What Have You Been Recently Watching

[dannyboy121070]

Hey, thank you for the kind words! I'm also glad you wound up liking Wonder Man. I agree with you about Kingsley. What a fantastic performance he gave in this show. And here's some good news: Looks like season two has been confirmed with both Abdul-Mateen II and Kingsley returning.

Bummed to hear about the new season of Paradise because I really liked the first one. I believe we are set to start watching it this week, but we are also working our way through a rewatch of the first season of The West Wing, so it might get pushed back a bit.

Woo-hoo! Great news about the renewal! Really looking forward to seeing Simon and Trevor back together.

As for PARADISE, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts if you get around to watching it. There's one episode left, and my wife and mother are going crazy waiting until next week to see it, so I may be alone in my opinion about this season.

[Sock Monkey]

As for PARADISE, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts if you get around to watching it. There's one episode left, and my wife and mother are going crazy waiting until next week to see it, so I may be alone in my opinion about this season.

Finished Paradise Season 2 last night and I am pretty shocked people are as excited about this season as they are. If I hear bad reviews and I decide to watch something anyways, I tend to be rather forgiving in my expectations. It was with that mindset I entered into the second season. I expected a rather big shift considering where season one ended. However, season two is kind of a mess and only continued to get worse as it went on. I didn't have an issue with the rotating focus of the first three episodes in and unto themselves. However, it's hard to understand why the show would choose to use up 40% of its season just getting the viewers caught up. Especially considering these episodes focusing on new characters wind up going nowhere.

Honestly, I found the writing overall to be poor. Characterizations were all over the place in order to serve the plot. In one episode Xavier will be killing people, the next he'll be spouting off about the kindness of people and how everyone just needs to have faith, and then switch back two episodes later to wanting to kill everybody. Sinatra's heel turn in the later part of the season makes no sense. Jane's episode is so over the top, I was shaking my head. The only character I felt they kept consistent from the first season is Sarah Shahi's therapist character. In addition to this, we get repeated pop culture references to Jason Bourne, Andy Dufresne and The Shawshank Redemption, and others that feel forced. Then there are character actions that are plain ridiculous, like in a life-and-death situation where a character basically tells another character to leave and save themselves and when they refuse, the first character threatens to kill them. How does that make any sense?

I also am not buying this "it was never about the bunker" schtick the showrunners have been pushing. It seems to me the show backed itself into a corner in season one, including killed off some its most charismatic characters, and is now wrestling to move the series in a new direction this season.

Overall, season two felt both too short and drawn out and I was actually pretty bored during the finale. Honestly, I haven't been this disappointed in a second season since Yellowjackets. But to be honest, Paradise is still better than that show. Looking at reviews online, I feel like I'm very much in the minority in my disappointment, though it seems to me my opinions are becoming more and more misaligned with general consensus. I mean how does Black Rabbit get a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes, but season two of Paradise gets a 92%, an increase of 6% over season one?

[dannyboy121070]

Finished Paradise Season 2 last night and I am pretty shocked people are as excited about this season as they are. If I hear bad reviews and I decide to watch something anyways, I tend to be rather forgiving in my expectations. It was with that mindset I entered into the second season. I expected a rather big shift considering where season one ended. However, season two is kind of a mess and only continued to get worse as it went on. I didn't have an issue with the rotating focus of the first three episodes in and unto themselves. However, it's hard to understand why the show would choose to use up 40% of its season just getting the viewers caught up. Especially considering these episodes focusing on new characters wind up going nowhere.

Honestly, I found the writing overall to be poor. Characterizations were all over the place in order to serve the plot. In one episode Xavier will be killing people, the next he'll be spouting off about the kindness of people and how everyone just needs to have faith, and then switch back two episodes later to wanting to kill everybody. Sinatra's heel turn in the later part of the season makes no sense. Jane's episode is so over the top, I was shaking my head. The only character I felt they kept consistent from the first season is Sarah Shahi's therapist character. In addition to this, we get repeated pop culture references to Jason Bourne, Andy Dufresne and The Shawshank Redemption, and others that feel forced. Then there are character actions that are plain ridiculous, like in a life-and-death situation where a character basically tells another character to leave and save themselves and when they refuse, the first character threatens to kill them. How does that make any sense?

I also am not buying this "it was never about the bunker" schtick the showrunners have been pushing. It seems to me the show backed itself into a corner in season one, including killed off some its most charismatic characters, and is now wrestling to move the series in a new direction this season.

Overall, season two felt both too short and drawn out and I was actually pretty bored during the finale. Honestly, I haven't been this disappointed in a second season since Yellowjackets. But to be honest, Paradise is still better than that show. Looking at reviews online, I feel like I'm very much in the minority in my disappointment, though it seems to me my opinions are becoming more and more misaligned with general consensus. I mean how does Black Rabbit get a 66% on Rotten Tomatoes, but season two of Paradise gets a 92%, an increase of 6% over season one?

YELLOWJACKETS is exactly what I compared this season of PARADISE to when I was bitching to my mom, who loves the new season. I actually enjoyed the season finale more than the rest of the episodes, since something actually happened. The Jane episode was ridiculous...This 100 lb girl is basically The Terminator...? OK. And am I crazy, or did they show a flash of the empty shower at the end? So she lived? Ugh. I felt like there were basically two episodes that moved the plot forward, so it was a wasted season. Something that really annoyed me was the bomb Xavier was setting at the train station...When he was spying on the site, there were a million people milling around. When he sneaks in? Totally empty. My son calls this "Plot armor", where the main character always succeeds and is never harmed. Those tons of armed guards never looked 100 feet away and saw X and the mailman's heads popping over the train car looking at them...? Ridiculous. My wife and mother still love the show, so maybe I'm too picky. My cousin dropped off after X discovered his wife was alive last season, because she thought it was too far-fetched. (I did too lol.) I really loved the first season, and I was bummed out when I heard midway through the season, because I thought it was a one and done mini-series, which would have been perfect. There was no need to drag this out. (Yes, I know...money, lol!) Also, I'm sick to death of every show doing the endless LOST-style flashbacks. I just watched STATION 11, which I loved, but the flashbacks and flashbacks and flashbacks on every show gets really annoying. One of the reasons I bailed on YELLOWJACKETS. Loving THE PITT and A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS, because they just tell a story in a linear fashion. KNIGHT had occasional flashbacks, but it wasn't constant. Not sure if I'll be on board for PARADISE season 3...