All Things TV Series Recommendations/Reviews

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It took me a while to get around to watching it but i've been binging through Veep and it's absolutely hilarious.
 

Homeland Season 5 starts Sunday night:

HOMELAND season five will pick up two years after Carrie Mathison’s (Claire Danes) ill-fated tenure as Islamabad station chief. Struggling to reconcile her guilt and disillusionment with years of working on the front lines in the “war on terror,” Carrie finds herself in a self-imposed exile in Berlin, estranged from the CIA and working as the head of security for a German philanthropist.


Go Gophers!!
 

Anyone else watching the second season of Fargo? I like it so far. It appears things are about to get very interesting.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Anyone else watching the second season of Fargo? I like it so far. It appears things are about to get very interesting.
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I'm obsessed with it. I think it's better than last year. Although I think the last episode was the weakest so far.

How about the Grinder with Rob Lowe and Fred Savage? This seems like the funniest new sitcom in several years. Brooklyn 99 is right there too, but it's in the third season.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Anyone else watching the second season of Fargo? I like it so far. It appears things are about to get very interesting.
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Really enjoying Fargo Season 2 as well, great cast, interesting plot. But it does seem to be very predictable in its storytelling. No real surprises yet, other than the behaviors of the characters in episode 1. Hoping there's going to be plenty of surprising moments to come. But for now its just entertaining watching our characters make predictably bad choices.
 


I also really like season 2 of Fargo. My favorite arch is Lou Solverson's character and recalling the foreshadowing from season 1 (or whatever foreshadowing the past is called). I think the current actor has done a great job picking up the mannerism from the actor who played the older Solverson in season 1 -- facial expressions, dry wit, tying rope to pass time, sitting on the porch watching for danger. Great character continuity.

I still like season 1 slightly more, but 2 isn't far behind. Freeman & Thornton are tough to beat.
 

tv shows

I really liked Halt and catch Fire. My wife and I watched Bloodline and it went off the rails with some of the characters actions. I loved Narco's!
 

Nokomis said:
I also really like season 2 of Fargo. My favorite arch is Lou Solverson's character and recalling the foreshadowing from season 1 (or whatever foreshadowing the past is called). I think the current actor has done a great job picking up the mannerism from the actor who played the older Solverson in season 1 -- facial expressions, dry wit, tying rope to pass time, sitting on the porch watching for danger. Great character continuity.

I still like season 1 slightly more, but 2 isn't far behind. Freeman & Thornton are tough to beat.
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The wife and I were just talking about that last night while watching it. Solid show all around.
 

I really enjoyed Fargo season 1 and admittedly I was skeptical that season 2 could deliver on par considering the different time period and entirely new cast but so far I can say that this season is already better than the first. Once again the characters and acting are top notch and even though the story is predicable at parts, the show has been highly enjoyable to watch.
 



Kuato Lives! said:
I really enjoyed Fargo season 1 and admittedly I was skeptical that season 2 could deliver on par considering the different time period and entirely new cast but so far I can say that this season is already better than the first. Once again the characters and acting are top notch and even though the story is predicable at parts, the show has been highly enjoyable to watch.
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The wife and I were just talking that we like all the new characters. Good guys & bad guys are all pretty good. The only two I don't like so far are the butcher & his wife. Loved Jesse Plemons in Breaking Bad and other stuff, and Kirsten Dunst seems capable. Hopefully Plemons gets to flex his chops a bit now that the bad guys have found him. All the other characters and actors were cast perfectly.
 

Nokomis said:
The wife and I were just talking that we like all the new characters. Good guys & bad guys are all pretty good. The only two I don't like so far are the butcher & his wife. Loved Jesse Plemons in Breaking Bad and other stuff, and Kirsten Dunst seems capable. Hopefully Plemons gets to flex his chops a bit now that the bad guys have found him. All the other characters and actors were cast perfectly.
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I have a feeling that the character, played by Dunst, will be one of the most despicable characters by the end of it all.
 

tikited said:
I have a feeling that the character, played by Dunst, will be one of the most despicable characters by the end of it all.
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Agree. She's already shown herself to be quite callous to both her hit & run victim, and her affectionate husband.

I'm wondering which Gerhardt kid gets a KC bullet first. Best odds would seem to be on Dodd, but I could see a twist here coming...

Are we gonna get a Hanzee v. Milligan showdown at some point?
 

Gopher Bandanna Guy said:
Agree. She's already shown herself to be quite callous to both her hit & run victim, and her affectionate husband.

I'm wondering which Gerhardt kid gets a KC bullet first. Best odds would seem to be on Dodd, but I could see a twist here coming...

Are we gonna get a Hanzee v. Milligan showdown at some point?
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My biggest question is who shoots Lou. We know it's coming from Season 1. I'm thinking the butcher or his wife.

As for the Gerhardts, they're setting up the grandson with the gimp hand to play an active role. My guess is that his dad, Bear, eats it in the first KC strike. Dodd, wanting a son but only having daughters, takes his nephew under his wing. He utilizes the boy's quick draw skills that we saw this week in a surprise attack on the KC gang, like how Otto used a young Dodd in a surprise attack in the flashback scene.

