Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[Zella]

56 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

I would watch a whole series of Charles Dance being Tywin trying to deal with his fucked up children, or rather, watch him fuck up his children because they got that way somehow, and it often comes from the parents. lol 

I would watch 20 seasons of this show. LOL I would watch 20 seasons of Charles Dance just glowering menacingly at people who irritate him. 🤣

[Kromm]

4 minutes ago, Zella said:

I would watch 20 seasons of this show. LOL I would watch 20 seasons of Charles Dance just glowering menacingly at people who irritate him. 🤣

Or this? 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Kromm

[Mabinogia]

Charles Dance on Would I Lie to You. 

To answer that question, yes, he could lie to me, he could lie to me all night long. So long as he's speaking I will be listening. 

[Mabinogia]

Charles Dance, the one person who can ALMOST make 50 Shades tolerable. LOL

And seeing those clips leads me to what I think must be an OU given how freaking many shows he hosts. Jimmy Carr is the single most annoying human being (if he is, there seems to be some debate on that fact (he might be a ventriloquist dummy, or an android)) on the planet. I can't say he's the worst because to my knowledge he hasn't raped anyone, killed anyone, rubbed his dick on people for a laugh, but my forking god is he annoying! Every time he does that horrible "pay attention to me I'm funny dammit" braying laugh I want to punch him. 

[Kromm]

2 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Jimmy Carr is the single most annoying human being

Personally I'm not on board with that. He does have an aspect of being irritating to the version of himself he puts on stage and television, but to balance that out I do find that in my opinion, he's very sharp, very witty, and by default quite funny. 

Annoying funny often, admittedly, but still funny. 

But having an UO is why this topic exists, right?  

[Enigma X]

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

Okay, GOT ..... the only male character I found attractive was Jorah. The others did nothing for me. And I shipped him with Danny in the beginning.

 

Jorah was after Stannis for me. but I actually found many of the men on the show attractive, but another UO, NCW and Pascal are alright looking but do nothing for me.

[festivus]

Stannis was the #1 bae of GoT. I'll die on that hill.

So, in theory, Cersei's death was rather poetic with King's Landing falling and taking her with it. But it was underwhelming and I wrote a poem about it at the time. Recited like Mike Myers does it in So I Married an Axe Murderer:

Cersei

Cer-a-sei

A castle fell on your head

Now you are dead

And still I am unsatisfied 

*beat music*

So I guess that's my unpopular opinion. I was fine with the way GoT ended, there wasn't anything I didn't expect, just Cersei and Jaime's end was lacking something. I mean, they had to go but it was just so bleh for two such interesting characters.

[Zella]

4 hours ago, Kromm said:

Or this? 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

Charles Dance on Would I Lie to You. 

To answer that question, yes, he could lie to me, he could lie to me all night long. So long as he's speaking I will be listening. [I was obviously a 90s kid. . . .] 

Haha these are great! I've been a fan of Charles Dance and his upscale villainy since I was a kid and watched Last Action Hero. [I was obviously a 90s kid. . . .]

Edited May 21, 2021 by Zella

[JimmyJabloon]

5 hours ago, Zella said:

I would watch 20 seasons of this show. LOL I would watch 20 seasons of Charles Dance just glowering menacingly at people who irritate him. 🤣

Tywin starts his day by threatening his annoying cousins, spends afternoon showing his despicable grandson who the real deal is, and ends the night being disappointed in his useless bickering children. Lol

 

I understood Tywin’s disappointment in his family. He worked so hard to make Lannister name powerful and terrifying and the rest of them just brought it down with their stupidity.

[JimmyJabloon]

7 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I hated Ned and Cat Stark. I love Sansa, because I'm a sucker for a redhead, but honestly, the rest of the Starks did nothing for me. I cheered during the Red Wedding.

I didn’t hate Cat but didn’t care much for her either. Absolutely hated Robb though. Was so happy when he and his annoying wife died. 

[ratgirlagogo]

8 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

I think they were just so proud of themselves for the gender switch that they didn't bother going any further with her being Watson. 

 

I ended up really liking Elementary because they committed to the non-romantic friendship between Holmes and Watson.  I found the 12-step story line tiresome but I was able to roll my eyes and continue.  My single greatest annoyance was that it would have  been SO FUCKING EASY to carry overfrom the original stories, the whole idea of the Watson character's being a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, which would have been a MUCH better story for her than having accidentally killed someone in surgery.  What if that had happened in Afghanistan, which would be very likely given the war conditions? Also, it would have given her a more bad-ass backstory - in the original stories, Holmes asks Watson to bring along his gun on the more dangerous stories - since he, not Holmes, is the one that actually HAS a gun and knows how to use one, and has experienced shots fired in anger.

