Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[meep.meep]

2 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

 Sorry it still grates that in a show entitled How I Met Your Mother the women we the viewer learn the least about is The Mother.  

She is the object in the sentence.  The subject is "I" and the show was all about Ted.

[Mabinogia]

3 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

She is the object in the sentence.  The subject is "I" and the show was all about Ted.

I watched it for about 5 seasons before getting annoyed and bored and finding something better to watch and never saw any indication of how he met their mother. It should have been How I Boned Dozens of Chicks Before Meeting Your Mother. 

[peachmangosteen]

29 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

The subject is "I" and the show was all about Ted.

Unfortunately.

I'm still pissed I wasted 9 years on that shit!

[Ohiopirate02]

3 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

 

From what I read HIMYM was always supposed to be a “clever” misdirect about how Ted was in  love with Robin.   It might have worked in a 2 hour movie format or even as a Netflix 3/4 season show you can binge watch in a couple days.   It just pissed everyone off as a 7 (?) season show that people waited years to find out who the mother was only to find out didn’t actually matter to the plot.  

To me hearing that makes me hate the show even more.  The biggest reason Ted and Robin were incompatible was the issue of kids.  The writers didn't have the guts to make Robin childfree by choice so they made her infertile to let viewers know she was never going to be the mother.   So they then have Robin marry Barney and Ted finds an incubator the titular mother.   A character who then raises the kids Ted so desperately wanted and conveniently dies when the kids are old enough for Robin to tolerate.  This honestly is one of the worst sitcoms ever.

[supposebly]

There was nothing clever about HIMYM. That frame about the kids became ridiculous after a while.

I'm still mystified what people found so good about it. I watched quite a few episodes to see what the fuss was about and really, Ted, the "Nice Guy", Marshall almost a caricature of a person. And then, there was Barney. Yikes. The female characters were somewhat easier to handle but overall, I don't really know. And then what I heard about the end, it was a textbook case of showrunners not having a plan after the show got renewed for a few times.

[sistermagpie]

34 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

To me hearing that makes me hate the show even more.  The biggest reason Ted and Robin were incompatible was the issue of kids.  The writers didn't have the guts to make Robin childfree by choice so they made her infertile to let viewers know she was never going to be the mother.   So they then have Robin marry Barney and Ted finds an incubator the titular mother.   A character who then raises the kids Ted so desperately wanted and conveniently dies when the kids are old enough for Robin to tolerate.  This honestly is one of the worst sitcoms ever.

Yup. And lets not forget that Ted not only gets the kids and Robin after Mom conveniently dies.

He also gets the kids being the ones to suggest he marry Robin, having been charmed by how much his story of how he met their dead mother is really about how he was in love with Aunt Robin the whole time

AND he gets the satisfaction of having the woman who rejected him because she wanted something different out of life suffer years of regret after she realizes how wrong she was not to marry him when he wanted her and jumping at the chance once he's ready to take her back, having remained just as beautiful, young-looking and single as she was the day she made the mistake of rejecting him.

[Zella]

10 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Yup. And lets not forget that Ted not only gets the kids and Robin after Mom conveniently dies.

He also gets the kids being the ones to suggest he marry Robin, having been charmed by how much his story of how he met their dead mother is really about how he was in love with Aunt Robin the whole time

AND he gets the satisfaction of having the woman who rejected him because she wanted something different out of life suffer years of regret after she realizes how wrong she was not to marry him when he wanted her and jumping at the chance once he's ready to take her back, having remained just as beautiful, young-looking and single as she was the day she made the mistake of rejecting him.

OMG I never even watched this show, but that is so infuriating. I completely understand why people are still pissed about that ending. 

[Kel Varnsen]

4 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

Unfortunately.

I'm still pissed I wasted 9 years on that shit!

My unpopular HIMYM opinion is that even though I hated Ted's ending as well as Robin/Barney's I liked how they took the risk and tried something different for the final season. It wasn't amazing but just trying something different with all the episodes happening during the weekend of Barney and Robin's wedding was something cool to try. I wish more shows would take risks like that.

Also I think I would have been a lot more forgiving of the ending if they had explained why the voice over telling the story was Bob Saget. Especially since some of the in-story voice overs were Josh Radnor. Even a joke about it at the end would have made it a lot better.

