BipolarFuk
Demoted
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Just wait until Nickelback or some other insipid band is hired to do the theme song. Then other wretched songs, by terrible bands are inserted regularly throughout the show. That is the CW.
TV Thread
- Thread starter dallen
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Hill is actually trying to steer clear of the word "reboot". He wants it clear that it's a "reinvention". I guess the format will be different?
Jiggyfly
Banned
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This is from a longer article I justed posted the review of Sal.
http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/yes-its-good-amcs-big-better-call-saul-bet-pays-off/
After reading this I an officially on board.
But powerful habits aren’t so easy to shake. AMC, a network that has struggled mightily of late in all matters non-zombie, was so eager to chase the Breaking Bad high that it would have accepted any product from the same source, no matter how stepped on. This was cause enough for concern. But then the more I read about the development of Better Call Saul, the more I feared that Gilligan’s involvement — he was cowriting and co-showrunning with Saul‘s creator, Breaking Bad writer Peter Gould — was primarily about altruism, not art. Every interview Gilligan gave was overflowing with mentions of the community Breaking Bad had fostered in the production desert that is Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ending one show meant the termination of hundreds of jobs. Starting another meant the creation of even more. We know Gilligan is cruel enough to imagine Giancarlo Esposito losing half his face, but was he sentimental enough to risk the legacy of his mighty works just to keep the gang together?
But then you watch Better Call Saul and you’re reminded of something all too easily forgotten about Gilligan and Gould.2 They are good at this television thing. They are very, very good. Better Call Saul’s pilot is so crisply constructed, so joyfully delivered, that all of my uncertainty quickly went the way of Heisenberg. The first three episodes don’t try to impress. They succeed at something far more important: They entertain. Gilligan and Gould have been at this too long to lose themselves in the expectation game or to waste time worrying about what a series might mean before it’s even begun. Veteran writers both, they know that TV series become themselves over time. Even Breaking Bad wasn’t Breaking Bad at the beginning. It took seasons to build up momentum; happy accidents led to long-term triumph. (Everyone remembers how Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman was meant to die at the end of Season 1, right?) No television show starts perfectly. What matters most is simply starting.
Scratch that: What matters here is that Better Call Saul starts well. After an arty, intriguing opening that nods toward Saul’s post-“Felina” fate, the show flings itself backward in time, landing in 2002. Saul, as we knew him, doesn’t yet exist. Bob Odenkirk is instead playing Jimmy McGill, a rumpled defense attorney who can’t catch a break or a paying case. Jimmy exists on the margins of everything — barely acknowledged by the criminals he represents, for peanuts, as a public defender down at the courthouse, and barely tolerated by the white-collar shysters he’d give anything to join. Saul Goodman bluffed and the whole world fell for it. Jimmy McGill lies and doesn’t even believe himself. “I don’t go looking for guilty people to represent,” he tells some prospective clients. “Who needs the aggravation, am I right?”
Though Jimmy’s Albuquerque is seedier than Walter White’s — just wait till you see his office — it’s instantly recognizable. It feels good to be back on those weirdly wide streets, to lose ourselves on those windy suburban culs-de-sac, to gaze once again into that impossibly big blue sky. Other things are familiar, too: Jonathan Banks is back as the wonderfully sneering fixer Mike Ehrmantraut. (Mike and Jimmy’s meet-cute is particularly well staged.) And, as the episodes pile up, other old friends and enemies begin to reappear.3 (I’m going to refrain from spoilers here not only because AMC asked me to, but also because I want you to have as much fun watching these episodes as I did.) Michael McKean — like Odenkirk, a comic with surprisingly soulful dramatic chops — is in the main cast as Chuck, Jimmy’s older brother, an attorney laid low by health issues. And Michael Mando, the manic Vic from Orphan Black, fits right in as a low-level dealer.
Better-Call-Saul-2URSULA COYOTE/AMC
None of this would work, of course, without the man in the middle. When Odenkirk joined Breaking Bad in Season 2, it was mostly as comic relief. Saul was there to lighten the increasingly dark shadows of a show that would soon plunge straight into the abyss. Of course, the funny thing about comedians is that many of them carry around an emotional abyss of their own. They use jokes the way Saul Goodman uses the Constitution. By the time Huell was lifting ricin cigarettes, Odenkirk had finessed Saul from caricature into character. Now, Odenkirk — who used his downtime wisely, giving a remarkably nuanced performance in FX’s Fargo — gets the chance to rewind the tape and build a preexisting persona carefully, from the ground up. He’s a treat to watch. For every time the corners of Jimmy’s lips begin to curl upward in a facsimile of Saul’s feral smile, there’s a slow, insistent downward tugging on his eyes, as if he can’t quite bring himself to face the squalid reality in which he exists.
