or so were anti-climactic, but the cinematography was worth watching at the least. Great casting (Merritt Wever, baby!), solid acting all around, some quirkiness, a few plot twists, an epic gun battle, and a literate script. The problems that I had were mostly on my part: I didn't pick up on a lot of secondary character names, and from a distance I could not tell Roy from Bill (but then my eye sight is about the same as Bill's).

I love a good Western, and, Westworld aside, it's been a long dry patch for fans of the genre. Godless filled that empty space in my fannish heart quite nicely.

Somewhat off topic. But I'd love to find a thread dedicated to the best westerns - both movies and TV shows. I'm often disappointed when I watch older TV westerns. Shows like Bonanza that I truly enjoyed in my youth. Today when I watched a few episodes, they seemed silly - even ridiculous. But I'd love to hear about some Westerns that people thought were excellent. I wonder where it would be appropriate to start such a thread.

[Godless - General Discussion]

On 11/27/2017 at 4:00 PM, Proclone said:

I'm don't claim to be any sort of expert on the Moutain Meadows Massacre or Mormon history during that time period (or any other time period), but I didn't think the story it was so over the top that it wasn't within the realm of possibility even if it probably wasn't completely historically accurate.  Children under seven were generally sparred but first taken in by the Morman families.  Seventeen of those children were returned to their relatives, but I don't think it's wildly implausible that there were at least a couple of children who were not, especially given their age, the fact that they were in the custody of people probably sympathetic to those involved in the massacre and that their return happened two years after the massacre.  And Haight was a real person who was one of the masterminds of the massacre and he spent most of the rest of his life in hiding (he was excommunicated by Brigham Young), so it stands to reason he would have just taken any hypothetical children in his custody with him.  There were definitely children that were murdered during the massacre from what I've read (the bodies of infants were found), and as for rapes, I'm not sure how anyone would know what did or did not happen since all the survivors were under seven.  From what I read there seem to be rumors that at least two women were raped before they were murdered, two teenagers who initially escaped but were later found and brought back to John Lee who lead the attack.  I'd honestly be kind of surprised if there weren't rapes, religious or not we are talking about a group of violent men.

It seemed perfectly plausible to me that Frank was looking to increase his numbers or had some wish for family and wanted to make his own.

[Godless - General Discussion]

I'm not sure why, but I find this show to be truly superb - all except for the first episode.

I didn't understand the first episode at all. It seemed to me to be mostly just a scenic tour of New Mexico in the time this show took place.

But as for the rest of the episodes - the show really got started in the second episode and although the pace is very slow, the quality is so high that I found this show to be extremely "gripping". Once I started watching, I just couldn't turn away from it.

I was very shocked when one of the lead actors was killed off early. I was hoping to watch his performance throughout the show. But I suppose that Game of Thrones set the bar when they killed off Ned Stark so early in the show. I won't name the actor who was killed off because I don't want to spoil the show for anyone else who admires this actor.

Very highly recommended.

[S01.E10: The Bicameral Mind]

No matter how good or how bad you may consider this show to be, it seems to me that it has to be one of the most inventive and "well done" TV shows that has been produced in a very long time.

No matter how little or how much it depended on special effects, it really challenged me and enabled me to stretch my imagination in ways that I haven't done since way back when I first saw The Twilight Zone back in the 1950s. I have to give this show some huge "Thumbs Up" because it was just so amazingly entertaining. If there was such a place for real, I would spend almost all the money I had in this world to go and experience this adventure. It would seem to be a fabulous place as well as a fabulous adventure and vacation).  I just wish that someone may be able to create such a place one day. It would be a miracle!