Anybody watch this new Future Man on Hulu? I'm enjoying it.

Finished Breaking Bad this morning. I prefer the end of Season 4 as the closure point, Season 5 seemed like it was trying to cram too much in during the last half of the season and came off as rushed (to me). Still very good.

Breaking Bad is one of my absolute favorite shows ever that I've seen, maybe even number one. You're probably right about it being rushed toward the end, but I was so immersed in the show that I didn't really notice at the time.

Hey Wookie, heard this was a great satire of constitutionalism, can I borrow your copy?

Sure. I'll loan you God's Not Dead as well.

Oh my god, this is glorious

does franklin bang any hooers

So I got through The Punisher. They went in many surprising directions and I quite enjoyed it. Watched the first episode of Black Mirror. That seems like it's going to be a rough show to get through and will definitely have to be an away-from-the-kid show.

Without resurrecting my Anything Movies thread, a few weeks ago we caught Thor in the theater. I feel that it was too funny too often but still a good film. Anyway, it was showing on one of the smaller screens and I thought it was weird that they asked me to choose our seats. Well, the theater has installed premium seats throughout now, power reclining, really nice, and it was a very nice experience. Unfortunately for the theater it inspired the counter effect in me.

I had a decent home theater setup for quite some time but it's old and when we moved a few years ago I really didn't want to set all of the speakers up in the living room so the old system is set up in the garage and the best I've had in the living room for the longest has been a TV with a soundbar. Those days are gone.

I saw a nice Yamaha receiver as an Amazon Deal of the Day a couple weeks ago and paired that with some inexpensive ($150) Yamaha 5.1 speakers. I found a very nice rack at Overstock.com. I did my best to conceal the speaker wires by tacking them right at the ceiling line. I may cover them with crown molding later or even run them through the walls and attic.

I resisted the notion of wall mounting a television for the longest time. The floorplan of our living room, however, really makes over the fireplace the best location. The mantle is quite high, though, and of course I opted to fit the largest TV I could above it. I received a 75" Samsung from Amazon yesterday and had it mounted before my wife got home from work. We christened it with Lego Batman Movie. Well, they did. I had to run to Home Depot to wrap up a plumbing repair I was working on as well.

The project came out really well. It's about 95% right now. I'm going to have to move the center and front speakers but I'll probably do that in a couple weeks or so. I also need to figure out how to really use these new devices and get them optimally setup. Today I mounted the replaced 55" above the PC I recently purchased in the room that I'm optimistically starting to refer to as The Gym.

I've been enjoying Future Man. Discuss.

Just watched "Hang The DJ" (Black Mirror season 4, episode 4). Usually I like this show, but picking the most highly rated episode of season 4, I was mostly bored, confused, and then disappointed. I heard that "Crocodile" (episode 3) is much truer to the ethos of the show, so maybe I'll try that next.

I probably shouldn't pay too much to IMDB scores, since there have been too many times that something that seems to be almost universally liked ends up being off in some way. For example, there's an episode of South Park which has an unusually high rating, but seemingly only because of its World of Warcraft based plot.

What if your microwave shared your birthday?

- Black Mirror writers, probably

I can't stand that show. I watch it anyway, because I feel as if I have to. But I usually don't finish a season before the next one airs. It's too damn heavy and depressing for me.

I don't mind it being heavy, in fact I find that to be one of its selling points when its convincing. But this episode was just tacky and un-depressing in a super corny way. Pretty uncharacteristic of the show.

Actually, I thought the first two seasons were best, before Netflix bought it. Seems to have had a bigger budget but less edge / intelligence since then

What if your calculator knew your name?

What if the characters in a TV show episode were part of a simulation, told you so 15 minutes in?

About as offensive to viewers who make an effort to invest in the characters as Mulholland Dr., just before David Lynch slapped them in the face in the second half.

Lol, does that really happen in an episode of black mirror?

I don't want to spoil too much, but it's the kind of thing that begins to look like self-parody.

I am looking forward to watching more of season 4, but I think in some ways the show has lost its hard hitting edge the bigger its budget and audience gets. For classic, heady episodes, look at "Fifteen Million Merits" from the first season, "The Waldo Moment" from the second, as well as the Christmas special ("White Christmas").

i watched stranger things season 1 last week. i enjoyed it, but i've heard season 2 is meh, so i don't know whether to watch it or not

lmao MD is transcendent art and you are a cuck for being offended

I gotcha. Maybe in this next week I'll finish up season 1, I have nothing else to do

But yeah, sometimes more budget doesn't help a show. It can even hurt, because in some cases limited budget results in really creative scenes.



