tv topic

Anyone have any suggestions for tv dramas that work as podcasts? Like stuff u can turn on as white noise while u work on ranfom stuff, but its still good--not too visually interesting. I was going thru surviving r kelly but honestly it was kind of all over the place so i dropped it. Mindhunter was another good example
 
Update: the adaptation of His Dark Materials is not very good imo.
  • It boils down all of the nuance into a series of plot points all while trying desparately to reach the next #BigMoment before the end of the end of the episode. Infact, I'd be very shocked if we've not reached Bolvangar by the end of episode 3--this is the mark of truly terrible pacing.
    • The writing team is taking absolutely no time at all to linger on any of the details are actually important to Lyra's character arc. This is a big deal because the book makes such a massive point of holding back a little to help both with world-building and to help expand out Lyra's motives and character, as well as to help lay breadcrums for the reader before making big reveals at critical moments, and the result of the adaptation's approach is something which is largely very shallow and lacking in intrigue.
  • It reduces the books 10/10 characters (namely Lyra and Mrs Coulter) into boring, largely two-dimensional bollocks that is seemingly designed to serve a plot function rather than to be actual characters.
  • All of the subtext from the books is told straight to your face, often far earlier than is necessary or even sensible.
While I understand that an adaptation needs to make changes due to the difference in format, this has been so shockingly poorly managed so far.

That said, it does seem to manage thriller aspects fairly well; I found myself shrinking into the back of the sofa once or twice in episode two. The storyboarding/camerawork seems to be generally very good, the actors are doing a very good job despite the very, very bad character adaptation, and its opening sequence full of striking imagery and is all around very good (quite the shocker, considering how remarkably crap the vast majority of BBC drama openings are).

Verdict: it's OK if you don't have any experience with the books, but coming from the source material it's honestly very lacking. I feel like this series is just doomed to never have a good adaptation, which is a shame because the books are honestly some of the best ever written. I'll watch to the end, but I'm very disappointed so far.
 
i've been watching The Circle which is an insane british reality competition. Its sort of like big brother except everyone is sequestered away in their own rooms and none of them can ever meet face to face. Their only contact with eachother is through a social media program called the circle. Basically everything is done through text chat with the occasional photo, so you can completely lie about who you are. Its really psycho and its all on youtube.
 
Just finished Giri/Haji and it’s probably the best TV drama I’ve seen in a long time. Superbly directed, amazing characterisation+acting, and utterly gripping from start to finish. It’s honestly really refreshing to see a live action TV production put so much attention into its visual presentation—storyboards were carefully designed to extract the maximum amount of meaning and to leave the most potent impact in the most important scenes, and neat directorial flourishes largely replaced the tired presentational tropes common to British crime drama—and it seemed to pull all the best bits of Japanese storytelling, American gangster films and British crime dramas into one concise, well assembled package. Strongly recommend it—it’s currently streaming on BBC iPlayer, and it will be on Netflix for the rest of the world in early 2020.
 
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