What TV series are you watching?

[St. Elmo's Fire]

^I've heard a bit about that show (Justified) and it sounds like it should be up my street, how gritty/dark and depressing is it? Does it do humour? I will check it out sometime, but I can only watch really "serious" things when I am in the right mindset. I'm in something of a trashy TV viewing mood right now, hence lapping up stuff like White Collar and Chuck so vehemently. These shows aren't original or mould breaking and the stories are usually highly unbelievable, but they're well made enough and just had a sort of charm and magic that I can't really put my finger on that ran through each episode that I was seriously addicted...on that note...

Finished all of Chuck. Ending was a bit squeezed and underwhelming, but the bad guys and plot twists were pretty good in the last two seasons. Fight scenes were usually pretty excellent if also unbelievable (CIA agents and bad guys all seemed to be phenomenally skilled at close range combat) and the fairly high calibre cameos kept on coming (Stan Lee and Bo Derek as themselves, former James Bond Timothy Dalton as a very bad man, Carrie-Anne Moss, who doesn't look much older than she did in The Matrix, Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos, Mark Hamill from old Star Wars and Danny Pudi from Community basically being his character from Community.). Kept me hooked for a good few weeks.

Now that S3 of Suits is out, I tried to get back into it. Couldn't. I just think most of the main characters are such douchebags that I stopped caring. Harvey Spectre especially, he's meant to be a hot shot lawyer, I get that, but his "I'm the best at everything, I'm a lone wolf, I do things my way, winning at everything is just what I do" character is annoying now, plus I think he looks pretty sleazy...

[OL]

^I've heard a bit about that show (Justified) and it sounds like it should be up my street, how gritty/dark and depressing is it? Does it do humour? I will check it out sometime, but I can only watch really "serious" things when I am in the right mindset.

It has its serious moments of course, dealing with criminals and all that. But one of the reasons it became my favorite show over the past few years is precisely because it's very funny in a lot of cases; "depressing" it certainly is not. This definitely ain't Sons of Anarchy. I have trouble getting into overly serious stuff like that myself, unless the mood hits. But I'm almost always in the mood for Justified.
Have you ever heard of Elmore Leonard? He was one of the most prominent crime fiction authors of the past 40 or so years. He wrote the books that movies like Get Shorty, Out of Sight, and Jackie Brown were based on. His overall style is actually one of humor to begin with, usually mixed with a really distinct sense of "cool," lots of character who know what the hell they're doing and all that. Tarantino cites him as one of the greatest influences on his own writing.
Justified was based on a story Leonard wrote called Fire In the Hole; the first episode is an adaptation of it. And the series thereafter has always striven to retain that unique "Elmore Leonard" style; apparently, Elmore Leonard himself felt it was one of the best adaptations of his work that had ever been made, and stayed on as executive producer until he passed away in 2013.
Tonally, you could think of the show as being a mix of the humor and cool of movies like Get Shorty and Jackie Brown, but with a great dose of Southern drawl and swagger.

I think you'd definitely like it.

[OL]

Just finished Daredevil.
Pretty great overall. The best thing about it is how they actually manage to sidestep any semblance of cheesiness for the grand majority of it. Seriously, it's a breath of fresh air seeing something officially part of the Marvel cinematic universe that isn't all about wisecracks and airship showdowns (though that stuff is still cool; Winter Soldier was the bee's knees). It's surprisingly tough and mean and violent, and I'm goddamn serious when I say that it's just as good (for the most part) as I'd always imagined a realistically-handled Daredevil film could be, way back when I first read the Man Without Fear miniseries (recommended read, by the by).
Vincent D'Onofrio was absolutely the greatest choice possible for playing the Kingpin. Just has to be mentioned.

Of course, with all the stuff the series does so, so right, it just makes the stuff it doesn't do right hurt even more.
It sidesteps cheesiness for the majority of the series, but it totally, utterly stumbles in that department in a few cases, such as when

Nobu

dons a bright red fucking ninja costume that looks like he got it down at the Party Barn last Halloween. Good God that was embarrassingly cheesy. And it stood out like a sore thumb, what with everything before it being so grounded and cool.
Likewise, despite really enjoying the episode with Stick, the ending segment with the muscley movie-trailer-voice-guy felt like a bad omen of more cheesiness planned for future seasons.
Not quite as offensive, but the last episode drops into cheesiness a bit too much as well for my tastes. Every shot of Matt "listening to the city" to find out where to go makes him look like a bird, tilting his head all wide-eyed and whatnot. Just looked silly. Like a pigeon. And when he finally dons the red costume at the end, I thought it looked frickin' awesome... until I got a better look at the mask, which looks really dumb. I'd grown really fond of the black mask, being like a damn blindfold and all... it was just plain badass in that regard. I think they should have run with the blindfold idea for his "official" costume, just make it red and add horns. Would have been much better than the silly molded helmet they ended up with. Plus, the last fight had far too much in the way of tilty camera angles; made it look no less silly than the Affleck DD movie.

