I am currently watching television programmes

[Nordic]

I still wish enough people would watch the new season of House of Cards all the way to the very end so we could talk about it! And I mean the very end, literally the last minute.

[Nordic]

If you think you might want to watch that HBO show called "Vinyl"?

Don't.

If you're a big admirer of Martin Scorcese and think you want to watch it because he directed the pilot?

Don't.

If you think "well it can't be that bad -- it's people from Boardwalk Empire and The Sopranos and was shot by super talented people".

It's that bad. It's worse.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the level of FAIL this show represents. It's interesting for one reason only: to study why it's so bad. How it doesn't work. Why it misses the mark so errantly.

Such a disappointment. I really hate to say it. I couldn't even get through the pilot! I kept checking to see if I was getting closer to the end and it's like the time scale was stuck. Like when you're in an awful job and keep checking the clock and it seems like the clock can't possibly be actually moving that slow.

[elfismiles]

I still wish enough people would watch the new season of House of Cards all the way to the very end so we could talk about it! And I mean the very end, literally the last minute.

Ah yes ... that last line of 4th-wall-breaking dialog. TERROR!

[Nordic]

I still wish enough people would watch the new season of House of Cards all the way to the very end so we could talk about it! And I mean the very end, literally the last minute.

Ah yes ... that last line of 4th-wall-breaking dialog. TERROR!

Wasn't that amazing??

[Nordic]

Anyone watching that show "Aquarius?"

It's on Netflix now and ive seen the first three episodes or so.

Interesting. My only big complaint is the casting of Manson. Seems way off, too "actory" and cute like a Melrose Place version of Manson. But everybody else is good. Surprisingly NSFW for a network show. Unless the Netflix version is an R rated version.

I was interested in how it might depict the "dirty hippies" versus the authorities and "respectable" people. But this show is very noir. It's a fallen world and everyone is guilty. Of something. So far the only "good guy" is the young male cop (he's also pretty tv-cute, but hey it's American TV).

Very dark, very noir. Seems very fictionalized too but is quick to show Manson's surprising affiliations with certain power broker types in a corrupt city. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

[82_28]

I watched it and thought it was "good" but you're definitely right about the casting of the Manson character. If anyone knew anything about that guy he would have gotten beat the fuck up super fast. I miss Dave McGowan. His text lives on. But it would have been quick.

[elfismiles]

I've been watching season one of AQUARIUS via netflix as well... agree on the melrose place analogy.

Also, my wife just started binge watching ORPHAN BLACK which I'd planned on watching. Up to season 3 now and about fell out of my chair when they mentioned a Project LEDA and I'd just watched the old CNN gem on LIDA that I posted video of here: viewtopic.php?p=600563#p600563

[semper occultus]

.....S1 was a bit underwhelming....the girls looked more like they'd hang out on Taylor Swift's yacht than Charlie's commune.......and the characterisation of Manson didn't work for me certainly...& I've just realised he is yet another of those British actors in Hollywood taking food out of the mouths of starving home grown thespians...they must be getting fed-up with that...

[PufPuf93]

I recently watched the first season - 10 episodes - of Mr. Robot on Amazon Prime and enjoyed the programs.

Mr. Robot is about a socially awkward and perhaps mentally ill young programmer on the job and compulsive hacker off the job who partakes a conspiracy derivative of V for Vendetta against the global economy.

The story is PKDish in tone with introspection and rapid changes in fact and perspective ubiquitous.

Most of the characters in Mr. Robot are "catching". Note that I bought Amazon Prime to watch PKD-derived Man in the High Castle. The production values of MITHC were great but the show was boring and there was not for me a single character who was "catching".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4158110/

http://www.usanetwork.com/mrrobot

[MinM]

Apparently that scumbag Daryl Gates is getting exposed a little in the new ESPN OJ Simpson Documentary...

***** ***** ****** ***** *****

Interesting... isn't there, historically, a strong working relationship between the CIA and the LAPD? Doesn't Ruppert talk about that in Crossing the Rubicon?

Manny Pena and Hank Hernadez (the guy that interrogated Sandy Serrano) both had CIA/USAID ties.

#SpecialUnitSenator

Enjoying American Crime Story quite a bit too, which is interesting because almost every character is despicable. I guess that's American realism.

An interesting tidbit from the show (imported from another thread: Holy Hijacking, Hugh)...