Edited May 21, 2021 by ratgirlagogo

[Haleth]

Tyrion had 99% of his storyline in Essos cut for the show.  So disappointing.

It's easy to see why viewers love Dany.  In season 1 she was a teenager abused by her brother, raped by her husband, on the run for most of her life, and played by beautiful, tiny Emilia Clark.  Viewers want her to get revenge, which starts with her mothering 3 adorable baby dragons.  What could go wrong with that? 🤣

Yeah, GOT had some outstanding mature male actors.  I'd like to throw Ciaran Hinds into the mix too.  He was sadly, sadly misused.

[ABay]

6 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

I ended up really liking Elementary because they committed to the non-romantic friendship between Holmes and Watson. 

Me, too. It was a refreshing change from practically every other TV show. Yes, I am still bitter they ruined Scully & Mulder and Pete & Myka.

[janie jones]

18 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

And seeing those clips leads me to what I think must be an OU given how freaking many shows he hosts. Jimmy Carr is the single most annoying human being (if he is, there seems to be some debate on that fact (he might be a ventriloquist dummy, or an android)) on the planet. I can't say he's the worst because to my knowledge he hasn't raped anyone, killed anyone, rubbed his dick on people for a laugh, but my forking god is he annoying! Every time he does that horrible "pay attention to me I'm funny dammit" braying laugh I want to punch him. 

That fucking laugh. "Annoying" is woefully inadequate to describe it. I will sometimes leave the room if my husband is watching something with him in it so I don't have to hear the laugh.

[proserpina65]

On 5/20/2021 at 3:37 PM, Enigma X said:

My UO is that the sexiest actor on that show was Stephen Dillane aka Stannis Baratheon.

Them's fightin' words!

Seriously, though, I can kinda see it.  Not all the time he was on screen, but there were moments here and there.

[proserpina65]

7 hours ago, Haleth said:

Tyrion had 99% of his storyline in Essos cut for the show.  So disappointing.

I was absolutely fine with that.  I came to hate Tyrion in the last book and his never-ending travelogue followed by the shitshow that was happening in Meereen.  The only really worthwhile part was the encounter with the stonemen, and the show kept that.

8 hours ago, Haleth said:

He was sadly, sadly misused.

He was unfortunately miscast.  Too bad, because he's a great actor but he really did not fit that role at all.

[Zella]

1 minute ago, proserpina65 said:

I was absolutely fine with that.  I came to hate Tyrion in the last book and his never-ending travelogue followed by the shitshow that was happening in Meereen.  The only really worthwhile part was the encounter with the stonemen, and the show kept that.

He was unfortunately miscast.  Too bad, because he's a great actor but he really did not fit that role at all.

I also hated Tyrion in that final book. Truthfully in both the show and the books, I never really cared what was happening in Essos. 

[Blergh]

My Game of Thrones UO: Considering all the angst and fury that the show put the fans through, I'm relieved and grateful that I never bothered to start watching any of it and have zero interest in ever doing so. I've got plenty of angst and drama without needing to borrow  more from shows!

[Annber03]

I've never seen any of it, either. Mainly because I've never read the books and that kind of fantasy stuff has just never really been on my radar in general. I'm used to shows causing a lot of drama and fighting among fans, though  even then, I usually try and stay out of that part of things as much as possible :p. I like to keep my fandom experience as drama-free as I can, too, yes :). 

[Shannon L.]

I sat through GOT because my husband wanted to watch it.  While I was interested in a couple of characters and story lines, I didn't care for it and given my own druthers, I never would have started it.  Is it an unpopular opinion to think that Sansa had a great character arc and loving how her story ended?  That girl deserved to be Queen after everything she went through and I loved watching her learn to manipulate those around her to get what she wanted (that's if I'm remember it correctly--I do remember, though, saying "Good for you" on more than one occasion).   Here's one that I know is an unpopular opinion:  If I were forced to choose a favorite season or seasons, I actually enjoyed the show more from The Battle of the Bastards through to the end.

[kathyk24]

10 hours ago, ABay said:

Me, too. It was a refreshing change from practically every other TV show. Yes, I am still bitter they ruined Scully & Mulder and Pete & Myka.