And I really have to say this: I hate Karen. Hate, hate, hate her.
Fuuuuck, I hate her. So much.
Honestly, they could have kept the writing the same, kept the character the same, I wouldn't have minded all that... they just should have cast someone else. The actress playing her is terrible. Just about one of the most irritating people I've had to put up with in a show in a long damn while, with her constantly-quivering voice like she's always on the verge of tears, the shit-eating grins she gets on her face when she thinks she's being clever (hint: she's never being clever, because she's an idiot), that goddamn whispy ginger mustache she has which shows up under the wrong lighting... and all those fucking moles and shit all over her face.
She's ugly and unappealing and annoying and I hate her.
Seriously, couldn't they have found a better, more appealing actress for one of the most prominent fucking roles in the entire series? It just boggles the mind how horrible the casting calls must have been for them to have eventually settled on her for the role. Got to the point I almost felt like fast-forwarding every time she came on screen.
And worst thing of all?
It just has to be her that

kills Wesley, one of the most interesting characters in the whole show.

That just made me hate her even more.

But all those things aside -- and yes, they are mostly small things when you consider this is like a 13-hour movie I'm talking about -- it was still a really good series. It's stronger near the beginning than it is near the end, but it is a really interesting step for Marvel's cinematic universe. As surprisingly violent as it is, it also strikes me that Netflix would be a great venue for Marvel's more violent properties from here on out. Henry mentioned it before, but a Punisher series in this vein could be absolutely amazing.
Here's hoping.

[St. Elmo's Fire]

^I've heard a bit about that show (Justified) and it sounds like it should be up my street, how gritty/dark and depressing is it? Does it do humour? I will check it out sometime, but I can only watch really "serious" things when I am in the right mindset.

It has its serious moments of course, dealing with criminals and all that. But one of the reasons it became my favorite show over the past few years is precisely because it's very funny in a lot of cases; "depressing" it certainly is not. This definitely ain't Sons of Anarchy. I have trouble getting into overly serious stuff like that myself, unless the mood hits. But I'm almost always in the mood for Justified.
Have you ever heard of Elmore Leonard? He was one of the most prominent crime fiction authors of the past 40 or so years. He wrote the books that movies like Get Shorty, Out of Sight, and Jackie Brown were based on. His overall style is actually one of humor to begin with, usually mixed with a really distinct sense of "cool," lots of character who know what the hell they're doing and all that. Tarantino cites him as one of the greatest influences on his own writing.
Justified was based on a story Leonard wrote called Fire In the Hole; the first episode is an adaptation of it. And the series thereafter has always striven to retain that unique "Elmore Leonard" style; apparently, Elmore Leonard himself felt it was one of the best adaptations of his work that had ever been made, and stayed on as executive producer until he passed away in 2013.
Tonally, you could think of the show as being a mix of the humor and cool of movies like Get Shorty and Jackie Brown, but with a great dose of Southern drawl and swagger.

I think you'd definitely like it.

Yep, you sold it to me with the first paragraph! Watched the first episode and rather enjoyed it, I like how he it is made quite obvious straight away that he is a dangerous person. I'm also a bit of a fan of Walton Goggins so seeing him here playing his slightly typecast usual drawl-y racist character turned up to eleven pleased me straight away as well!

Not read Leonard's books, but did enjoy those films. Will keep watching, just unfortunate I have to stream it from dodgy places since I can't get it on Netflix...

[OL]

It's not on Netflix? That's unexpected.

Well if you like Walton Goggins, you're gonna eat the show up. He has so many fantastic lines of dialogue, so many great scenes. And despite what he seems to be in the first episode, his character keeps evolving into other things, keeping him pretty fresh at all times.
Funny thing, he was supposed to die at the end of the pilot episode, but his character was so popular with test audiences that they kept him around... and as the series goes on, he ends up just as much a protagonist as Raylan is.

One thing to note, if it matters at all, is that the first season-and-a-half is mostly composed of relatively stand-alone episodes ("bad guy of the week," so to speak), but as the series goes on it starts to get more into the habit of entire season-long arcs, as is more common these days. So it does change a little, structurally, but the tone remains about the same.

[Riku Rose]

As surprisingly violent as it is, it also strikes me that Netflix would be a great venue for Marvel's more violent properties from here on out. Henry mentioned it before, but a Punisher series in this vein could be absolutely amazing.
Here's hoping.

Well a Jessica Jones show is coming out this year, then Luke Cage and Iron Fist and then they're doing a team up called The Defenders with the 4 characters. After that it wouldn't surprise me if they thought about doing Punisher or Blade.

I finished episode 7 (Stick) last night and have some questions since unless it was in a movie or TV show I know little about comic books. I always thought Daredevil had powers was because the shit he got in his eyes caused it. Then Stick turns up and acts as if every blind person can do the shit they do as long as they train for it. Are they special in some way or are they just so well trained? If this get's answered just tell me to be patient.

[OL]

That's pretty much it for Stick in this season. He doesn't show up again.
Honestly, I can't remember exactly why Stick is "talented" like Matt... I don't think I ever read that part of the comics. But yeah, Matt has those powers specifically because of the chemicals. Stick's excuse... probably something involving Eastern mysticism or whatever. Not sure.

