Category: Live Action

Game of Thrones was one show that I actually wasn’t worried about deviating from the original material because I figured that to achieve the heights it did, everyone involved must have known what they were doing as it wasn’t like George R. R. Martin was writing every scene, but… It appears I couldn’t have been more wrong–the way they dropped the ball with the final season is legendary.

The tense atmosphere is gone, everyone has plot armor, the characters are making dumb decisions that feel nothing like them, the battle strategy is abysmal and all battles are won through magic, and most of the events feel rushed and not set up properly. It simply doesn’t feel like Game of Thrones anymore. It’s still better than what you normally see on TV, but this is Game of Thrones we’re talking about, not goddamn Hercules: The Legendary Journey.

While I thought I didn’t need to pick up the books while I was around season four, I started having doubts through season five and six, until I finally realized I simply had to read them to get a proper conclusion to the story around season seven. At this point, I really can’t help but treat the last two seasons as fan fiction that I give no more credit than alternative fan endings on youtube, which also happen to be infinitely better.

The underwhelming last season doesn’t change all the amazing things that came prior to it, and the first four seasons of Game of Thrones (and arguably five and six too) still remain my favorite TV series. I’ll be looking forward to see how the story actually concludes if George R. R. Martin finishes the damn books.

Seasons based on books:

Original material:

A resurrection of Evil Dead that captures the feel of the original pretty much perfectly. It’s a tragedy and a complete mystery to me why the channel ended up cancelling the show after three seasons as it was only getting better and better.

A historical Korean TV series focusing on the first female physician in middle age Korea.

It’s a bit hit and miss depending on the episode, but Black Mirror is one of the most imaginative, mind-blowing shows I’ve ever seen that should be watched by anyone with even a passing interest in speculative science fiction.

A truly well-done show that quite accurately represents the period in Rome’s history between Caesar’s attempt to seize power and Octavian’s ascension to the throne.

The only real gripe I had with it is that the show has few surprises for you if you know your history beforehand.

Disclaimer: this impression is based on the first two seasons of the show.

A TV series about an old school marshal fighting crime in Kentucky that despite a few highs here and there is too padded with episodic filler to truly shine.

An ingenious comedy cartoon that follows the adventures of a misanthropic drunken scientist and his completely normal (if not particularly bright) grandson.

Disclaimer: based on the first two seasons.

A light-hearted comedy that’s good to kill some time with, but not much else.

Despite a strong first episode this show soon devolves into but another uninspired and clueless character piece with plot threads being introduced and thrown away seemingly at random. It’s pretty apparent the creators never had a clear vision for where they wanted to take the story, and were just making stuff as they went.

I don’t think I’ll be watching further than the first season.

A quite hilarious comedy show that unfortunately got canceled before it could go anywhere (although I doubt that was ever its intention to begin with).

The show might have appeared as ingenious sixty years ago, but from the lens of a modern viewer it is but a compilation of already tired ideas that are conveyed with naivete and superficiality more reminiscent of a cartoon.

If you’re curious, I would recommend only checking the episodes that make it to “best of twilight zone” lists.

I should’ve probably known better than to try random TV shows, but damn this thing was bad. Dropped after the pilot episode.

A show about hackers made by people who actually know how to use a computer for a change. Unfortunately, it becomes a tad dull after its amazing pilot episode, as the plot starts moving in circles seemingly unable to decide what it wants to do with its characters.

Then all sorts of shit goes down in the last few episodes, and I still can’t decide if they shot themselves in the foot with all those suspension of disbelief breaking twists, or are they on the right track to make the following season an amazing roller coaster.

Well, at least I can certainly get behind the idea of the concept of corporations being the bane of mankind.

Resident Evil playing a big part in my childhood, I just can’t help being attracted to zombie fiction, and The Walking Dead is about the only actually competent TV series in the genre. It’s just too bad it doesn’t really offer anything special, and its most interesting and least annoying characters are the mute monsters.

Nowhere near as good as the game, unfortunately.

Before trying to shill their nonsense as “based on a real story” the writers of this show should’ve stopped to consider if anything in their story made sense outside of their shriveled heads. Not a single thing is properly thought through in this “police drama” where police don’t investigate crime scenes, ignore obvious evidence and then convict random people on assumptions that make no sense; where serial killers run wild across the town without even trying to conceal themselves and pose for security cameras; where grown up people talk to each other like middle schoolers (the dialogue of the two FBI agents is in particular moronic).

Then at around episode 7 the writers seem to finally give up, and the show completely falls apart with characters purposefully acting against their own interests to get killed.

This movie has been made in 1960. Why are there still creationists?

Deadwood might be set in an amazing setting (19th century mining town) and its dialogue might be quite well-written, but it doesn’t change the fact that it has virtually no story, and most of its characters drop dead before even getting a proper arc, and those who don’t tend to get their personalities rewritten every few episodes. The whole thing felt more like a performance in a very high-budget improvisational theatre than any sort of narrative to me.

The concept of an epic jailbreak takes a whole new meaning when the jail in question turns out to be an island in South America.

Not a single shot is fired up until the very end of this amazing old-school western which seems to prefer confronting human condition, like meaningless stubbornness, trust issues in a small community, and coping with fear, to its outlaws.

The medicine part is a bit shaky at times, but then there are limits to the amount of research a writer can do, you’d have to have a full hospital of doctors consulting you to make a show like this foolproof.