WTF is up with the aliens? Did anyone else notice two hours lapse from when Hanzee looks at the clock in the dinner and when he looks at his watch after picking up the broken glass in the road and seeing the lights in the sky? Suggesting, I suppose, that aliens abducted Hanzee for two hours and then placed him back in the same position. There's enough potential with this show that I hope they don't get goofy with alien abductions and such.
 



Nokomis said:
My biggest question is who shoots Lou. We know it's coming from Season 1. I'm thinking the butcher or his wife.

As for the Gerhardts, they're setting up the grandson with the gimp hand to play an active role. My guess is that his dad, Bear, eats it in the first KC strike. Dodd, wanting a son but only having daughters, takes his nephew under his wing. He utilizes the boy's quick draw skills that we saw this week in a surprise attack on the KC gang, like how Otto used a young Dodd in a surprise attack in the flashback scene.

WTF is up with the aliens? Did anyone else notice two hours lapse from when Hanzee looks at the clock in the dinner and when he looks at his watch after picking up the broken glass in the road and seeing the lights in the sky? Suggesting, I suppose, that aliens abducted Hanzee for two hours and then placed him back in the same position. There's enough potential with this show that I hope they don't get goofy with alien abductions and such.
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Good catch on the time lapse. I didn't notice that. I'm wary of the alien plot twist.
 

tikited said:
Good catch on the time lapse. I didn't notice that. I'm wary of the alien plot twist.
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Jump-the-shark.jpg
 

Nokomis said:
My biggest question is who shoots Lou. We know it's coming from Season 1. I'm thinking the butcher or his wife.

As for the Gerhardts, they're setting up the grandson with the gimp hand to play an active role. My guess is that his dad, Bear, eats it in the first KC strike. Dodd, wanting a son but only having daughters, takes his nephew under his wing. He utilizes the boy's quick draw skills that we saw this week in a surprise attack on the KC gang, like how Otto used a young Dodd in a surprise attack in the flashback scene.

WTF is up with the aliens? Did anyone else notice two hours lapse from when Hanzee looks at the clock in the dinner and when he looks at his watch after picking up the broken glass in the road and seeing the lights in the sky? Suggesting, I suppose, that aliens abducted Hanzee for two hours and then placed him back in the same position. There's enough potential with this show that I hope they don't get goofy with alien abductions and such.
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Well things got a little goofy again at the end of the last episode. What is up with that? Not sure what the point of it is.
 

GophersInIowa said:
Well things got a little goofy again at the end of the last episode. What is up with that? Not sure what the point of it is.
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Keeps you watching. This is pretty interesting.

[video]http://www.avclub.com/video/matched-shots-and-alien-coffee-stain-you-might-hav-228321[/video]
 

GophersInIowa said:
Well things got a little goofy again at the end of the last episode. What is up with that? Not sure what the point of it is.
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Yeah, I agree. Just detracts from the plausibility of the story. Seems so inconsistent with the rest of the show. Pretty good episode otherwise.

It took half the episode until I realized Martin Freeman was the narrator. My wife actually noticed it first. Cool guest spot and tie-in to Season 1.
 

Nokomis said:
Yeah, I agree. Just detracts from the plausibility of the story. Seems so inconsistent with the rest of the show. Pretty good episode otherwise.

It took half the episode until I realized Martin Freeman was the narrator. My wife actually noticed it first. Cool guest spot and tie-in to Season 1.
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I knew who it was narrating, but I forgot he was in season 1 until my wife mentioned it.
 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It’s a new day in America. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FU2016?src=hash">#FU2016</a>
<a href="https://t.co/0AcBefiby5">https://t.co/0AcBefiby5</a></p>— House of Cards (@HouseofCards) <a href="https://twitter.com/HouseofCards/status/676958648069840896">December 16, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Go Frank Underwood!!
 

Two shows we've been binge watching thanks to recommendations in this thread (I believe it was dpodoll68) are Veep and Silicon Valley. We're through 3 seasons of Veep and the first season of Silicon Valley. Both are right up our alley. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one heck of an actress.

Go Gophers!!
 

A new documentary type show just launched on Netflix called Making of a Murderer. I watched the first episode and was really sucked in. Seems to be getting good reviews everywhere too. I would say it's similar to the Serial podcasts.
 

mnsportsgeek said:
A new documentary type show just launched on Netflix called Making of a Murderer. I watched the first episode and was really sucked in. Seems to be getting good reviews everywhere too. I would say it's similar to the Serial podcasts.
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Thanks for the recommendation. Very interesting show.
 


mnsportsgeek said:
A new documentary type show just launched on Netflix called Making of a Murderer. I watched the first episode and was really sucked in. Seems to be getting good reviews everywhere too. I would say it's similar to the Serial podcasts.
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Surprised more people aren't talking about this show. It's become a real phenomenon this past week. I see Steven Avery now has 100k+ signatures demanding a Presidential pardon. I doubt it will happen, but it certainly is interesting how technology can effect change in 2016. Watch a show on Netflix, sign a petition on your smart phone, Presidential pardon.
 

