It's not the size of the screen...

[Jasper]

I think I remember seeing a US version, at least advertised, some time ago?

Maybe?

I don't fucking know, and I'm too lazy to look.

Been talking outta my ass a lot lately.

[dead_elvis]

Apparently it made it to the pilot stage where it died a merciful death.

Richard Ayoade Regrets Doing the U.S. Pilot for 'The IT Crowd

[lunchstealer]

Apparently it made it to the pilot stage where it died a merciful death.

Richard Ayoade Regrets Doing the U.S. Pilot for 'The IT Crowd

Oh god I forgot about that. The problem was casting. If they'd had some US nerd-chic chick like Felicia Day or someone take Roy's role and had McHale as the tech-ignorant dumbass boss, it could've worked. Or had McHale in the Reynolm role, possibly. But he comes off too cool for the tech guy role.

Well casting and not re-writing the script enough that it translated better. The US version of The Office worked as well as it did because they didn't try to do a shot-for-shot remake of the British version. The US version of Coupling... did not. Because they did.

[Eric the .5b]

I looked, and HBO Max seems to be the same price as an Amazon Prime add-on as separate. Might be less fuss to have it as part of Amazon Prime?

[dead_elvis]

Apparently it made it to the pilot stage where it died a merciful death.

Richard Ayoade Regrets Doing the U.S. Pilot for 'The IT Crowd

Oh god I forgot about that. The problem was casting. If they'd had some US nerd-chic chick like Felicia Day or someone take Roy's role and had McHale as the tech-ignorant dumbass boss, it could've worked. Or had McHale in the Reynolm role, possibly. But he comes off too cool for the tech guy role.

They chose the wrong Community person (yeah, I know, Community came after this pilot)- it could work if they had Troy and Abed as the IT guys and Britta or Annie as the bumbling manager.

[Jennifer]

Saw part one of the Stand, and I am not optimistic that they did a good job. Had I not already read the book, I doubt I'd even understand what's going on.

[Hugh Akston]

I looked, and HBO Max seems to be the same price as an Amazon Prime add-on as separate. Might be less fuss to have it as part of Amazon Prime?

That's how I use CBS All-Access, and there is zero fuss.

[Eric the .5b]

I looked, and HBO Max seems to be the same price as an Amazon Prime add-on as separate. Might be less fuss to have it as part of Amazon Prime?

That's how I use CBS All-Access, and there is zero fuss.

Which way?

[Hugh Akston]

I looked, and HBO Max seems to be the same price as an Amazon Prime add-on as separate. Might be less fuss to have it as part of Amazon Prime?

That's how I use CBS All-Access, and there is zero fuss.

Which way?

As a Prime add-on

[dead_elvis]

I really want to like Better Things because I love Pamela Adlon but I'm not sure my blood pressure can take it because damn I want to just murder her shitty-ass brat 2 older daughters.

[dbcooper]

[Warren]

I found a documentary of the form that I like; A community of super enthused people doing something I didn't know was going on.
Way of the Puck is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. But unfortunately I can't recommend it unless competition docs are also you're thing. It's a good quality film mind you. And it successfully features a quirky and eclectic handful of individual enthusiasts. But they're not content to play their game, then need to relive the glory days from before the time of video games. The absence of fresh young faces playing at the highest levels would suggest they're not succeeding in bringing about the Air Hockey renaissance, giving a sad and pitiful parlor to the faithful. More Barista less Carpet Racers.

[JD]

Saw part one of the Stand, and I am not optimistic that they did a good job. Had I not already read the book, I doubt I'd even understand what's going on.

I'm surprised, but maybe this is one of those cases where the show doesn't live up to the book or something. I've never read the book, and I'm liking the show well enough so far after two episodes. Yes, there's a lot of mysterious stuff, but so far it's all in the "let's see where this goes" stage.

[Jennifer]

Saw part one of the Stand, and I am not optimistic that they did a good job. Had I not already read the book, I doubt I'd even understand what's going on.

I'm surprised, but maybe this is one of those cases where the show doesn't live up to the book or something. I've never read the book, and I'm liking the show well enough so far after two episodes. Yes, there's a lot of mysterious stuff, but so far it's all in the "let's see where this goes" stage.

I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but one complaint I can make without spoiling anything -- which also happens to be my main complaint with the show, two episodes into it -- is, the book is in chronological order, starting with somebody accidentally releasing a virus from a bioweapons lab, somebody else fleeing the lab with his family (not knowing it was too late, and they were already infected), and so on: we see the pandemic work its way through society, and we're also introduced to all the major viewpoint characters one by one, starting with "where were they and what were they doing just before the virus" before showing what they personally experienced as the pandemic ran its course, etc. But the show, as you've noticed already, kicks off five months after the pandemic -- that very first scene, where Harold and some other people in biohazard suits are going to clear the corpses out of a church in Boulder, doesn't happen in the book until at least a third of the way into it, IIRC even further.

[D.A. Ridgely]

Saw part one of the Stand, and I am not optimistic that they did a good job. Had I not already read the book, I doubt I'd even understand what's going on.

I'm surprised, but maybe this is one of those cases where the show doesn't live up to the book or something. I've never read the book, and I'm liking the show well enough so far after two episodes. Yes, there's a lot of mysterious stuff, but so far it's all in the "let's see where this goes" stage.

