With the very final episode of BCS (no spoilers, Dai!) having just finished airing an hour or so ago, what’s the new Must Watch TV series going to be?
My money is on The Boys on Amazon Prime – A brilliant and blackly comic satire on what life might be like if the world was run by “supes” (or superheroes as us plebs might say). If you’ve not seen it, give it a go it’s well worth a look
Now heading into its fourth incredibly gory series, this looks as it’s got a good few more years in the tank.
Offspring The Younger (nearly 17) is currently bingeing on The Boys and enjoying it greatly.
Mrs F and I have started on series 2 of Superman and Lois. A married couple living in the sticks with two truculent teens, the only difference being my hidden strength is extreme dullness.
I am torn about The Sandman. Great reviews, but I absolutely love the comics to bits and am a bit fearful it’ll displace my Dave Mckean memories.
I had exactly the same fears, but I’ve watched the first two episodes and I’ll say this: it’s probably as good a Sandman adaptation as we’re ever likely to get, and the lead actor has knocked it out the park.
It still doesn’t quite capture the look and feel of the original. It’s a little too glossy, a little too straight and insufficiently gothic. Plus, they really should have found a way of incorporating some of that Dave McKean imagery, because it was such a calling card for the series.
No idea where the quality will go over the rest of the series, and I’m super apprehensive about all the many ways they might get Death wrong. It has brought back some very happy memories though, and left me looking forward to pulling out my three quarter length jackets this Autumn and stalking around the place all dark and interesting.
It also made me appreciate anew how insane it is that Gaiman ever got this thing off the ground. Just incredible work.
They absolutely do not get Death wrong. She’s fabulous.
I am a Sandman fan from way, way back, got onboard during the very early days of the comic, had a complete run of the original issues, had the same Endless poster that Darlene did in Roseanne, etc etc and this adaptation is way beyond my wildest dreams of how it could transfer. So much is taken directly from the comics, down to whole swathes of dialogue used verbatim. We are miles past the days of Keanu Reeves playing John Constantine.
In fact, old JC is a good barometer for this series, one fairly obvious rights-driven alteration apart. When they turn up in episode 3, it’s an absolute feast for Hellblazer fans with a side adaptation of the Newcastle incident plus namechecks for Kit and Chas, all of which illustrates the strength of this adaptation so far – it’s made by people who clearly have a lot of love and respect for the original and the world it came from. And they don’t pronounce that surname Constanteen. There is the odd wobble, but in the big scheme of things they’re inconsequential.
We just need to hope it stays funded long enough to tell the whole story. Seeing The Kindly Ones and The Wake produced to this level will be wonderful.
oh, and Dave McKean does the end credits, @moseleymoles. Very different style to his covers, but it’s him.
You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that, KD – especially coming from you.
Through sheer dumb luck, I inherited a complete run of The Sandman in my teens. One of my father’s dissolute uni mates came to visit (uninvited and much to his consternation) and laid upon me a box of comics containing preposterous gems – not just the aforementioned Sandman, but a full run of The Elementals, Bill Willingham’s seminal superhero book. What a weekend that was.
I had a poster of Death on my wall for most of the remaining years I spent at home. She’s such an amazing character, and it felt like an appropriate riposte to the notion of the teenage pin up.
I’ll continue with my viewing, happy in the knowledge that they did not fuck this one up.
watched episode 7 last night, and I have to say I’m a little hmmmm about the casting of Gilbert. On one hand, it’s perfect, on the other it’s a little too on the nose. But not as on the nose as him saying he’d been reading Chesterton…
Watchmen very carefully and deliberately plays with the comic book form. It’s hyper-focused on panel and image composition and showcasing the potential of sequential narrative art.
Sandman, to take but one counter-example, is an absolutely brilliant piece of writing, with artwork and covers that fit and enhance it beautifully, but it isn’t as immediately concerned with the form itself.
Hence the Citizen Kane comparison. In the same way that Kane pushed the form and encouraged other auteurs to experiment with a greater range of shots and editing techniques, Watchmen laid down the gauntlet as to what could be done in a comic book, given sufficient care.
