Marathoned Tiger King last night. It was like one subsequent train wreck after another. Finally gave up on it after episode six, that's where things become a bit depressing

I started watching Too Old to Die Young on Prime. It's a crime series and Ed Brubaker was the head writer on the show. It's 10 episodes, I am on episode 2, and so far each episode runs about an hour and a half. It's an interesting story so far, filled with unlikable characters, but ones you can buy into their story to see what happens to them (like a lot of good noir). However, it is a bit hard to watch as the director has a fondness for long slow panning shots that do nothing to develop the characters or move the story along. I am not sure if he is trying to set mood and atmosphere (if he is, it's not working), or going for some kind of artistic statement through his cinematography and stylistic quirks, but it totally screws the pacing and the narrative so far. They could cut each episode down to 45 minutes and not lose one iota of plot, character or atmosphere but it just drags.

An example scene from episode two, two characters are on opposite sides of the room and the camera has to pan slowly to establish where both are taking like two minutes to do so, then when one speaks the camera is on him, but it then slowly pans over back to the other character taking like a minute before the character responds, then we have to pan back over to character #1 before he responds, etc. The conversation runs like 10 minutes of screen time but there was only like 4 lines of dialogue (and it was in Spanish as it was set in Mexico, so we had to read subtitles too, which I don't mind so much except the scene was so drawn out).

It's like reading prose from a writer who falls in love with his use of language and spends time crafting the perfect paragraph, but the paragraph itself adds nothing to the story. A good writer will kill his darling and cut that paragraph to improve the overall work no matter how "perfect" it was. There are a lot of gorgeous perfect shots in this, but they don't improve the overall product. They needed to kill their darlings to make a better viewing experience. I am not sure if I will move on to the final 8 episodes. I am curious how the story plays out, but the pacing just puts me off as I watch it. Again, I don't think it's a writing problem, I think it's a choice made by the director/showrunner/producer, and I think it's to the detriment of what is shaping up into an otherwise good story.

-M

My wife and I have started watching some British comedies on Netflix and Hulu, as we've pretty much hit the end of our interest in US shows.

Right now, we're working our way through The IT Crowd. It's an oddball office comedy about the misfits who work in a company's IT department. Not every episode is a gem, but we find ourselves routinely literally laughing out loud at the show.

Lastly, if any of our UK members could recommend other comedies for us, it would be greatly appreciated. One thing I will note is that neither of us likes "uncomfortable comedy" (think The Office, either US or UK).

Cheers!

I don't think we've gotten that far, but I'll be on the lookout for it.

Our favorite episodes thus far have been The Haunting of Bill Crouse, The Work Outing ("I'm disabled, in the legs"), and The Dinner Party, all of which made us laugh so much that we woke up our older daughter, whose bedroom is done the hall.

It's been long enough since I watched the IT Crowd that I don't recall many individual episodes or scenes but It was probably the last really good sitcomc I've seen. I don't watch many, though, having kind of burnt out on the format sometime in the 90s, so I've probably missed a lot of good stuff.

The Thick of It was really funny, but very satirical and cynical about back-room politics. But it's one of those shows that's so well done you might like it even if that kind of thing isn't usually to your taste.

All I have time for is The Masked Singer and going through The Golden Girls.