I thought Mulder and Scully had great chemistry so I was glad they became a couple. I believed Pete and Myka were more like brother and sister I don't take anything in the Warehouse 13 finale as canon.

[scarynikki12]

57 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

Is it an unpopular opinion to think that Sansa had a great character arc and loving how her story ended? 

Yep. The popular opinion is that Sansa was the most evil character on a show that included Joffrey, Cersei, and the Boltons and deserved nothing but misery. I'm only slightly exaggerating. Long before the show ended I gave up on talking about it with certain friends due to their Sansa hate. They only wanted to talk about the ways they wanted her to die rather than the story itself.

The truly unpopular opinion is to love both Sansa and Dany and see value in each story.

[Zella]

I'm pretty sure this is an unpopular opinion. But I find Sansa's character arc far more interesting than Arya's and was much more invested in her as character. 

[Mabinogia]

13 hours ago, Haleth said:

Yeah, GOT had some outstanding mature male actors.

Yeah, the youngin's on the show were okay but give me the fine wines that were Stannis, Jorah, Tywin.

Whoever cast the show had a great eye for older men which I greatly appreciated. 

I would say my favorite GOTs women were Sansa, Dany and Lady Tyrell. My favorite men were Jorah, Tywin and Stannis (not that I like them for their evil ways, but they were interesting and nice to look at and listen to). 

I had no interest at all in Cersei's brother whose name just totally left my head....Jaime! Yeah, no interest in him at all though I know he was super popular. I also hated Arya. But I did like the Hound. Again, I found him interesting and I found her a "try too hard" character. Like they knew the writers tried way too hard to make her super awesome!

[Ohiopirate02]

27 minutes ago, Zella said:

I'm pretty sure this is an unpopular opinion. But I find Sansa's character arc far more interesting than Arya's and was much more invested in her as character. 

I've only read recaps, but I am always drawn more to female characters learning how to make the patriarchal system work for them while still "keeping sweet" than stories where the female character is a badass rebel.  

[Wiendish Fitch]

17 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I've only read recaps, but I am always drawn more to female characters learning how to make the patriarchal system work for them while still "keeping sweet" than stories where the female character is a badass rebel.  

Yeah, writers really need to curb their "Not Like Other Girls" tendencies.

[Zella]

Beyond finding Arya generally boring despite them trying to have her be Cool Murder Girl, I also never forgave her for leaving the Hound to die. It didn't bother me in the book, but they rewrote that relationship considerably for the show, and I thought it made her come across as a complete psycho. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Zella

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, scarynikki12 said:

The truly unpopular opinion is to love both Sansa and Dany and see value in each story.

Well, I would have really loved for Dany and Sansa to bond over their mutual traumas and experiences and become allies instead of Dumb and Dumber pitting them against each other, but nooooooooooooooooo!

 

[Danny Franks]

13 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

Yep. The popular opinion is that Sansa was the most evil character on a show that included Joffrey, Cersei, and the Boltons and deserved nothing but misery. I'm only slightly exaggerating. Long before the show ended I gave up on talking about it with certain friends due to their Sansa hate. They only wanted to talk about the ways they wanted her to die rather than the story itself.

The truly unpopular opinion is to love both Sansa and Dany and see value in each story.

I've not seen many people say that Sansa was evil, but most critics call her dumb. Which she is at the start, because she's a teenage girl who has lived a very sheltered, safe life and is suddenly exposed to the scheming and poison of the royal court.

But the ASOIAF fandom has always had a core of edgy types who claim that the smartest and most ruthless characters should win, and all the dumb, honourable types should be killed. I've seen people genuinely claim to be Littlefinger fanboys, or to love Victarion (a thuggish Greyjoy who beat his own wife to death because she was raped by Euron, kills without hesitation and keeps a slave on his ship, who he rapes repeatedly and previously tore her tongue out because she talked too much) and hope he ends up on the Iron Throne.

I didn't watch the last season (and only half watched the seventh), because it had already descended into a badly written shitshow but, as far as I can tell from reading summaries and discussions, one of the main problems was that all the characters acted as the plot dictated they should, rather than as their previous characterisation suggested they would. They lacked the narrative impetus to make the choices they made.

So Sansa doesn't tell Jon she has an entire army coming to help him fight the Boltons, just so they can arrive in the nick of time and the audience can cheer. Then she hates Daenerys immediately despite her coming to help the North because... women be bitches, I guess? 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Danny Franks

[supposebly]

Considering that people still discuss their respective favorite characters and storylines in GoT, I think it at least kept people engaged. It must have done something well.