Honestly the twist with why Ted was telling the story to his kids would have worked great if it had been a 1-3 season show. It probably would have been ok after 5 or so seasons. But after 9 seasons and going back to the Ted/Robin relationship well so many times it was just stupid. Especially since the last season had an episode where he finally realized once and for all that he was completely over her.

[Irlandesa]

9 hours ago, Blergh said:

My Wonder Years UO: I liked the show overall (though I agree the last season or so Kevin became an increasingly annoying and entitled person) but all along I thought Daniel Stern's narration was far too intrusive and contradictory.

Ooh I wonder if they were the show to start the voice over trend in TV to contradict what's being shown on screen to be "humorous."  It happens with sitcoms that have a voiceover (like Arrested Development who I think rose above that trope while it was on FOX) or sitcoms that are structured as mockumentaries with talking heads (The Office who I think did okay with it and Modern Family who I think overrelied on it.) 

2 hours ago, Zella said:

OMG I never even watched this show, but that is so infuriating. I completely understand why people are still pissed about that ending. 

It's worse than you can possibly imagine. They spent the final season building up to things happening in the penultimate episode that they always planned to undo in the final episode.

Considering that level of incompetence, they actually managed to nail the one thing they had no business nailing--casting of the mother.  Over the eight seasons before she appeared, she had been built up so much that it seemed impossible to find someone who could live up to the description but they did with Cristin Miloti.  She was the most root worthy character in that last season. 

[Ohiopirate02]

10 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

My unpopular HIMYM opinion is that even though I hated Ted's ending as well as Robin/Barney's I liked how they took the risk and tried something different for the final season. It wasn't amazing but just trying something different with all the episodes happening during the weekend of Barney and Robin's wedding was something cool to try. I wish more shows would take risks like that.

Also I think I would have been a lot more forgiving of the ending if they had explained why the voice over telling the story was Bob Saget. Especially since some of the in-story voice overs were Josh Radnor. Even a joke about it at the end would have made it a lot better.

Honestly the twist with why Ted was telling the story to his kids would have worked great if it had been a 1-3 season show. It probably would have been ok after 5 or so seasons. But after 9 seasons and going back to the Ted/Robin relationship well so many times it was just stupid. Especially since the last season had an episode where he finally realized once and for all that he was completely over her.

The concept of the final season was risky and intriguing, but it dragged on too long for me.  Ted should have met Tracy at the midseason break with the second half of the final season devoted to their story, and the demise of Robin and Barney's marriage.  The idea to stretch out one weekend for multiple episodes has merit, but it wore thin after so many episodes.  The other issue I had was the finale was rushed.  The showrunners had to squeeze 15 years of plot into 20 minutes, and it just did not work.  We just say Robin and Barney finally get married after a whole season devoted to their wedding weekend, and that was immediately undone.  The pacing just did not work.

[peachmangosteen]

12 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Honestly the twist with why Ted was telling the story to his kids would have worked great if it had been a 1-3 season show. It probably would have been ok after 5 or so seasons. But after 9 seasons and going back to the Ted/Robin relationship well so many times it was just stupid. Especially since the last season had an episode where he finally realized once and for all that he was completely over her.

I completely agree. Once they kept getting renewed they needed to give up their original vision. Or ask the network to let them go out earlier but I'm sure they didn't wanna give up the money lol.

11 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

Considering that level of incompetence, they actually managed to nail the one thing they had no business nailing--casting of the mother.  Over the eight seasons before she appeared, she had been built up so much that it seemed impossible to find someone who could live up to the description but they did with Cristin Miloti.  She was the most root worthy character in that last season. 

THIS! 

[proserpina65]

15 hours ago, supposebly said:

There was nothing clever about HIMYM. That frame about the kids became ridiculous after a while.

I'm still mystified what people found so good about it. I watched quite a few episodes to see what the fuss was about and really, Ted, the "Nice Guy", Marshall almost a caricature of a person. And then, there was Barney. Yikes. The female characters were somewhat easier to handle but overall, I don't really know. And then what I heard about the end, it was a textbook case of showrunners not having a plan after the show got renewed for a few times.

There were some episodes which were funny, particularly Arrivederci Fiero (okay, I love the Proclaimers, so the bit about the tape stuck in the tape deck was hysterical to me), and the slap bet thing was great.  But yeah, the longer it went on, the worse it got.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

3 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

The concept of the final season was risky and intriguing, but it dragged on too long for me.  Ted should have met Tracy at the midseason break with the second half of the final season devoted to their story, and the demise of Robin and Barney's marriage.  

