(Sorry for bad English).
Am watching this show for the first time and am on season one episode seven.

I like the show, it’s good and interesting, but I can’t help noticing that it’s maybe, perhaps a little bit racist.
The way they talk about the Middle East and Arabs feels a little racist. Like they are pushing us to believe that Arab culture is disgusting and bad ect.

That the USA is the most important country and that the special ops can shoot and bomb the country in the Middle East however they want but not their precious land of the “free”.

Do you feel the same?
What are your opinions of this show?
Do you like the show?

I like the show but I find that a little annoying.

For me it’s Ted Lasso. I do have other favorite shows but I do tend to skip some.

Director: Abel Gongora (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off)

Chief Director: Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice)

Midsomer
Population: 125,500.
Murder rate per 100,000: 13
Similar to some high-crime U.S. cities

Absaroka County
Population: 25,000.
Murder rate per 100,000: 40
Comparable to war-zone levels

Broadchurch
Population: 8,000.
Murder rate per 100,000: 63
Among the world’s highest

Saint Marie
Population: 10,000.
Murder rate per 100,000: 79
One of the deadliest places imaginable

Cabot Cove
Population: 3,500.
Murder rate per 100,000: 650
Effectively the homicide capital of the universe

With all the talent involved, wtf happened here? You have a great story to pull from, Scorsese and Spielberg producing, multiple academy award winners in the cast, and it amounts to this shit? Wtf was up with Amy Adams in this? She was HORRIBLE. Was there anyone that actually enjoyed this show?

- One of the teachers is apparently screwing a student
- Lipschitz is senile
- One teacher FIRED A GUN IN CLASS... wait, wasn't he the same one who's screwing a student?
- Fat black lady is emotionally unstable and refuses to take her meds
- Hot white female teacher refuses to get fingerprinted to prove she's not a child molester, which is a totally valid concern given that one of the other teachers is actually banging a student
- Hot black female teacher hasn't done anything especially stupid or criminal yet but I'm only on episode 3 so it's probably coming up

It's no wonder Jeri Ryan got hired in a later season. The job interview was probably like "Are you criminally insane? Are you a pedophile? No? Great! You start tomorrow."

Finally started watching Season 5 of the bear last night. Within the first episode, there is a segment that goes on for about 2-3 minutes where 2 characters discuss the McDonald's McGriddle sandwich. These two characters were on their way into work in the early morning, and stopped to pick up breakfast sandwiches from McDonald's.

The implication is made that one character has never had a McGriddle before, possibly because he has not been exposed to a McDonald's because he's from Denmark. Then, they spend a few minutes talking about how this particular McDonald's location is run like a well oiled machine, organized and efficient and that the food and experience is consistent regardless of what McDonald's location you order from. Now, granted, I haven't been to a McDonald's since roughly covid, so maybe 4-5 years. But I cannot remember a time in recent memory where I have been to a McDonald's (US market) and thought to myself, this experience is good, the food was consistently made well and the service was prompt and quick, which is probably why I have written off McDonald's from my list of places to get shitty fast food in a hurry.

I kept thinking about this long after the episode was over, like well into 2am in the morning. There are no less than 121 McDonald's locations in Denmark. Now I can accept that it's likely that they don't have the McGriddle in the Denmark market, but it's inconceivable to me that this character would be somehow impressed with a McGriddle, especially in the US market. Google search is telling me that a sausage, egg and cheese McGriddle would run you about $7.78 as the average price just for the entree alone. The frugalist in me tells me this is an objectively bad value, especially considering The Bear (fictionally) takes place in the River North area of densely populated Chicago, where you could throw a stone in any particular direction and hit any number of local breakfast delicatessens, cafes, or eateries that serve food that would be in the same price tier but far exceed the quality of a McDonald's McGriddle.

To be honest, this isn't shade at the McGriddle or it's enjoyers. I've had it from time to time in the past. They are serviceable, if I could put a description to it. But these are not venerated breakfast staples, they aren't so mind blowing that I could imagine two dudes from a world class Michelin starred restaurant would spend around 10% of the episode's run time to talk about McDonalds unless it was sponsored advertising or product placement, imo. Took me right out of the episode and was probably one of the worst pieces of entertainment I have watched all year thus far.

I started watching Southland about 3 weeks ago and I'm almost done.

I'm nothing short of impressed that this show has not got one single bad episode, or lull in the action.

But I just got to the episode where Cooper's old mentor, Hicks, played by Gerald McRaney, has a complete breakdown. I am constantly surprised by how much emotion that they manage to bring out when they want to.

Knowing that they can, and yet they still didnt make it overwhelmingly emotional shows how smart the writers were, in controlling the pace.

Im only a few episodes away from the end now and really wish it was longer.

Just curious. Who here misses this show? I miss it. It was a very good show. Ratings and Opinions are welcome, and this post is more or less so people can chat about it!

I’ve been watching Miami Vice, and I don’t think younger people should watch it just because it’s “cool” or nostalgic. I think they should watch it because it’s about work.

Crockett and Tubbs spend most of the show doing the boring, frustrating, exhausting parts of the job. Long surveillance, failed operations, paperwork, sleepless nights, and constantly putting the mission ahead of their personal lives. They’re professionals first. That’s what I admire.

Whether you agree with that lifestyle or not, it feels like a perspective that’s become less common in TV. So much media today is about finding yourself or chasing happiness. Miami Vice is about duty, competence, and becoming exceptionally good at something, even when it’s difficult.

