Just watched the first episode of Godless.
Dark but quirky.
Weird seeing the actress from Downton Abby in a western like that.
I’ve been wanting to watch this, but is it time-period accurate, or are the characters imbued with modern sensibilities? I guess the part that tipped me off was a Rolling Stone preview that said “the late mayor’s feisty widow Mary Agnes isn’t eager to concede. …She’s sleeping with a former prostitute.” I mean, what? In those days that kind of behavior would have been big trouble for the persons involved – in today’s climate it’s a sexual-exploitation element added to attract viewers to the show.
I don’t get the feeling they are going for accuracy.
Or perhaps it is time period correct and people just have an overly sanitized view of history.
The part with the mayor isn’t used the way you might think it would be. To answer the original question, no they aren’t going for accuracy. I really enjoyed this. It, for me at least, felt a little slow at first. Everything built to the last two episodes. They were awesome. I would really recommend this one.
Yeah, this is a western. It purports to not be anything else but. And westerns, by their very nature, require a suspension of disbelief.
Anyway, once I’m done counting the total dialogue lines spoken by female characters in the series, I’m going to watch this and report back.
This was fun! Except for way too many dances-with-horses slow moments in the middle.
First images, it looks like. Awesome.
Video too
More here
Also first teaser ad
Awesome. February, huh?
I saw a butt! Woot!
I plugged it in the show’s own thread, but for people who may have forgotten or others who just never got around to it, Longmire dropped its Sixth and final season a couple of weeks ago.
If you just came off a Godless binge and are hungry for more endless blue skies and wide open countryside in your TV shows (albeit in a modern setting this time), Longmire could be for you. I’ve really enjoyed the show over its 6-year run between AMC and Netflix. It’s pretty unique television, as much for the setting as for the characters and the story.
I’m four episodes into Godless and much as I wanted to love it, as I love me some Westerns, especially dark, revisionist ones, it’s just not very good. I’ll probably finish the season just to get some resolution, but I’m pretty disappointed so far.
Godless was OK. Had the right feel to it, but I frequently grew bored. Stuck with it for that Western fix and was more or less satisfied.
Watching Dark now. Just started the first episode and LOVE it so far. The dubbing is pretty good, but for non-German-language speakers I would recommend German language with (your language) subtitles*, because the dialog syncing seems off.
Netflix’s first original German series, Dark, will inevitably be compared to Stranger Things. Both series focus on children who have gone missing; both are set, partially in Dark’s case, in the 1980s; both involve unexplained phenomena that cause lights to flicker, among other things; and both reveal underground pathways that connect to a mysterious facility that’s key to the show’s central mysteries. In Stranger Things, that facility is Hawkins Lab, where scientists have engaged in studies reminiscent of the CIA’s MK-Ultra experiments. In Dark, it’s a nuclear power plant, a nod to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which looms over the series in multiple ways.
But Dark, now streaming and presented with English subtitles, is tonally quite different from that show about Dustin and his pet Demogorgon. As laid out by co-creators Baran bo Odar, a Swiss filmmaker, and German screenwriter Jantje Friese, its moods and hues are much more in line with the original French version of The Returned. Every day in Winden, the small German town where Dark takes place, is as gray and overcast as the moods of its characters.
*unless you watch your shows while gaming or whatever
OMG I just found out that two of my favorite series are premiering their second seasons this month! The Crown (with Claire Foy absolutely killing it as QE II) this Friday, and Travelers, the sci-fi drama, starting the day after Christmas!
(originally posted this in the Longmire thread due to fat fingers and using my phone)
Travelers is great and I was so relieved when it got renewed. The Crown I’m not as sure of, didn’t make it far into the first season, even though I sort of liked it. (Responded to you in the Longmire thread and moved that here.) I did see enough to catch some of Lithgow’s performance and I agree, it’s great stuff. I’ll have to pick this up again.
Also very interested in Shetland. Anyone watching?
Ooooh! I couldn’t make it through the first episode because of subtitles last week. I didn’t know there was a dubbed version. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll try it out.
All right, Dark is good, but after a couple of episodes I realized it’s not a great fit for me right now, so I’ll come back to it. Lives up to its name, for sure! Like a rich desert. Very rich desert.
So I switched over to Shetland, and this fits my current palate a little better. Also very dark and rich, but maybe not as far along that spectrum, and more accessible to me right now for whatever reason. (Probably because there’s a more obvious protagonist, and that following the plot doesn’t require such intense mental gymnastics.)
Edit: Replaced the spoilery and not-that-great Guardian review with a better one from The Independent.
Yeah, I caught this earlier in the year, and really liked it. Cool setting, good characters, and some welcome departures from the typical murder mystery/police procedural (I appreciated, like the Independent’s critic, that for once the teenage victim hadn’t been sexually assaulted. Oddly refreshing).