Luckily for us, it’s a reality in which Gilligan feels right at home. Remember the place where Goodfellas ended? That’s precisely where Gilligan’s art begins. He is the poet laureate of Schnookville. His sonnets ring with stinging banality: the drop ceilings of a municipal courtroom, the buzzy fluorescent lights of a strip mall, the click of a flip phone before the antenna is extended. Jimmy, like Walter White before him, yearns to shake off this emasculating tedium but hasn’t yet found the necessary slipperiness or resolve. To illustrate that journey, just as he did in Breaking Bad,4 Gilligan hones his kitsch until it’s as sharp as a steak knife. By the time Saul’s second episode rolls around, with the brilliant Michelle MacLaren, a.k.a. the Canadian Kali, destroyer of worlds, behind the camera, a recognizable tension fills the screen and the air. Once again there are handcuffed rides out into the desert, once again household tools become objects of uncomfortable violence. The precision of Gilligan and Gould’s storytelling makes the clicking of narrative puzzle pieces indistinguishable from the sound of bullets being loaded into a gun.
But let’s be clear: The reason Better Call Saul works is because, similarities aside, it is decidedly not Breaking Bad. There’s more humor here and, so far anyway, a lot less breakfast. While Breaking Bad tracked a genius’s descent, Better Call Saul is primarily concerned with a striver’s climb. There’s a sense of playfulness and fun that isn’t just a welcome break from the meth business; it feels like the blessed antidote to untold hours of grim cable dramatics. I truly appreciate and admire flinty shows like Pivot’s arctic murder mystery Fortitude. But I can’t say I always enjoy watching them. This matters. As viewing options pile up higher than the stack of bills in Walter’s storage space, it’s a relief knowing there’s a series out there like Saul, one expertly designed to provide thrills and good cheer. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even chemistry. But it’s something. Like a good lawyer, Saul is on your side.
http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/yes-its-good-amcs-big-better-call-saul-bet-pays-off/
After reading this I an officially on board.
But powerful habits aren’t so easy to shake. AMC, a network that has struggled mightily of late in all matters non-zombie, was so eager to chase the Breaking Bad high that it would have accepted any product from the same source, no matter how stepped on. This was cause enough for concern. But then the more I read about the development of Better Call Saul, the more I feared that Gilligan’s involvement — he was cowriting and co-showrunning with Saul‘s creator, Breaking Bad writer Peter Gould — was primarily about altruism, not art. Every interview Gilligan gave was overflowing with mentions of the community Breaking Bad had fostered in the production desert that is Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ending one show meant the termination of hundreds of jobs. Starting another meant the creation of even more. We know Gilligan is cruel enough to imagine Giancarlo Esposito losing half his face, but was he sentimental enough to risk the legacy of his mighty works just to keep the gang together?
But then you watch Better Call Saul and you’re reminded of something all too easily forgotten about Gilligan and Gould.2 They are good at this television thing. They are very, very good. Better Call Saul’s pilot is so crisply constructed, so joyfully delivered, that all of my uncertainty quickly went the way of Heisenberg. The first three episodes don’t try to impress. They succeed at something far more important: They entertain. Gilligan and Gould have been at this too long to lose themselves in the expectation game or to waste time worrying about what a series might mean before it’s even begun. Veteran writers both, they know that TV series become themselves over time. Even Breaking Bad wasn’t Breaking Bad at the beginning. It took seasons to build up momentum; happy accidents led to long-term triumph. (Everyone remembers how Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman was meant to die at the end of Season 1, right?) No television show starts perfectly. What matters most is simply starting.
Scratch that: What matters here is that Better Call Saul starts well. After an arty, intriguing opening that nods toward Saul’s post-“Felina” fate, the show flings itself backward in time, landing in 2002. Saul, as we knew him, doesn’t yet exist. Bob Odenkirk is instead playing Jimmy McGill, a rumpled defense attorney who can’t catch a break or a paying case. Jimmy exists on the margins of everything — barely acknowledged by the criminals he represents, for peanuts, as a public defender down at the courthouse, and barely tolerated by the white-collar shysters he’d give anything to join. Saul Goodman bluffed and the whole world fell for it. Jimmy McGill lies and doesn’t even believe himself. “I don’t go looking for guilty people to represent,” he tells some prospective clients. “Who needs the aggravation, am I right?”
Though Jimmy’s Albuquerque is seedier than Walter White’s — just wait till you see his office — it’s instantly recognizable. It feels good to be back on those weirdly wide streets, to lose ourselves on those windy suburban culs-de-sac, to gaze once again into that impossibly big blue sky. Other things are familiar, too: Jonathan Banks is back as the wonderfully sneering fixer Mike Ehrmantraut. (Mike and Jimmy’s meet-cute is particularly well staged.) And, as the episodes pile up, other old friends and enemies begin to reappear.3 (I’m going to refrain from spoilers here not only because AMC asked me to, but also because I want you to have as much fun watching these episodes as I did.) Michael McKean — like Odenkirk, a comic with surprisingly soulful dramatic chops — is in the main cast as Chuck, Jimmy’s older brother, an attorney laid low by health issues. And Michael Mando, the manic Vic from Orphan Black, fits right in as a low-level dealer.
