Whatcha Bleedin' Watchin'?

[Dr. Insomniac]

The fans seem to be turning though, since I saw a lot of backlash at the latest episode over how it wasted Tek Knight and the aforementioned Hughie sexual assault, and even a few saying A-Train's the only character they're invested in at this point.

And yeah, the flaws have already been brewing in seasons past. Last season failed to give a compelling enough argument for why Soldier Boy was worse than Homelander, so everyone throwing away their big chance to kill the latter was aggravating. I think I mentioned this a while ago, the Homelander problem the show has where he's the mascot and the most popular character but everyone else in the cast has a reason to want him dead or incapacitated, and the lack of either over time makes every character look like an idiot. Why haven't Victoria and Sage teamed up to distract him and blow his head up while getting some shapeshifting Supe from Godolkin to impersonate him for PR purposes? Why was that lab a few episodes ago still intact at the time and still populated by Homelander's doctors who didn't prepare at all in case the superpowered psychopath they tortured might come back to hunt them down? Why are there still Vought employees acting like any of this is normal? The corporate satire runs out because real-life CEOs aren't openly murdering in public with their own hands. Yeah, there's Nestle and Boeing, but that shit's covert and not as blunt as their execs literally shooting people in the middle of the street and facing zero consequences. It goes from a nuanced take on corrupt businesses to something Mark Millar would come up with, especially with how 1:1 it wants to be with real-life politics while having nothing interesting to say beyond depicting characters who are just Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez or Marjorie Taylor Greene with superpowers.

There's just no subtlety anymore, in the satire or in the characters, hence all the obvious death flags. Ironically, it's hitting all the issues I had when reading issues of the comics ages ago, when one of the reasons people praised season 1 so much was because it didn't feel like the comics and wasn't as cartoonishly edgy in its execution, hitting the right balance of shock and intrigue. But now, it's just playing the same old songs. I'm sure in the next season, we'll have another superhero the main cast thought was cool at first but then turns out to be an extreme racist who's into violent bondage and rapes and murders innocent people while spouting Elon Musk or Andrew Tate quotes. And Butcher gets another chance to kill Homelander but throws it away because of Ryan. And Annie is about to be useful before she just kinda stands there again. And of course, Homelander doing something depraved like fucking a newborn baby's skull while guzzling down breast milk. You know, at least when the MCU is bad, it doesn't feel like I'm watching an edgelord's eye-rolling fetish.

[Dr. Insomniac]

This week's episode was more solid and felt like things were moving, but like you said about the show's refusal to kill off main characters, I just kept thinking "Why is the Deep still alive?" He has no real importance to the story anymore, and most of the cast hate him enough to want him dead or crippled. A-Train had more than enough time to snap his neck or stab his eyes out. I guess he's still here because the show needs him as the comic relief guy, even though he's an unrepentant sexual predator and there's only so many times you can go "Lol, he fucks fish!".

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, why didn't the Supes just kill the crew after Homelander got them deputized? There were no witnesses around in each case and there isn't really a good reason to keep them alive, especially since they may potentially still be capable of exposing Homelander and The Seven.

For a supposedly subversive and critical satire of the superhero genre, it's surprisingly very in-tune with the standards of plot armor with any normal superhero show or movie.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, I don't want to be all Cinemasins about it, but it's always either really heavy plot armor or characters taking forever to go "Wait... maybe Homelander's a bad guy and I shouldn't side with him?" Like Neuman finally realizing this at the very last second. Or how the show's really stretching time to justify why Ryan won't realize this until late next season. I get that he's a kid, but he's a teenager now, and he's had more than enough time to figure this out, but instead of doing that, he just kills Grace and leaves? And right after him almost recognizing the deal last episode. This flip-flopping is annoying.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Decided to get this off my bucket list and watch The Deuce. Don't fully know why I didn't watch it when it was airing because it's a David Simon joint. I think it was because of how much of a creative hand James Franco had in it, I never really liked any of his directorial efforts. But yeah, fun show for 80% of its run. Cute to see Frank Sobotka's actor pretty much play Frank Sobotka again, Slim Charles as the diner owner, and Larry Gilliard Jr. on the other side of the law. And then the last few episodes are the most misery-inducing art that David Simon's ever made. Even worse than what happened to the kids in season 4 of The Wire. I was just fucking depressed watching that, but in a good way.

Now trying to look for another HBO show I should watch. Heard good things about Industry. Maybe I should watch more of Young Pope/New Pope beyond the handful of episodes I watched. Or do Enlightened since I remember Avaitor praising it.

[Avaitor]

It's funny, right before The Deuce started, a friend of mine was telling me about how they'd like to see a series about the porn boom in the 70s, kind of like a more fleshed-out Boogie Nights, and we got more or less that. It's a good show, not as essential as The Wire but captivating for its entire run.

And I really should get to Treme at some point.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I remember Treme being all right, much more happy than Simon's other shows but not by much. I think the show doesn't get anywhere near as much love is because it's harder to sell audiences, even The Wire audiences, on a show about the history of New Orleans music. While The Wire's a relatively easier pitch since cop dramas are a very popular genre.

[Avaitor]

It's pretty nice that Simon hasn't made a massive hit (even The Wire always trailed Sopranos, Six Feet Under and even Deadwood, and it only got to outlast the latter due to its massive budget), but they keep letting him make whatever he wants, and it's usually pretty good even if the ratings and awards are never there.

