Still watching regularly and and still love the show.
Patricia Arquette is a nice addition (or is it additionS with her?) and I enjoy the sprawling nature of the story - very novelistic. We have stuff happening in Chicago, NJ, NY, Philly, Tampa, etc.
I used to be a fanatic about this show, but the new season has been really disappointing. I think it went downhill when they decided to take Nucky out of the hotel. Now they add overwrought characters and really dumb plot twists, as well as gratuitous sex that serves no purpose. The Stephen Root character who speaks so floridly is irritating, and don’t even get me started on the dipshit who talks about himself in the third person. And Jillian’s heroin addiction story line is totally played and not terribly believable.
I miss Michael Pitt too.
Still watching it but I admit that it’s basically out of habit at this point. I don’t really care what happens to these characters much anymore. I would like to see Richard do some more ninja stuff though.
I am so glad it’s not just me.
I actually am different than most in this thread and think this season has been excellent. I think it can be a little hard to classify the show. Is it a gangster show or a period drama? Maybe both, with more emphasis on the gangster stuff recently, but if you think of it as a period drama that just happens to be about gangsters, criminals, and thugs then I think it is actually more satisfying than thinking of it as a gangster show.
I don’t mind either way. I don’t need it to fit into a specific mold, and I also don’t mind the pacing which I think is why a lot of people don’t comment about it online. Despite the amount of sex and killing, the plot actually moves forward fairly slowly but steadily.
I think the acting in this show is top notch for the most part. It’s hard to point to a show with such consistently good performances, particularly considering the large cast.
I do think it suffers from too many irons in the fire as others pointed out.
No kidding. I don’t remember her having a rack like that before. It’s pretty much all I can look at when she’s on the screen.
I started watching during the second season because a friend of mine was working on the show in makeup effects (got nominated for an Emmy, too!). I keep watching because I’m … kind of interested. I rarely think “Oh, cool, Boardwalk Empire is on tonight!” But it’s interesting enough that I just keep watching. I don’t have HBO, so I go to a friend’s house every week, and I think the party atmosphere of five or six people watching together keeps me going.
This season, I find that the Van Alden storyline really seems the most interesting. I’m kind of disappointed that Margaret’s push for women’s rights last year got dropped–that was more interesting to me than elections in Illinois.
Still watching each week and mostly enjoying it. I could do with less singing by Chalky’s mistress - seems she has to have at least two songs per episode.
I like Narcisse’s voice and verbiage, but the kinky-weird thing he’s got going with the singer and Chalky… meh.
I like how Chalky referred to Narcisse as “just a n*gger with a dictionary.” That was a great line. Also liked how he popped that dude at the flop house in the face with a baseball bat. Classic Chalky!
But yeah way too much singing and dancing. Cripes!
My interest is piqued now that it looks like Dude From Office Space is about to fuck Jillian over. Cuz everyone wants to see that!
We were watching it on DVD, and kinda got sidetracked a few months ago. Haven’t seen any since, but I imagine we’ll pick it back up.
I like it better than Breaking Bad.
You should have turned left at Albuquerque.
Funny–the Stephen Root character is one of my favorite little minor characters. He’s got a certain sort of southern gentlemanly thing going on that appeals to me–just a hint of Foghorn Leghorn. And the fact that he shamelessly plays both sides… yeah, I like that fine. And Remus cannot believe that you are talking about Remus that way. Remus is a genuine historical character, and Remus actually talked like that! Seriously, he’s another favorite from the bit characters for me. 
I think the biggest issue I’ve had with the first two series of Boardwalk Empire I’ve seen so far is I generally don’t care much about any of the characters except Nucky, and even he’s not nearly as scheming and conniving as I think the character should be.
I keep expecting him to be this Teflon-coated master manipulator, but instead he’s really a dodgy city council member. It’s not compelling viewing, basically.
I mean, I like the show but it doesn’t leave me eagerly waiting the next episode or wanting to watch Just One More even though it’s 1am and I have work the next day, the way Breaking Bad and Mad Men did/do.
The “too many irons” thing got me in trouble last episode. I totally forgot the nature/history of Richard’s relationship with the kid and the woman who has custody of him (I thought the woman he was in love with/dated was a brunette?), and when she got him to agree to marry her I called him a sucker. My wife yelled at me that I am a “woman-hater” :rolleyes:
This after our in-show discussion about how everyone in the show is working an angle.
I think that is part of the point of the show, no? He starts as a city council member just trying to take advantage of his position and gradually becomes an actual gangster. If you’ve seen all of the second season, that one in particular shows that arc where he has moved out of his comfort zone, for a while is even on the losing end of all the conflict, then finally becomes a bonafide gangster by murdering someone himself instead of ordering someone else to do it.
Nucky’s character is fictional but based on Enoch L. Johnson, who I gather from reading Wikipedia leaned more towards the political boss side of the equation while the Nucky character has decidedly moved more towards the gangster side.
When you think about it though, that’s a similar arc to the one Walter White undergoes in Breaking Bad, starting off as a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher with an unorthodox (and highly illegal) way to make some money to provide for his family before eventually becoming, well, Heisenberg.
Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the best shows ever created in the history of television, while Boardwalk Empire - despite the lavish settings and opportunities - just doesn’t seem to be as compelling as Breaking Bad was.
I don’t know if it’s the slower pace, missing chemistry, or what it is, but I just don’t find Boardwalk Empire to be particlarly engaging for me as a viewer. I enjoy the show but it just doesn’t grab me the way I would expect it to.
First series was definitely too slow. Second series got going. Third series was a firework, with one episode being up there with the most tense episodes of a series I’ve watched. This series? I just keep thinking ‘this building up to something’.
I know Capone has been done before, but he’s part of the overall whole. To me its all about how it all escalated, started out very gentlemenly, then as the resources dried up, became war. At first its the mad ones, like rosetti and the hardcore experienced organised crime which caused the wars, but the others then have to up their game. The FBI actually becoming an actual force in fighting in fighting prohibition like in this series, with the appearance of the ‘real enemy’ is an important point.
Even capone isn’t that bad at first, its recent events from the series which sets him on his way to the top.
Other interesting historical influences you don’t really realise are there, such as the large amount of unemployed ex-soldiers would have an influence on violent crime in the period (Jimmy’s problem), the rise of Heroin, where the actual alcohol came from changing (Canada, Ireland, home grown, Carribean), being closed down or stolen by the FBI or enemies as well as the FBI becoming important.
But to me, there are key characters which I like. Richard, Chalkie, Eddie, Van Alden, Nuckies brother, Jimmys mother, Rothstein, Luciano, Mickey and was I the only one with a big smile on their face when Gyp Rosetti looked at someone funny?
Its been slow this one, it was slow the first series, but I’m sticking with it. It’s been so watchable for so long, that I can’t turn away. I’d miss those characters. I’d miss the setting.
Its 1924 now right? Still another 9 seasons to go till the end of Prohibition, and I’m sure a couple more afterwards for the after effects…
The show has to run until 1931 and the invention of the electric guitar, so a character can play the theme music.
Theme music is the worst thing about the show.
Yep, the Cicero Primary was April 1, 1924. The brewery raid that nabbed Torio was in May 1924. Dean O’Banion met his maker on November 10, 1924. Green trees in New Jersey notwithstanding, I think we’re still in “November 1924” in this most recent episode. Thankfully, a few more years until we have to say goodbye to Rothstein.