By way of example, here’s a really good article analysing Watchmen issue 5, “Fearful Symmetry”, which famously has a mirrored composition – each panel of the book has a twin with the central pages as the origin point.
https://medium.com/@pedrovribeiro/fearful-symmetry-almost-frame-by-frame-9a20c77651bd
Watchmen is sometimes misunderstood as “just” the comic which introduced/popularised the concept of a realist approach to superheroes (with all the tangled legacy that entails), when it’s actually so much more. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons absolutely killed it with that book. The sheer love and care that went into it is extraordinary, and I still find new things in it on every return.
Whoops – this is a response to MC Escher’s question below. No idea how it ended up here.
Thanks Bing. What a great link.
wrong place or not, it’s still staggering
Slow start, Builds up momentum in the middle and falls off the cliff by going all kiddy in the end. Charles Dance and David Thewlis are both terrific though
The Sound of her Wings is marvellous – both parts.
David Thewlis is brilliant.
And I want a JC JC TV series.
Moseley/Bingo/Kid, you seem quite familiar with your classic comics. Can I ask a question that’s off topic?
What did you think of the Watchmen series last year? (Or maybe it was the year before).
I am a huge fan of the original Watchmen comic. And for about… oooh… nine tenths of this series I thought it was an intelligent sequel that matched the tone and feel of the comic perfectly (much, much more so than the woeful movie). But I think it all fell apart in the last episode or so, and actually undermined the more nuanced ending of the comic, where the question of who the actual villain is and whether they have got their comeuppance is a moral philosophical issue.
It was something I thought I would never watch, but there was enough positive chatter about it that I gave in, albeit with very low expectations. And I ended up thinking it was really good, and did a very clever job of playing with the themes and structures of the original, ending up somewhere between a remix and straight sequel. I don’t remember feeling especially shortchanged by the ending. I’m far enough out that I’m hazy on the specifics, but from memory a convoluted super villain scheme relying on some pulp SF nonsense and things falling out of the sky is pretty in keeping with the end of the original, isn’t it?
Welllll, with respect to the taste of my 14-year old self, I think there was a bit more to the original Watchmen than that. I maybe need to re-read it again with a mature (ha) head on my shoulders now, but it did seem although it was hanging on a pulp-y plot, it was also exploring a Big Message about good and evil and what a hero actually is. In fact, the pulpiness of the “alien” plot and SF nonsense of the original was actually a direct comment about the irony of how people lap this kind of stuff up yet ignore the more complex social and political stuff going on in the world. Non?
That’s where I thought the TV series fell down. It expanded and “remixed” the original Watchmen mythos, but ultimately you were in no confusion about who the goodies and baddies were. Which I think was a failure.
I’d need to watch the show again to have an informed comment about any ambiguity to be honest. It’s a couple of years since I watched it, and by this time of day I struggle to remember what I had for breakfast this morning.
I do think that by the end of the book most of the ambiguity is resolved, and you’re pretty clear that Ozymandias is a bad guy. What’s interesting is the tension between characters’ motivations and principles, and how those lead them to do things which put them on the other end of the moral spectrum to where you think they were at the beginning.
The thing I took from the last episode of Watchmen is, if my penis is way below average size – which it is – it’s partly because dudes like that skew the figures upwards disproportionately..
Some years ago, before I met my wife, I had just finished doing the beast with two backs with a lady of my acquaintance and she asked me what was that thing between my legs.
I told her it was my penis & she said it was like a cock, only a lot smaller…
Mmm, I’m not sure I would be as quick to say Ozymandias was ‘the bad guy’. He made a value judgement about the best way to save humanity, and how much collateral damage was acceptable in order to do that. He was definitely troubled by his decision, and even at the end was left wondering (along with the reader) whether it was worth it or not. A thought experiment in the value of utilitarianism, which, don’t forget, the ‘good guy’ characters go along with it reluctantly in the end when they realise it will do more damage than good to expose him.