Speaking of HBO, I really should get to the last season of My Brilliant Friend. Critics seemed to have basically forgotten the series, which is partly why I haven't got around to playing catch up yet.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Kind of a shame that faith hasn't spread to other creators though. Like Carnivale never really got that chance. And while I recall critics weren't kind, a couple circles I'm into were pissed that Time Traveler's Wife never got a second season.

I guess HBO execs have an exemplary working relationship with Simon, despite the fact he can be pretty challenging when you see him on social media and in interviews. In contrast to David Chase who expressed an interest in working on many other things after The Sopranos ended, but ever since then, all he's made is a rock band movie that critics and casual audiences didn't take to, Sopranos Babies, and a bunch of retrospectives about the making of Sopranos. I don't know what happened there, but something bad must have occurred if the creator of one of the most critically acclaimed shows of all time struggles to get non-spinoff material made. In an environment where his contemporaries, who almost all happen to be named David, easily can.

And My Brilliant Friend, I read the first book and thought it was okay. I think the reason critics haven't gushed about the series is because unless something crazy happened in the later books, it's not as scandalous as the usual show in the HBO house style. Yeah, there's plenty of drama, but not like to the level of what you often get from HBO. And the fact that it's a subtitled coming of age program about two girls in the 50s means it doesn't have the sensational appeal that other subbed live-action shows like Dark or Squid Game achieved. Or even Babylon Berlin. I watched the first season of that earlier this year and thought it was pretty fun, while I saw a couple My Brilliant Friend episodes and was mostly bored.

[Avaitor]

True, between the three Davids, Simon is the one with the most illustrious career for HBO. Both of Milch's post-Deadwood shows have been disasters and considering his Alzheimer's diagnosis, I doubt he'll be able to make anything else for them, while from what I've seen, Chase seems content on relying on his Sopranos legacy in his old age to the point that he keeps revealing every random detail about the show that he can aside from the Russian's fate. Apparently we're still getting the Tony B movie at some point.

Kind of surprising that Alan Ball is arguably the most lucrative of HBO's major showrunners, having both Six Feet Under and True Blood. I really should finish the former, still haven't seen the last season.

I wouldn't say My Brilliant Friend really gets that intense, although you'd think between the controversy behind how much of the books actually happened and their considerable popularity, it would be a bigger draw. But adapting successful books doesn't guarantee instant success for HBO, I guess- look at His Dark Materials.

[Dr. Insomniac]

But I get why His Dark Materials wasn't huge for HBO. Well out of their usual target demographic since it's for kids/teenagers. The source material itself had a pretty lame ending from what I remember. And the main impression I got from the reception was that it's like the Percy Jackson and Netflix ATLA shows, "Cool we can memoryhole the shitty movie adaptation. Although this one's just blander."

Which has me wondering how HBO hopes to pull off that Harry Potter TV show, since you can't memoryhole the movies. They lasted over a decade, adapted all the books instead of only a third to a half like Narnia, were liked by many critics, fans, and casual audiences when they came out, rerun all the time on TV, and are the visual basis for all those theme parks and tie-in games. I just don't see how you can successfully overhaul any of that instead of making a reboot people will watch for one season but then give up in favor of just rewatching the movies again. It'd be like if Amazon announced new TV adaptations of Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King. Everyone would balk at that more than they did with Rings of Power.

And yeah, surprised about Alan Ball too, especially when none of his shows really have any staying power in pop culture. I remember The Onion made a joke in one of their videos that Six Feet Under had a dead prehistoric fandom, and that joke itself was ages back. Last time I can think of somebody referencing Six Feet Under was The Simpsons a while ago, and they're often late on the ball anyway. Like if you asked anybody what role they associate Michael C Hall with, how many of them will go "The uptight gay guy from Six Feet Under"?

While with Sopranos, I'm getting the sense that besides Edie Falco who's gone onto other things, or whenever Imperioli guest stars in something, all the surviving main cast members from that show are just going "Remember when we did The Sopranos?" at podcasts and interviews instead of anything else. Which is a shame, how that show had so many of the background extras become famous like Lady Gaga or Lin Manuel Miranda, but almost everyone else got typecast.

[Avaitor]

Which has me wondering how HBO hopes to pull off that Harry Potter TV show, since you can't memoryhole the movies. They lasted over a decade, adapted all the books instead of only a third to a half like Narnia, were liked by many critics, fans, and casual audiences when they came out, rerun all the time on TV, and are the visual basis for all those theme parks and tie-in games. I just don't see how you can successfully overhaul any of that instead of making a reboot people will watch for one season but then give up in favor of just rewatching the movies again. It'd be like if Amazon announced new TV adaptations of Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King. Everyone would balk at that more than they did with Rings of Power.

I think this is the problem they're going to run into, yeah. I know diehard fans don't love that the movies cut certain things from the books, but even beyond Rowling's heel turn, I don't see this as an attractive endeavor. Is a book report adaptation really that appealing to those fans, especially when the cast still remains so iconic?

The fact that Harry Potter still remains profitable means that I see this still do well initially, but considering how irrelevant Rings of Power feels, I can see it go that way and burn out partway through.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I can't even see the appeal to faithfulness working, since looking at the recent trend of HBO shows, an adaptation of Sorcerer's Stone will be around 8 hour-long episodes. You really don't need that much time to adapt that book, and I imagine this will result in either a lot of really bad padding or forcing in subplots for characters who showed up in later books like Luna or Remus, which will end up making them even less faithful than the films were. The first movie already felt very slowly paced, relying on the spectacle and novelty of seeing Hagrid, Hogwarts, and Quidditch for the first time over having a plot that knew how to move, and that's a third as long as what a season of the show will be.