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halsey hosted (and was musical guest) the show last year. i guess she's supposed to be one of these "do it all" entertainers but i don't see it. to answer your question, musical guests aren't typically involved.

A friend of mine was talking about the old TV show "Max Headroom" so I decided to check it out. It's way better than I expected it to be. I vaguely remember it from when I was a kid but I was too little to understand what the hell it was really about. It is pure 80s cheese in a lot of ways, which is fun. It is from that same era of TV as the early X Files - when it was clear computers and the internet were going to radically change the world, but it hadn't quite arrived yet. Everyone remembers the computer character from the show's title, but that is a distraction from the real point IMO. There are TV's everywhere, and in this world the TV's have no on/off switch. They are always on. The show revolves around a TV station and the main character is an investigative reporter. The only characters that seem to own homes or apartments work at the TV station. Everyone else is homeless, and live in a homeless camp or a mobile home. A recurring scene is a bunch of homeless people huddled around a dozen TV's with this cheery, postmodern computer generated character telling jokes. I've only watched the first 5 episodes so far.

[SHOW]

Episode 1 is about a mega corporation whose product is killing customers but they want to cover that up and continue selling. It apparently affects sedentary people the most, or as one executive says, people nobody cares about anyway.
Episode 2 is about an underground "sport" where kids are hurting each other, occasionally killing each other. Someone is trying to get a company to sponsor the sport so they can put it on TV.
Episode 3 is about an organ harvesting crime outfit.
Episode 4 is about a company that has a monopoly on "security systems" and they know and control everyone's personal data. They change the main character's file to make it look like he committed "credit fraud" - a crime worse than murder according to the show. The company is also manipulating information to manipulate stock prices. Pretty damn prescient IMO.
Episode 5 is about a group of revolutionaries that blow up stuff in the city. One guy wants to give these revolutionaries their own TV show (an idea explored in the movie "Network").

The other interesting thing about Max Headroom is how many different things the character did. Like, one season was the drama you described, then there were two very different "talk show" seasons, then an hour-long TV movie. Plus, he did ads for every product under the sun in the 1980s.

go birds wrote:After being discouraged that FX charges for some of their shows ondemand, I discovered that Fargo is on HULU, much to my delight. So, I am rewatching all the seasons in anticipation of season 4. Season 2 of Fargo is some of the best TV you can subject yourself to.

Also, you’re the worst is also on HULU. I’m gonna give that a whack again. I kinda lost interest around season 2 but everyone insists it’s good TV.

Fargo...good call. I skipped this series when it was on, figuring it weak in comparison to the movie. Enough water under bridge since then.

pioneer98 wrote:A friend of mine was talking about the old TV show "Max Headroom" so I decided to check it out. It's way better than I expected it to be. I vaguely remember it from when I was a kid but I was too little to understand what the hell it was really about. It is pure 80s cheese in a lot of ways, which is fun. It is from that same era of TV as the early X Files - when it was clear computers and the internet were going to radically change the world, but it hadn't quite arrived yet. Everyone remembers the computer character from the show's title, but that is a distraction from the real point IMO. There are TV's everywhere, and in this world the TV's have no on/off switch. They are always on. The show revolves around a TV station and the main character is an investigative reporter. The only characters that seem to own homes or apartments work at the TV station. Everyone else is homeless, and live in a homeless camp or a mobile home. A recurring scene is a bunch of homeless people huddled around a dozen TV's with this cheery, postmodern computer generated character telling jokes. I've only watched the first 5 episodes so far.

[SHOW]

Episode 1 is about a mega corporation whose product is killing customers but they want to cover that up and continue selling. It apparently affects sedentary people the most, or as one executive says, people nobody cares about anyway.
Episode 2 is about an underground "sport" where kids are hurting each other, occasionally killing each other. Someone is trying to get a company to sponsor the sport so they can put it on TV.
Episode 3 is about an organ harvesting crime outfit.
Episode 4 is about a company that has a monopoly on "security systems" and they know and control everyone's personal data. They change the main character's file to make it look like he committed "credit fraud" - a crime worse than murder according to the show. The company is also manipulating information to manipulate stock prices. Pretty damn prescient IMO.
Episode 5 is about a group of revolutionaries that blow up stuff in the city. One guy wants to give these revolutionaries their own TV show (an idea explored in the movie "Network").

Watched the season finale of the first season.

[SHOW]

Hackers have taken down all television in the city and won't give it back until their friends are released from jail. The "good guys" at the TV network edit a video to make a politician who just won an election say the opposite of what he meant in order to get the prisoners released and TV back on the air. American democracy baby!

Sadly there are only 14 total episodes over 2 seasons.

The Good Place was TV's greatest non-sitcom sitcom. And I miss it already.

i've never seen it but always heard good things about it, i think mostly from here. i think what i find more interesting is what a career michael schur has had.

Jocephus wrote:i've never seen it but always heard good things about it, i think mostly from here. i think what i find more interesting is what a career michael schur has had.

Whatever Michael Schur's next project is, I'm all in. Whatever streaming service The Good Place is on, go get it. It's that kind of winningly funny, inventive, thought provoking show. I never expected it would be on a major network.

I heard awhile back that Schur had acquired the film rights to Infinite Jest. That would be pretty awesome.

heyzeus wrote:The Good Place was TV's greatest non-sitcom sitcom. And I miss it already.

++++

I know it's awfully quick to make judgment, but that finale is already among the greatest of all time.

Bojack Horseman was such a devastatingly good show.