God, I’ll need to read it again, I have great memories of it and there are some fantastic scenes in it. I love that chilling line when the big plan is finally revealed : ‘Dan, I’m not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I’d explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.’
I have to admit I didn’t watch any of it.
I don’t typically watch very much TV these days, and I kind of feel like – for me – Watchmen is so completely tied to its medium that I don’t have much desire to see it adapted. It always seems a bit like being offered a novelisation of Citizen Kane.
I did hear loads of good things about it though, and Kid Dynamite is about as trustworthy a reviewer of such things as you could possibly ask for.
Before I watched it, I would have said the same about Watchmen being tied to its medium. In fact, I didn’t mean to start watching the TV series and it just came on in a quiet moment and I got pulled into it. I would recommend it in that sense, just so you can see how the style of the comic was so artfully done, but without it being pastiche-y or “comic-like”. I can’t put my finger on it. It looks real yet unreal. The superhero costumes look hokey and cheap just like in the comic (a real antidote to the film where all of the characters were musclebound and cooool looking, Zac Snyder entirely missing the point of how pathetic and faintly kinky it is for grown men to dress up in lycra to fight crime).
What made Watchmen different from any other graphic novel adaptation? Sandman, for instance?
To add to bingo’s answer above, it’s the only truly mature superhero comic I have ever read. I can’t think of any other one that has truly risen above the kitsch factor. Kitsch is fine, don’t get me wrong, but this actually needled you and questioned the very art form of comic superheroes, made you think about the ugly fetishistic side of 20th century humanity that wanted to create such weird fantasy figures. And yes, I got that at 14, even if I didn’t fully understand it. Batman and Superman no longer seemed cool to me any more. Maybe only Frank Miller’s Ronin ever touched such depths in comic writing at that time (another literary masterpiece). Oh, possibly From Hell.
I have to say, I haven’t really kept up with comics since. I maybe read them up with any frequency up until about ’89 or’ 90, apart from stand out ones like Chris Ware’s stuff.
Superman will always seem cool to me.
He’s a non-theistic messiah figure for the postmodern era, a walking fetishisation of great power coupled with great responsibility, and I think that’s rad as fuck. He’s so totally uncool it’s completely epic.
There are tons of awful Superman stories, but when a good writer really understands the essence of the character, magic happens (just look at what Alan Moore did with him). Same goes for Batman, to a lesser extent.
I think Watchmen is an extraordinary piece of work, but I have to admit that it has never truly moved me the way a number of other comics have (I’ll give shout outs here to V for Vendetta, Love & Rockets, Zot, Miracleman, Cerebus, Maus, The Incal, Bone, Swamp Thing, The Dark Knight Returns, bits of Chris Claremont’s X-Men run, Black Hole, numerous Will Eisner books, Calvin & Hobbes, Usagi Yojimbo, Fun Home, Doom Patrol, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Krazy Kat, From Hell, Dykes to Watch Out For, All-Star Superman and Sandman – all of which blew my mind and/or broke my heart at one time or another). I revere Watchmen, but I don’t really see it as “mine” the way the aforementioned books are and will always be.
I’ve been going back through a lot of Love & Rockets lately and I think there’s a case to be made that it’s the greatest comic series ever produced, because in addition to having run for 35+ years, being very clever/entertaining and beautifully presented, it’s so perceptive about life and the human condition. It speaks a truth you can’t hear anywhere else.
Oh, and I should also add a note here for Bill Willingham’s seminal Elementals, a “mature superheroes” book which predated Watchmen by 2-3 years. I was gifted a full run of it and it knocked my then teenage socks off. It’s not technically anywhere near Watchmen’s quality, but it was so wild and unlike anything else. Regrettably now out of print so virtually impossible to get hold of, meaning no one can refute my claims to its greatness – ha!
I’ve never read Love and Rockets, just heard of it, so I’ll take that as a recommendation, thanks.
I don’t think you mentioned Ronin in your list unless I missed it. Didn’t like it, haven’t read it or don’t fancy it? I think it’s Frank Miller’s crowning achievement actually. More cohesive than Dark Knight Returns (which I also love). In a kind of twisted way, it does for samurai comics what Watchmen does for superhero comics.
