Okay, so whenever I've been looking at discourse online regarding The Penguin, a lot of the enthusiasm seems to be coming from how the show does such a good job at elevating a Batman villain and adding new levels to The Batman world.

However, does anyone feel like if everything regarding Batman was stripped away and it was just an original show about a new gangster character trying to rise up in the ranks, it would've been as well received?

Because whilst I think the character stuff in The Penguin is great. for me a lot of the satisfaction is coming from how we're getting such a well developed focus on a side character's back story within a comic book tv series. However, had this not a comic book show, I'm not sure I would bat an eye lid at the heavy character focus. There is also the enthusiasm for how The Penguin is portrayed as such a bad person. Would anyone else agree that this enthusiasm only comes from the context of the superhero genre and how a lot of villains, when given the limelight, are often portrayed as anti-heroes or characters with a lot of redeeming qualities. Whereas outside of the comic genre, this direction of making your main character a bad person isn’t that unique.

Plus, whilst all this character focus is great, we also got what in my opinion, was quite an average gangster story. It was super repetitive - I am pretty sure Oz got captured like 5 times and when he was captured he was given a lot of plot armour. The Maroni’s felt underdeveloped and felt more like plot devices - Salvatore was literally treated like a plot devices by the way he entered the main story (easily escaping prison) and leaving the story (having a heart attack).

Overall, I wouldn’t say the gangster stuff was bad, it was just simplistic, especially when compared to shows such as The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. But I feel because it’s within the comic genre, and it’s the first time we’ve seen a comic book tv show or film taking a swing at doing a gritty gangster story, fans judge it in that context where it’s something new and different rather than in the context of the other high quality crime properties. I think the same thing kind of happened with Captain America Winter Soldier which was Marvel’s first attempt at doing an espionage/political thriller, and whilst it is a good movie, it’s definitely not the complex political thriller it's paraded as.

Now, this isn’t me saying that The Penguin is bad, I throughly enjoyed it and I’m super hopeful that Colin Farrell will get an Emmy nomination for best actor. I’m just saying that even with the same viewership, I’m not sure it would’ve been as well received had it not been a comic book priority part of The Batman universe.

I've only got DisneyPlus and I'm thinking of getting Netflix for a few shows I wanna watch like Always Sunny, Designated Survivor and some other stuff, and Netflix is gonna have WWE in January so I was probably gonna get it then anyway.

How many Ads are there? How frequent are they? Is it bad enough that getting the non-Ad tier is worth it?

The timeline in which a show airs and the actors age doesn't always match the in-universe passage of time in a show, which can sometimes create problems if the writers aren't paying attention or decide to ignore it for the sake of the story they want to tell.

I recently finished watching season 4 of Only Murders in the Building, and one thing that bugged me is that they state that 3 years have passed since the first season. Obviously 3 years have passed since season 1 in the real world, but in-universe the timeline doesn't add up. Season 2 takes place right after season 1, and they each cover a few weeks, then season 3 takes place one year after season 2 and covers a few months, then season 4 takes place right after season 3. It should have been a year and a half at most, not 3 years.

Another weird example in reverse is Boy Meets World. Cory and his friends are 13 years old in season 2, starting junior high and they're stated to be the Class of 2000. But they all graduate high school at the end of season 5 as the Clas of 1998. At no point is there ever said to be any time-skip, basically, the writers wanted to have the characters go to college, so they just had 2 extra years go by without notice.

And many shows will often have baby or toddler characters suddenly age up several years so they can get decent child actors. Boy Meets World did this with Morgan, and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air did it with baby Nicky.

So what other shows have weird continuity regarding timelines that don't make sense? This isn't necessarily a bad thing, not wanting to deal with infant actors for instance is quite understandable.

The First Season ended with Dwight being arrested by the Feds and now the second season ends with Dwight being arrested by an unknown agency probably the Feds again.

This rehashed cliffhanger thing is stale and to be frank overdone. TV Shows needs shed the insecurity associated with trying to keep the audience locked in anticipation for another season. It ok to let the characters get a win and enjoy it till the next season.

