Maybe I shouldn’t start these threads before I see the episode, but there you have it. :o
I think it would be better if we did a thread for 2 or 3 episodes, instead of just one. Most people aren’t watching it one show at a time.
Of course, then people may have to wait to participate in each thread, but 13 separate threads in the span of a few days is going to feel somewhat ridiculous.
I’d think a thread per 4-episode block seems reasonable. Not everyone can powerwatch thirteen episodes at once to participate in a “full season open spoiler” thread but I agree that thirteen threads at once would be excessive.
I like the one thread per episode approach. Remember, we won’t have any NEW episodes to go over for another year.
I can’t think of a good way to resolve this. I’ve watched about four episodes and I can’t read the thread where there are spoilers because I don’t want to know what’s coming up. On the other hand, sitting here right now I can’t remember what happened in the second ep., specifically. But even grouping the episodes isn’t going to work perfectly if the groupings don’t correspond to what people have seen, if that makes sense?
I guess this might help; here is the description for Episode 2:
Looks Blue, Tastes Red
A mock Job Fair provides Taystee with a chance to show off her business smarts; Red feels isolated from her prison family.
With that, my comment is that I really like the character of Taystee. She is infectiously enthusiastic, positive, smart and sweet. She tried to go the straight and narrow but it was too much for her; the lure of money and a family dragged her down into crime. The odds are so stacked against someone born into poverty and especially like Taystee, without any family.
I’m still snickering about the cigarette-bearing cockroaches from Episode 1.
Found it interesting that Piper wasn’t even in this one. (IIRC)
My vote is to just have one thread per episode. We do it for other shows, why not for this one? If dropping them all at once is good enough for OITNB, it should be ok for the SDMB.
Jenji Kohan said in an interview that what she was interested in first and foremost in the making of this series was all the characters around Piper, telling their stories and examining the social forces that brought them into prison; but that she had to have a pretty, bland white middle-class viewpoint protagonist else the studios wouldn’t buy it.
When I read that quote back in season 1, I called pretentious bullshit because it seriously was all about Piper, all the time. Season 2 is very different and more true to this stated vision, I feel.
There are 3 threads up and it’s already a pain in the ass.
I’m really OK with having a pretty, bland white upper middle class viewpoint protagonist because she is such an excellent foil for all the things that go on around her. Having the viewpoint character be a poor black woman would have made all the shit going down seem a lot less remarkable.
How is it a pain in the ass?
It’s not so much that Piper was the protagonist, but that despite what Jenji Kohan was saying, throughout season 1 every character was mostly defined by their relationship with Piper or how she judged them, more or less. Sure, we had flashbacks and so on but it was still the Piper Show, if that makes sense.
In season 2, most episodes centre around one of the not-Piper characters which gives them a lot more depth and agency, and the plots themselves do not exclusively revolve around “Piper wants a thing, how will she manipulate people into doing or giving her the thing ?”
I think I like season 2 better because we aren’t seeing the characters through her eyes anymore. The characters are no longer mere stereotypes. They have dimensions and layers. I really like this.
Because I’m sick of having to check in on 3 different threads to discuss a season that was all released on the same day, and that 99% of posters aren’t watching at the rate of one a week. The idea of following 14 is inane.
I think it’s telling that we only have about a dozen posts to this thread 5 days after the release of the episode.
No one’s watching them at the same rate period. That’s why it makes sense, to me anyway, to have individual show threads. I’m sorry discussing a television show is such a terrible pain in your ass. But I don’t want to see what’s going on in episode 6 when I’m only on episode 4, however I might want to see or participate in a discussion of episode 4.
Getting spoiled on upcoming shows vs. being able to participate in a discussion after watching a show? I’ll take the latter even if it means 13 threads popping up in the course of a week or two.
Threads. It’s what this place does.
That’s great. More that one person obviously agrees with both methods, so do it as you want. I’m sorry that waiting for 2 shows is such a terrible pain in your ass.
The only thing I can think of more idiotic than 13 simultaneous threads about a TV show is arguing about it.
Let’s stop arguing about it for now. The issue is being discussed by the Cafe Society moderators.
There are people who want to discuss the show an episode at a time. Allow them to do so without posting spoilers or without sidetracking into a discussion of whether they should be allowed to do so or not.
People who want to discuss the season as a whole, or developments over multiple episodes, are doing so in the season thread.
If you want to watch the season in a leisurely fashion, use the episode threads. If you want to binge watch it, use the whole-season thread. If you want to bitch about the fact that these are your two alternatives, start a new thread in the Pit – you’re off-topic in Cafe Society.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
I like this idea as a one thread per episode. My one complaint about the Netflix model is that it absolutely kills online discussion and speculation. Why concern yourself with wondering what might come next and sharing theories online when you can just click a button and go to the next show to resolve the problem yourself?
I’m on episode 4. I don’t have the time to binge any show, but I can hit OitnB for at least 1 episode a day. So the season thread isn’t useful to me, but these threads are.