Sometimes, somebody at the network wants to cancel a show for some reason, but the show is "too successful" to cancel without cause. So they do everything they can to make the show's ratings go down, such as intentionally switching around the timeslot to something worse, cutting the budget, doing less publicity, etc. Then once the ratings go down due to said sabotage, they have an excuse to cancel it.

I have heard this story told many times about many shows. But how many of these are actually malicious decisions and how many are due to incompetence? What examples do we have where it is confirmed that a show was intentionally sabotaged by people who wanted an excuse to cancel them?

I just did a rewatch of The Last of Us. It is by far one of the best series with an incredible captivating pacing.

A lot of shows are either slow and building characters for 4 episodes of an hour or going direct into action without us really why the characters do things.

TLOU has mastered this majesticly, every episode the story advances, has it own arc, and then gets together perfectly at the end of the season.

I hope they can do the same for the second season, even though it as adaption of a game, they did great work with getting everything fitted in episodes. Recommend this 10/10!

I caught it when it premiered a few months ago. It was surprisingly good and nice to get such a focus on the culture of the time in 70s Atlanta.

Excellent performances from Don Cheadle and Taraji P. Henson. Heck even Kevin Hart too. Who knew he could play someone other than himself.

Been out of the episodic TV game for awhile now.

What would you say are the best Procedurals on the last 5-ish years?

From maybe the 70's to the early-00's, TV movies were a regular staple: Wether stories by big authors like Stephen King, Based-on-a-True Story dramas, or just casual movies-of-the-week, there seemed to always be something decent you could often catch.

Anyone have any good memories?

Had an entire month free before starting a new job. And wanted to see how much of Tv and movies I could consume in a month. I've ended the month with 20 movies, 18 TV shows and 4 Stand-up specials. Just felt like sharing with you guys.

Here's the list:

Movies -

• The trial of the Chicago 7
• Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
• Seeking a friend for the end of the world
• Better Man
• Source Code
• Chips
• Official Secrets
• Blackkklansman
• Don't think twice
• The House
• A Real Pain
• The next three days
• Ace Ventura Pet Detective
• I used to be famous
• Emilia Perez
• The half of it
• The day after tomorrow
• Juror #2
• Sonic The Hedgehog 3
• It's a Wonderful Life

TV -

• The Squid Game S2
• Nobody wants this
• Bodies (2023)
• The Diplomat
• Clickbait
• Treason
• Loudermilk
• Back to life
• Fisk
• Dear Child
• Flaked
• Teenage Bounty Hunters
• Tires
• The Fall
• The Night Agent S2
• Space Force
• Ozark
• The Recruit S2

Stand-up specials -

• Bones and All - Anthony Jeselnik
• Baby J - John Mulaney
• Beautiful Dogs - Shane Gillis
• Hot cross buns - Dave Attell

PS - The list is in the order I've watched these. Not rankings.

With the return of Joe Schmo, I decided to rewatch Jury Duty. In the reveal, the judge tells Ronald he has a "non-optimally designed heart." Why non-optimal? The judge complimented him and said he was letting people in with his heart. It seems optimal to me. Any ideas why he phrased it that way?

Okay okay, it was great for 2 seasons, then season 3 was so and so and I can barely remember season 4. But that aside it was pretty cool and entertaining. The cast was pretty solid, the fight stunts very good as far as network tv was concerned. It had the right amount of shadow government intrigue and Maggie Q kicking ass.

According to a former Fox executive, Adult Swim got the rights for the show extremely cheap in 2003, as no other stations wanted it. Why was that? You'd think at least FX (owned by Fox at the time) would have carried it.

On the last episode of Bookie, season 2 called "A Whale in Pomona", there was a scene at the end that I didn't understand and was hoping somebody can explain it to me. At the end of the episode, when Danny and Ray were dining at Musso and Frank, they were joined by Mickey and Lou. Danny asked them what they were doing there and reminded them that they were under the protection of Nick and then Mickey stated something about Carl driving off a cliff but I didn't understand what they meant or were implying. Carl is the cop next door to Danny, right? Can somebody explain what I missed?