I loved most of the characters because they were interesting, at least until somewhere around season 5 or so. They had good and bad and a lot of in-between and their motivations made sense. Later, it felt like a lot of layers were stripped away and the characters were reduced to caricatures that mostly served the plot, and we were left with a lot of time spent on huge battles, dragons, and overdone violence that seemed to serve very little purpose other than hitting me over the head with it all. Although I loved the battle of the bastards. It was truly well filmed. 

I took a long time to watch the first 6 seasons and could do maybe one or two episodes at a time, it was so dense. But I watched the last two in about three days, no problem. The complexity was gone.

[ABay]

I gave up on GOT after one episode, and also gave up on Outlander quickly, because I strongly object to rape as entertainment.

[Avabelle]

16 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

I actually enjoyed the show more from The Battle of the Bastards through to the end.

Me too. It was when the Starks/Snows actually started to win a few battles and get ahead of their enemies rather than just watching them face endless misery and be beaten down.

 

2 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Then she hates Daenerys immediately despite her coming to help the North because... women be bitches, I guess? 

I didn’t think she hated her, moreso reluctant to trust her which I didn’t fully blame her for. Danys was helping on the assumption that everyone would worship her and fall in line with her leadership. She wouldn’t have given the North independence and I think that was Sansas main goal. 

 

[Ambrosefolly]

1 hour ago, Avabelle said:

Me too. It was when the Starks/Snows actually started to win a few battles and get ahead of their enemies rather than just watching them face endless misery and be beaten down.

While I didn't enjoy much after they got away from the books, I also liked that that the Starks started winning. While I didn't like characters like Littlefinger getting really stupid, it was nice to see that once Starks got back into power, they didn't become corrupted assholes. While Arya became a skilled assassin, she didn't prey upon the innocent and even prevented the females in House Frey from being killed by the poison she gave the men. 

[JimmyJabloon]

I never understood the point of Dany’s revenge though. Revenge against whom?. The people of Westeros were just victims of Targaryens. Targs were invaders with disgusting family issues and pet nukes. And Dany and her cronies just kept acting like westerosis did this great conspiracy against her kind family to throw them out of their homeland. I really hated barristan selmy and Jorah the simp lord. I was glad when they died.
 

It’s like queen of England one day thinking that the colonies did her family great injustice by throwing them out and she needs to nuke them in revenge and everyone cheering for it.
 

I might have disliked Dany less if she wasn’t so obsessed with the iron chair and stayed in essos permanently.

[JustHereForFood]

To be fair to her regarding that, she was fed the narrative her whole life about how the Baratheons and Lannisters unjustly killed her family and how there are common people who still pray for her family's return. It's not like she had access to Westeros social media to check that nope, common people just want to be left the f*ck alone, whoever sits on the throne.

[JustHereForFood]

I really liked Friends when it aired and I still like it. I will happily watch an episode occasionally and still laugh at it. I cannot summon any energy to care about the reunion special however, it just seems so forced to me. The actors were adamant about not doing any sort of revival over the years and I can't help but feel that none of them want to be there. I just hope I'm wrong and that they all wanted to do this and were not pressured to it. 

[Avabelle]

That’s true about the narrative Dany was fed so i understand her initial desire and feeling of entitlement to the thrown. As the seasons progressed and her madness increased I think her arrogance did too. She genuinely believed her hype and being the saviour of everything and her resentment and feeling of betrayal at how wronged shed been was a lot to do with her bruised ego at anyone who questioned her motives. 

[Blergh]

46 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

  I cannot summon any energy to care about the reunion special however, it just seems so forced to me. The actors were adamant about not doing any sort of revival over the years and I can't help but feel that none of them want to be there. I just hope I'm wrong and that they all wanted to do this and were not pressured to it. 

I wouldn't feel too bad for them. I'll bet, more likely than not,  that one or more (if not all) of their emptying bank balances got the Friends alums to be motivated to have this supposedly 'spontaneous' reunion! Seriously, even Jennifer Aniston seems to have little else going for her these days besides those elbow grease ads! 

[Ohiopirate02]

10 minutes ago, Blergh said:

I wouldn't feel too bad for them. I'll bet, more likely than not,  that one or more (if not all) of their emptying bank balances got the Friends alums to be motivated to have this supposedly 'spontaneous' reunion! Seriously, even Jennifer Aniston seems to have little else going for her these days besides those elbow grease ads! 

Jennifer has an Apple TV series, The Morning Show, which was a critical hit.  I'm not sure how many people actually watch Apple TV outside of Ted Lasso.  She doesn't need the paycheck for this reunion.  

