Works where you were surprised to learn you were in the minority of viewers

[Ramza00]

come on man, we can not talk the good place, a show about the after-life

without talking about religion, and thus breaking the board rules about that

for if I say the word storehouse , a kind of accumulated point system , well that is so close to saying magic religious words about the self show

and these things have been debated before, these mine-fields [SUP]Doug Forcett: The man who got it right, well 92% of it![/SUP]

[Peelee]

Spoiler: The Good Place ending

Show

On the second point, I feel like it should be reframed as "things end, and that's ok". Endings are scary, much more in life than in TV. But, generally speaking, regardless of how much or little you want something to end, everything will eventually end. In The Good Place, they ultimately end up in an eternal place where things don't end. And they're eventually given the choice to end it anyway. It's not necessary to make that choice. But it's ok to do it, because it's ok to let things end.

Framing it as suicide brings in all the standard implications of the word "suicide", which is typically attached to excessive mental or emotional distress, which is nothing at all like what the scenario is when Team Cockroach makes their decision. They have no distress, are mentally and emotionally well, and have full unfettered and unrestricted informed consent as to what the choice entails.

tl;dr - it's ok for things to end.

[Ionathus]

[SUP]Doug Forcett: The man who got it right, well 92% of it![/SUP]

Ehh, Doug Forcett was alright, but I never really forgave him for how he mistreated his brother Jimmy. Underneath all of that good-natured radish growing and snail mourning lurks a petty, vindictive man.

[Peelee]

Ehh, Doug Forcett was alright, but I never really forgave him for how he mistreated his brother Jimmy. Underneath all of that good-natured radish growing and snail mourning lurks a petty, vindictive man.

I know it's blue text but I really hate that argument.

[Ionathus]

I know it's blue text but I really hate that argument.

Haha, I knew going full blue text would be necessary!

Spoiler: Better Call Saul

Show

Saul Goodman is the new Walter White. Lots of viewers were charmed by him, and they'll look for any excuse they can find to absolve him of his actions.

[Peelee]

Haha, I knew going full blue text would be necessary!

Spoiler: Better Call Saul

Show

Saul Goodman is the new Walter White. Lots of viewers were charmed by him, and they'll look for any excuse they can find to absolve him of his actions.

Spoiler

Show

Seriously, the amount of time I've spent trying to tell people that a show about an unbelievably capable con-man who is charismatic as all get-out has conned them into believing he's a victim is a fantastic example of how cons can be effective, i tells ya....

[Errorname]

Spoiler

Show

Goodness knows I've done this same thing a bunch -- most recently with Hadestown, which I enjoyed the first time but felt they fumbled the ending. After a conversation with several people and reading some analysis of the show, I've re-evaluated my own conclusions and done a complete 180 -- I believe wholeheartedly that they executed exactly what they were going for brilliantly. As a result, it's turned from one of my least favorite endings into something that resonates very deeply.

Spoiler: Hadestown

Show

I will say do prefer the concept album version of Doubt Comes In where it's just Orpheus and Eurydice without the Fates, but I haven't seen the show live yet so maybe it'll play better in the theater.

Also curious about what you felt they fumbled about the ending. Is it just the general sticking to the myth's tragic ending or was it something specific about the execution

[pita]

Haha, I knew going full blue text would be necessary!

Spoiler: Better Call Saul

Show

Saul Goodman is the new Walter White. Lots of viewers were charmed by him, and they'll look for any excuse they can find to absolve him of his actions.

Spoiler: Better Call Saul

Show

I recently rewatched Breaking Bad and then saw BCS for the first time. I definitely disliked Walter far more than I did Jimmy. I do feel like it was less "one brother to blame" and more "a plague on both of your houses". Less "Jimmy's the victim" more "dear god, people, learn to leave each other alone". Though Jimmy did go absurdly over the top in his revenge, and was also terrible to begin with, meaning I've just argued myself into supporting Chuck.

Spoiler: The Good Place

Show

NGL if I met someone who behaved like Doug Forcett there is a part of me that would absolutely hate him. I feel like he's got the same problem Tahani did, combined with Chidi's problem - He's doing things out of a selfish motivation, because he thinks everyone else will burn in hell and he won't, but he's also so overfocused on exactly what the right thing is that he's encouraging misery. It's good to tell a kid who's getting a little too into hurting you to stop it. A snail doesn't care what you name it.