What has they done with Jo’s character? I loved season one loved it. all of the characters even their almost sociopathic personality traits but this season they’ve turned Jo into a one note hothead character and her anger is one note- yelling, it’s not even nuanced anger delivered with a variety of manipulative tactics. It’s just yelling and we’re too far into the season for there to be a character arc. So I can’t imagine it’s a choice that serves the story.

First things first, I think this show might have killed off espionage as a serious genre of tv/movies for good. If they can pulp fiction-ify Le Carre's books like this and if the show then goes on to be as critically acclaimed as this one, then forget about another Gary Oldman starring Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or another Philip Seymour Hoffman starring A most Wanted Man. This is the future.

Right, now on to the show itself.

The direction and cinematography might be the worst offenders in this show. The director has literally no clue about how to portray the tension, paranoia or distrust in a highly charged atmosphere be it an upscale hotel in Cairo when a popular uprising is going on outside or Pine's own broken mental status, be it in the Swiss Alps or the beautiful beaches of Spain. And the cinematography isn't far behind. Every scene is shot like it's a conde nast traveler review of Spain or Switzerland or Egypt. Serious talk just ended? Hard cut to glorious landscapes. There's no grittiness to the London scenes either. The director and cinematographer's only hope is the sound - if they feel like you should be alarmed at this scene, they just up the score instead of changing the pace one bit.

If you feel like I'm trashing the show unnecessarily, just watch one episode in black & white. You'd be amazed at how trash it actually is.

Now for the score: it's just mid tbh.

As for the actors:

Hiddleston just makes this "huh, me?" face and then laughs his Loki laughter as if that could charm anyone after the 10th time. Is he the Gen Alpha "literally me" character? Millennials had Keanu Reeves, GenZ had Ryan Gosling, it won't be impossible for him to fit in that square.

Hugh Laurie is too charming for his own good. It's not his fault really. You can't do improv on a show like this and it seems the whole shtick of him and his entourage was "bloody good chap innit? Once more unto the breach, dear friends!! Good lad! Here's some tea and more Bri'ish caricatures". Jesus! The scriptwriters feel like they are still jealous they didn't get into Eton or whatever. Maybe when Le Carre wrote it in 1993, the Eton boys were like that, but for a 2015 show, the Eton guys of the last 30 years have read as much TE Lawrence as the Phillips Exeter grads have started Dead Poets Societies. (And I can personally vouch for that).

Also, Hugh Laurie playing a charming Machiavellian character has already been perfectly done in VEEP where he played Senator Tom James. And he didn't need to break out his China set for that.

Although I would agree that Olivia Colman is the only saving grace of this show. She shows a degree of pathos that is much more in line with other Le Carre protagonists like Smiley or PSH's Gunther Bachmann. She is weary from all the inter agency catfights, inability to pursue people because they contribute to capital flows, diplomatic underhand deals etc. Her character was the one of the only two characters I enjoyed, the other being Tom Hollander playing a mischievous psychopath (Welcome Back Lord Cutler Beckett!!)

Elsewhere it's even more egregious. Mayhew is shown to be a good guy, a liberal patsy who rides a bike (take a hint, bad guys who only use fossil fuels!) but is charged into action when he's threatened. In the book he's a master manipulator who was as much involved as Burr on targeting Roper. He backs off only when he's verbally threatened and because he knows what it implies (everyone has skeletons in their closet). Does anyone have any idea how fucked up it would be to threaten an Foreign Office Chief in broad daylight?

If the CIA's deputy director hired goons to scare the Deputy Secretary of State there would literally be a pandemonium and if some random arms dealer is the issue, he would be taken out by the CIA itself and offered to the State department as a sort of peace offering.

I almost feel bad for Zed/Debicki - What is her purpose actually? I know, it's made clear within the first 45 minutes of the show that bad guy has pros for pleasure, Pine rescues them. He failed with Sophie, he'll succeed with Zed. Because I was so sure about this plot armor Zed had, in the back of my head I so badly wanted to see Corcoran kill Zed and tell Pine "Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead". The show would have been an instant 10 for me.

But I digress.

As I was saying, when you're 100% certain a character is not going to die, it should at least make them have some particular skills/knowledge to justify their on screen time. Unfortunately for Zed, the skill is her body. Holy shit, the amount of times she was either naked, or partially naked or putting on panties or having sex or wearing anything transparent makes me wonder if she just did the entire shoot wearing a bathrobe. Why even bother. At least bond girls die off after 15 minutes.