Yea the execution didn't really work I just appreciated that they tried something new. Which is pretty cool, especially for a network sitcom, especially on CBS.

2 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

I completely agree. Once they kept getting renewed they needed to give up their original vision. Or ask the network to let them go out earlier but I'm sure they didn't wanna give up the money lol.

I imagine that the sums of money they were being offered were probably huge, especially with the ratings that show was getting in the later seasons. Buy I am surprised that with the number of different people that worked on that show, that no one said to the showrunner that maybe there original ending concept didn't really work anymore.

13 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

Considering that level of incompetence, they actually managed to nail the one thing they had no business nailing--casting of the mother.  Over the eight seasons before she appeared, she had been built up so much that it seemed impossible to find someone who could live up to the description but they did with Cristin Miloti.  She was the most root worthy character in that last season. 

She really is great in everything she is in. In the winter I watched every episode of Fargo and her season 2 character was a highlight. I honestly don't know why she isn't the lead in her own show. My unpopular opinion about Cristin Miloti is that her episode of Black Mirror (which a lot of people seem to love) would have been really really bad if just about anyone else was playing her character. And even with her I still think that episode was just ok.

[Irlandesa]

Another HIMYM unpopular opinion, I HATED the Slap Bet.  It worked maybe once but I loathed the idea of "five slaps."  Unlike so many, I dreaded the countdown and knew that there were 4, 3, 2, and 1 more instance to come of that stupidity.

10 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I honestly don't know why she isn't the lead in her own show.

She and Ben Feldman, who I also enjoy, had a show after HIMYM that got cancelled.  But after seeing her in Palm Springs, I need to see her in more movies too.

2 hours ago, peachmangosteen said:

I completely agree. Once they kept getting renewed they needed to give up their original vision. Or ask the network to let them go out earlier but I'm sure they didn't wanna give up the money lol.

And I don't blame them.  Nothing wrong with money, especially since a hit can support creatives potentially for the rest of their lives and it's hard to make money in the arts. True money doesn't often come for creatives until a show goes on a while--longer than three years.  It was a premise show that morphed into a friends hang out show.  It was successful because of the latter more than  people wanting to find out about the mother.  But once that happened, they needed to rethink the "how."

[ParadoxLost]

20 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

My unpopular HIMYM opinion is that even though I hated Ted's ending as well as Robin/Barney's I liked how they took the risk and tried something different for the final season. It wasn't amazing but just trying something different with all the episodes happening during the weekend of Barney and Robin's wedding was something cool to try. I wish more shows would take risks like that.

[snip]

Honestly the twist with why Ted was telling the story to his kids would have worked great if it had been a 1-3 season show. It probably would have been ok after 5 or so seasons. But after 9 seasons and going back to the Ted/Robin relationship well so many times it was just stupid. Especially since the last season had an episode where he finally realized once and for all that he was completely over her.

They don't get any credit for risk taking from me. The story construct of the final season is another example of their inability to adapt once they have an idea and their prioritizing money over story.

Jason Segal initially refused to come back for the final season.  I am convinced that this is the only reason that they did the final season over Robin and Barney's wedding weekend.  I think it was an idea born out of trying to brainstorm how to do a season without him without breaking up Lily and Marshall.  I don't remember the timeline of when he changed his mind or if he reduced his filming hours as part of the agreement but I've always thought this was the why of how that season was structured because Marshall was trying to get to the wedding and not filming with the rest of the cast most of the season. 

And if they had no other choice, fine I guess, but they weren't being innovative.  Not being able to adapt to the ending to the fact that stretching the show negated everything about it makes me look less favorably on season 9 than I would otherwise.

Spending two thirds of the series being very effective at convincing me Ted/Robin shouldn't be together isn't the best plan if they were inflexible about their endgame.

And frankly, I enjoyed the instant karma of them getting their sequel series taken away from them more than is seemly.

 

[topanga]

23 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

Ooh I wonder if they were the show to start the voice over trend in TV to contradict what's being shown on screen to be "humorous."  It happens with sitcoms that have a voiceover (like Arrested Development who I think rose above that trope while it was on FOX) or sitcoms that are structured as mockumentaries with talking heads (The Office who I think did okay with it and Modern Family who I think overrelied on it.) 