I'm not going to spoil anything for you, but one complaint I can make without spoiling anything -- which also happens to be my main complaint with the show, two episodes into it -- is, the book is in chronological order, starting with somebody accidentally releasing a virus from a bioweapons lab, somebody else fleeing the lab with his family (not knowing it was too late, and they were already infected), and so on: we see the pandemic work its way through society, and we're also introduced to all the major viewpoint characters one by one, starting with "where were they and what were they doing just before the virus" before showing what they personally experienced as the pandemic ran its course, etc. But the show, as you've noticed already, kicks off five months after the pandemic -- that very first scene, where Harold and some other people in biohazard suits are going to clear the corpses out of a church in Boulder, doesn't happen in the book until at least a third of the way into it, IIRC even further.

Film and television adaptations of any novel are going to deviate from the narrative structure of the novel for all sorts of reasons. I thought the original miniseries was cheesy, so I never had high hopes for this one but I think we can distinguish between whether flash-back narration is per se bad or whether maybe they're just not doing an especially good job of it so far.

As a general rule, I think adaptations of King's shorter stories and novellas tend to work better than adaptations of his novels. I don't know why, it just seems like that to me. *shrug*

[thoreau]

We've been binging In The Dark. Season 1 is The Flight Attendant, basically. Season 2 is Ozark.

[JD]

Film and television adaptations of any novel are going to deviate from the narrative structure of the novel for all sorts of reasons. I thought the original miniseries was cheesy, so I never had high hopes for this one but I think we can distinguish between whether flash-back narration is per se bad or whether maybe they're just not doing an especially good job of it so far.

As a general rule, I think adaptations of King's shorter stories and novellas tend to work better than adaptations of his novels. I don't know why, it just seems like that to me. *shrug*

So far I think the flashback thing is working pretty well. I think a straightforward chronological version might have just taken too long to have any payoff, especially given the length of King's works. And IMO novel adaptations often don't work too well because novels are just too long. A screenplay is much closer in length and spirit to a short story.

[lunchstealer]

We've been binging In The Dark. Season 1 is The Flight Attendant, basically. Season 2 is Ozark.

Wait, people have actually watched The Flight Attendant? Does that mean someone actually subscribed to HBO Max?

[thoreau]

We've been binging In The Dark. Season 1 is The Flight Attendant, basically. Season 2 is Ozark.

Wait, people have actually watched The Flight Attendant? Does that mean someone actually subscribed to HBO Max?

We already had HBO. It automatically switched over.

[Jennifer]

Film and television adaptations of any novel are going to deviate from the narrative structure of the novel for all sorts of reasons. I thought the original miniseries was cheesy, so I never had high hopes for this one but I think we can distinguish between whether flash-back narration is per se bad or whether maybe they're just not doing an especially good job of it so far.

As a general rule, I think adaptations of King's shorter stories and novellas tend to work better than adaptations of his novels. I don't know why, it just seems like that to me. *shrug*

So far I think the flashback thing is working pretty well. I think a straightforward chronological version might have just taken too long to have any payoff, especially given the length of King's works.

Au contraire; chronologically speaking, you barely even get two pages into the book without knowing something really nasty has escaped that bioweapons lab, and only a short time after that before we see how quickly the virus is spreading, and how nasty it gets.

I dunno; it's hard for me to un-know or forget things -- meaning, I can't get into the mindset of "Pretend I know nothing about the story or its characters, and judge the show from there," but -- once the show is all over, Ill be curious to ask you what you thought (and knew) about certain characters; I can't ask you now without spoiling things.

[dbcooper]

[dhex]

I'd watch that over a ball drop every damn time.

[Jennifer]

Saw part 3 of CBS's "The Stand," and still remain unimpressed (speaking as someone who is not just familiar, but very familiar, with the book). I still think I'd have a hard time understanding what-all is going on.

Also, Whoopi Goldberg's acting is almost non-existent here. That scene where she sat facing the poor dying crucified man after he became possessed by the demonic Flagg (an original scene not in the book, and one with the potential to be good) -- that would've been terrifying, or at least WTF-level disconcerting, in real life, yet she just sat there. You could've replaced her in that scene with one of those "sitting statues" you'll find on park benches here and there throughout the greater metro Atlanta area; she literally didn't speak, have a facial expression or even move. If you're gonna have her react that way, at least precede it with a scene where she'd just finished smoking a huuuuuge bowl or marijuana (she chose Boulder because its pre-pandemic laws meant weed would be easy to find in Colorado's legal dispensaries), so even as a demonic entity possessed the poor dying tortured man and started doing scary supernatural demonic things, that explains why all Mother Abigail does is rest her hands atop her cane and sit there, her face expressionless beneath her long gray locs.

[Hugh Akston]

Just finished Dark Matter, a cheapo Syfy series trying and failing to be Firefly. Decent premise and some pretty good characters, but it became apparent pretty quickly that they had no idea where they were going, so they resorted to ripping off Star Trek plots. Speaking of which this is the second scifi series I've seen where Wil Wheaton is the villain.

My next show is going to be one of those fancy prestige dramas everyone seems to like. I am open to suggestions.

[Warren]

Masters of Sex