Somewhat back on topic for the thread, I also have a somewhat unpopular Breaking Bad opinion

Spoiler: Breaking Bad

Show

Walter White becomes a supervillain in the last 2 seasons, culminating in him doing some genuinely awesome stuff in the last episode, and it undermines all of the great work of the first three seasons.

[J-H]

It was apparently a failure, but I thought the Black Adam movie was pretty fun. Most supers spend their time just fighting other supers with slow-mo battles and big team-ups. I enjoyed seeing a speedster/tank just let loose against a modern(?) military(?). The fights were far above average in general, except maybe the last guy (demon transformation dude). The plot holes were mostly caused by insufficient worldbuilding that's probably in the comics (Why is this Khandaq place ruled by American/European mercenaries?).
I'd rather see more of it than Superman movie #10 or Batman #15.

[Eldan]

Speaking of superheroes, I thought The Marvels was a pretty average to good Marvel movie, and definitely one of the better ones since Endgame. Light hearted, short (definitely a bonus, they have been getting way too long), fun characters, a good action scene or two, a creative idea or two, and not too much crowbared in universe building or cameos, either. Perfectly serviceable. Of course the story was stupid from start to finish, but it's still a marvel movie.

So I came out of the cinema thinking "yes, this was a perfectly reasonably spent evening watching a forgetable superhero movie", and then went online and saw everyone hated it.

[Ionathus]

Spoiler: Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul

Show

Seriously, the amount of time I've spent trying to tell people that a show about an unbelievably capable con-man who is charismatic as all get-out has conned them into believing he's a victim is a fantastic example of how cons can be effective, i tells ya....

You know, I've never really thought about Jimmy's charisma affecting me as the viewer before, which seems pretty gullible when I say it out loud.

I recently rewatched Breaking Bad and then saw BCS for the first time. I definitely disliked Walter far more than I did Jimmy. I do feel like it was less "one brother to blame" and more "a plague on both of your houses". Less "Jimmy's the victim" more "dear god, people, learn to leave each other alone". Though Jimmy did go absurdly over the top in his revenge, and was also terrible to begin with, meaning I've just argued myself into supporting Chuck.

The great thing about their dynamic as brothers is how emotional and believable their fraught dynamic is, and how much you want to root for one or the other at different times! It's a messy, complicated relationship. Jimmy does seem to genuinely love Chuck, and he's putting in a lot of work to take care of him through his illness at the start of the show. At the same time, he absolutely does not deserve to keep practicing law. He does blatantly illegal and unethical things for highly vindictive and selfish reasons. Jimmy really is a "chimp with a machine gun", and a lot of people do get hurt. Just because Chuck is a nasty, belittling, manipulative ass about saying it doesn't change the fact that it's true.

I also have a somewhat unpopular Breaking Bad opinion

Walter White becomes a supervillain in the last 2 seasons, culminating in him doing some genuinely awesome stuff in the last episode, and it undermines all of the great work of the first three seasons.

Yeah, the Breaking Bad finale is probably too "clean" and Walt gets more redemption than I think he deserves. I'm willing to forgive them for it, though, since it's still just so damn cathartic. To me, it's less about Walt getting an actual redemption -- after all, he still dumps a bunch of money on Gretchen and Elliot and then makes them think assassins are trailing them. He didn't come back just for redemption: even now, he's still hung up on making sure he gets credit for the money he "earned". It's a cool scene, but it shows that Walt's not done a total one-eighty. That pride is still there.

To me, the emotional weight of the finale is more about the conversation he has with Skylar ("I did it for me"), and the confrontation he has with Jesse ("I want this." "Then do it yourself."). Two of the best scenes in the show, and a great chance to give closure to the two people Walt hurt and manipulated the most.

On topic for the thread: I genuinely don't know how other people felt since I've never seen much discourse about the final BCS season, but I didn't really care for the Better Call Saul finale, for many of the same reasons you didn't like the Breaking Bad finale.

