At least they're being up front about the lack of payoff to the mystery. That's refreshing, right? I haven't seen the second episode yet, but y'all aren't filling me with happy joy joy feelings.
This episode was boring as fuck. The only thing I care about at this point is Wayne, the cop's son, and the asian girl. Can they just get rid of everyone else and make the show about them?
Holy heck this episode is just full of people talking but it feels like nothing is happening at all. I wonder if they'll end every episode with that super melodramatic music too, because both times so far it has gotten a laugh out of me. I'm clearly missing something that the critics all seem to be loving because this just feels like a nothing show with nothing compelling at all. I'll keep watching it because I've given worse shows a longer chance but wow, this is a very bizarre show. It feels like a performance art show where they're trying to be deep but failing.
I'm seriously forgetting that 2% of the world's population disappeared. This show just feels like a mix between shows from the Lifetime Channel, CW, and something from CBS. That's a huge problem for me.
I'm not saying that they should have something supernatural going on constantly, but there's really only so much I can take of depressed people trying to get back to their daily life.
EDIT: A friend just pointed out how weird it is for people to accept 2% of the world's population disappearing, but yet they get all freaked out and skeptical of a mystery man shooting packs of abandoned dogs.
I'm seriously forgetting that 2% of the world's population disappeared. This show just feels like a mix between shows from the Lifetime Channel, CW, and something from CBS. That's a huge problem for me.
I'm not saying that they should have something supernatural going on constantly, but there's really only so much I can take of depressed people trying to get back to their daily life I can take.
I appreciate the fact that Lindelof and co. are trying to tell a story within this world without divulging the mysteries of it, but I'm not sure most audiences will. How do you think audiences will respond if the event is never explained?
I dunno. If the show would stop trying to intrigue me with shit and would just bother to tell the story of people dealing with the unexplained I would say that'd be fine, but thus far it feels like every character is still completely distant to me. Not in an interesting way either. It's just like...
Like... everyone seems to have a secret they are hiding from everyone they know. It's fucking silly.
Second episode was alright. I agree with everyone else in thinking that the chief is the only one I really care about. The others are just... bleh. His bald buddy and daughter are cool too.
I just get the feeling that we're not going to have things explained to us and, well, that's going to suck and people are going to get annoyed and stop watching.
Second episode was alright. I agree with everyone else in thinking that the chief is the only one I really care about. The others are just... bleh. His bald buddy and daughter are cool too.
I just get the feeling that we're not going to have things explained to us and, well, that's going to suck and people are going to get annoyed and stop watching.
Yep. It's comical reading the reactions of the people that don't get it. It's no wonder Boardwalk Empire never completely took off. Modern television viewers just can't handle a slow burn. Fucking instant gratification society.
I think it's more that people don't want to invest the time in a slow-burn because they've ended up losing that time to cancellation or little to no payoff in the end. It is unfortunate, but I don't think you can truly blame the viewers.
10 episodes and it's *done*? Hmm, I might give it a shot when it wraps then. That's still 10 hours that I'll be upset I used up if it has no payoff though. Time is a precious commodity.
I think it's more that people don't want to invest the time in a slow-burn because they've ended up losing that time to cancellation or little to no payoff in the end. It is unfortunate, but I don't think you can truly blame the viewers.
10 episodes and it's *done*? Hmm, I might give it a shot when it wraps then. That's still 10 hours that I'll be upset I used up if it has no payoff though. Time is a precious commodity.
She feels so out of place on Everybody's an Asshole: The Series.
Seriously, we got the premise of this show all wrong: their problem isn't that a bunch of people disappeared without a trace three years ago, but really the unnatural number of weird assholes that populate their world.
But as usual in Lindelof's work, it's convenient that those assholes are there: it's so much easier to have stuff happen! Of course they'd go all guns blazing on that cult, of course that guy would immediately threaten to downright kill the Asian girl: that way, the main character's son gets to shoot him and save the day!
And with that thing with the father, the show is still doing a terrible job at showing that "it's totally not about the mysteries, you guys" (we even have a character helpfully coming up with the "Mystery Man" moniker all by himself, that's quality service right there).
"What is this all about, dad?
- I don't know."
Well, you talk with them, maybe you could ask? No? Okay.
Also, isn't it nice how all those characters who've made a vow of silence write everything down anyway? Not an idiotic waste of time at all, and I was just thinking there hadn't been nearly enough of that with Sun on the last season of Lost.
Yep. It's comical reading the reactions of the people that don't get it. It's no wonder Boardwalk Empire never completely took off. Modern television viewers just can't handle a slow burn. Fucking instant gratification society.
Just so there's no confusion who I'm referring to next time I turn into a twat.
Also, don't compare this drudge to Boardwalk Empire. BE may be slow moving, but at its core it's at least a great show.