And I also love Superman. But no, post Watchmen, I never thought of him as cool ever again.
Yeah, Ronin is a really good book. It’s just not one I feel a particular emotional connection to.
I can remember exactly where I was, and exactly how it felt as I read the back half of The Dark Knight Returns for the first time, hoping to god no one would interrupt me. I’d avoided it for years because it was so obvious, but then I finally gave in and found that – yes – it met and surpassed the hype – I mean, if we’re going to talk about a book that made Superman uncool… yeesh.
Miller pulled something out of the Batman character that had always been there, hiding in plain sight. It seems obvious now, but it really wasn’t then. Forty years of stories and he pretty much blew them all of the page and reset the template, for good or ill.
I’m not a massive fan of Frank Miller’s writing, but it’s probably the ultimate example of a creative being the perfect fit for a comic book character. Again, it doesn’t come close to Watchmen’s technical excellence, but there’s lots of different ways to do great comics.
Yeah maybe Ronin is more a peculiar taste of mine. Totally agree with your comments about how it felt reading Dark Knight the first time.
L&R is a work of genius, but takes a while to settle into itself so give it some space. It is also 2 comics : Locas and Palomar, each done by a different brother (Jaime and Beto respectively).
I agree with Bingo
The sequel struck me like a good few of the recent comic book adaptations.
The writers have taken characters with all the brand association that goes with them, and produced something that seems to have very little to do with the source material.
Sorry, do you mean Watchmen? Your comment has appeared far down the thread and I have lost track!
Yes, Watchmen.
I wouldn’t for a minute advocate anything dubious legally (and I’m sure you all know about it already) but pretty much all the comics mentioned in this thread – as well as just about any others you can think of, graphic novels included – can be read here…
https://readcomiconline.li/
The Boys is very watchable I agree. Better Call Saul is of course magisterial and doesn’t need any fluffing from the likes of me. I’ve enjoyed Only Murders in the Building on Disney + which is often funny in an undemanding way. It feels pleasantly old fashioned, a throwback to less jaundiced times which may be what I find so appealing about it. Also on Disney + is The Dropout a dramatisation of the Theranos tech scandal that I was dubious about whether I’d find engaging but it turned out to be quite compelling. I watched Sandman but I found my attention wandering occasionally which was probably more to do with my becoming a little bit bored with endless FX fantasy/Superhero/Sci-Fi entertainment and finding TV and film more grounded in “reality” whatever that is more to my taste nowadays. A League of Their Own on Amazon will be next up for me I think.
Watched the final episode of Better Call Saul this afternoon. It was excellent.
I look forward to what Bob Odenkirk does next.
Twin Peaks?
@uncle-Wheaty
Wonderful final episode of BCS
I very much enjoyed The Offer. All about the making of The Godfather, starring yer fella out of Whiplash as the film’s inexperienced young producer who has to wheel and deal with studio execs, artists, actors and the mafia. It’s not brilliant brilliant, but I’d say it’s a “must-see” if you’re a fan of The Godfather films (and interesting if, like me, you’ve always kind of wondered what a film producer actually does).
I’ve only just discovered Justified, which I’m sure is yawn-inducingly yesterday with you lot.
Very good it is, too.
Walton Goggins is almost always terrific in whatever he’s in.
If you like that, you might also like Banshee
I’ll find it next – thank ‘ee! Just started S02 – it’s the best TV I’ve watched for a very long time – since HBO re-invented the form, in fact.
Justified is one of the finest things *ever* made for the telly and the supporting cast is top notch as well. Margo Martindale in there as well for a while, as well of lots of other ‘oh where do i know them from’ faces, all of whom you probably know from something good.
Banshee was great fun. Hard to fathom that wotsisname out of that is Homelander in the Boys which, as you’ve said, is absolutely f*cking brilliant. It’s a while since myself and Mrsivan have found something we *both* look forward to watching of an evening.