Knowing now what the "present day" scenes in Better Call Saul are building to, I don't think they add much. I think you could've just left the story as a pure prequel and ended it after the resolution with Lalo and Howard. People are in their starting positions for Breaking Bad, Saul has committed to fully jumping off the slippery slope, and Kim has gotten her digs in about how he loves the con too much and got in over his head. That's a more satisfying conclusion than Saul striking a deal and then going back on it with a long speech. It was a drawn-out anticlimax that didn't really do much for me.

Also curious about what you felt they fumbled about the ending. Is it just the general [storytelling choices] or was it something specific about the execution

Oooh, I'm so glad you asked! I've been wanting someone to ask me this question for a long time!

(Keep in mind, this is talking about what I originally thought they'd fumbled. After reconsidering my position, I now think this is a strength rather than a weakness.)

Spoiler: Hadestown analysis

Show

I watched Hadestown live, on tour, and it was amazing the whole way through, but I struggled with the ending. I thought it was muddled or they missed their own "point." Because the show acknowledges multiple times that it's a sad story with a sad ending, yet remains so relentlessly optimistic, I really built myself up for them to do something subversive at the finale, or change the ending somehow. Everyone already knows the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. What's the point of being coy about the doomed lovers' story if you're just going to "play it straight?"

I came into the show under the impression that it was about love, and lost love, and working together to mend your relationships and forgive each other. And those are some of the themes of Hadestown. But my mistake was in thinking that this was the entire point. I was so confused why Orpheus would have any doubt at all, and why he would question Eurydice's commitment. Why would he turn around at the last second? Again, we all know that he does. So it's so weird that the show makes a knowing wink at the audience about the doomed heroes, but then still dooms them anyway, supposedly because Orpheus didn't love her enough?? To me it felt cheap and contrived.

But the trick of Hadestown, which I only realized after reading some analysis and listening to the album again, is that it's not a story about love. Not mostly at least. It's a story about hope. Hades and Persephone don't struggle because they don't love each other -- they struggle because they've lost the hope that things can ever be better again. Same for Orpheus and Eurydice. Same for everyone on the surface. Orpheus's power in this world isn't that he's got a lovely voice and he sings a good love song that gets Hades horny again or whatever -- Orpheus's power is that "he could make you see how the world could be...in spite of the way that it is."

Orpheus brings hope to everyone he interacts with -- other humans, Eurydice, Persephone, all the shades, even Hades himself. He brings the world back into harmony and saves them from the broken cycle of the seasons. But in doing so, he gets absolutely put through the wringer and he loses his own optimism along the way. That's why he looks back for Eurydice at the end. Not because he doesn't love her, or he suspects her of not loving him enough to follow him home. He looks back because he doesn't believe that Hades actually had a change of heart and allowed her to leave. He doesn't believe he's worth following. He doesn't believe that he deserves Eurydice after he let her down. His love for Eurydice never fails. It's his hope that fails.

And if that was where the show ended, I would still probably be mad about it. But there's one more song that wraps it all up: Hermes doing a reprise of the opening number. And hearing his words in a new light, with all of the talk about hope and continuing to try over and over, no matter what (Persephone to Hades: "Are we gonna try again?"), the story about optimism that infuses the entire show, there's an added meaning now:

Don't ask why, brother, don't ask how
He could have come so close
The song was written long ago
And that is how it goes

It's a sad song
It's a sad tale
It's a tragedy
It's a sad song
But we sing it anyway.

'Cause here’s the thing
To know how it ends
And still begin to sing it again
As if it might turn out this time
I learned that from a friend of mine

Hermes is telling the story of Hadestown, over and over and over again. Knowing it won't change, but being willing to hope it can anyway. My first time through, I thought this was just a narrative trick to wrap it all up. But it's something else entirely. Hermes knows that Orpheus and Eurydice are doomed. And he doesn't care. He's going to keep being hopeful, keep trying, as a conscious choice. The show turns optimism into more than fuzzy feelings or a successful love story: it becomes an act of defiance.

And, without getting too into my personal life or real-world topics...well, let's just say the idea of a defiant, active hope, a hope that realizes how bad the odds are and doesn't care -- that idea hit me a lot harder than I expected.