I finished s4 of Dexter around a month ago I really really love the show but I was told it gets bad after s4 is this just overly negative or true? I was told prison break gets bad after season 1 but I enjoyed s2 just as much. sooo.. not sure who to trust here.

Short-lived comedy drama about undercover agents/spies. Created by David Hemingson who also wrote The Holdovers. Executive produced by Bill Lawrence.

Still uses ABC's episode order unless you want to follow the correct order here.

I don't like many sitcoms these days but as a huge sci-fi and Trek fan I really enjoyed Avenue 5. The premise of a posh space cruise is LOL 10/10, the cast is chefs kiss - Hugh Laurie and his accents, Zach Woods, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ethan Phillips (from ST Voyager) just to name a few, the billionaire aspect, the absurdity of it all of it was just great. Curious to know who else loved this show, esp. other trekkers and sf aficionados?

I was just wondering about other people's thoughts on season 2 premiere of The Recruit.

I really liked season 1 and was kinda disappointed when I saw the trailer for season 2 release and how it focused mainly on South Korea. There was barely any reference to how season 1 ended with the russian daughter and not showing his roommate, so I was worried they were just going to drop the plot and be focused in one location only. I ended up enjoying season 2 a lot though. I am glad they didn't step away from the theme of him having to fly everywhere and like how they tied in both the russian daughter and his roommate to the South Korea plot in their own ways. I also enjoyed seeing the main character get more confident with "experience" (4-6 weeks on the job by the end lol) after all these events and some effort of trying to improve his selfishness and recklessness a bit.

I was just a bit disappointed it was only six episodes after the long wait and at least expected them to show the fallout of the events of the last episode and if they didn't at least add two more episodes in between. But I did like how it picked straight off from last season with seeing the fallout so maybe I can't complain.

His verification photo: https://i.imgur.com/3VyLI4d.jpeg

The AMA is live here now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1ieoc9a/hello_rmovies_were_alexi_pappas_jeremy_teicher/

Please stop by if you have any question at all :)

I was planning to watch BCS for long given all the hype and how one of my friends said "it was as good as BB or even better perhaps". I finished watching it a couple of days ago. Since then I've given it a lot of thought and have tried to look at it from different angles and here's my conclusion:

Not just the finale, but the series itself overall is pretty disappointing. I do not want to discuss the points that have already been discussed to length, like rushed finale, too slow a pace of the first seasons etc. But here's why I think when you look at the overall impact this series tries to make on your mind and fails:

Saul's whole backstory: We loved Saul's character in BB, because of his witty nature, humourous dialogues and resouefullness. Hardly ever you see this character come to surface in BCS. I think these aspects are soul of his character in BB, and they have just sucked it out of him in BCS, and turned him into a love-sick, con-man. You want to show the character arc and develop the characters as the plot evolves? Go for it. But the issue is in none of the scenes, I felt like Bob Odenkirk was able to pull off the Saul-like charisma that he had in BB, in BCS. I am NOT saying that his acting is poor, but as a protganist, he doesn't stand out in a way he did even as a side character in BB.

It still puzzles me what was the whole point of showing the weird electricity allergy for Chuck, it looked like just a plot convinience that they contrived for them to keep Chuck out of the main picture and this whole development that they have shown with it's culmination in that court trial, doesn't leave the audience engaged or captivated at all.

They have tried to show this unknown side of Saul, as a person who once was good at heart, who at worst was a harmless con-man at the beginning and how he slowly lost his soul as the series progresses. But again, why? We know that "criminal" lawyers are a real thing in today's world. The lawyers that they have shown in the series are merely money grabbers, elite douchbags at best and they hardly show any lawyer in the poor or evil light. So much for realism!