I don't know if "Wonder Years" started the trend on TV, but they certainly were trying to bank on the success of the movie "Stand By Me": same demographic, same use of an adult narrator to do voiceover commentaries of his pre-pubescent and pubescent life.

I like the use of voiceover in noir --the best example IMO being "Veronica Mars," which was really a noir/teen drama hybrid. But Kristen Bell (and Rob Thomas) made it work.  

 

[Irlandesa]

15 minutes ago, topanga said:

I like the use of voiceover in noir --the best example IMO being "Veronica Mars," which was really a noir/teen drama hybrid. But Kristen Bell (and Rob Thomas) made it work.  

I don't think voiceovers are inherently bad but I think it worked in Veronica Mars because they weren't trying to mine humor from it.

Like Modern Family would rely on this trope:

Phil:  Claire, do you like my hat?
Claire: (hesitantly) I love it.
Claire's talking head:  I hated that hat.

So the joke was all in Claire contradicting what we saw her tell Phil even though the actors were usually professional enough to convey that without the switch to the talking head.

[Zella]

23 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

I don't think voiceovers are inherently bad but I think it worked in Veronica Mars because they weren't trying to mine humor from it.

Like Modern Family would rely on this trope:

Phil:  Claire, do you like my hat?
Claire: (hesitantly) I love it.
Claire's talking head:  I hated that hat.

So the joke was all in Claire contradicting what we saw her tell Phil even though the actors were usually professional enough to convey that without the switch to the talking head.

Yeah that just seems pointless. The voiceover comedy thing only ever worked for me on Arrested Development with Ron Howard being so marvelously deadpan and contradictory. Probably helped he wasn't a character in the show and was only the narrator and, thus, provided some neutralish perspective on such a ridiculous group of people. 

[DoctorAtomic]

That's a good point about Arrested Development. I also think it work because a lot of the v/o was terse and not monologuing. 

I didn't get much out of Stand By Me Either and I think I saw it when I was the age of the characters.

I don't mind voice overs in general. I find the ones on Outlander to be odd because it's Claire coming out of nowhere, and it's like Claire isn't one to not talk normally and now she's talking even more. And she's usually just saying obvious things. 

[Zella]

10 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

That's a good point about Arrested Development. I also think it work because a lot of the v/o was terse and not monologuing. 

I didn't get much out of Stand By Me Either and I think I saw it when I was the age of the characters.

I don't mind voice overs in general. I find the ones on Outlander to be odd because it's Claire coming out of nowhere, and it's like Claire isn't one to not talk normally and now she's talking even more. And she's usually just saying obvious things. 

I couldn't stand the Outlander voiceovers, but I thought they were improvement over her narration in the book. LOL 

[kathyk24]

16 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

The concept of the final season was risky and intriguing, but it dragged on too long for me.  Ted should have met Tracy at the midseason break with the second half of the final season devoted to their story, and the demise of Robin and Barney's marriage.  The idea to stretch out one weekend for multiple episodes has merit, but it wore thin after so many episodes.  The other issue I had was the finale was rushed.  The showrunners had to squeeze 15 years of plot into 20 minutes, and it just did not work.  We just say Robin and Barney finally get married after a whole season devoted to their wedding weekend, and that was immediately undone.  The pacing just did not work.

I will never understand why they broke up Barney and Robin. They had chemistry and were both career driven people. The only excuse I could believe for their divorce was if Barney cheated on Robin she wouldn't have tolerated infidelity. I loved Tracy and think she should have survived. It's depressing how women on the show had no value unless they were mothers. Tracy died and we never learned the name of the mother of Barney's daughter.

[Katy M]

5 hours ago, kathyk24 said:

t's depressing how women on the show had no value unless they were mothers. Tracy died and we never learned the name of the mother of Barney's daughter.

Aren't you basically saying the opposite then?  Tracy was a mother, and how could Barney's daughter's mother have value if we don't even know here name?  I hate Barney.

[ParadoxLost]

6 hours ago, kathyk24 said:

I will never understand why they broke up Barney and Robin. They had chemistry and were both career driven people. The only excuse I could believe for their divorce was if Barney cheated on Robin she wouldn't have tolerated infidelity. I loved Tracy and think she should have survived. It's depressing how women on the show had no value unless they were mothers. Tracy died and we never learned the name of the mother of Barney's daughter.