[IrishNinja]

...think i'm just gonna keep watching Daredevil over & over till Alias drops, shit was soooo gooooood
man i hope Moon Knight gets a shot in wave 2!

[SaM_4000]

Just finished Daredevil.

I just completed the first season myself, I really quite enjoyed it, but I have to agree with your sentiments.

The cheesy moments you mention just made the show a little uneven for me and I felt the last few episodes of the season were a too rushed.
Also, I completely agree with

the pathetic way that Wesley died, who was probably my favourite character in the entire first season.

Vincent D'Onofrio was amazing I had my doubts he could play a convincing Kingpin but he has delivered in what is easily the most important performance of the show.
The fight scenes for the most part were well choreographed apart from

The disappointingly poor Fisk vs. Daredevil climax which I feel was just poorly directed the standards just dropped dramatically for that fight scene

Overall apart form some unevenness with the cheesy/gritty I am really looking forward to the next season, hopefully they learn what worked and focus on that for the next season.

[Raithos]

And I really have to say this: I hate Karen. Hate, hate, hate her.
Fuuuuck, I hate her. So much.
Honestly, they could have kept the writing the same, kept the character the same, I wouldn't have minded all that... they just should have cast someone else. The actress playing her is terrible. Just about one of the most irritating people I've had to put up with in a show in a long damn while, with her constantly-quivering voice like she's always on the verge of tears, the shit-eating grins she gets on her face when she thinks she's being clever (hint: she's never being clever, because she's an idiot), that goddamn whispy ginger mustache she has which shows up under the wrong lighting... and all those fucking moles and shit all over her face.
She's ugly and unappealing and annoying and I hate her.
Seriously, couldn't they have found a better, more appealing actress for one of the most prominent fucking roles in the entire series? It just boggles the mind how horrible the casting calls must have been for them to have eventually settled on her for the role. Got to the point I almost felt like fast-forwarding every time she came on screen.
And worst thing of all?
It just has to be her that

kills Wesley, one of the most interesting characters in the whole show.

That just made me hate her even more.

Wow. That was kind of overboard huh? She's a gorgeous girl, not sure why you think shes so ugly to go as far as you did up there LOL. But I was pissed at what is in the spoiler tag as well, but that has nothing to do with her looks or acting.

[OL]

This is her in the show, as opposed to being done-up with makeup, walking down a red carpet.




Yeah. Gross. Would not bang.
She seriously looks like Charlize Theron's character from the movie Monster in the first picture.
And the second one is the scene where that wispy ginger mustache I mentioned shows up most prominently. Can't see it in the picture here (although the rest of her grossness is apparent anyway) but it's pretty clear on an HD display when watching the show.
But that's not so much the point; yeah, I think she's ugly as hell, but I can easily get over that kind of thing if other factors are present. The major point about her, to me, is that she has absolutely no on-screen charisma. The first time she showed up, I expected her to be a single-episode guest star, because nothing about her suggested the notion of "series regular." She can barely act beyond quivering her voice and making herself cry, and in her "happy" scenes she comes off as someone I would actively avoid in real life. Like I mentioned, the dopey grin she gets when she thinks she's being clever is just unbearable to me. I know people that act that same way, and I hate it with a passion.
She's simply unappealing to me in every way a series-regular actress ought to be appealing, even beyond looks.

The fight scenes for the most part were well choreographed apart from

The disappointingly poor Fisk vs. Daredevil climax which I feel was just poorly directed the standards just dropped dramatically for that fight scene

Totally agree there. It all went by kind of quick, but the main thing that stood out to me was the stupid diving headbutt.
So strange to see a fight like that in the same series as that amazing episode 2 hallway brawl.

[Raithos]

You picked scenes where shes been crying after almost being killed though, she doesn't look like that the entire time. The way you talked about her made me think she reminded you of an ex you hated lol such passion "fuuuuuck I hate her" haha

[OL]

Actually she does remind me a bit of my sister-in-law, who's a complete moron. So there might be something there.
Still, she's either crying or on the verge of it the majority of the time anyway. And when she's not, she still has this air like she might pop at any second. It's that damn quivering voice.
Whatever the case, I still think she's just totally unfit to be playing a love interest character on a Marvel show, of all things. There are thousands of other actresses who would have been much better for the part.
Not like this show is otherwise immune to bad casting though. I think they could have gotten a much better actor for Foggy as well. Any scenes with the two of them alone were easily the worst parts of the show, even beyond the overly-comicbookish, occasional cheesy parts with DD himself.

[Raithos]

Yeah I thought Foggy was pretty bad too. Especially when he tried to act pissed off. I agree about the Foggy/Karen scenes being the worst part of the it all, the bar scene with them acting drunk had me rolling lol. I think they learned alot with this season and hopefully improve with Season 2. I'm looking forward to it.

[Kenny]

Can't wait to finish Daredevil so I can bitch about things that bothered me too.

Like the fact Matt Murdock is supposed to be blind but HE DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING ACT THE PART. Seriously, Ben Affleck got that shit right at least.