Nitpicking on your terminology (because what else is this group for?) what you are describing is a trade paperback, which itself is called a “volume”, and contains collected issues. A graphic novel is, as you suggested, usually a single story that would have a single team of writers and artists, and therefore the same style. Trade paperbacks also usually attempt to collect individual story arcs without splitting or combining, and each story arc tends to be written/illustrated by the same team, so I’m not sure what specifically you are looking at. Maybe it is a volume of miscellaneous issues that didn’t fit in one arc, maybe it is a special “sampler” volume, or a “giant” omnibus one. For instance, TPBs are typically 4 or 5 issues of a comic, but this Zatanna is a 16 issue run plus two specials. Good chance of more than one illustrator in there
(ETA, looking back at your post you did mention it was the Paul Dini one, so same one I linked.)
We enjoyed Designated Survivor all the way through, even if it got a little silly and soapy at times. I thought the overall arc of Kirkman’s character was rather poignant.
Did Designated Survivor resolve the important plot points (esp. who was behind it all)? I’m also interested in watching it but would hate it if they never have a proper resolution for the central mystery with which it started. Silly and soapy is no problem to me, but I’ve been burned by shows that leave the plot hanging by the end.
We’ve finished episode 5 of Fool Me Once and I’m at the point I don’t really care. I don’t hate it, but there’s some sloppiness in the writing that irks me, and I don’t care what happens to the characters. We will stick it out, though.
We just watched the first episode of Black Doves and really enjoyed it. Hopefully it keeps up the quality.
Favorite line so far: He had more smack in him than a nun with a ruler
I ran across Lonesome Dove on Prime and even though I’ve seen it several times, thought I’d give it another shot. Well. . .even though it won Emmys some 35 years ago, it doesn’t hold up all that well today. Still a good story, and good actors, but the dialog falls a bit flat now. Worth a watch if you’ve never seen it, of course.
Inna enjoyed this one more than I. It is quite good, but it can get repetitive (especially if you binge it). The number of stories which had a character go from zero to murder was surprisingly high (especially one story which had a female executive kill four people, including an entire family, in a single day), and I found some of the tales to just be morally vicious (especially “Beyond the Sea” which featured both of these sins and which I immediately rebranded “Beyond the Pale” for its innate cruelty).
The stories get better as the series progresses - a lot of S1 through S3 are one-trick pony tales (“what if your life was controlled by your social media score?” “What if you could bring a loved-one back to life, but it wasn’t really him?”), but the scripts got more in-depth as the show progressed and some of them… some of them… were actually rather heartfelt.
Did watch two more Deadwood episodes last night, and it engaged Inna more than the first two episodes, so it appears that one is the next one on our list.
The series took a few episodes to find its feet. When it started out, it was. . .well. . .episodically based more than it was a long story arc like, say, Breaking Bad was. Once they decided to keep Walton Goggins alive and an integral part of the plot, they were off and running. It’s worth watching just for the Dewey Crowe character, IMO.
I finished watching every episode of The Bob Newhart Show. I loved it in the 1970s when it was aired after The Mary Tyler Moore Show most years. I still love it, especially the fact that you could expect to see Carol, Jerry, and Howard come up with more and more zany lines that Bob had to play the straightman to. Howard’s kid almost ruined the show, and the final season where they moved to a different apartment wasn’t great either (Bob often called in from a business trip for some reason; was there rift with the rest of the cast?). But it was a fun ride.
I was in high school and had a tiny B&W tv in my bedroom so I could watch Monty Python on PBS. I remember watching Johnny Carson interviewing Bob Newhart just as the series started. Bob said they wanted to say he and Emily lived in a condo, but the network bigwigs were afraid some stations would boycott them because they lived in something that sounds like a prophylactic. Johnny just roared with laughter.
I watched The Sopranos and then The Crown. The creator of The Crown is on record for having studied The Sopranos for the indispensableness of the central character, no matter how interesting or tangential the other ongoing story lines.
But the similarities don’t end there. Both have at their core the same theme: “we’ve got a good thing going here, but someone is always getting greedy or feeling slighted, and we have to drop everything and stomp out brushfires.”
Which suggests that, be it the mafia or the monarchy, these strange institutions exist as necessary manifestations our of human nature. (And I can’t decide who’s scarier: Furio or Tommy Lascelles)
He’s confusing it with Justified ( a quite good show), which also starred Timothy Olyphant.
However I do think Deadwood also takes at least a few episodes to settle in. I’d also say Olyphant is better in Justified. He got the nickname ‘clench’ by Deadwood fans for a reason - his performance as a tough guy is compelling but a bit one note. Ian McShane as Al Swearengen is eventually the biggest standout, plus numerous fine character performances by others.
I really wanted to watch Lonesome Dove. I was disappointed because I had to leave for Basic Training a couple of days before it was broadcast. I still haven’t seen it.
I thought Pip Torrens was the breakout actor from The Crown. He was 100% compelling every moment he was on the screen. There were a lot of good performances but he really stood out.
It still annoys me that the most compelling episodes (especially in the first few seasons) were the ones that were the most bullshit.
That’s interesting. I’ve always felt the earlier (pre-Netflix, UK Channel 4) stuff was more consistently good. There was a detectable change in the series after it was bought by Netflix (I think it was after the excellent White Christmas special episode). The production values definitely got slicker but I felt the power of the stories was less consistent. There are obviously still some great episodes in there though.
White Christmas traumatized me enough to make me reluctant to keep watching the series, although I did eventually watch Bandersnatch (which is exceedingly clever in the usual miserable way).
Haven’t actually watched any of the other episodes since, largely because the news keeps indicating that we’re liviing in one.
I’m not setting you up or tricking you. It is not a big pile of misery or anything, just one of the very best episodes of Black Mirror and definitely the best of the recent years.
Let me know if you do. I thought it was great. Go in blind!
- his performance as a tough guy is compelling but a bit one note. Ian McShane as Al Swearengen is eventually the biggest standout, plus numerous fine character performances by others.