Sally.  I thought it was fairly obvious that Barney would have been the Dad in the never made it to air...How I Met Your Dad.

[Kel Varnsen]

6 hours ago, kathyk24 said:

I will never understand why they broke up Barney and Robin. They had chemistry and were both career driven people. 

It seems to be entirely because the creators were locked into the ending they created probably before the pilot even made it on TV. Even though the previous 9 seasons made that ending way more stupid than it was clever.

[Ohiopirate02]

15 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

They don't get any credit for risk taking from me. The story construct of the final season is another example of their inability to adapt once they have an idea and their prioritizing money over story.

Jason Segal initially refused to come back for the final season.  I am convinced that this is the only reason that they did the final season over Robin and Barney's wedding weekend.  I think it was an idea born out of trying to brainstorm how to do a season without him without breaking up Lily and Marshall.  I don't remember the timeline of when he changed his mind or if he reduced his filming hours as part of the agreement but I've always thought this was the why of how that season was structured because Marshall was trying to get to the wedding and not filming with the rest of the cast most of the season. 

And if they had no other choice, fine I guess, but they weren't being innovative.  Not being able to adapt to the ending to the fact that stretching the show negated everything about it makes me look less favorably on season 9 than I would otherwise.

Spending two thirds of the series being very effective at convincing me Ted/Robin shouldn't be together isn't the best plan if they were inflexible about their endgame.

And frankly, I enjoyed the instant karma of them getting their sequel series taken away from them more than is seemly.

 

If Jason Segal wanted out of the final season, the writers already had a way to do it.  It's been awhile since I last watched the show, but wasn't Lilys job offer to go to Italy in season 8?  The once in a lifetime job offer that she turned down for Marshall to become a judge before the age of 35.  It would have sucked for Alyson Hannigan to lose out on the final season,  but the plot went there.  I still hate that resolution with the competing jobs.  I hate that the writers made Lily give up on her dream to be the supportive wife and mother.   She already spent most of the series working a job that didnt emotionally fulfill her to pay the bills while Marshall went to law school.   She sacrificed enough and deserved to have her time.  

[peachmangosteen]

8 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I hate that the writers made Lily give up on her dream to be the supportive wife and mother.   She already spent most of the series working a job that didnt emotionally fulfill her to pay the bills while Marshall went to law school.   She sacrificed enough and deserved to have her time.  

Man, that show really hated women lol.

[sistermagpie]

8 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

She already spent most of the series working a job that didnt emotionally fulfill her to pay the bills while Marshall went to law school.   She sacrificed enough and deserved to have her time.  

Didn't she then she reveal that she was actually deeply in debt because she bought tons of designer clothes and couldn't pay those bills and this was a big problem when they got married and her debt became his or something?

[Katy M]

On 7/18/2020 at 7:25 PM, sistermagpie said:

Didn't she then she reveal that she was actually deeply in debt because she bought tons of designer clothes and couldn't pay those bills and this was a big problem when they got married and her debt became his or something?

Yes. They had to sell most of her stuff so they could pay her credit cards off so that they could get a loan to buy a house. She tried to sell her paintings, but it turned out she sucked.

[BookWoman56]

I hated the HIMYM finale because it did one of my least favorite things on shows: spend years showing the audience how toxic character A and character B are in a romantic relationship, break them up, and then reunite them at the last minute despite them still having the characteristics that made them toxic for each other originally. I'd have had much more respect for the show if they had left Barney and Robin married, left the mother still alive, and had the end focus on Ted explaining to his kids that while he was obsessed with Robin for a long time, he ultimately found that they weren't a good couple and were much better as friends, and that he and the mother were a much better couple. Lesson being, just because you have the hots for someone and/or are obsessed with them doesn't mean you're going to have a good relationship. 

[Picture It. Sicily]

TPTB really wanted the end that they envisioned from the start, despite the fact that they had written their characters in a way that made that endgame unsatisfying,  to say the least. They should have rolled with the developments that occurred over the seasons and not some lame "we filmed this 9 years ago. We must use it!" excuse for why he had to end up with Robin.