[The Glyphstone]

That was my fear. I appreciate everyone who has engaged this topic objectively! Thank you all for being willing to analyze the things you liked and didn't like from a bit of a distance, as a curiosity rather than a rant!



Galaxy Trucker is one of those games where I absolutely love the concept, but actually playing it drives me up a wall Every time I play, I get fixated on building a perfectly efficient ship, which is completely against the spirit of the game. It doesn't help that my wife isn't cutthroat enough to punish me for being a perfectionist₁

1. To those who haven't played it: Galaxy Trucker has a mechanic where one player can rush through their "building time" at the start of a round, to force the other players to finish faster than they'd like. My wife is better at building faster than I am, so in theory she'd be able to "punish" my perfectionism by catching me with a half-built ship. But she's too nice to take advantage of that.

I'm actually a perfectionist too, which is why I only play the game in turn-based mode.

[Rodin]

Oooh, I just remembered one where I boomeranged. I watched Batman & Robin when it came out, and found it pretty entertaining. It was goofy Batman stuff, and I didn't think much more about it. Years later, I found out that it apparently sucked. It was long enough that I didn't have clear memories, so I just kinda shrugged it off.

Then it came on TV one day over a decade after I had originally seen it in the cinema. Hooooooo boyyy. I must have had really bad taste as a 14 year old, because it was hilarious for a completely different set of reasons then my enjoyment of it as a kid. So I got surprised by my own surprise about how bad the movie was!

[Peelee]

I must have had really bad taste as a 14 year old

There's actually a name for that phenomenon! It's called "being 14 years old".

I'm not about to act like i was immune to that phenomenon either.

[Ionathus]

As a kid, I vastly preferred The Secret Of NIMH 2: Timmy To The Rescue! over the original.

Kids have no taste: never have, and never will. That's a quantifiable fact of life.

[Metastachydium]

There's actually a name for that phenomenon! It's called "being 14 years old".

Also, it has an early onset in some countries because people commonly just skip year 13.[/BLUE]

[Batcathat]

Oooh, I just remembered one where I boomeranged. I watched Batman & Robin when it came out, and found it pretty entertaining. It was goofy Batman stuff, and I didn't think much more about it. Years later, I found out that it apparently sucked. It was long enough that I didn't have clear memories, so I just kinda shrugged it off.

Then it came on TV one day over a decade after I had originally seen it in the cinema. Hooooooo boyyy. I must have had really bad taste as a 14 year old, because it was hilarious for a completely different set of reasons then my enjoyment of it as a kid. So I got surprised by my own surprise about how bad the movie was!

On the topic of Robins, I remember watching Robin Hood: Prince of thieves when I was also probably around 14 or so and thinking it was pretty cool, which is... definitely not the majority opinion, though I don't remember whether or not I was aware of that at the time (probably not, since I had just recently started using the internet at that age).

[KorvinStarmast]

On the topic of Robins, I remember watching Robin Hood: Prince of thieves when I was also probably around 14 or so and thinking it was pretty cool, which is... definitely not the majority opinion, though I don't remember whether or not I was aware of that at the time (probably not, since I had just recently started using the internet at that age).

I enjoyed it and was a bit disappointed at the nay sayers.

[Mordar]

On the topic of Robins, I remember watching Robin Hood: Prince of thieves when I was also probably around 14 or so and thinking it was pretty cool, which is... definitely not the majority opinion, though I don't remember whether or not I was aware of that at the time (probably not, since I had just recently started using the internet at that age).

I enjoyed it and was a bit disappointed at the nay sayers.

It was very well received when it came out, and despite the clever Mel Brooks smacks on it Costner Robin is a much more enduring image than either Elwes Robin or Crowe Robin. So yeah, I'm with Korvin.

Flipped opinion: I was not at all excited by Burton's Batman when it first came out, and it was actually a few weeks before I went to see it (despite being a pretty solid comic book fan...though in the middle teen years cleaved to Marvel like all good teens). The thing I liked most about the movie was the soundtrack, and overall I thought the film pretty meh. Over the years though, it grew on me. Batman Returns is still the best of all the Batman theatrical releases, but Batman now runs a strong number 2.