---------
Anyway, I was reading Sepinwall's review, and though he liked the episode (apparently, I really can't tell with him sometimes), he actually helped point out why I didn't. When I got to this line in his review:
Though she's not exactly bursting with happiness, Jill is probably functioning the best of all the Garveys right here, but her story this week gives us a glimpse of Nora Durst's post-Departure life, which is... not what one might have expected from hearing about all that she lost.
And it hit me: why the fuck should I care about Nora Durst? Why does she matter? We've seen absolutely nothing of her personality at this point. In fact, she's kind of a hollow shell in the same way pretty much everyone in this dishwater town is. Is it because she lost people? Well, other people in town have lost loved ones. 140,000,000 people vanished around the globe. If it's because she lost "the most" people...well, that's fucking petty. So, she has a gun in her purse, but in a story where one of our other characters is seeing things that aren't there and shooting down dogs in his spare time, that's not all that interesting, either.
Basically, there is absolutely nothing at all remarkable or interesting about the goings-on around Nora Durst. And in the absence of placing her within an interesting arc, the show could have at least made her interesting. But she's not -- she's just as dull and depressed as literally everyone else. But the show is presenting her as someone the audience should already care about, should already have some investment in. When the gun is discovered in her purse, the feeling is that we should be curious...really, that's when I went and got seconds on mashed potatoes.
The show is using The Event to tell the most mundane stories possible. You didn't need 2% of the population disappearing to tell us the story of Angsty Teenage Girl or Depressed Widow, those character types have been done to death by every type of show, and yet the show is resting on those trope-like qualities as though they are the most interesting things about these characters. That they are is the problem.
The only storylines that interested me at all this episode had to do with Wayne's cult, and The Chief (strangely enough). But then that's where we had to deal with Lindelof's Lindelof shit. Random raids that happen for no apparent reason other than to get the characters moving (I swear that shit was ripped right from Lost), characters being annoyingly cryptic for no other reason than to keep the audience in the dark ("It's Ok. WAYNE TOLD ME."). The Chief's father might be crazy...or maybe he's not...or maybe he is...
Or maybe he's not and he actually IS speaking to some celestial being who knows what's going on.
Second episodes are historically a lot more difficult than pilot episodes, but the writing is still very off for this show, and the mood and tone continue to suffocate.
I've heard critics are saying that the second half of episode 3 are where things start getting good, so I'm going to keep watching atleast one more episode.
Carlton aligns himself with writers that are better than him and keeps the trains running on time. He's done that on every show he's ever worked on since Nash Bridges.
You might be interested in this? https://lostrewatch.simplecast.fm/3? That episode has an interview with a writer involved early on... but what he did and what Lost was really weren't even similar.
Carlton aligns himself with writers that are better than him and keeps the trains running on time. He's done that on every show he's ever worked on since Nash Bridges.
I would be interested to see a break down of who wrote what. I know LOST had a lot of writers. So it would be pretty impossible to see which one between Cuse and Lindelof had the bigger impact on the best episodes (especially if they were written by other writers and we don't know which one of them had more of an effect on the editing).
Carlton aligns himself with writers that are better than him and keeps the trains running on time. He's done that on every show he's ever worked on since Nash Bridges.
Well, that's his MO: like on LOST, he's aligned himself with a much better writer than himself on Bates Motel to co-showrun -- Kerry Ehrin.
Put it this way: there's a joke I heard once -- if you were to put Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse together, they'd make one good writer named Damon Lindelof.
Carlton keeps the trains running on time. That's his strength. He's like a Carol Mendolsohn -- good manager, not a very good writer.
wasn't a terrible episode, but I really didn't understand why they raided Wayne's place or they did and I missed it. Seemed odd they would raid a place like that with no explanation.
wasn't a terrible episode, but I really didn't understand why they raided Wayne's place or they did and I missed it. Seemed odd they would raid a place like that with no explanation.
They said it in the opening scene -- something about them knowing that senators were visiting Wayne and he was thus a threat to national security. It was kind of a longshot explanation for them shooting up the place.
I'm here. Just not posting a ton and had a little ban a while ago.
For anyone on the fence, I can't recommend spoiling yourself with a summary of the book highly enough. It was all I needed to put this in the skip pile.
hmm, I liked episode 1 and 2. The hate seems unfounded so far. It's only been two episodes, books sometimes don't begin setting up its main narrative well into the end of a quarter way in. tv shows have room for that as well so just let it do it's thing and if it doesn't get better or seems as "aimless" as it seems to be now for some people, drop it (or just stop watching now).
hmm, I liked episode 1 and 2. The hate seems unfounded so far. It's only been two episodes, books sometimes don't begin setting up its main narrative well into the end of a quarter way in. tv shows have room for that as well so just let it do it's thing and if it doesn't get better or seems as "aimless" as it seems to be now for some people, drop it (or just stop watching now).
Unfounded, just like the dude's fucking bagel, which gave us a terrible set of scenes meant only to drive home obvious analogies.
You can figure out the quality of a show pretty fast, even if the rest hasn't come together yet. This is going to be another awkward HBO show that isn't close to their greats.