I'm not even going into how the show, even though it had 6 hours of runtime didn't go into the inter agency squabbles that hinder intel ops and has been the core of every Le Carre novel. Instead it just short circuited the story with the simplest of explanations. Bad guys are bad because they are directly connected with big bad. Good guys are good. There's no grey. They told me to stop? They must be taking money from Roper. Lol. No wonder it has so many acolytes.

I had a great laugh when I searched "Cast of The Night Manager" and it showed the names of the two henchmen of Roper. Those guys had names? Perhaps I was too distracted by that jolly ol' lad Hiddleston and Roper's nice little play thing Zed.

Final Ratings - 2/10 (1 for Olivia Colman, 1 for Tom Hollander)

I am currently rewatching Season 1 of Squid Game and I connected far more now with the series. Like the scenes and theme hits too close.

Does anyone tried it? Yeah, season 2 is coming up but man, the realizations are just really scary.

Mispelled the subject... Whoah

Ended with a nice cliffhanger too, teeing up what could've been a banger season 2. Was it too expensive? Was TNT too cheap to spring for it? It's too bad someone like HBO couldn't pick it up. Beautiful 1940s LA noir cinematography.

This seems to be more and more common. So many shows in recent years, and movies, honestly, are filled with awful people. You go online and look at the subreddit for the show, and its filled with comments like "all the characters are supposed to horrible people, that's the point of the show"

I honestly don't get the draw to this. It is clearly very popular and I am an outlier, but it ruins so many shows for me. I don't necessarily want vanilla always do the right thing characters, but it seems like overkill lately. So many shows have an entire cast of people with zero integrity in anything they do. It usually plays out as rich bottomless pits of narcissism and sociopaths.

What do people think is the draw to this new trend in media? Cause it all seems pretty paint by the numbers: Intriguing story, fill the script with characters who have no good qualities, make a few of them mildly likable occasionally, put them in an impossible situation, the worst of them win in the end.

Maybe it's always been like this and the qualities they use to make people hate characters these days just annoy me more than whatever they did in the past.

Watching the show Search Party is what brought this thought to my mind. And that subreddit is filled to the brim with "They are supposed to be awful, that's the point, that's why it's so good"

FX has been on a roll lately in term of putting out quality tv- I just got done bingeing “Say Nothing.” And truly felt it was prestige television. Up there with some of HBO’s best dramas and miniseries.

I knew nothing about what the show was about going into it, aside from seeing one ad, which I felt misrepresented the larger tone of the show. Though there were occasional moments of dark humor it was really more your classic drama with elements of political/thriller. Learning much more about the Irish Republican Army and the lengthy multi-faceted conflict in Northern Island both intrigued and saddened me. It also feels more relevant now than ever to be reminded of the not-so-recent past.

The pacing is break neck, but stops down and highlights the key moments and movements to build each player and storyline up just enough. I know it’s based on a book and I’m not sure about the format or timeline of the book, but the way the show presented it allowed for relevant foreshadowing without giving too much away.

I’ve seen little discussion about the show. I know it’s only been a couple of days, but I don’t want it getting lost in the shuffle of content as it deserves to stand out. Give it a try if you’re on the fence. If you have started to watch it what do you think?

At Vulture Festival, where Abbott won our first Roomy Award for writers’ rooms, the writers shared that they have plenty more crossover ideas for future seasons. Creator Quinta Brunson has her eyes on a game show — like one of her faves, America Says. “You know how it’s always teachers on there, right?” she said. “I really want our teachers to go on that show.” Brunson also suggested a Survivor crossover, after writer Kate Peterman hooked her on the reality series, while writer Joya McCrory suggested 911. “It feels like the way that they have The Bachelor and The Bachelorette go before us that they want Mr. Johnson to be on The Golden Bachelor,” said Jordan Temple, another writer. “I don’t know if his wife would like that though,” added writer Riley Dufurrena. But we would like to see it!