No, The Dark Knight wasn't good. It was a terrible movie on several levels, but had a transcendent performance by Ledger. Doesn't mean Bale was good, and Nolanverse bit.

- M

[Gnoman]

This is a bit of an inverse, because I knew the general opinion before going into the show, but I had a very different reaction to Don Draper of Mad Men than what I expected.


Most people seem to think he's cool and awesome early on while gradually souring on him as you realize he's a bad person.


Me? I found him to be a loathsome piece of human excrement from episode 1, only to gradually warm up to him as his past starts getting revealed. As the show went on, I began to look at him as someone who is not a great person, but is genuinely trying to rise above the cesspool he came out of, and at a deep level knows there's something not right about him.

[Peelee]

This is a bit of an inverse, because I knew the general opinion before going into the show, but I had a very different reaction to Don Draper of Mad Men than what I expected.


Most people seem to think he's cool and awesome early on while gradually souring on him as you realize he's a bad person.


Me? I found him to be a loathsome piece of human excrement from episode 1, only to gradually warm up to him as his past starts getting revealed. As the show went on, I began to look at him as someone who is not a great person, but is genuinely trying to rise above the cesspool he came out of, and at a deep level knows there's something not right about him.

That's exactly how I felt about Walter and Skylar White when watching Breaking Bad for the first time. Walter just got worse and worse, Skylar was trying to get out of an increasingly abusive relationship, and everyone went on about how Walter was so awesome and Skylar was such a bitch.

And not dissimilar with Better Call Saul. Except people eventually realized Walter wasn't a power fantasy, he was an ******* fantasy, but people still think that Jimmy would have turned around and stopped scamming if only Chuck had believed in him for some reason, despite several things in the show explicitly showing us that that would never happen. Maybe one day...

[Errorname]

Spoiler: Hadestown

Show

I will say do prefer the concept album version of Doubt Comes In where it's just Orpheus and Eurydice without the Fates, but I haven't seen the show live yet so maybe it'll play better in the theater

Yeah it worked really well on stage. Perhaps unsurprisingly the album was better at being an album and the stage show was better at being a stage show

[Saph]

That's exactly how I felt about Walter and Skylar White when watching Breaking Bad for the first time. Walter just got worse and worse, Skylar was trying to get out of an increasingly abusive relationship, and everyone went on about how Walter was so awesome and Skylar was such a bitch.

I've seen both the "Walter is awesome, Skylar's a bitch" attitude and the "Walter's a monster, Skylar's an innocent victim" attitude a lot. My personal take (and one that I'm pretty sure is a minority one) is that the two of them are actually pretty well matched. They got married and stayed married for a reason.

It was ultimately the biggest problem I had with both BB and BCS, despite how high-quality they are. The main characters in both series are just really horrible people, and it's hard to enjoy a series when there's no one you're rooting for.

[Ruck]

Does it count if I say I thought every Daenerys chapter in the books was a painful slog that brought nothing to the work, and eye-rolled at the on-screen portrayal (and not because of Emilia Clarke!).

She is apparently hugely popular and I would rank her maybe 5th most interesting Queen...at best. Stupid Mary Sue characters.

- M

I don't really care whether or not you like Dany the character, but if a power-hungry maniac who sets an entire city on fire is a "Mary Sue," then the term really has lost all meaning.

Great example of how the perception of "popular opinion" can differ wildly: everything I've seen about Hazbin Hotel is that people don't like it. But it's possible I'm only getting that from niche sources that share my (and seemingly your) tastes.

I have not watched it, but I thought this review was excellent at dissecting the storytelling (and art) problems with it.

I suppose that's fundamentally the problem, it absolutely didn't need to do any of that. It fulfilled its role, but its role was unnecessary, arguably counterproductive. He's a smuggler because he's a smuggler, that's his backstory, it didn't need to be explicitly shown. His pistol looks like that because that's what his pistol looks like. Do we also need a separate movie showing him choosing his hairstyle? The Kessel run was a throwaway line to give the story universe a bit of illusory depth and verisimilitude. Every subsequent attempt to expand on it or rationalise it has ironically just made it shallower and cheaper. Not every aspect of a character's backstory needs to be shown on screen. That's why it's backstory. Indeed, my major criticism of Solo is that it isn't really a story, just a list of boxes to check. A parade of unnecessary fanservice.