Season 2 isn't awful, but it's definitely not as compelling as season 1.

IMO they screwed up a bit with the direction of the show. Season 2 will all be about the upside down again, with the same characters, so it doesn't have the same spooky edge to it. They should have instead written unique events for each new season of the show, like Twilight Zone but for seasons instead.

Mulholland Drive is tolerable because it was one movie directed by a guy who you'd expect to make a movie like Mulholland Drive. As well, it executed the things it was going for well.

It transcended right over my head because I am a square who is easily tricked by deliberate attempts to mislead me about what the movie is about and then leaving no clear interpretation after it's over.

That said, for those who want to be misled, confused, sexually aroused, and then left feeling further confused / cheated, I can't think of a better way to spend two hours of an evening.

And as much as I felt violated, I admit that I enjoyed every bit of it. I even took some satisfaction at witnessing myself having been so completely punked.

Just watched "Crocodile" from season 4 of Black Mirror. Total trash. Predictable and unnecessarily disturbing the whole way through. Man this show sucks now.

Outrageous!

that's a hot and spicy take, my dude

I read that the first episode of season 4 is much better, but it supposedly is a take on Star Trek that makes fun of nerds. I will not stand for that!

The Star Trek episode was good. So was the one with the evil museum. The dating app and babysitter implant episode were OK. The other two were junk.

I started re-watching Psych with my wife, as she never saw them. They're all on Amazon. I forgot how much I liked Shawn and Gus. They are my bros.

Started watching Black Mirror, had only seen the odd episode when it was still on Channel 4.

I liked the dating app one, I think the whole point of a slightly fluffier one was that the episode before was that bleak.

I don't get the complaints about the fluffier episodes. Yes, in general the show is very bleak, but it sure would be a bit repetitive if the tone of every episode was 'this is the worst, things are going to be even worse than you think.' In Hang the DJ (dating app episode) there's still plenty of 'boy the future could get dark' stuff to mull over, even if the actual plot is structured to feel like a triumph. Even if the app is successful, is that how we want romance to function in the future? And, similarly to many other episodes, if the simulations are comprised of true sentient replicas of the real human app users, isn't there something inhumane or disturbing about running them through this treadmill 1,000 times?

Those are interesting things to think about, and I'm happy to think about them while watching an episode that's tonally lighter. San Junipero is one of the best episodes of the whole show so far, and it worked in the same way.

Black Mirror is great.

I loved San Junipero.

In retrospect I was probably harsh on the dating app episode. But I have a hard time empathizing with a protagonist who turns out to be a computer program.

Also, isn't "terminating" the app tantamount to genocide? Edit: OK this was a dumb thing to say. I probably shouldn't feel any worse about the untimely death of the computer simulation version of the couple than I should lament the fate of the Woody Allen's sperm character in "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex but We're Afraid to Ask".

Well not genocide, but mass murder, maybe? That's basically what I was saying. But if you have a hard time empathizing with a protagonist who turns out to be a computer program, surely you don't think terminating the app is murder?

Not to get too far afield, but when you watch these episodes (or engage in any other way with the idea of simulating human beings to an approaching-perfect degree of fidelity) do you think the code-people are people?

Haha see my edit, I'm a goof.

I think the weirdness was partially the result of never having met the real version of the couple in the first place.

Hmm.

I definitely felt bad for the character in White Christmas. I forget what his crime was, but the ending just felt sadistic.

So I guess you could say that on balance I conflicted / confused about my feelings toward computer simulations of people.:P

Now I'm wondering how bad I should feel about the various red shirts biting the dust in Star Trek over the years.

Anybody watch Altered Carbon on Netflix? It's dark AF, but pretty good. It has an interesting premise, and it's sort of an action-detective show. Don't watch it if you're opposed to tons of bad language, boobies, or being confused about everything for two or three episodes. It took me about two full episodes before I caught on and started figuring out how everything worked. The characters use some show-specific terms and slang that isn't directly explained in the show and you kind of have to figure it out as you watch.

I've got a couple episodes left of Altered Carbon. It's fine, but the things they've changed from the book are basically all either worse, or less interesting. I guess the good thing is that if anyone watches the show and it piques their interest in the book, they'll be in for a richer, deeper experience.

I never took you for a "the book is better" kind of gal, sab.

>:3 If it is, it is.

I guess this fits.