The amount of time they have spent on sub-plots like Mesa-verde and Kim's interaction with them, Kim's accident and it's aftermath, Kim's pro-bono cases; it felt like she is being shoehorned into this whole story as they wanted her to be one of central charcters in the show.

They had started with Lalo's character really well, they introduced him nicely to the audience, but his later development, the way they ended him (as they had to, given that he couldn't have been a part of any later happenings in BB) was also disappointing.

For me, Mike and his storyline was the standout of the whole series, his backstory was shortly explained but was way more interesting and relevant to the plot. How did he come in contact with Gus and his side missions- both were interesting to watch. At some points it also felt like Jimmy and Kim's boring storyline was in the backdrop and was intervening and cutting off Mike's smooth storyline.

The death of Howard at the first watch definately had left me confounded and disturbed. But when I thought about the reason why he turned up that night at their place (and the odds of Lalo appearing at that place exactly at that time!), I realised it was merely a plot device that they come up with in order to shock and awe the audience. The amount of planning that goes in and hoops that Kim and Jimmy go through in order to do the character assassination of Howard, seemed far streched and far fetched too. "Why are they going after Howard and taking so much pain in building this goofy case against him" was the question I had at the back of my mind the whole time I watched it. They wanted HHM to settle the case and just give the money back to old folks and Jimmy? Well, they could certainly have done that than messing up Howard's image in everyone's mind, considering esp how they portray Kim being all about justice and being a 'good' lawyer.

Kim's final encounter with Jimmy before the divorce and the reason "We hurt people around us, together we are destructive" that she gave did not feel impactful at all. In my opinion, they hardly had any chemistry and that was the root of how detached and upto some extent cringeworthy that whole scene felt.

Gene's story and his escapades have been discussed by the others in detail and I agree that they seem pointless in the context of the whole plot.

The only reason this spin off exists is how good and beautifuly BB portrayed it's side charcters. It remains true for the most charcters in BCS, except for its protagonist.

The entire time I was watching the series, I was looking forward for some interesting thing to happen, for some brilliant plot twist, something that is happening with regards to Jimmy that will keep me engaged, but alas, that never happened. A point must be kept in mind that this was a spinoff and many of the charcters that were of interest were from the BB universe, I hardly felt connected to any of the charcters introduced in BCS.

And yeah, increasing your sentence to 86 years from 7 years, deliberately- to show Kim that he's truly changed, to face the consequences of his actions or else- whatever the reason may be, it's just dumb. Of all the people, Saul knows how much the prison sucks. They just wanted to show him in this larger than life, sacrificial light- which in my opinion fails at the end. For me, his story begins when Mr, Mayhew comes to visit him and ends when he goes into obscurity, successfully cheating and manipulating the law. I think it is okay to leave the character as is, and not to explain everything or try to knot the lose ends.

I am looking forward to reading any good counterpoints in the comments. But if your comment is going to be 'how I missed the point' or 'how I just don't get it ', then don't bother posting any, as I don't wish to engage with the fanboys.

I was planning to watch BCS for long given all the hype and how one of my friends said "it was as good as BB or even better perhaps". I finished watching it a couple of days ago. Since then I've given it a lot of thought and have tried to look at it from different angles and here's my conclusion:

Not just the finale, but the series itself overall is pretty disappointing. I do not want to discuss the points that have already been discussed to length, like rushed finale, too slow a pace of the first seasons etc. But here's why I think when you look at the overall impact this series tries to make on your mind and fails:

Saul's whole backstory: We loved Saul's character in BB, because of his witty nature, humourous dialogues and resouefullness. Hardly ever you see this character come to surface in BCS. I think these aspects are soul of his character in BB, and they have just sucked it out of him in BCS, and turned him into a love-sick, con-man. You want to show the character arc and develop the characters as the plot evolves? Go for it. But the issue is in none of the scenes, I felt like Bob Odenkirk was able to pull off the Saul-like charisma that he had in BB, in BCS. I am NOT saying that his acting is poor, but as a protganist, he doesn't stand out in a way he did even as a side character in BB.