It's a general problem with "fan" spaces, but it's a major problem with Star Wars in particular, this inability to let anything be ambiguous. There's nothing inherently wrong with prequels, but origin stories specifically are generally a bad idea imo, because by taking things that used to be ambiguous or implied and nailing them down into something explicit, you make the story world feel smaller and more contained, even if the story as a whole is technically bigger now.

No real opinion on these movies themselves, but I fully agree on two particular points:

1)Backstory is by and large unnecessary and showing it more so.
2)I have a theory that Star Wars caught fire originally because it left so much for the public to fill in with their own imaginations, and explaining all of those things, as you said, makes the world smaller than we can imagine, shallower and cheaper.

This is AT THE TIME, since the movie came out 30 years ago. Several of us went and saw Pulp Fiction opening night. We came out thinking it was a very bland movie.

Pulp Fiction is wildly overrated. It's still ok, which for me is miles better than some other stuff Tarantino has done.

Funny enough, I rewatched Pulp Fiction for the first time in ages a couple of years ago and I came to appreciate it more than I used to. It's much more thematically rich than it seems on the surface.

The other movie where I got this retroactive disappointment is Spaceballs. I love Mel Brooks' body of work. I'm a keen defender of some of his movies that are less well regarded, like Men in Tights. And I'm an enjoyer of Star Wars (admittedly not recently, but Spaceballs is a parody of the OT). So I should love it...right?

Spaceballs is pretty mediocre IMO. I think The Producers and Blazing Saddles are clearly his best. (Probably a bit of a contrarian here, but the one time I saw Young Frankenstein it just didn't really do much for me.)

I will add that History of the World, Part II was surprisingly good.

Batman Begins: I just didn't like that movie at all. The plot was a convoluted mess and the villain destroyed his own credibility halfway through the movie. I disliked the movie so much that I could never bring myself to watch the sequels.

I think The Dark Knight is by and large excellent storytelling but I barely remember anything from Batman Begins.

Nah, appreciation for John Carter has increased over time, to the point that it qualifies as 'officially underrated.' John Carter, like Solo, is another case of marketing failures overwhelming basically everything about the film itself. Disney basically strangled the marketing push for the film and also couldn't find it in themselves to title the movie 'John Carter of Mars' for inexplicable reasons.

Literally because Mars Needs Moms flopped and the execs decided it must be because people don't want to see "Mars" in a title, not because... who would want to see the premise implied by "Mars Needs Moms"?

Oh, here's a potentially good one (and fully honest): Kurt Cobain was crap. Nirvana is a blight on Dave Grohl's resume.

Well, I feel strongly enough to say I find this wildly wrong, but not strongly enough to argue about a band and man whose existence ended 30 years ago, because whose mind is going to be changed about that?

I find the ending of The Good Place upsettingly bad

YES. Don't worry, you're not alone.

(I find, among other things, Michael Schur has an issue with falling in love with his characters over time and refusing to give them real adversity or even any struggles to overcome-- this happened in Parks and Rec, too, where in the later seasons all a main character had to do was want something and they'd suddenly have huge success at it.)

Specific to The Good Place, it really seemed like the message was "heaven is when you can consume everything you want to consume and when you're bored of that you can essentially commit suicide." That's a really depressing outlook, moreso for someone who wants to say something about the human condition and write books on morality.

Seriously, the amount of time I've spent trying to tell people that a show about an unbelievably capable con-man who is charismatic as all get-out has conned them into believing he's a victim is a fantastic example of how cons can be effective, i tells ya....

Well, if it makes you feel better, I feel the same way on the amount of time I've spent telling someone that my opinions on some of the characters in the show are based in my morality, while they repeatedly insisted they were based in my feelings.

Spoiler: Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul

Show

Just because Chuck is a nasty, belittling, manipulative ass about saying it doesn't change the fact that it's true.