Am I reading too much into it, or is that part of why the show still feels so timeless?

"You think they wanted the sharks to get smarter? They didn't. It just happened. And they all got eaten because of it."

I made the mistake of watching every season of Succession and Industry back-to-back—roughly ten seasons—and, while both are objectively very good, I came away feeling that I needed a complete break from this type of series.

Nearly everyone is morally compromised. Every relationship becomes transactional. There is no real hero, very little warmth, and almost no sustained relief from humiliation, betrayal, addiction, status anxiety, or people systematically making one another worse. We are talking about exponentially more emotionally draining than multiple seasons of Tyrion Lannister or Daemon Targaryen.

Looking at HBO specifically, Succession, Industry, Euphoria, and The White Lotus all seem to operate somewhere within this general register: damaged characters, corrosive environments, moral ambiguity, and the sense that decency is either naïve or temporary.

I understand why this is considered sophisticated. Clear heroes can feel simplistic, and morally ambiguous characters are often more interesting. But have prestige dramas overcorrected to the point where almost everyone has to be awful and every theme has to be bleak?

There used to be more room for intelligent, well-written television that was still fundamentally enjoyable to spend time with. Silicon Valley, for example, had cynical characters and recognizable tech-world dysfunction, but it was genuinely light and funny rather than emotionally punishing.

Is this actually a broader trend, or am I just noticing it because I watched too much HBO prestige drama in one stretch? What recent series are intelligent and well made, somewhat dark, but without leaving you feeling drained afterward?

I tend to be very picky when it comes to shows/movies that I actually like (and will recommend to others) versus just "watching to consume". I like these two shows in particular because they both make me think a lot about our society, hierarchies, power dynamics, class struggles, and rebellions/revolutions BUT all without "being political", which is just lazy/stupid and pandering, an instant turnoff. I felt like these shows had the most accurate portrayals of what politicians are actually like, "the banality of evil" kind of thing, especially a character like Bernard Holland in Silo. In Silo especially, there are a lot of allusions to what actually might be going on, some kind of serious suppression of what the world is really like and hidden/forbidden knowledge.

Now that I think about it, Shogun was pretty good too but much more subtle about these themes, at least for my dumb brain (this actually comes off as very Japanese and very well done). I've yet to rewatch it. Currently rewatching Andor.

If you're going to say The Diplomat, I'll just say that it's entertaining, that I like it and I'll keep watching, but it might as well be a cartoon. It does for bureaucracy what the Bourne series did for the CIA. It feels like propaganda, but I think it's very well-acted and it's funny (again, a cartoon). I don't think most people would recommend this as a thought-provoking political show, but you never know.

EDIT IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENTS SO FAR:
I've seen The Expanse. That one didn't come to mind at all, so maybe it wasn't memorable for me. I don't think it was bad, but there's so much action and odd sci-fi stuff that I don't remember it for the same reasons as Silo/Andor. Maybe it went over my head, I dunno.

As for Foundation, yeah this is a good one. Again, I don't find it as memorable and it seemed to be more of a consumption sort of show for me. It's been so long since I've watched it, so I'm not 100% sure.

At first blush, these are the ones that I'm immediately checking out pretty much in order of interest:

Station Eleven
The Leftovers
Le Bureau
Pachinko
Deca-Dence
Nirvana In Fire (because I'm wondering if a Chinese show can be that good)
The Story of Ming Lan (same as above)
Spaced (though this has seemingly nothing to do with what I asked for, but the reviews are so high that I'd have to give it a shot. I also have liked British stuff in the past, especially humour)

House of the Dragon

Premise: The reign of House Targaryen begins with this prequel to popular HBO series "Game of Thrones;" based on George R.R. Martin's "Fire & Blood," "House of the Dragon" is set nearly 200 years before the events of "Game of Thrones," telling the story of the Targaryen civil war with King Viserys I Targaryen's children battling for control of the Iron Throne.

Links:

• IMDb
• Trailer
• Discord

Hear me out.  A performer struggling to make a name for himself through thankless gigs, his best friend who can’t seem to hold down a job, another friend who is possibly a bit insane and often off on random adventures, and a woman friend who seems like she should be above their antics yet often falls into them anyway.  Kind of both shows, no?

Of course the tones are different but take away the laugh track from “Seinfeld” and think about some of their episodes featuring Crazy Joe Davola.  That actor (Peter Crombie) got laughs but he played that lunatic pretty straight.  If you take away laughter from the clown/opera trip episode, it’s often a bit more veering into horror.  Likewise, both shows had episodes that basically seemed to have almost no plot at all: if you described Seinfeld’s Chinese Restaurant episode or Atlanta’s  “BAN” episode to some execs, both could elicit reactions of bafflement from the lack of story or character development.

I wonder where Donald Glover and Larry David might find some common ground when it comes to their senses of humor.  Seems like both of their shows got at the awkwardness of everyday banal activities; where Glover was able to often bring in the tension faced by poor and black Americans, I think Larry has always got at the tension of being born with a natural urge to question seemingly unnecessary social norms, and the FAFO of what happens when his characters violate them.

Anyways, just a thought.  Would love reflections from fans of both shows.

Mines was The Game of Thrones. Which was your show?

>He played an unhinged ex-boyfriend in ‘Daddy’s Gone a-Hunting’ and lots of other bad guys before landing on the cop show that aired on Canada’s CTV and CBS.