Mr. Robot

[Aesthetics]

Just discovered this great new series which is totally up my alley!
That font alone

It's about a young computer programmer who suffers from social anxiety disorder and forms connections through hacking. He's recruited by a mysterious anarchist, who calls himself Mr. Robot.

phpBB [media]

The music is exceptionally great too!

phpBB [media]

phpBB [media]

[Aerial Boundaries]

It looks marginally interesting, though I anticipate loads of pseudo-techno babble and simplified concepts.

Putting it on my watch list.

[Echo the Sun]

i've been watching it for a while now. it's main problem is that the main character is not realistic at all. he claims to be a very weird person, but for the most part, he's pretty normal. when does behave strangely, it seems put-on. a person who sucks at social interactions, sucks at them all the time, not just when convenient for the narrative. nothing about the guy adds up.

also, as you thought, aerial, the rest of the show isn't very realistic either. it's basically a mixture of made-up stuff and things that everybody knows presented as things that only insiders know.

despite all of this, it's an OK show, though. something about it pulls you in like a lot of the other new, hyper-serialized dramas.

also, a warning: some of the acting is terrible. in particular, the characters of tyrell and and angela are really badly played. actually, everything about tyrell is silly

[Aerial Boundaries]

Actually, nothing attracts me to most TV dramas, including the newer ones. The only ones I've been impressed by in recent times are Breaking Bad and Lillyhammer (which is more of a comedy). I loved BB to pieces and still do, and will hold it head and shoulders above pretty much anything else frankly.

I'm not much of a TV guy generally, it is a format plagued by consumerist, mass produced pure diarrhea.

Anyway, I'll still take a look at this one. I'm hoping it will at least have some good aesthetics and dialogue as I doubt it is particularly deep.

[Echo the Sun]

i agree with you about breaking bad. it's way beyond everything else except for better call saul, which is a spinoff of breaking bad, and sherlock.

while i have never been an ardent film and tv watcher, and, while i think movies and music and most tv (especially sitcoms) are getting worse, i do think tv dramas are getting better because of serialization. i think television drama is finally starting to move away from, as you said, "consumerist, mass produced pure diarrhea," even though more and more movies and sitcoms and music seem to be ending up in the consumerist toilet bowl.

don't get me wrong, game of thrones is a glorified soap opera for men, and mad men is rife with contrivances and historical inaccuracies, but i still have a feeling serialized tv dramas are going to keep getting better because of the freedom on-demand tv services like netflix affords them.

in interviews, vince gilligan ascribes breaking bad's success largely to its netflix run. its serialization, dynamic characters, and slower pacing, despite being things that don't mesh well with broadcast tv, work perfectly well on on-demand tv, and are things audiences really like

[Aerial Boundaries]

Yes I agree streaming TV is completely the way forward. It is so much better than waiting a week for a new episode, it allows you to hold more in your memory over a shorter amount of time and makes everything more cohesive. The old ways are dying out and it's about time we chucked out the advertising and scheduling in favour of subscription based streaming. Loads of people already pay for cable and satellite services, so this is the next logical step.

I have seen Better Call Saul, and it set everything up nicely for a great second season. But I found it disjointed, with muddy pacing. Basically like what happened to BB in the middle pacing wise. BB got close for a small time to being slow and losing it's spark and intrigue. That only happened for around half a season though and wasn't really as bad as this post might make it appear. Anyway, BCS is exciting and I'm looking forward to the second season. Gilligan is a fucking genius and one of the most talented writers involved in the industry right now, and probably ever.

I haven't seen Sherlock but unless it diverges heavily from the source material, I can't imagine it would compare for me. I loved BB because it's high octane adventures masked a deeply challenging set of moral dilemmas, it's exaggerated yet complex characters managed to also feel life-like with masterful dialogue, and the whole show was grounded in a ponderous and unfearing philosophical basis. It was just such an honest and genuine show the likes of which we rarely see on our screens, and lends itself to a comparison with novels and films far more than its brethren. I could write far more than a single post could hold on this show, there are so many factors that came together to make it great art. The Sherlock franchise on the other hand has never displayed these qualities for me.

[jcnporter]

don't get me wrong, game of thrones is a glorified soap opera for men, and mad men is rife with contrivances and historical inaccuracies, but i still have a feeling serialized tv dramas are going to keep getting better because of the freedom on-demand tv services like netflix affords them.

