The Netflix/Hulu/Prime Thread

[blakestree]

Finished Lost. Man, the show was awesome up until season 3-4 and then it just went batshit crazy. Still enjoyed it, but stsrted losing interest.

I didn't hate the ending, which is apparently unusual.

In a way I think it is great that you could watch it fresh, now, outside the craze of it. As it went along, I think people spent so much time developing their own ideas of what was going on that it inevitably left many disappointed. On the other hand, I do subscribe to the claim that it was about the journey and not the destination. There was an unprecedented amount of alternate reality and secret stuff that went along with it. It's a shame to not able to experience that, now.

[blakestree]

Hulu has a bunch of new premiers on.
Inhumans is a joke. Actually, worse than a joke.

Ghosted was super rushed.

We actually enjoyed Inhumans. But, we're not comic book show connoisseurs.

Ghosted felt like an even more forgettable Little Evil.

[Kacey Y]

I think the problem with Ghosted is they made it as a half hour comedy, when it's clearly a parody of hour long supernatural mystery/dramas. It seems like we needed a long pilot to set up the characters and the situation. The story beats are suited for an hour long mystery/suspense format, not a half hour sitcom. A show like that probably wouldn't get picked up as an hour long comedy, but I think it would work better if it was made in the format that it's parodying. They would have time to let the plot build with some more character defining moments and more room to let the jokes breath. Which they're kind of doing anyway, because of the actors and writing style, so there's just minimal plot and significant character moments.

[blakestree]

Hmm, yeah, perhaps you're right.

[Kacey Y]

Imagine the pilot something like this:

Teaser: Setting up the agent for the underground agency, maybe in his little secret research bunker. He either just stumbled onto something or just got away from being chased, is gathering information and trying to contact one or both of the leads or his superiors. He's leaving, realizes he's being followed/chased, we end with him being caught, we don't see who it is, little suspenseful cliffhanger.

Then we move onto a couple 10 minute scenes of the leads, showing them in their current environment and hinting at their pasts and fall from grace, maybe through some coworker conflict, maybe through a phone call to an ex friend/colleague, whatever. Perhaps we throw in some little paranoia inducing teases of the antagonists, watching them, something suspicious is going on. Maybe they each get a call from the missing agent, asking for a meet and the two leads meet up, are suspicious of each other, then get chased by the bad guys. They get nabbed...but it turns out it's the secret underground bureau, debriefing them. Then you spend the next act building up the agency and what it is and the leads deciding to go check out the bad guys and find the missing agent. Conflict, build them up into a cornered situation. Come back in the last bit, they use some of the expertise or unique character traits get away with some key piece of evidence/info at the last minute and realize they're better at this than they think. The see the agent being abducted, the report back to the bureau and make the decision to keep doing this.

That's my 2 minute off the top of my head treatment for an hour version of that pilot and I'm not a writer. I just think they have some good ideas, good writing and good actors, but they're half assing the format and not really doing the type of show they're making fun of. They could totally subvert the tropes and have them fail or freak out, whatever.

[BetterOffShred]

I liked Punisher: War Zone, just because it was so nuts. Ray Stevenson plays Frank Castle as just a relentless psycho in that movie. It's pretty weird, just because it is so unreal and comic bookish in a lot of the tone and visuals, but takes the character of The Punisher and the violence so seriously. With the possible exception of the parkour guy getting shot out of the air with a grenade launcher (that is somehow a heatseaking missile).

Dude flips and tricks McGee getting owned by the RPG was the best scene for sure. I mean I didn't think that was a _Bad_ movie.. it just wasn't as G as the Tom Jane one. I like when dude gets ground up in the glass busting machine, that was a nice touch. He was overall a fairly douchey villain though.

[MechaGodzilla]

Imagine the pilot something like this:

Teaser: Setting up the agent for the underground agency, maybe in his little secret research bunker. He either just stumbled onto something or just got away from being chased, is gathering information and trying to contact one or both of the leads or his superiors. He's leaving, realizes he's being followed/chased, we end with him being caught, we don't see who it is, little suspenseful cliffhanger.

Then we move onto a couple 10 minute scenes of the leads, showing them in their current environment and hinting at their pasts and fall from grace, maybe through some coworker conflict, maybe through a phone call to an ex friend/colleague, whatever. Perhaps we throw in some little paranoia inducing teases of the antagonists, watching them, something suspicious is going on. Maybe they each get a call from the missing agent, asking for a meet and the two leads meet up, are suspicious of each other, then get chased by the bad guys. They get nabbed...but it turns out it's the secret underground bureau, debriefing them. Then you spend the next act building up the agency and what it is and the leads deciding to go check out the bad guys and find the missing agent. Conflict, build them up into a cornered situation. Come back in the last bit, they use some of the expertise or unique character traits get away with some key piece of evidence/info at the last minute and realize they're better at this than they think. The see the agent being abducted, the report back to the bureau and make the decision to keep doing this.

That's my 2 minute off the top of my head treatment for an hour version of that pilot and I'm not a writer. I just think they have some good ideas, good writing and good actors, but they're half assing the format and not really doing the type of show they're making fun of. They could totally subvert the tropes and have them fail or freak out, whatever.

I would bet that there's some kind of lame bureaucratic behind-the-scenes string-pullers saying "comedy has to be 18-20mins max or WE'LL BE DOING SOMETHING NEW AHHHHH".

Curb shows that longer episodes can work even with a general formula similar to Seinfeld.

[Kacey Y]

Most sitcoms are about 22 minutes now, after commercials, and they have like 5 act breaks. I don't even know how you write a satisfying cohesive story at that point. Presumably there's 2 or 3 plot points and it's all just terrible PG rated jokes. Every time I've dipped my toe back into mainstream sitcoms it just makes me cringe. They're almost unwatchable.

[jrfox92]

The Gifted's pilot was a solid "meh."
Hopefully it gets better, but I have a feeling it'll end up being as boring as all the other superheros hiding from the government shows have been.

[TraceItalian]

Nah I didn't see any of it. Dolph Lundgren is pretty sweet though.

Have you seen the new movie he did, "Don't Kill It"? It's no award winner, but it has its funny moments.

[Bloodhammer]

I watched the Lady Gaga "5 Foot 2" doc yesterday evening. I never was quite sure what I thought about her (I don't listen to dance pop, so I'm not really familiar with her music), but she seems like both a hot mess and someone I could very much respect.

[weebles]

The Gifted's pilot was a solid "meh."
Hopefully it gets better, but I have a feeling it'll end up being as boring as all the other superheros hiding from the government shows have been.

Did you see Legion?

Also - I just watched I Am Not Your Guru. Yowza. Tony Robbins is a crazy person.

[coldbrightsunlight]

I watched the first episode of Jessica Jones and stopped. Mehhg

[blakestree]

I'm enjoying Big Mouth much more than I expected I would.

[TraceItalian]

I watched the first episode of Jessica Jones and stopped. Mehhg

Trust me, it gets a lot better. I was pretty dismissive of it, tried again with the second episode a few months later, still meh, watched it all before Defenders came out so I could have all the back story, actually ended up liking it.

I'm enjoying Big Mouth much more than I expected I would.

Had the same reaction, not much of a fan of Nick Kroll's humor in general, but Netflix is bringing out that quality adult animation