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, BookWoman56 said:

I hated the HIMYM finale because it did one of my least favorite things on shows: spend years showing the audience how toxic character A and character B are in a romantic relationship, break them up, and then reunite them at the last minute despite them still having the characteristics that made them toxic for each other originally. I'd have had much more respect for the show if they had left Barney and Robin married, left the mother still alive, and had the end focus on Ted explaining to his kids that while he was obsessed with Robin for a long time, he ultimately found that they weren't a good couple and were much better as friends, and that he and the mother were a much better couple. Lesson being, just because you have the hots for someone and/or are obsessed with them doesn't mean you're going to have a good relationship. 

I don't really mind that the mother died, because people die.  Although I would have preferred it had she lived.  But, what really bugged me was Ted and Robin getting together after there had been no character growth in that direction.  And, more importantly, that last scene with the kids came off as "Yay.  Mom's dead.  Now you can be with Aunt Robin. Thank goodness for mortal disease."  I don't mind Barney and Robin getting divorced because I hate Barney and just can't see any long-term change in him.  He was just too awful, IMO.  But, the 3 of them should have just taken their karma and grown old and alone.  

[Crs97]

IIRC, the powers that be argued they couldn’t change the ending because they filmed it while the kids were young.  IMO, it would have been hilarious if they had gotten the (now grown) kids back to film a new ending.  Yep, their dad had been talking that long that they are grown now.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, Katy M said:

I don't really mind that the mother died, because people die.  Although I would have preferred it had she lived.  But, what really bugged me was Ted and Robin getting together after there had been no character growth in that direction.  And, more importantly, that last scene with the kids came off as "Yay.  Mom's dead.  Now you can be with Aunt Robin. Thank goodness for mortal disease."  I don't mind Barney and Robin getting divorced because I hate Barney and just can't see any long-term change in him.  He was just too awful, IMO.  But, the 3 of them should have just taken their karma and grown old and alone.  

That is the underlying problem with how the final season was paced.  Ted doesn't meet Tracy until the penultimate episode, and we get their whole courtship, marriage, and the mother's death in under 30 minutes.  Compressing decades of life into that short of a period of time especially when you wasted the other 22 episodes on one weekend just flat out does not work.  The audience does not get a chance to breath and see that Ted and the kids have mourned Tracy and he is now ready to move on.  Ditto for Robin and Barney getting divorced and whatever else needed to happen for her to be the right match for Ted.  We just saw them get married and they are separated by the second commercial break.

[bmoore4026]

Another unpopular opinion of mine - Golden Girls is fine and all but I think I like Designing Women more.  It's actually a pretty good show except for those last two seasons.

And I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion but Game of Thrones kind of sucks upon second viewing.  Maybe it's because the finale soured me greatly on the series as a whole, but I simply don't like it anymore.  True Blood's final season was flawed, but I still remember it and the series. 

And then there's Boardwalk Empire.  Remember how people gushed over the show and now no one remembers it.  I don't remember it and I liked the show.

So my unpopular opinion is HBO shows are generally forgettable for the most part.  There are few exceptions but they simply don't have substance on retrospect.

 

[Katy M]

27 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

Another unpopular opinion of mine - Golden Girls is fine and all but I think I like Designing Women more.  It's actually a pretty good show except for those last two seasons.

I agree. Given a choice, I'd rather watch Designing Women, but more channels rerun Golden Girls.    Now, I'm imagining a mashup of this show.  I can see Julia and Dorothy debating some topic quite hotly.  Suzanne and Blanche trying to outdo each other picking up men.  Charlene and Rose just being Charlene and Rose together.

[Cherpumple]

30 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

And then there's Boardwalk Empire.  Remember how people gushed over the show and now no one remembers it.  I don't remember it and I liked the show.

It's so funny you mention this, because I'm currently reading the book that inspired it (good, but a little boring) and am about to do a rewatch of the series. I got into this show late, so I binged the first three seasons, then watched the last two in real time. I've rewatched it a few times, but now I stop at the end of season three. I love this show, but if I had to guess, one of the reasons it became forgettable was the way it basically went out with a wimper rather than a bang. There was a very high body count (no surprise on a show about gangsters), so by the end many of the characters I knew and loved were gone, and I didn't really care about most of the ones who were left. Also, the large time jump between seasons 4 and 5 made the shortened fifth (final) season feel jarring and disconnected. Seriously, Al Capone is a main character and they completely skip over the Valentine's Day massacre? Crazy! And a huge plot point in the final season revolved around various characters trying to cheat the stock market, which I found too confusing and boring to care about. Too bad, it was a great show that just kind of faded away.