Spoiler

Show

And see, that's why I don't like Chuck. How we deal with things reflects on our character, too, and I've had too many arguments that amount to "Chuck is right about Jimmy so the ends justify his means," which I don't agree with.

Moreso because Chuck makes clear that he's always resented Jimmy, long before he became a lawyer of questionable ethics or even a criminal-- simply because he's better at charming people. I don't think you can separate that motivation from his actions.

Aside, I thought the ending was kind of stupid.

---

Personally, the biggest place I bump up against this is with critically praised TV shows that check a bunch of boxes for Prestige TV (expensive cinematography, highly recognizable actors often from film, ponderousness masquerading as importance) but that are pretty hollow on actually delivering satisfying storytelling. The TV version of Fargo is one of my biggest offenders in this regard-- I think it's a shallow pastiche of actually-good films made by a guy who doesn't understand those films.

But then, my other problem is that critics by and large don't value real drama or real comedy. Dramas tend to be praised for how expensive and immaculate they look more than if the story is compelling and well-told. And comedies are usually praised to the extent they are not comedies-- whether that means praised for their realism (Abbott Elementary, The Bear) or actually being a drama (Barry) or something else. But you'll never see a show or movie on top of a critic's list just for being the funniest damn thing they saw all year. Making people laugh legitimately is hard and deserves credit.

[Peelee]

Well, if it makes you feel better, I feel the same way on the amount of time I've spent telling someone that my opinions on some of the characters in the show are based in my morality, while they repeatedly insisted they were based in my feelings.

Did you happen to mention how you knew people exactly like Chuck and that rubbed you the wrong way? I see that a lot, and that's a blatant appeal to feelings.

Spoiler

Show

And see, that's why I don't like Chuck. How we deal with things reflects on our character, too, and I've had too many arguments that amount to "Chuck is right about Jimmy so the ends justify his means," which I don't agree with.

Moreso because Chuck makes clear that he's always resented Jimmy, long before he became a lawyer of questionable ethics or even a criminal-- simply because he's better at charming people. I don't think you can separate that motivation from his actions.

Aside, I thought the ending was kind of stupid.

The "means" for Chuck was not hiring Jimmy into his law firm. Which is a pretty reasonable means. That's it. That's all. Unless you want to want to count Chuck getting Jimmy to confess to committing multiple felonies, but I'd argue against that, since, ya know, Jimmy committed multiple felonies. Specifically in his capacity as a lawyer, which is supposed to be held to a higher standard. And those felonies were not only against Chuck, but also affected both his business and his professional reputation. And even then, Chuck didn't try to use the true confession of multiple felonies to have Jimmy back in prison (where he inarguably should go), but only to strip him of his license to practice law (which he inarguably should not have).

Gee, it's almost like Chuck was right and not only were the means downright reasonable, but the ends were also far lighter then they should have been!

But then, my other problem is that critics by and large don't value real drama or real comedy. Dramas tend to be praised for how expensive and immaculate they look more than if the story is compelling and well-told. And comedies are usually praised to the extent they are not comedies-- whether that means praised for their realism (Abbott Elementary, The Bear) or actually being a drama (Barry) or something else. But you'll never see a show or movie on top of a critic's list just for being the funniest damn thing they saw all year. Making people laugh legitimately is hard and deserves credit.

A.) Weren't This Is Spinal Tap and My Cousin Vinny wildly popular with critics, just to name two?
2.) Man, I do not get the love for The Bear. Like, even if its crazy accurate, why would I want to watch more of it? It's just people being stressed and crappy to each other. I tried for two or three episodes and just could not see the appeal.

[Metastachydium]

I don't really care whether or not you like Dany the character, but if a power-hungry maniac who sets an entire city on fire is a "Mary Sue," then the term really has lost all meaning.

Very hard disagree there. Godmode Sues are a thing, as are Villain Sues. And Daenerys… She checks all too many boxes of the basic skillset as well. I mean, shiny silver hair, violet eyes, s-p-e-c-i-a-l power, (nominally) oh-so-progressive views, all male characters she interacts with usually either fall in love with her immediately or are strawman opponents… She's really a textbook case.

