For those of you who enjoyed The Night Of, there is another mini-series type show starting on HBO this Sunday: Big Little Lies. It’s just 7 episodes, has some serious star power, and is getting some good reviews. It appears to be more of a dark humor thing, unlike TNO, which was pretty much straight drama.
Best of all, filmed in Monterey, CA. That area is my weekend get-away playground, so it’ll be very cool to see it on the [small] screen.
Yes, it has been getting meh reviews but I will watch it for the Monterey connection, too. My mom lives in Pacific Grove, and I plan to, too, once I get these meddling kids off to college.
I hope this doesn’t turn into a variation on Desperate Housewives.
The setting is gorgeous and the cast is great, but the pilot just didn’t grab me at all. I would’ve probably given up halfway in if my wife hadn’t wanted to see the rest.
Well, it turns out it is Desperate Housewives, set in Monterey. The woman who plays “the new girl in town” is very good. I’ll probably watch it just for the scenery, but I’m disappointed.
So HBO has done this, The Night Of, True Detective and The Young Pope. None is really the big multi-season blockbuster replacement for Game Of Thrones or Sopranos. So what are they developing for that?
As for the “new girl in town”, I assume you mean the single mother of Ziggy. She’s Shailene Woodley, a young actress who was in The Descendants with George Clooney, plus several teenage-oriented movies like the Divergent series. She’s gotten good reviews.
I’ve been looking forward to this and it did not disappoint. I’m reading the book too and so far the show follows it pretty closely, with the biggest difference being the book is set in Australia. It is kind of Desperate Housewivesish but I liked the first few seasons of that show so no complaint here so far. DH just went on entirely too long with the writers running out of clever and relying on outrageous. Liane Moriarty is a great writer * and usually manages to craft a good ending. There’s an actual ending that they’re already working toward.
I found the shaky-cam to be a distracting turnoff, and the “interviews interspersed with flashbacks” trope has been used in a million other things (including To Die For, with Kidman herself). It seems like it’s going to be another show where most or all of the characters are horrible people who deserve a good slap (à la Girls, with which I also lost patience). And lastly, in my humble opinion, creepily precocious kids are the opposite of endearing and nothing I want to watch on a regular basis.
Now I shall go forth and threadshit no more.
The who done it with a side who was it done to was a significant part of the first season plot of The Affair (on Showtime).
I went to IMDb the other day to see more about this and as I typed in the title the dropdown window listed the show first but with Alexander Skarsgård, James Tupper given as the stars. Talk about missing the point!
I notice that it gives Witherspoon, Kidman today. Maybe they got some complaints.
I haven’t seen most of the other shows mentioned, so I wasn’t getting any lack of freshness. I liked the way the show was building characters from small snippets of conversation. The acting is all good, as well. Unless the bottom drops out of it I’ll watch the remaining episodes.
It’s funny how they keep showing the Bixby Bridge as if it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from Monterey, when it’s a good 30 minute drive down the coast. It also looks like a few of those “flash-backy” shots are at Garrapata State Park, which is down by the bridge.
Plus most of those houses the folks live in are in Pebble, not Monterey. Monterey is the “poorer side” of town in that area. Relatively speaking. The place where Reese Witherspoon stopped her car and rolled her ankle is in Pacific Grove, not Monterey. Lots of mixing and matching going on here…
I liked it so much I started a thread, not having seen this one in my search for the title. I was hit by the dreaded search failure!
I knew next to nothing going in, but I wanted to try something new. Can’t wait for the next one and for it to finish so I can read the book.
Agree. For folks who live in Sydney or New York or even LA, Pebble = Monterey and Monterey = Palo Alto, apparently. For someone who has been to any of these places - not so much. Like the difference between Greenwich and Montclair, or Lake Forest and Cicero. Just not the same place.
Seems to me it would be better set in Pacific Grove or maybe Carmel, full stop, without the “I was just named to the board of PayPal” and “jetting to Vienna” bits. Still can have wealth (even fabulous wealth, for some), homes and vistas.
Also wondering what Adam Scott is doing just hanging around the fringe.
Well, I love Shailene Woodly and I liked Kathryn Newton (who plays Witherspoon’s teenage daughter) quite a bit when she carried Paranormal Activity 4, so the cast got me in the door.
As overwrought and mediocre as it was, they had Witherspoon’s first grade daughter blaring a Frank Zappa cover at the dinner table. Yeah, I’m all in to the bitter end.
On a related note, I wonder why TV shows don’t credit songs during the end credits. They credit everyone else (Best Boy Grip, etc…) but not music, unlike movies. I wonder why there’s a distinction? I zoomed in on the screen shot of her ipod to find out who was doing the cover because I knew it wasn’t Frank, and good thing I did because when I watched the credits, no mention of any songs at all.
You need SoundHound.
Great show so far in my book. Whacky characters, hateable characters, sympathetic characters, a mystery. Are we supposed to know who died yet or at least think that we do?
Also love the Monterey area and have visited many times. Had the same thought as Mr Mace about the bridge. BTW…out first daughter was conceived a little further down the road at Lime Kiln.
They are really hyping up the Bixby Bridge. They have the parents driving across it in the morning taking their kids to school, which would be… very strange. We live in Big Sur, but send our kids to public school in Monterey. 
Anyway, I know it doesn’t affect the plot really, but it just seems like an odd thing to do.
Still very Desperate Housewife-ish, but I’ll keep watching. It’s only 7 Episodes.
I’ve played guitar a few times on the Lovers Point benches where Adam Scott kinda-threatened the Nathan character.
What a yucky bunch of people. And yeah, the geography’s just off.
Wouldn’t be a big deal - Vancouver and LA and Pittsburgh stand in for Every City all the time - except that they use iconic locations (including ones not just known in and around Northern California) and emphasize the location in dialog.
Just started watching it and I noticed that Witherspoon is given top billing over Kidman. Sure, they’re both Oscar winners but I would have thought Kidman was the bigger star. Maybe Witherspoon insisted on it and Kidman, wanting to do the show, didn’t put up a fight.
Or am I wrong and Witherspoon is seen as bigger than Kidman now? I know that billing order is really important to these people, too many second billings can affect your career.