...Hitz acknowledged that cocaine smugglers played a significant early role in the Nicaraguan contra movement and that the CIA intervened to block an image-threatening 1984 federal investigation into a San Francisco-based drug ring with suspected ties to the contras, the so-called “Frogman Case.”...

CIA Drug Asset

Along the Southern Front, in Costa Rica, the drug evidence centered on the forces of Eden Pastora, another leading contra commander...

...Three months later, in September 1982, Gomez started his CIA assignment in Costa Rica.
Years later, convicted drug trafficker Carlos Cabezas charged that in the early 1980s, Ivan Gomez was the CIA agent in Costa Rica who was overseeing drug-money donations to the contras.

Gomez “was to make sure the money was given to the right people [the contras] and nobody was taking ... profit they weren’t supposed to,” Cabezas stated publicly.

But the CIA sought to discredit Cabezas at the time because he had trouble identifying Gomez’s picture and put Gomez at one meeting in early 1982 before Gomez started his CIA assignment.

While the CIA was able to fend off Cabezas’s allegations by pointing to these discrepancies, Hitz’s report revealed that the CIA was nevertheless aware of Gomez’s direct role in drug-money laundering, a fact the agency hid from Sen. Kerry’s investigation in 1987...

Joseph Fernandez, who had been the CIA’s station chief in Costa Rica, later confirmed to congressional Iran-Contra investigators that Nunez “was involved in a very sensitive operation” for North’s “Enterprise.” The exact nature of that NSC-authorized activity has never been divulged...

@UPROXX

Yes, O.J. Simpson really made a 1994 NBC pilot titled Frogmen that was locked away forever http://uproxx.it/1UeS3Vm
11:13 PM - 15 Mar 2016

The seventh episode of The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story focused mainly on the infamous bloody glove moment at the trial, where Christopher Darden directed Simpson to try it on only to have the plan backfire when the glove appeared too tight. It was an important moment in the trial, and therefore an important moment in the series, but it was completely overshadowed — for me, at least — by a brief discussion Marcia Clark had with Christopher Darden’s friends about O.J. Simpson’s starring role in a scrapped 1994 NBC pilot titled Frogmen.

Yes, Frogmen was a real thing. It was described at the time as a kind of A-Team-esque series about beach bum former Navy SEALs. If you read that sentence and thought, “Well that sounds like an incredible television show,” there’s a good reason for that: It sounds like an incredible television show. From a 2000 Los Angeles Times article about the pilot:

The premise centers on a team of Navy SEALs who, as described in the pilot, “take on special assignments for the government and private sector.”

Simpson plays their leader, John “Bullfrog” Burke, who goes to Costa Rica with four fellow ex-SEALs seeking to rescue a former friend who married Burke’s ex-wife. Burke’s crack team includes a ladies’ man, a master of disguise and a skilled con man. Burke, meanwhile, fronts his operation out of a dive shop in Malibu. The final shot features the group having returned triumphant from their mission–grabbing surfboards and plunging into the surf.

It’s like The A-Team meets Point Break. Starring O.J. Simpson. As a man named Bullfrog. That would be like if someone made a show today about… actually, I don’t have an analogy here. This show was a snowflake. It never made it to air, though, because Simpson was arrested and charged with double murder while Warner Bros. — the studio that was producing the two-hour project — was putting the finishing touches on it. But it almost made its way into the trial anyway due to one scene, in particular.

The show was discussed, but never introduced as evidence, during Simpson’s criminal trial for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. In a chilling echo of those killings, a scene in the two-hour movie meant to launch the action-drama series features Simpson’s character grabbing what he believes to be an intruder (the young woman turns out to be his daughter) and momentarily holding a knife to her throat.

As for the current state of Frogmen, don’t expect to see it pop up on cable any time soon. All that exists of the project is a 25-minute sales presentation video, which Warner Bros. has locked away in the deepest, darkest part of its vault. (The writer of the Los Angeles Times story, Brian Lowry, was allowed to view the video by a source close to the project.) And they appear to have no intention of releasing it. If they didn’t cash in on the surefire ratings bonanza at the time of the trial, one assumes they’re perfectly happy to let it keep collecting dust.

There is one more interesting fact about Frogmen, though. In addition to Simpson, the pilot also starred an actor named Evan Handler as “a reluctant member of the team.” Handler went on to appear on shows like Californication and Sex and the City, and you can catch him on television right now as… Simpson lawyer Alan Dershowitz on The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.

