I will probably end up watching at least one episode because of Kristian Bruun, but haven’t got round to it yet.
Finished it all. The Recruit has an interesting premise with a nest of backstabbing bureaucratic vipers called the central intelligence agency. The motivations start getting a touch silly by the end but the show is fun enough you can ride along
JD
2752
I decided to watch the mini-series Inside Man* based on the involvement of Stanley Tucci and David Tennant - two actors I’m really fond of. Let’s just say, if you hate plots that wouldn’t happen if only a single character in it were able to remotely communicate and act like a reasonable person then you really might want to avoid this one. It’s also written by Steven Moffat, so Tucci’s character inevitably gets to be the smug genius who is needlessly cryptic to string along the audience.
* Not related to or to be confused with Spike Lee’s entertaining 2006 movie of the same name.
Sharpe
2753
Quick question here: has anyone tried out the new ad-supported tier of Netflix and if so how bad or tolerable is it? I was thinking of renewing Netflix for Glass Onion and Alice in Borderland Season 2 but the “base” service is now a wopping $16/month and the ad tier is $8/month. I refuse to pay the $16 but an wondering about the $8.
This year I did watch a couple of things on Amazon Freevee, with ads, and that was not too terrible. Instead of the normal 12-15 minutes of ads per hour of a network show, Freevee was just 3-5 minutes and also the ads themselves were not as insanely loud and annoying as network ads. I do hate ads but I’m also a pragmatist.
How does the Netflix ad tier compare to Freevee and in general is it super annoying or tolerable? (I’m aware this is subjective.)
jsnell
2754
That doesn’t sound right. The ad-supported tier is limited to 720p, and $16 is what I’d expect the 1080p version to cost. If you can live with 720p (which I find intolerable), there should be an ad-free 720p option with pricing somewhere between those two.
I just signed up for Netflix yesterday, and I went with the middle-tier $16 1080p option. The one below that was the ad-tier, the one above it was the 4K tier. So it seems like the basic option without ads is gone now.
Edit: Btw, I added all the shows I listed above in this thread, plus more that I found. Delightfully (sarcasm? I honestly don’t know) Netflix had completely forgotten me again, so I started with a blank slate again, just like last time. So no continuing from the episodes where I left off last time.
Sharpe
2756
Well the $16 is what I’m calling the base - the old “mid-tier”, unless I am misremembering.
Anyhow my question about the ad tier remains - has anyone tried it? Is it in the vein of network ads which make me insane or more in the vein of Freevee which I found tolerable?
I was tempted by the ad-tier for a microsecond, but like jsnell pointed out, it’s limited to 720p, which is very annoying, but it made the decision not to go for it even easier.
Sorry I don’t have input on the ad-tier.
But hey, I’ll take your recommendation about freevee. I’ve been mostly avoiding that because I hate ads so much.
Sharpe
2758
It’s subjective of course but I found FreeVee ads only modestly annoying and basically tolerable.
I went back to Netflix last night, and saw there’s a season 3 of After Life, Ricky Gervais’ comedy about death and suicidal depression. Once again at the start of season 3 he’s backsliding back into depression and hopefully that will once again improve over the season.
Like I said last time, this is an eternal fount. He could keep doing this forever, honestly. It works.
Sharpe
2760
OK, so it turns out that the reason I was mistaking the Basic Tier for the Mid Tier is that Netflix is hiding the Basic Tier right now. If you try to sign up you only get 3 options: Basic with Ads for $7, the Mid Tier for $16, and the top tier at whatever it is. The old Basic Tier at $10 is not listed.
HOWEVER, if you click the tiny text that says “show all plans” then the Basic Tier at $10/month pops back up.
Clearly they are hiding it but don’t want to remove it entirely.
If you compare Basic with Ads versus Basic, you are agreeing to watch several minutes of ads per hour AND getting a slightly smaller library (with no way ahead of time to know what shows/movies you will be locked out of due to contractual obligations) in order to save $3/month. To me that’s a no brainer. Basic is WAY better than Basic with Ads, more than justifying the three bucks a month.
Sadly, if they are serious about Basic with Ads they probably have to yank Basic as an option. That’s an instant cancel for me though…
Now that I know how crappy Basic with Ads is, I can see why it doesn’t seem to be selling.
They’re hiding the $10 tier entirely, afaict (I didn’t see the “show all plans” text and was looking for it). I barely notice the difference after downgrading.
Sharpe
2762
It was very tiny like 8 point font and was buried amongst other text. I only found it b/c it highlighted as clickable when I moused over it.
Edit: it may not have been on the first page of options - I may have found it after I clicked an option and then went on to the confirmation page. My memory is vague. But it was in there a few hours ago.
Maybe it’s platform-related. (Was looking on my Roku and on Android.) Ultimately made the change in a browser instead.
The Recruit is a pretty decent little spy series that at first glance seems to be sorta borrowing a gimmick from Jack Ryan (protagonist is a CIA Lawyer who’s supposed to keep the agency clean), but actually does it much better as he doesn’t magically acquire super skills. The writing is better overall, imo.
Cormac
2765
Wow, thanks for the insight. I’d just written it off as a Ryan wannabe and Ryan got pretty weak in its second season and lost me. Perhaps I’ll check this out sometime!
I’ve never watched the Ryan stuff because Krasinski is the dude from The Office. He’s a goof, not a super-spy. I can’t seem to get around that.
I mean, Jack Ryan as beefy super soldier is so far away from the Tom Clancy idea of Jack Ryan that I never had any interest in that show at all. I hate it when they basically just regurgitate another identical action figure show but tag it with some piece of cinematic or literary history as a hook that has nothing thematically to do with the show.
The Recruit might be more interesting. I also skipped over it on the impression that it was more nonsense like Jack Ryan, but maybe I will give it a shot. Thanks!
Sharpe
2768
I feel like the original Hunt for Red October movie is the only one that really got Ryan right. That’s still one of the best Cold War films IMO, up there with some of the classic stuff.
I noticed that when Tom Clancy books from the cold war era get adapted, they get set in contemporary times. It makes me wonder, what would the plot of Hunt for Red October be, if it was made in 2010, let’s say.