I believe the push for this reunion is that Gen Z discovered Friends last year.  Also, other shows got a boost last year with their Zoom reunions and TPTB wanted to capitalize on it.  This reunion just kept on getting pushed back for various reasons.  

[Crs97]

It’s been reported that they still make around $20 million a year from Friends, and they all have remained busy.  I agree with Ohiopirate; I also think several have kids who have started to watch it, and the thought of getting the gang back together to hang out was too good to pass up.  Getting paid to do so was just icing on the cake.

[Blergh]

11 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Jennifer has an Apple TV series, The Morning Show, which was a critical hit.  I'm not sure how many people actually watch Apple TV outside of Ted Lasso.  She doesn't need the paycheck for this reunion.  

I believe the push for this reunion is that Gen Z discovered Friends last year.  Also, other shows got a boost last year with their Zoom reunions and TPTB wanted to capitalize on it.  This reunion just kept on getting pushed back for various reasons.  

Well, what can I say? I've never even heard of Apple TV thanks to my being stuck in the 20th Century. They make $20 million a year from it? Even split six ways that's no chump change. I guess the elbow grease ads are just icing on the cake for Miss Aniston.  Oh well. 

[Hiyo]

Most of them have worked steadily throughout the years, some more than others. But I doubt any of them are hurting for money.

[Blergh]

6 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

Most of them have worked steadily throughout the years, some more than others. But I doubt any of them are hurting for money.

They're not getting ANY from me from watching the show or buying that elbow grease! That's my Friends UO!

[Irlandesa]

43 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I believe the push for this reunion is that Gen Z discovered Friends last year.  Also, other shows got a boost last year with their Zoom reunions and TPTB wanted to capitalize on it.  This reunion just kept on getting pushed back for various reasons.  

The idea for this reunion predates all of those Zoom reunions. There was nothing spontaneous about it. It was a calculated business decision. Plans for it began in Nov. of 2019. The reunion special was going to be used to more or less launch HBO Max.  It was going to be the event special to get people to sign up for the streaming service.  They knew Friends performed well on Netflix and they had just bought back the rights. Cast was going to be paid up to 4 million/piece.  While I do think they're all very wealthy, I think it'd be hard to turn down that much money for such a short gig. 

Plans were finalized in Feb. of 2020 but COVID hit in March which delayed the special for a year. 

I doubt this would be happening if COVID had hit earlier.  Some charity would have roped them in for a Zoom reunion.  HBO Max would have pivoted to their "stream movies" plan which I think boosted their subscribership.

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Irlandesa

[biakbiak]

7 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

think it'd be hard to turn down that much money for such a short gig. 

 

Not to mention they all seem to be grateful for the show and most of them still see each other regularly it’s not like there is any bad blood there.

[DoctorAtomic]

Now I want GOT Twitter. 

[sistermagpie]

1 hour ago, Blergh said:

Well, what can I say? I've never even heard of Apple TV thanks to my being stuck in the 20th Century. They make $20 million a year from it? Even split six ways that's no chump change. I guess the elbow grease ads are just icing on the cake for Miss Aniston.  Oh well. 

I would assume they're getting 20 million each, not splitting 20 six ways each year. 

[Hiyo]

“They're not getting ANY from me from watching the show or buying that elbow grease! That's my Friends UO!”

Er, ok...I guess there is an opinion in there somewhere if I squint hard enough...?

[Bastet]

I don't have any interest in Friends, but it's ludicrous to suggest this reunion is an act of desperation.  The show has been in continuous syndication since before new episodes even went off the air (which speaks to both its popularity and the fact the actors would have to actively try to squander their money since they could live well on the residuals alone, never mind their other work [which they've all continued to have] in order to have a financial need to do this), many people who didn't even watch it know quotes from it through cultural osmosis ("We were on a break!"), it picks up new viewers rather than being sustained only by nostalgia watchers, and the cast adored working together and has remained in touch.  There's no mystery as to why this is happening.

[WinnieWinkle]

8 minutes ago, Bastet said:

There's no mystery as to why this is happening.

Yep. I was never a dedicated Friends watcher but my daughter and my nieces were (especially my nieces - they've got a boatload of Friends related merchandize from mugs to shirts to mouse pads and then some).  They are all very excited about this reunion show.  I'm sure there are other factors at work that went into why this is happening but based on my sample of everyone I know it's also because there was a lot of demand from the fans of the show.