[Irlandesa]

49 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

And then there's Boardwalk Empire.  Remember how people gushed over the show and now no one remembers it.  I don't remember it and I liked the show.

Boardwalk Empire was the kind of show where the acting talent, set design and atmosphere were always better than the actual content.  It was enjoyable but never quite achieved great.  One of the writers is behind the new Perry Mason which has similar characteristics but I'm hoping it can burst through enjoyable and actually lead to some greatness.

I'd argue Game of Thrones is the same way...or it was for me.  Good acting.  Gorgeous settings.  The writing felt trite to me and I eventually gave it up.

 

 

[Mabinogia]

1 hour ago, bmoore4026 said:

So my unpopular opinion is HBO shows are generally forgettable for the most part. 

My UO is that HBO's best show was Carnivale. I still hate HBO for cancelling it early. 

[kiddo82]

3 hours ago, Cherpumple said:

 I love this show, but if I had to guess, one of the reasons it became forgettable was the way it basically went out with a wimper rather than a bang. There was a very high body count (no surprise on a show about gangsters), so by the end many of the characters I knew and loved were gone, and I didn't really care about most of the ones who were left. Also, the large time jump between seasons 4 and 5 made the shortened fifth (final) season feel jarring and disconnected. Seriously, Al Capone is a main character and they completely skip over the Valentine's Day massacre? Crazy! And a huge plot point in the final season revolved around various characters trying to cheat the stock market, which I found too confusing and boring to care about. Too bad, it was a great show that just kind of faded away.

I have a theory that good, character driven shows hold up better than highly serialized plot shows because once you know how things all play out with the serialized show, there might not be much incentive to go back, especially if the ending is disappointing.  Take a show like The Affair.  I watched it.  I liked it.  I cared about the story and the outcome.  But once it was done it was done and I honestly haven't thought much about it since.  One the other hand, I'm on my fourth or so rewatch of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  Yes, there's a serialized element to it, and I obviously care about the plot, but most of the fun is just hanging out with Midge, Suzie, Abe, Rose, et al.  And it's not that the two have to be mutually exclusive, some shows manage to dovetail these two elements beautifully, but it seems like lately the sole goal of a lot of shows (especially the prestige ones) is for the binge factor other than the character beats.  This makes for a show I might have a hot love affair with that quickly flames out as opposed to a show I'll routinely show up for even after it's done.  

Edited July 24, 2020 by kiddo82

[bmoore4026]

3 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

My UO is that HBO's best show was Carnivale. I still hate HBO for cancelling it early. 

Oh, that's not as unpopular as you think.  Scores upon scores of people feel the same way.

Unpopular opinion - I liked Under the Dome.  Delightfully goofy show and Mike Vogel is very easy on the eyes.

Edited July 24, 2020 by bmoore4026

[BookWoman56]

On 7/17/2020 at 6:18 PM, ParadoxLost said:

Jason Segal initially refused to come back for the final season.  I am convinced that this is the only reason that they did the final season over Robin and Barney's wedding weekend.  I think it was an idea born out of trying to brainstorm how to do a season without him without breaking up Lily and Marshall.  I don't remember the timeline of when he changed his mind or if he reduced his filming hours as part of the agreement but I've always thought this was the why of how that season was structured because Marshall was trying to get to the wedding and not filming with the rest of the cast most of the season. 

I wish he had refused in the end to come back for the final season. His performance that last season was atrocious; he couldn't have appeared any more completely disengaged from the show. He showed up to say his lines, and that was about it. 

[Kel Varnsen]

9 hours ago, BookWoman56 said:

I wish he had refused in the end to come back for the final season. His performance that last season was atrocious; he couldn't have appeared any more completely disengaged from the show. He showed up to say his lines, and that was about it. 

That was that weird time period where Jason Segel almost became a movie leading man. I mean he was in Muppets, Sarah Marshall, I love you man, 5 year engagement, sex tape and a bunch of other stuff (Muppets and Sarah Marshall he also wrote). So I can see him not wanting to come back. But since then he hasn't been nearly as many things. I wonder if the reception of the last HIMYM season hurt his career or if he just stepped back from things a bit?

[Zella]

I recently rewatched Game of Thrones and still really enjoyed it, though the latter half is definitely weaker than what came before. But I'm also one of the weirdos who didn't hate the ending. 