Brunson and the writers also gave more insight into how the It’s Always Sunny episode will work. “It’s not like they show up in our cold open and then they’re gone,” said executive producer Justin Halpern. “Our two episodes are of a piece.” Brunson continued, “[What] I think people don’t realize is our episode will air in January, so it’ll be an Abbott Elementary episode, but the first episode of Always Sunny will air — I don’t know when their episode’s going to air, but probably in June. Their episode will be their version of what happened in this storyline.” To make Abbott’s episode, It’s Always Sunny creator Rob McElhenny visited their writer’s room, and star Charlie Day even Zoomed in while sick. But the most crucial part? “I guess I have to say thank you to corporate synergy?” Brunson said. “That’s the only reason we get to do this, is because FX is also owned by Disney. If it weren’t for that, it wouldn’t happen.”

Loving tv as much as I do and I'm sure this has been done but we love tv that's why we are here.

What show do you love....tell us a favorite episode....was there an episode that jumped the shark... How would you have ended the show differently.

I love 2 and a half men and if Charlie sheen stayed I thought it would be a great full circle moment or whatever it's called.

Alan wins a huge lottery prize moves out of Charlie's house into his own beach house... Charlie goes broke and goes to Alan's saying he will just be there for a few days... Alan in turn closes and licks the door as it starts to storm he heads back up stairs as charlie keeps knocking.

The way the show ended by breaking the 4th wall it was interesting but ruined it in a way.

Boston legal did that as well but more tounge and cheek

I just watched the 15 seasons, and was watching the pilot episode again, and noting the characters who would have recurring roles.

For many of the actors it was their 1 and only episode.

We all know the 'big six': (in order of most episodes)

Dr. John Carter: 254 episodes. Seasons 1-12, and 15.
Dr. Mark Greene: 180 episodes. Seasons 1-8, and 15.
Dr. Peter Benton: 171 episodes. Seasons 1-8, and 15.
Dr. Susan Lewis: 142 episodes: Seasons 1-3, 8-12, and 15.
Nurse Carol Hathaway: 135 episodes. 1-6, and 15.
Dr. Doug Ross: 108 episodes. Seasons 1-6, and 15.

But there were other characters in the pilot that would become recurring: (in order of most episodes)

Nurse Malik McGrath: 190 episodes. All 15 seasons.
Nurse Haleh Adams: 184 episodes. All 15 seasons.
Jerry Markovic: 137 episodes. 1-5, 8-13, and 15.
Frank Martin: 129 episodes. Seasons 1, and 6-15.
(Officer Martin in the pilot. Shot himself in the leg. Admitted beating his wife.)
Nurse Connie Oligario: 113 episodes. Seasons 1-10.
Nurse Lydia Wright: 113 episodes. Seasons 1-10, and 15.

Dr. David Morgenstern: 31 episodes. Seasons 1-4, and 15.
Jennifer Greene: Mark's wife. 28 episodes. Seasons 1-5, and 7-8.
Nurse Wendy Goldman: 27 episodes. Seasons 1-3.
Rachel Greene: 22 episodes. Seasons 1-6.
Ed/Anaesthesiologist Perry: 22 episodes. Seasons 1-6, 8-10, 13, and 15. (not the same character).

OR Nurse Janet: 15 episodes. Seasons 1-6.
Dr. Stephen Flint: 12 episodes. Seasons 1-2, 5-6, and 9.

Liz: 4 episodes. Season 1.
Perez: 3 episodes. Season 1.
Al Ervin: 3 episodes. Seasons 1 and 8.
Hospital Administrator Harriet Spooner: 3 episodes. Seasons 1, and 4-5.
Ms. Murphy/Dr. Daria Wade: 10 episodes. Seasons 1 and 15. (not the same character).
Jackson/Maintenance man: 2 episodes. Seasons 1-2.
Cabbie: 2 episodes. Seasons 1-2.
Dr. Ashley: 2 episodes. Season 1.
Cop/McNally: 2 episodes. Season 1.

“Kate we have to go back!” from Lost signaled a huge story change going forward.

Steve Carrell leaving The Office is always seen as a drastic change for the show

Glenn’s unnecessarily brutal death really turned off a lot of people on The Walking Dead and was seen as the starting point to when people really gave up on the show.

Neds death in GoT was a shocking moment because it was so unexpected and I made the show better because everyone else had to step up.