I haven't kept up with this thread, so I don't know if the series Rectify has been mentioned. It's on Netflix and it's only two seasons. Highly recommend.
 

mnsportsgeek said:
A new documentary type show just launched on Netflix called Making of a Murderer. I watched the first episode and was really sucked in. Seems to be getting good reviews everywhere too. I would say it's similar to the Serial podcasts.
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Steven Avery, a 53-year-old from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. After being convicted in 1985, at the age of 22, for sexual assault, Avery spent 18 years in prison. However, when a post-conviction investigation revealed new information, Avery was exonerated in 2003.
Without giving too much away, it's safe to say that Avery's story has risen rapidly in the public consciousness as of late, and no shortage of ink is being spilt theorizing about the case's intricacies — not least of which is the detail that Avery had a credible alibi at the time the crime he was accused of was committed.

"Avery presented 16 alibi witnesses, including the clerk of a store in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who recalled Avery, accompanied by his wife and five children, buying paint from the store," reported the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization that works on behalf of wrongly-accused persons.

"A checkout tape put the purchase at 5:13 p.m. Beernsten put the attack at 3:50 p.m. and estimated it lasted 15 minutes, which meant that Avery would have had to leave the scene of the attack, walk a mile to the nearest parking area, drive home, load his family into the car, and drive 45 miles in just over an hour."

Yet that evidence and other indications of his innocence weren't enough to save Avery from his 18-year-long stint in jail. And the story doesn't stop there. Littered with accusations about the handling of the case and the supposed injustice of Avery's incarceration, the documentary series has captured the interest of viewers, and fans of the show are now devotedly plugged in to see what happens to Avery next. The reason? In 2005, Avery was convicted on separate murder charges and was sentenced to life in prison — and some think it was due to bias against the convict's character.

The hype around Netflix's new show has not only put a spotlight on the alleged failings of the justice system, it has also drawn new attention to grassroots efforts to enact change in the face of those alleged failings. The public is now clamoring for justice. Time reported that a petition for Avery's pardon has garnered 100,000 signatures as of Sunday. On Monday, the Washington Post reported the petition's number of signatures had grown to 170,000.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/netflix-documentary-making-murderer-fuels-145556962.html
 

Costa Rican Gopher said:
Surprised more people aren't talking about this show. It's become a real phenomenon this past week. I see Steven Avery now has 100k+ signatures demanding a Presidential pardon. I doubt it will happen, but it certainly is interesting how technology can effect change in 2016. Watch a show on Netflix, sign a petition on your smart phone, Presidential pardon.
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My wife and I are six episodes in. She's deeply troubled by the show, to the point of losing some sleep. The practical certainty of some amount of corruption and wrongdoing has thrown her for a loop. I think she was a little naive about how things are in the real world. The sobering part is what the authorities can do to a person if they want to, and there's not much a person can do about it. Imagine if Avery only had a public defender.

For me, it's eerily similar to a case I was a juror on several years ago. It was felony drug possession, and there were crime lab irregularities and the suggestion that the drugs were planted by the cops. This was part of the St. Paul Police crime lab scandal, where they were essentially decertified for a period of time because of incompetence, mostly having to do with drug cases. My opinion was that it was likely the perp was guilty but not certain. That the drugs could have been planted was a strong possibility. Our jury was divided for some time, and the main reason was that there were jurors who would not consider police misconduct even a remote possibility. The police just would not do that, and they made clear they would never participate in a decision based in part on considering that possibility a possibility. Ultimately we convicted, and I admit that I've never felt good about that finding. We learned later that this was a second trial - the first had been a hung jury, and I'm sure they had the same dynamics we had in the jury room. And I would wager that the same situation existed in Avery's case - law and order oriented people on the jury who would not even listen to the suggestion that cops would do anything like was being implied.

I have always felt that the presumption of innocence is something most people have a hard time adopting. Even if they can get their head around it intellectually, they have a hard time taking it to heart. It doesn't help that, as citizens, we're constantly bombarded by reports of accused who were acquitted and later offended (or re-offended, as the case may be). A juror might rather have an innocent person in jail on their conscience rather than have a victimization of an innocent citizen on their conscience because they failed to lock somebody up. I believe it's in our base human makeup to want to lock people up who we think are dangerous regardless of whether they've offended.
 

We just finished the last season of The League. Holy crap that show became unwatchable the last two years. The second to last episode even turned into a cartoon halfway through the episode. For a show that was really fun to watch for the first 3-4 seasons, it became one of the worst shows on TV. Too bad as it was a fun show at one point.

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
We just finished the last season of The League. Holy crap that show became unwatchable the last two years. The second to last episode even turned into a cartoon halfway through the episode. For a show that was really fun to watch for the first 3-4 seasons, it became one of the worst shows on TV. Too bad as it was a fun show at one point.

Go Gophers!!
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I watched the first couple of seasons and quit. It was getting progressively stupider. Not to mention that it's a show about fantasy football......but it's written by someone who doesn't seem to know anything about football. Some name drops and a few cameos doesn't cut it.
 

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