I'm watching the current seasons of both Game of Thrones and Mad Men at the moment and for me they are definitely up there with the best TV series I've seen, along with The Wire and Six Feet Under.
I'd be interested to hear how much of them you've seen, as they definitely take time to reveal their best - sure, the media portrayal of GoT is 'Lord of the Rings with sex and violence' but for me it's a classic political drama, where complex characters reveal themselves and change over time as they struggle with power, responsibility, morality and the personal consequences of that struggle. Like any good genre story should, it addresses big issues and has much to say about them.
Again, for me Mad Men is not so much for me about how America changed through the 50s and 60s (I'm not from the US) - of course that's the backdrop and a huge part of it, but more of a character study of a man's journey through his 30s and 40s, struggling to see how he and his masculinity are affected by his own age, career and the social changes around him. I'm roughly the same age stage of life as Don Draper, so that probably was a big factor in my enjoyment of and identification with the series.
Definitely agree about Sherlock, for me it's pure entertainment from start to finish - although difficult to compare with the larger scale US TV dramas - it almost seems like British drama should be an entirely different genre due to the obvious constraints on what can be explored in a much shorter format - other recent highlights for me are Utopia and Southcliffe.
Actually I gave up on Breaking Bad after the first season, not really sure why, it just didn't pull me in, but I'll give it another go.

[Cupz]

I like how the trailer breaks the record number of dundundundundundrrrrruuuuvvvvwwwwWWHWOOOOOOOOMMMMmmm.... 's. I might watch the pilot.

[drillkicker]

That description reminds me a lot of Welcome to the NHK, which I thoroughly enjoyed (and which also had exceptionally great music).

--
Upon watching the trailer:
Never mind about that, it actually reminds me of a friend have who did too many shrooms and now talks about nothing but the Illuminati and chemtrails.

[FernieCanto]

I like how the trailer breaks the record number of dundundundundundrrrrruuuuvvvvwwwwWWHWOOOOOOOOMMMMmmm.... 's.

I think my everyday like should be like that.

"This time...

[ssshhHHHVUMP!!]

[pitch black]

... I'll have myself some coffee."

[Valotonin]

I can't really watch television anymore. Everything is conforming to a set kind of format in terms of plot, how it is filmed and how censored and homogenized all of these shows seem to be. It is like universities are just the last bit of conditioning people seem to go through to convince them that doing something out of the ordinary or with anything less than 'the best' equipment isn't an option. IMAX film tape is still better quality than any digital 'equivalent' and yet there still seems to be this massive push to cold, digital media. High definition analogue is the closest to reality on screen we ever got, but they couldn't simply stop there so they have been polishing the same turd for twenty years.

'Reality' on screen looks plastic now. Not just the cgi but everything.
(quietly ignores stereotype and continues to build analogue revolution)

[Aerial Boundaries]

I can't really watch television anymore. Everything is conforming to a set kind of format in terms of plot, how it is filmed and how censored and homogenized all of these shows seem to be. It is like universities are just the last bit of conditioning people seem to go through to convince them that doing something out of the ordinary or with anything less than 'the best' equipment isn't an option. IMAX film tape is still better quality than any digital 'equivalent' and yet there still seems to be this massive push to cold, digital media. High definition analogue is the closest to reality on screen we ever got, but they couldn't simply stop there so they have been polishing the same turd for twenty years.

'Reality' on screen looks plastic now. Not just the cgi but everything.
(quietly ignores stereotype and continues to build analogue revolution)

You must be a Tarantino fan like myself (though I must say he is far from perfect, I disagree with his approach somewhat)?

He said (half-jokingly I hope) that if digital completely replaced film and you couldn't show 35mm in cinemas anymore, he wouldn't make it to 60

[Valotonin]

You must be a Tarantino fan like myself (though I must say he is far from perfect, I disagree with his approach somewhat)?

He said (half-jokingly I hope) that if digital completely replaced film and you couldn't show 35mm in cinemas anymore, he wouldn't make it to 60

Did he really say that? Woa. I have been a lifelong admirer of Tarantinos films actually. I guess through the aesthetics of their work you can kind of pick up underlying meanings or intentions. I definitely had, to name a generic one, Pulp fiction in my head whilst thinking about it actually. Imagine it being filmed on digital equipment. Just wouldn't be the same.

[Aesthetics]

Anyone following season 2?

Needed a long warming up. It was until previous week episode I wasn't enjoying it as much as season 1 but this weeks episode made it even better! What a twist. Never had any movie or series which plays with my head this much

[Spenner]

Been following it every week. Love this insane show and I don't necessarily care where Eliot takes it because his character is A+

[portiss]

I want to binge season 2, I need to stay away from this topic.

[Techboy]

I agree, pls to no spoilers as I would like to watch all one night. Thonx.

[RVeldhuis]

Or just not check this topic? New season is fucking amazing. Can't wait to watch the new episode today.

[Aesthetics]

I'm amazed that with todays technology there isn't an option to watch this overseas legally right away. I want to contribute but can't... I also can't force myself to wait till it is available to watch over here. I'll buy it once it is available on DVD though Still want to watch season 1 again with the knowledge I have now.

[Aesthetics]

Spoiler: show

Kinda boring... this wasn't what I expected. Missed Elliot this episode... why didn't they combine this and the previous episode. Or am I the only one in this?