Ryan Murphy, you sly dog.

http://uproxx.com/tv/oj-simpson-frogmen/

keywords: frogmen, costa rica, iran-contra, nbc

BTW this should be a good one...

@VanityFair Mar 30

Martin Sheen hopes his new 'OJ Is Innocent' docuseries will find Nicole Simpson’s killer http://vntyfr.com/JlkBmKR

[Nordic]

No wonder I'm deep into "Aquarius" - co-executive produced by Rafael Yglesias, who also wrote some of the better episodes.

http://m.imdb.com/name/nm0947913/filmotype/writer

Dude wrote "Fearless" for one. Which I happened to read before it was made. One of the 2 best scripts I've ever read. Fantastic writer; also a novelist. Also wrote "Dark Water" which was intensely creepy and weirdly foretold that strange strange death of that woman in the rundown old hotel in LA, which was covered here at RI.

[Rory]

Been watching UnREAL. Almost through he first series.

When watching it was proposed to me I was a little dubious to say the least. Now that I'm deep in I am amazed that a show as dark and cynical is in the mainstream. Various articles like this will give you the gist and premise but it is (seemingly, to my non industry eye), as close a warts and all look at the ugly sociopathy of reality TV.

Very sharp, funny, and dark. Excellent TV

[Nordic]

Been watching UnREAL. Almost through he first series.

When watching it was proposed to me I was a little dubious to say the least. Now that I'm deep in I am amazed that a show as dark and cynical is in the mainstream. Various articles like this will give you the gist and premise but it is (seemingly, to my non industry eye), as close a warts and all look at the ugly sociopathy of reality TV.

Very sharp, funny, and dark. Excellent TV

I really want to see that. I have direct experience in that universe which is parodied and I've heard such good things about this show and that part of the business DESERVES to be parodied preferably to death. It's wretched. I also really like Shiri Appleby. I've worked with her and she's super cool.

[PufPuf93]

Nordic
I really want to see that. I have direct experience in that universe which is parodied and I've heard such good things about this show and that part of the business DESERVES to be parodied preferably to death. It's wretched. I also really like Shiri Appleby. I've worked with her and she's super cool.

I mentioned up thread about how I had lived without TV and in the past year had purchased Amazon Prime, at the time mainly to watch The Man in the High Castle.
TMITHC has high production values and is better than most PKD-derived fare in creating a PKD ambiance but was on a whole disappointing in that none of the characters "clicked" and the series was in a sense boring.

So I have been watching movies and TV shows I have missed over the years regularly.

Shiri Appleby starred in two shows watched consecutively in their entirety that I enjoyed.

One was Life Unexpected. What made me notice the show is the location in Portland, OR. I worked for a firm on Pioneer Square from 1987 to 1993. Liked the show and Appleby and the young woman who starred as the daughter of her character's exe were pleasingly irritating, destined to create and live their own neurosises.

The other was Roswell which may be an obvious program to watch for someone who hangs at RI. Nothing like a story about hormonal teens, some one whom happen to be aliens.

I have lived such a sheltered life I had never even heard of Shiri Appleby nor the TV shows Life Unexpected nor Roswell. I am glad to hear your positive impression of the actress.

I am watching Boardwalk Empire now and most recently finished Bosch ( I have read some of the Connelly novels that are the basis of Bosch).

It is frustrating to hear references to newer movies and TV shows and not have ready means to watch. Aquarious sounds like an interesting program.

[Rory]

Been watching UnREAL. Almost through he first series.

When watching it was proposed to me I was a little dubious to say the least. Now that I'm deep in I am amazed that a show as dark and cynical is in the mainstream. Various articles like this will give you the gist and premise but it is (seemingly, to my non industry eye), as close a warts and all look at the ugly sociopathy of reality TV.

Very sharp, funny, and dark. Excellent TV

I really want to see that. I have direct experience in that universe which is parodied and I've heard such good things about this show and that part of the business DESERVES to be parodied preferably to death. It's wretched. I also really like Shiri Appleby. I've worked with her and she's super cool.

She's excellent in it, to be fair.

The thing that got me was it's basically a primer on how gaslighting and psychological manipulation work. Appleby's role is that of a sharp and intuitive 'producer', who's main function seems to be to charm/cajole people into doing things that get ratings up. The pathologies at play are primal, cynical and vicious.

Great TV