Pindrop

I only watched SVU occasionally, but always found something incredibly pious about it. I think it was that everyone was overly serious all of the time. I know it was a serious subject matter, but people still crack jokes or laugh at adversity, or just act plain silly to relieve the stress. It desperately needed some levity, and for its characters to behave like real people. Instead it constantly sermonised on how terrible the crimes were and how damaging the job was to the main characters... we know the crimes are bad, we are not stupid; introducing levity and realistic character interactions won't numb us to it.

WOW, I did not expect that given the last season. If we get back to season 1 and 2 quality, then I am happy; but if we continue with season 3 quality I will soon turn it off.

Utterly compelling. The last few episodes are fantastic, and it is with dismay that you realise that Peterson's lawyer had convincingly identified all of the blatant flaws ten years before anyone else came to recognise them. I cannot comment on guilt or innocence because... erm ... well ... (this is a thoroughly partisan documentary, yet it fails to establish innocence spectacularly), but it is not really about guilt or innocence but about the failings in the system. I thoroughly enjoyed the series.

I am slightly imagining a cross between The Hobbit and TWD. An unlikely MC must travel across a foreign world whilst avoiding zombies and meeting a plethora of colourful characters, who set him on his classical hero’s journey to save the kingdom. It will be slightly light-weight, comedic (in that anything serious will be undercut with a moment of gratuitous slapstick), and it will feel more Pratchett than GRR, or perhaps it will feel GRR Tolkien. Game of Thrones: The Desolation of Martin

Yes, once you have jumped the shark, you can't then ask people to take you seriously (or once you have become ridiculous you cannot expect not to be ridiculed).

My problem with this show isn't that it is crazy; crazy can be fun. It is two-fold: - 1) It had the opportunity to be a Twin-Peaks for the current generation, and it missed that opportunity. 2) There is too much crazy; too many storylines with threads that are left hanging or become lost in the plethora of random shit that is going on elsewhere, and too many contrivances to sew up earlier dangling threads in an unsatisfying way. They need to cut out half the sub-plots and just properly plot, write and execute an A, B and C, and if they do that they can be as crazy as they like.

All I will add is that I actually think Jane Goldman is a great choice given her repertoire. She has a history of involvement in movies that are character-centric, often subversive and often reinvigorating of tired franchises. That is a genuine glimmer of hope for me.

I sort of answered that question in my next sentence. The only issue I have with the pacing is that the movements of the characters were impossible, or vanishingly unlikely, given the world painstakingly developed over the previous seasons. The time jumps also had the effect of making a large and dangerous world feel small and safe. So the faster pacing was a mistake in my opinion, but a minor mistake. My problem was that the plotting and writing made no sense or was overly reliant on the tropes that had previously been so expertly subverted. What was Baelish' motivation? Why did Arya reveal her abilities so readily? Why did anyone travel north of the wall? Why was there a scene with Theon getting kicked in the (non-existent) balls? Why was the cave of convenience contrived into the plot? Why was Daenerys so schizophrenic the entire season? Why was Tyrion suddenly incompetent? Why was there so much plot armour? None of these things made sense other than to hit the next plot point. If these contrivances of plot, fan service, deus ex machina and plain bad writing existed in the first season, I would not have watched the second.

My thoughts on spin-offs:- 1) I am thoroughly bored of known IPs getting flogged to within an inch of their life by somnambulistic corporations. 2) If the most recent season of GOT had been the first season, I would not have bothered watching the second. It is really the subversion of tropes and intricate plotting of the books that translated so well, rather than the predictable (and often nonsensical) committee writing that came afterwards. 3) I am not particularly invested in the world of GOT outside of the current story arc. I don’t know how many people feel the same way.

Especially when you consider the incredibly tight timescales they have to work to and the size, complexity and geographical spread of the machine they are oiling. I am extremely critical of the plotting and writing in later seasons (especially the most recent season), but given all the constraints it is astonishing it is not a hell of a lot worse.

It is theoretically great to have the most competent showrunner regardless of gender.

I agree. I take the example of iZombie, which attempted to move away from the weekly procedural towards a larger over-arcing story and as a result, both the procedural and long-form elements felt underdeveloped, superficial and tonally inconsistent. iZombie has become notably worse over this season. The problem with Lucifer was pantsing rather than planning, resulting in all the issues we have discussed, and which was exacerbated by lengthening the season and adding even more rudderless flip-flopping episodes involving known characters acting like aliens in order to drag us limping towards the next contrived and banal plot point.

Maybe they were subverting the "subverting tropes" trope.

This is a trope I am tired of, and I guess I should spoiler tag it: -

Any Old Port in a Storm I tend to enjoy the episodes where the killer comes to like and begrudgingly respect Columbo. The final scenes with Donald Pleasence discarding his wine collection and then having a final drink selected by Columbo are great.

Yes, but unavailable in the app. Irritatingly Apple forces you into the app rather than allowing you to watch in your browser, because Apple offer “antagonism by design” (I tried to sell them that tag line, but they declined).

So do 20m other people, I hope they don’t all respond to me individually.

Yes, it is the worst kind of dumb, trashy, reductive stereotyping, 3-camera, catchphrase comedy. Bazinga!

I wrote this immediately after watching Lost In Space, which is a perfect example of lazy, inconsistent committee screen-writing, relying heavily on plot induced stupidity; character motivations which alter to suit the plot and are largely nonsensical; and, the general sense that it is created by an algorithm rather than a human. This show was a relief afterwards; however, on review there were some glaring flaws in the plotting that could and should have been resolved quite simply during the editing/ proof reading of the screenplay.

It was all plot induced stupidity. Rather than characters with believable and consistent motivations and an overriding story arc, we had the writers saying “what can happen next that’s exciting?”

Did they? Shows how much attention I was paying by the end.

Yes, we are now going to have to sit through the following: - Hiram Lodge trying to blackmail Archie with some withheld evidence of his innocence. The rest of the gang coming together in an effort to prove Archie's innocence. Archie navigating jail, becoming the target of the big-bad, proving himself, getting taken under the wing of the big-bad. Luke Perry nearly losing/abondoning his campaign until Archie is released on the eve of the vote, and then making a concerted comeback. Yawn, just get on with it.

I have some predictions; given that these shows feel the need to escalate the drama season after season in order to hold viewers, I predict: - A plane crashing into the high school. Cyborg sent from the future to kill Archie before he can lead the resistance. A rampaging dinosaur brought to life from a mosquito in amber during a science class. Zombie apocalypse. Lizard men wearing human suits.

Yes, you missed an article spread by one of our less trustworthy and gutter-bound news outlets (The Daily Express), which had me fooled on a cursory reading. As usual the headline and leading paragraph bore no resemblance to a nothing-story.

I agree. Fox are doing all they can to ensure it isn't, by having an inconsistent schedule, airing episodes out of order, and commissioning further wrap-up episodes.