Only thing wrong with the magnificent Justified was the constant swooning of the woman next to me on the settee. “He’s a bit of alright, that Timothy” she would opine during every episode. Seven seasons I had to put up with, seven
I can only find six series at the Eel Market? That’s not really a question – I was upspeaking?
I got confused (gee and golly) – read not so long ago that Series 7 (based on another EL novel) is, as they say, in production
In the interim, why not try wearing a cowboy hat and leaning against things with your hip, Raylan Givens-style? That might work for the missus until the real thing comes back.
Leave the man alone. Imagine having a love rival called Timothy. Intolerable.
Alanis writes: how ironic you should forget the surname Olyphant..
Don’t let her near Deadwood then…
Too much swearing. She’s a delicate wee thing
I’ve yet to see the final episode of BCS but I have found this most recent batch of episodes both exhilarating and irritating, at different times. Looking forward to the conclusion now though.
Better Things
5th & final season now showing on BBC2
Enjoyed previous series of Better Things, but think 5th has gone off a cliff. Sketchy writing and too much of Pamela Adlon being the mad mum.
Another couple of good ones that have bizarrely flown under the radar are Patriot (on Am Prime) and Rectify (had to buy the DVD so no idea where you might catch it)
Watched finale of BCS yesterday evening. Great resolution; but Kim was too good for him.
A reminder from Samsung TV Just popped up on my tablet to invite me to watch something called Bondi Vet. I took a quick gander thinking Bondi may be Aussie slang for BDSM capers and this mouthwatering televisual confection could be a riveting no holds barred exposure about a grizzled Australian survivor of gimp suit escapades but no it’s some git wearing an eyesore shirt sticking his finger up animal’s bums.
Big swizz.
Sounds pretty good to me.
Thanks @jaygee watched last episode of BCS last night, without spoilers I think a worthy ending. In my top 10 shows of all time, maybe top 5. Breaking Bad would be in there too, but not necessarily above BCS.
As for what’s next, am watching Stranger Things with my daughter (slowly), think anything new will have to wait until the clocks change.
If you want to watch a great show with your daughter, Dai, check out Paper Girls on Amazon Prime. \
Sounds a bit like ST (four kids in the mid-80s) but it’s lot, lot different and has thus far evaded ST’s flirting with Buffy-style Big Bass.
Ta, she may be wearying of ST. I just want to get to the Kate Bush stuff
I’m a few episodes into Paper Girls and I’m hooked. Way more sweary than ST.
Also rewatching Firefly for the nth time. Holding up nicely. Dialogue still sparkles and it still looks great.
Season 2 of Indian Matchmaking has dropped. Sima Aunty is back. Binge it now!
Virgin River. Feel good fluffy nonsense which looks gorgeous and is just the job after a trying day.
Yer gert girl’s blouse.
Not a long form series but a little six episode comedy called Away We Go has just ‘landed’ on BBC Iplayer and it’s brilliant.
Friends From College – I haven’t laughed so much asI did at the I.V / masturbation scene blah. blah, blah.
It has Cobie Smulders and the good looking dude from The Wire in it. And the grown up kid from The Wonder Years.
This may be of interest to some.
Netflix have just added an eleventh episode to The Sandman. Available now.
You’re welcome.
I’ve just watched episodes one & two. It’s a bit glum. Does he cheer up at any point?
I liked The Watchmen because its tongue was very much in its cheek.
The Sandman himself looks and sounds like Jimmy Carr trying to be a goth.
I’m now up to episode seven and have been mesmerised by its atmosphere. Once I suspended my disbelief, I committed. I even found myself smiling at an occasional joke.
I just posted about The Rehearsal on HBO (Sky Comedy & NOW TV from Wednesday in the UK), the best thing I’ve seen for years…
Currently watching The Offer on Paramount.
Absolutely wonderful. Give it a shot
Yes, came on here to say the same. I think @Gary mentioned it on another TV thread and I took the plunge.
The script is a little on the nose as far as locating itself in time – “Get me Kubrick!” – but the production design and the clothes are wonderful. Even the actors playing celebs are pretty close (Robert Redford excepted). Love it.