And as for your specific squabble, I'd say her fetishizing power as her birthright would be neither here nor there – were it not for how characters much smarter than her are routinely shown to agree with her assessment on that. I'd say her solution for virtually all problems being "aggressivel apply dragons" or "aggressively aplly more dragons" would be neither here nor there – were it not for that apporach consistently working.

[Ionathus]

I've seen both the "Walter is awesome, Skylar's a bitch" attitude and the "Walter's a monster, Skylar's an innocent victim" attitude a lot. My personal take (and one that I'm pretty sure is a minority one) is that the two of them are actually pretty well matched. They got married and stayed married for a reason.

Hard disagree. I hate this perspective. "Walt and Skylar are both terrible people" is a golden mean fallacy -- their actions are not anywhere near the same order of magnitude of wrongdoing, and it cheapens the depths of Walt's depravity to compare him to his wife.

Walter had countless opportunities to get out of a highly illegal, highly dangerous business and he kept going, endangering his entire family in the process. He killed or ordered the deaths of numerous people in cold blood. He emotionally manipulated every person who cared about him (particularly Skylar and Jesse). And he did it all for explicitly selfish reasons.

Skylar smoked, had an affair, and went along with the impossible situation Walt thrust her into. She's no saint, but she does not deserve to be spoken of in the same sentence as her husband. Walter is clearly the villain and none of his family members even come close. This "everyone in Breaking Bad sucks" crap is rampant and annoyin.

(I know that's not quite what you were saying -- sorry for going off on a tangent rant, hopefully this didn't feel like I was yelling at you specifically!)

It was ultimately the biggest problem I had with both BB and BCS, despite how high-quality they are. The main characters in both series are just really horrible people, and it's hard to enjoy a series when there's no one you're rooting for.

I'll agree with you about BCS's main characters. I think Kim and Jimmy are much more suited to each other than Walt and Skylar. They're parallel arcs, for sure, but Kim enjoys the con...at least until they reach the series finale breaking point, that is.

Weirdly, it was much easier for me to enjoy BCS. I don't know what it is about Jimmy that makes me find him more endearing than Walter. Maybe it's because in the moments where Walter would get meaner and scarier, Jimmy often got smaller and more scared. I suspect that weakness makes him seem less malicious to me, even though he's hurt countless people with his actions. I don't know if anyone else had this experience, but my watch of BCS kind of mirrored Gnoman's experience with Mad Men: since I started out knowing that Saul Goodman is a little slimeball of a person, I started BCS with a much lower opinion of him. And then his charm and genuine hardships slowly warmed me up to him.

TBF I probably also enjoyed BCS because the B Story with Mike, Nacho, Gus, and Lalo was so compelling. Nacho and Lalo in particular were such captivating characters, but I'll never complain about more Mike.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd say her solution for virtually all problems being "aggressively apply dragons" or "aggressively apply more dragons" would be neither here nor there – were it not for that apporach consistently working.

And pouting. Being the Mother of Dragons is the only reason that little teenaged waif whom her brother pawned off on Drago to get a Dothraki Army of reconquest even matters, in-Universe. (Per the book). The rest follows from that.

[Errorname]

Very hard disagree there. Godmode Sues are a thing, as are Villain Sues. And Daenerys… She checks all too many boxes of the basic skillset as well. I mean, shiny silver hair, violet eyes, s-p-e-c-i-a-l power, (nominally) oh-so-progressive views, all male characters she interacts with usually either fall in love with her immediately or are strawman opponents… She's really a textbook case.

The "[x] Sue" is such a useless lens for looking at fiction that I generally hate to use it. Daenerys is written as special, as a sort of stock fantasy protagonist and a messiah figure, and I don't think that's inherently a bad thing.

I think the actual problem with her chapters is her supporting cast, which suffer from Martin's weak Essosi worldbuilding. Name a Dothraki character that isn't Drogo

[Peelee]

I don't know what it is about Jimmy that makes me find him more endearing than Walter.

Jimmy's got charisma out the wazoo.

Also, Jimmy is both book-smart when he applies himself (he is clearly a very capable legal mind) and street smart. Walter is street brain-dead. Dude jumps into bed with the first person available every single time. Jimmy was successful because of who he was, Walter was successful in spite of who he was.