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Best TV shows you are watching


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Don't know why, but I just started watching The Wire. I saw the pilot some time ago and couldn't quite remove the memory of Hornblower while watching the McNulty character. Some time later, trying again, I really like it. Several really interesting characters that won't end their evolvement till the final season, I hope.

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I liked twin peaks, seinfeld and 24.. I'll watch criminal minds and some law&order on the tv at times too. Otherwise it's sports and WWE :D

 

I watched true detective and found it to be a ripoff of an author that I read in the past, whose name escapes me..

Otherwise the serial killer plot was ludicrous and an overblown procedural.

 

My sister keeps going on about Mr Robot - I guess i'll have to check it out, but I have a continuing detest for Christian Slater

Edited by Robert Glenn
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Yup, I'd have to go with Penny Dreadful being the most lush and visually compelling program I've seen on TV in a long while. I enjoyed the stories in the first season a lot more but, photographically, it's been very interesting all along. I recommend at least giving it a viewing.

 

Phil wrote the feature article on Penny Dreadful in the July issue of AC. Check it out. Very refreshing to see just how much quality John Logan insists on having in every aspect of every episode. It's most evident in the cinematography and costume & production designs.

 

Mr. Logan is very very detailed and he wants it to look like a movie!

They brought top notch crew to do the show from both places, Ireland and UK and the passion that they had for their jobs is a reflection of what we see on the screen I think! :)

 

I read the article when it was published, very nice one Phil! :)

 

Have a good day.

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Have to put my hand up for Kingdom, the show centred around the gym of cage fighters at Venice Beach CA.

 

The intro for Kingdom has probably displaced that of Entourage as the most fun intro ever, and sets you up well for the quite novel feeling, gritty (grainy almost) characters. Anyone else onto that?

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The intro for Kingdom has probably displaced that of Entourage as the most fun intro ever, and sets you up well for the quite novel feeling, gritty (grainy almost) characters. Anyone else onto that?

 

When it comes to grittiness, you have to go pretty far and wide to beat the original opening to Homicide: Life on the Street.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX7ALBb4MSc (a very low-res version, but it's the only one I could find.)

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We all have our favourites. I blinked for a decade or two and didn't watch that show at all. Just now I opened the pilot for a quick look to catch up.

 

I binge watched Southland a while ago. The intro for that I found "gritty", I mean there's a hard viscerial impact. Actually I often would skip it because of that, too hard to watch.

 

The fabulous intro to Entourage. So much fun, so much to like...

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gomorrah!!!!

 

one of the best grity dark colorfull camera work i ever saw!

 

 

Very impressive! I didn't know they'd made a series out of that. I recommend the film, not only for cinematography, but for content. It's probably the most realistic Mafia film ever made, due in large part to the fact that the author of the book actually infiltrated the Camorra so that he could accurately depict its inner workings. Last I heard, there was a huge price on his head. I often wondered if Scorsese - an executive producer on the film - hesitated in attaching himself to that project.

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I watch almost no television, and what I do see is generally current affairs or documentary. I did notice that Nigella Lawson cookery show recently, which I guess is strictly a documentary, but it's also more or less a lifestyle magazine.

 

I wonder, has anyone seen anything particularly nice on YouTube? A lot of people are now churning out web series, but so far I've not seen anything that doesn't look like it was shot for $1.

 

P

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Started watching 'Jane the Virgin' on Netflix recently and was happily surprised to see how nicely lit it was. I have been shooting an ensemble comedy webseries and thus working in mostly high-key, low-contrast scenarios. I almost forgot how good it can look when you work with high footcandle levels and stop down (or ND down) for contrast, it's very much against the stylistic grain these days.

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Following Miguel's enthusiasm, I watched e01,2,3 of Zero. It feels like a nicely crafted show, though a little hard edged in its look. The boy almost looks CGI.

 

But mostly, provocative, thinky...like this....Those almost well thunked in physics, and perhaps physics buffs, will want to call it "Slightly Less Than Zero". Loose objects are slowly accelerating away from the huge proximate mass of the earth, while the gravity bound humans watch. History tells us of occassional events where humans do defy gravity, fly. An old English paper clipping reads "Boy Eats Angel Food Cake and Flies.."

 

And hey, in e03, he does. No cake in evidence.

 

Some nicely expressed visual concepts in this show, though of a very literal kind. In comparrison, Lost, though brave with the abstract concepts (physics), was quite mingy in it's expressiveness.

 

Is this just the inevitable march of the over-literal into contemporary moving pictures

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Just caught up with Peaky Blinders - some nice camerawork and great performances Sam Neil and Tom Hardy particularly.

 

I really enjoyed Mr Robot - I can see how the visual style could be a bit annoying, but I like how they picked a visual style and ran with it. TV can be a bit visually safe at times.

 

Utopia SE 1 is great (not seen second yet) - I love how they managed to get away with shooting 2.39:1 - must be a tough sell to the broadcaster. Although Channel 4 have done widescreen before in the form of great Top Boy. Other broadcasters are panning and scanning movies to 16:9 - so its great that some channels allow letter boxing especially on commissions.

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"Gotham" and "Master of None" (Aziz Ansari) have gotten my attention recently. Both beautifully shot, Gotham more so.

 

Gotham has so many great people behind it. Everyone seems to give it their all including their cinematographer who I am amazed can pull off such a consistently beautiful look on such a lengthy series at 22, 40 minute episodes in the first season.

 

Master of None has a very interesting look reminiscent of Louie. Very still life and natural which you don't actually experience too often I feel.

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