I loved, loved, loved Boardwalk Empire, but I think that jump in time really hurt it. Arnold Rothstein deserved better! Incidentally, I think the show suffered from focusing so much on Nucky. He was interesting to me as a politician, but once he left office, I didn't give a shit about him. I ended up just tolerating the atlantic city scenes to see what was happening in New York or Chicago. On the other hand, I'd have watched a show that was nothing but Arnold Rothstein eating apple cake, gambling, and mentoring Luciano and Lansky on how to be mobsters. 

[Neurochick]

Boardwalk Empire got "Game of Throned."  It was the hot new show on HBO, and then Game of Thrones arrived, and BE got pushed to the back.

I believe the reason for the time jump after season 4 had to do with what happened at the end of season 4.  I watched that show in real time and I remember how pissed everybody was at the end of that season.  I mean people were on Tumblr saying they'd never watch it again, EVER.  

I remember hearing that there wouldn't be a season 5, and then I heard it would be less episodes than the previous seasons.  

Season 5 was good, I thought, but because of how shitty season 4 ended, I think a lot of people were just done with the show.  I only watched just to see how it would end, and in the end, I didn't give a shit.  I remember someone on a message board said of season 5, "where did half the cast go?"

[sistermagpie]

4 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

That was that weird time period where Jason Segel almost became a movie leading man. I mean he was in Muppets, Sarah Marshall, I love you man, 5 year engagement, sex tape and a bunch of other stuff (Muppets and Sarah Marshall he also wrote). So I can see him not wanting to come back. But since then he hasn't been nearly as many things. I wonder if the reception of the last HIMYM season hurt his career or if he just stepped back from things a bit?

I think "Dispatches from Elsewhere" was his way of explaining what happened, weird as it was.

26 minutes ago, Neurochick said:

Season 5 was good, I thought, but because of how shitty season 4 ended, I think a lot of people were just done with the show.  I only watched just to see how it would end, and in the end, I didn't give a shit.  I remember someone on a message board said of season 5, "where did half the cast go?"

Wow, is that the general impression? I thought the second to last season ender

Spoiler

that is, Richard's death

was great and the last season was just ridiculous and even undid the story that ended so well in S4.

[Neurochick]

Many people, including me were ranting like crazy on Tumblr.  

Spoiler

I thought Richard's death was really fucking lame.  They didn't need to have him go out like that.

 

[festivus]

52 minutes ago, Zella said:

I recently rewatched Game of Thrones and still really enjoyed it, though the latter half is definitely weaker than what came before. But I'm also one of the weirdos who didn't hate the ending. 

Not the only one.

[sistermagpie]

13 minutes ago, Neurochick said:

Many people, including me were ranting like crazy on Tumblr.  

  Reveal spoiler

I thought Richard's death was really fucking lame.  They didn't need to have him go out like that.

 

Did the last season make that better?

Spoiler

One of the things that made the last season a chore for me was that Richard wasn't there--and I just wanted to smack the grown-up kid.

 

[Zella]

I never watched Boardwalk Empire in real time (always watched it on DVD months later), so I was pretty removed from how it was received when it aired. 

But one thing I will say that I really liked about the fifth season is the way they handled Gillian's backstory. I remember reading that there were going to be flashbacks, and I figured there was going to be

Spoiler

a graphic rape scene of a child that I had no interest in watching. 

I was pleasantly surprised when they showed absolutely nothing, but that the storyline wasn't skimmed over. So, the moment at the end when Nucky shows up to take her to the Commodore, and we know what's going to happen to her and he knows too but does it anyway and she suspects nothing good is going to happen but goes because Nucky's been relatively decent to her, was just devastating. 

 

53 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Did the last season make that better?

  Hide contents

One of the things that made the last season a chore for me was that Richard wasn't there--and I just wanted to smack the grown-up kid.

 

When you say "grown-up kid," do you mean Poodle Hair, aka Will? Poodle Hair is what my brother and I always called him because we didn't think he deserved a name. Because oh my God I couldn't stand him. 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Zella

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Zella said:

When you say "grown-up kid," do you mean Poodle Hair, aka Will? Poodle Hair is what my brother and I always called him because we didn't think he deserved a name. Because oh my God I couldn't stand him. 

Yup, I think that's who I mean. I forgot his name too! God, he was terrible. I agree with you on the flashbacks. I forget when they happened, but I thought it was done really well.