Better-Call-Saul-2URSULA COYOTE/AMC
None of this would work, of course, without the man in the middle. When Odenkirk joined Breaking Bad in Season 2, it was mostly as comic relief. Saul was there to lighten the increasingly dark shadows of a show that would soon plunge straight into the abyss. Of course, the funny thing about comedians is that many of them carry around an emotional abyss of their own. They use jokes the way Saul Goodman uses the Constitution. By the time Huell was lifting ricin cigarettes, Odenkirk had finessed Saul from caricature into character. Now, Odenkirk — who used his downtime wisely, giving a remarkably nuanced performance in FX’s Fargo — gets the chance to rewind the tape and build a preexisting persona carefully, from the ground up. He’s a treat to watch. For every time the corners of Jimmy’s lips begin to curl upward in a facsimile of Saul’s feral smile, there’s a slow, insistent downward tugging on his eyes, as if he can’t quite bring himself to face the squalid reality in which he exists.
Luckily for us, it’s a reality in which Gilligan feels right at home. Remember the place where Goodfellas ended? That’s precisely where Gilligan’s art begins. He is the poet laureate of Schnookville. His sonnets ring with stinging banality: the drop ceilings of a municipal courtroom, the buzzy fluorescent lights of a strip mall, the click of a flip phone before the antenna is extended. Jimmy, like Walter White before him, yearns to shake off this emasculating tedium but hasn’t yet found the necessary slipperiness or resolve. To illustrate that journey, just as he did in Breaking Bad,4 Gilligan hones his kitsch until it’s as sharp as a steak knife. By the time Saul’s second episode rolls around, with the brilliant Michelle MacLaren, a.k.a. the Canadian Kali, destroyer of worlds, behind the camera, a recognizable tension fills the screen and the air. Once again there are handcuffed rides out into the desert, once again household tools become objects of uncomfortable violence. The precision of Gilligan and Gould’s storytelling makes the clicking of narrative puzzle pieces indistinguishable from the sound of bullets being loaded into a gun.
But let’s be clear: The reason Better Call Saul works is because, similarities aside, it is decidedly not Breaking Bad. There’s more humor here and, so far anyway, a lot less breakfast. While Breaking Bad tracked a genius’s descent, Better Call Saul is primarily concerned with a striver’s climb. There’s a sense of playfulness and fun that isn’t just a welcome break from the meth business; it feels like the blessed antidote to untold hours of grim cable dramatics. I truly appreciate and admire flinty shows like Pivot’s arctic murder mystery Fortitude. But I can’t say I always enjoy watching them. This matters. As viewing options pile up higher than the stack of bills in Walter’s storage space, it’s a relief knowing there’s a series out there like Saul, one expertly designed to provide thrills and good cheer. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even chemistry. But it’s something. Like a good lawyer, Saul is on your side.
Carp
DCC 4Life
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Black people are delicious.
Carp
DCC 4Life
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If I am Morgan I stay away from that group.
NoDak
Hotlinking' sonofabitch
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L.T. Fan
I'm Easy If You Are
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You mean they were just sleep walking through their parts like a bunch of zombies?
Last edited:
D
Deuce
Guest
I thought so. Was hoping they didn't try to incorporate too much from BB cause it could come off as cheesy, but the beginning was a nice look at him after and then Tuco's arrival was cool.
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That was my concern to begin with but last night showed some promise.
Newt
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I enjoyed both shows last night, I figured people would be upset about TWD, but really this is what the show has become. We've seen zombies killed in just about every way possible.
Better Call Saul started up weird and I wasn't sure I would make it through the episode, but about halfway through it pulled me in. The ending was good too.
Better Call Saul started up weird and I wasn't sure I would make it through the episode, but about halfway through it pulled me in. The ending was good too.
Carp
DCC 4Life
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The thing about TWD...I wish they would just come up with a plan for the characters. It was kind of a by the seat of their pants idea to go to Noah's place. Now they are going to DC based on nothing more than a lie. Michonne was right, they could have done something with that neighborhood and tried to live there...just like Woodbury, but they move on without any kind of plan.
D
Deuce
Guest
Nicotero was on Talking Dead after and basically said that wasn't an options. He explained that you could see their fencing was ruined and the places had been raided...but not by zombies, but other people. That was the safety concern that made them not want to be there.
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I did not care that they didn't have a plan. It was basically a poor excuse for a premiere episode.
Jiggyfly
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Just finished the 1st season of the Americans, I knew it was good but I am surprised at how great it is.
Russell is is a bad ass and all the characters are great, hopefully it continues this way.
This is definitely top 10 all time series and it could move up to top 5.
Russell is is a bad ass and all the characters are great, hopefully it continues this way.
This is definitely top 10 all time series and it could move up to top 5.