Best recent discovery is that Weeds is on All4. I watched the first 2 seasons in DVD following enthusiastic recommendations in The Word as I remember, but that was a few years ago.
I’ve just binge watched Black Bird on Appletv. A little reminiscent in tone and subject matter of season one of True Detective. Well worth a look if you have Appletv.
Enjoyed Sandman too, maybe not as much as Watchmen a couple of years which was tremendous.
I’ve been watching Better Call Saul for what seems like decades. It’s OK but rarely gets to the top of my list of things to watch. And when it does I can’t recall what’s going on with the drug gangs.
Do any of these new must-watch shows have done-in-one episodes? Most of the ones mentioned above I haven’t seen, mainly because I don’t feel like having to commit myself to watching multiple seasons with endless over-reaching arcs (“Oh, keep watching, it gets better in Season Three!”) – the latest Star Trek one I liked because I could watch each episode as a single story without having to remember vast tracts of plot from previous episodes.
I feel your pain. I also have an aversion to looooong story arcs, and just find myself cynically wondering whether they just deliberately draw out these series so they get more time to advertise. (Answer: correct).
I’ve just this week decided to finally give Breaking Bad a go. It’s one of the few series where I’ve heard people say it keeps the quality up and has a definitive, satisfying ending at the end of it, rather than just jumping the shark or running out of steam. I’ve just reached the end of the first season and yes I am enjoying it, but it’s very, very slow paced. I feel that whole first season, if properly honed and developed, could have made a neat two hour movie, and I think I would have preferred that.
Maybe in the end the slow pace will be something I get used to. On to season two!
On a re-watch a couple of years ago, I was surprised how pedestrian season one was. I know it’s a cliche, but it really does get better in season two when some new very important characters are introduced…
I found the same with Breaking Bad, and gave up half way through the first series. I also recently tried the first series of Better Call Saul, which was quite good, although the main character had echoes of Lionel Hutz in The Simpsons. It’s probably different if you follow these sort of series as they come out, but when you are trying to catch up, there is something daunting about the idea of sixty episodes. The last few episodes might be the best TV ever, as so many say, but it does seem you’d have to put in a lot of homework by watching the rest to get there.
It’s pretty good alright but still patchy and veeeery slow for large chunks, and could have stood to lose large chunks without problems.
Exactly my problem with Ozark. I liked the first season, started watching the second, but soon realised I didn’t remember the first cos I’d left it too long and anyway, that first episode was boring. So I stopped. Then everyone tells me the third season is the best, must watch it. But that would mean starting from the beginning again with a daunting commitment to three seasons undertaken. And now a fourth! I’m already *cough* years old with a swimming addiction, when am I supposed to find the time? Perhaps in lieu of some potentially even more rewarding televisual treat? As Sammy Davis Jr once said “you always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear” and he was right. Modern life is very stressful.
“whether they just deliberately draw out these series so they get more time to advertise.” – or in the case of Lost, start making it up as they go along about halfway through the second series. It’s like a buff Masterson Inheritance.
Mrs F suggests Midsomer Murders.
Or, failing that, Endeavour or Murder In Provence. They both have the same rotating cast playing similar characters, so you can nod off for a while without getting confused.
Very droll @fentonsteve!
In the English Book Shop here there is a special section for a genre they call Cosy Crime.
Midsomer Murders is the apogee of this. I can happily enjoy an episode and then go off for a blissful night’s sleep. Ask me, after I’ve brushed my teeth, what happened or whodunnit and I’ll gaze elatedly at you and tell you I haven’t a clue.
I have a good memory for faces (terrible at names, though) and routinely ask “Hang on, didn’t he/she die a gory death in MM a couple of weeks ago?”
That’s why I watch the New Zealand Brokenwood Mysteries, as you don’t know who the actors are, you can’t guess who the killer is.
I recall watching a Poirot or MM or Miss Marple I can’t remember which in someone well known was playing a maid, they had to be the murderer as they wouldn’t have been employed just to play a maid.
Everybody in those bloody Marples is famous. It’s like a Comic Relief sketch.