It still puzzles me what was the whole point of showing the weird electricity allergy for Chuck, it looked like just a plot convinience that they contrived for them to keep Chuck out of the main picture and this whole development that they have shown with it's culmination in that court trial, doesn't leave the audience engaged or captivated at all.

They have tried to show this unknown side of Saul, as a person who once was good at heart, who at worst was a harmless con-man at the beginning and how he slowly lost his soul as the series progresses. But again, why? We know that "criminal" lawyers are a real thing in today's world. The lawyers that they have shown in the series are merely money grabbers, elite douchbags at best and they hardly show any lawyer in the poor or evil light. So much for realism!

The amount of time they have spent on sub-plots like Mesa-verde and Kim's interaction with them, Kim's accident and it's aftermath, Kim's pro-bono cases; it felt like she is being shoehorned into this whole story as they wanted her to be one of central charcters in the show.

They had started with Lalo's character really well, they introduced him nicely to the audience, but his later development, the way they ended him (as they had to, given that he couldn't have been a part of any later happenings in BB) was also disappointing.

For me, Mike and his storyline was the standout of the whole series, his backstory was shortly explained but was way more interesting and relevant to the plot. How did he come in contact with Gus and his side missions- both were interesting to watch. At some points it also felt like Jimmy and Kim's boring storyline was in the backdrop and was intervening and cutting off Mike's smooth storyline.

The death of Howard at the first watch definately had left me confounded and disturbed. But when I thought about the reason why he turned up that night at their place (and the odds of Lalo appearing at that place exactly at that time!), I realised it was merely a plot device that they come up with in order to shock and awe the audience. The amount of planning that goes in and hoops that Kim and Jimmy go through in order to do the character assassination of Howard, seemed far streched and far fetched too. "Why are they going after Howard and taking so much pain in building this goofy case against him" was the question I had at the back of my mind the whole time I watched it. They wanted HHM to settle the case and just give the money back to old folks and Jimmy? Well, they could certainly have done that than messing up Howard's image in everyone's mind, considering esp how they portray Kim being all about justice and being a 'good' lawyer.

Kim's final encounter with Jimmy before the divorce and the reason "We hurt people around us, together we are destructive" that she gave did not feel impactful at all. In my opinion, they hardly had any chemistry and that was the root of how detached and upto some extent cringeworthy that whole scene felt.

Gene's story and his escapades have been discussed by the others in detail and I agree that they seem pointless in the context of the whole plot.

The only reason this spin off exists is how good and beautifuly BB portrayed it's side charcters. It remains true for the most charcters in BCS, except for its protagonist.

The entire time I was watching the series, I was looking forward for some interesting thing to happen, for some brilliant plot twist, something that is happening with regards to Jimmy that will keep me engaged, but alas, that never happened. A point must be kept in mind that this was a spinoff and many of the charcters that were of interest were from the BB universe, I hardly felt connected to any of the charcters introduced in BCS.

And yeah, increasing your sentence to 86 years from 7 years, deliberately- to show Kim that he's truly changed, to face the consequences of his actions or else- whatever the reason may be, it's just dumb. Of all the people, Saul knows how much the prison sucks. They just wanted to show him in this larger than life, sacrificial light- which in my opinion fails at the end. For me, his story begins when Mr, Mayhew comes to visit him and ends when he goes into obscurity, successfully cheating and manipulating the law. I think it is okay to leave the character as is, and not to explain everything or try to knot the lose ends.

I am looking forward to reading any good counterpoints in the comments. But if your comment is going to be 'how I missed the point' or 'how I just don't get it ', then don't bother posting any, as I don't wish to engage with the fanboys.

She did some of the best acting I’ve ever seen while playing Helena pretending to be Helly. She does a great fuckin job of playing the 2 different versions but this was so much more difficult and subtle. Just amazing stuff. This show is stupidly good, every aspect is a 10/10 and I am a tough audience.