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I love Orange is the New Black. It's one of those netflix shows so all 13 epsiodes came out at once.

Rant time...I just watched episode 1 of a new show called "Sleepy Hollow". Ichabod Crane, a former professor of History at Merton College, has joined Washington's forces and is killed in a battle by a masked red-coat whom he has just decapitated. Thanks to some magic mumbo-jumbo he wakes up in present day US. Turns out that Katrina, his wife, albeit if her name was van Tassel we do not know, was a witch and mr. Crane and a young sheriff now has to hunt down the Headless Horseman who is decapitating people left and right. To make it even more interesting, the Headless Horseman is Death, as in one of the Four Horsemen and Crane and the sheriff are the two witnesses mentioned in Revelations.
So essentially it has bugger all to do with Irving's story, the 18th century man very rapidly fits into modern times and the flogged horse, namely stopping the apocalypse, is once more used. Why "Sleepy Hollow"? Why not call it "Rip van Winkle, Apocalypse Stopper"?

Why not call it "Rip van Winkle, Apocalypse Stopper"?

That sounds just as idiotic as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Which, sad to say, I watched on a TV movie channel in Thailand this summer (there was torrential rain). I couldn't believe it; and sat there slack-jawed, going WTF?

Edit: SOMETHING is in the water in America!
 

Any comments on the "Breaking Bad" wrap-up?  I know flaws can be found; nothing new there. But, taken in the context of the entire series, I thought the last three episodes were nothing short of masterful.  The dialogue, acting and camera work as great as they were, were still no match for the drama and soul-searching that is provoked.  I'll miss those characters dearly.

Please, "Game Of Thrones",hurry up with the airings.

I thought it was an excellent ending. Compared to the finale of "Dexter" which blew ever so many chunks.

I enjoyed the last episode, especially the scene in Skylar's house but I didn't like how everything went Walt's way.

Walt won.

He began cooking meth as a way to make money for his family before he died of cancer and that's what he got in the end.

I would have liked one more scene, with a someone knocking on the window of the snow covered car in New Hampshire.

"You all right buddy?"

Walt frozen to death, his prayer to God to 'just get me there" un-answered, with the rest being what he wanted to happen.

Great, great show but still behind The Wire for me.

I liked the Dexter finale. Not sure about Breaking Bad.

I didn't get Walt's transformation. He spent five years pretty much ignoring every other person alive but then losing weight in snow changes him? I mean sure, he's used to New Mexico, snow must strain the soul. But it leeches the Heisenberg out of him too?

Dexter's transformation was a stretch too, but it's been coming for a long while, and it isn't as real as he thinks. So he goes to ground like serial killers do. Plus, the stuff with Deb was freakish enough to be awe inspiring.

People have been saying the real Breaking Bad finale was the third last episode, Ozymandias, and the last two were appropriate anti-climax. I don't quite get that either because, although it's probably true, Walt's argued with Flynn often enough that I don't see why that particular conversation broke him good. Or was it the death of Hank? I'll have to watch again, except that Walt's treatment of Jessie seems to come out of nowhere there too.

And for a Breaking Bad finale, what was with all the nodding? There was a lot of nod-acting, nodding used to convey the thinking of the character, the most egregious example being Jessie's. That kind of literal projection of information across the screen maybe kinda symbolises what the second half of season five became - rote. IMHO. And horror too. It's sort of appropriate that Jessie drives off, possibly nearly insane. I know he was supposed to be over-joyed at finally being free of both Walt and meth cooking, but jeez, can we have at least one scene where there's more than just the one concrete meaning available?

I didn't get Walt's transformation. He spent five years pretty much ignoring every other person alive but then losing weight in snow changes him? I mean sure, he's used to New Mexico, snow must strain the soul. But it leeches the Heisenberg out of him too?

That might have been the cancer.

Dexter;s final season was pretty poor to me.

Quote from: Calach Pfeffer on October 03, 2013, 02:38:30 PM

I didn't get Walt's transformation. He spent five years pretty much ignoring every other person alive but then losing weight in snow changes him? I mean sure, he's used to New Mexico, snow must strain the soul. But it leeches the Heisenberg out of him too?

That might have been the cancer.

It might have been too. Probably was. But if the narrative made that point, it was in passing. Walt was a bundle of outstandingly offensive impersonal plans directed at people for the betterment of some goal he claimed was altruistic. Then at some mysterious point, unannounced by narrative, he discovers he did it for "me". So he invents one last moderately offensive impersonal plan directed at people to finally do it for "them" and, bleh, show's over.

I know for instance that I was supposed to understand something by Walt's phone call to Skyler just before he leaves Holly behind. And I tried. But it didn't look transformative. This opinion perhaps varies by watcher. I DON'T KNOW WHERE HIS TRANSFORMATION CAME FROM!

Dexter;s final season was pretty poor to me.

It was weird to be sure, and full of irrelevance (Masuka has a daughter? SO WHAT?!), and a so-so antagonist, but I got a lot out of watching Deb and Dexter interact. Given the ending of Season 7, that's pretty much what season 8 was supposed to be about.

When season 7 ended, it seemed to me that only Dexter was getting out of this show alive. So it kinda went where I expected it to. Not sure what I expected for Breaking Bad. Had it been a morality play in the past? Did good things ever come to anyone, or bad things ever come to Walt? The show was about audacity and corrosion. Not sure how it ended.

There was never any secret as to what the show was about; Mr Chips becomes Scarface.

Of course, we all bring our own expectations and hopes to any piece of fiction. If Jane Eyre was a modern TV series, I'd be really annoyed with the ending. I see it as a piece of feminist fiction, and I hate the ending. There's all kinds of novels that end 'badly'.

Great works of fiction are always reinterpreted, and I guess some people have reinterpreted Breaking Bad as it went along, and wanted it to end badly, but it's fairly normal for fiction to end with resolutions and catharsis.

That doesn't invalidate the criticisms of the final episode. Everything fell miraculously into place for Walt, the whole episode was about him, and perhaps the show copped out on an implicit understanding with the audience that Walt would get what he deserved. I didn't have a problem with any of these things, but everybody sees things differently.

I can't quite take in the idea that Dexter and Breaking Bad can even be compared, because I see Dexter as an initially amusing piece of fluff that jumped the shark when Rita died, and Breaking Bad as one of the greatest works of fiction ever created. Not just the writing and  acting.

But you know, I don't think much of Mad Men, and various other shows that are supposed to be greats. We all like what we like. I've given the JLMB thumbs up to some real pieces of crap on this thread. I agree with ericthered about forbrydelson (sic) and  Borgen now, (although I do think those shows turned out to be quite influential in some of their tones and elements, and have given rise to some of the best recent shows, like Broadchurch and that Gillian Anderson show set in Belfast). Under the Dome just became silly. I'm in no position to judge someone who thought that the final season of Dexter was good, although that won't stop me.

Walt pushed so hard for ego survival. When he finally properly broke, when he was confronted so fully by having his cover blown, that's to say, when "I did it for my family" no longer was real even to him, WE COULD HAVE AT LEAST BEEN SHOWN A LITTLE OF THAT FOR GOD"S SAKE! Because if he no longer had his family, he still had the person he did it all for, himself--he could have, and maybe should have, carried on. And the balance of audacity to corrosion should have tipped over to the corrosion side. He should have corroded. They tried to do it that way, I think. They put him in snow, made him lose weight, and had him break down coughing. They metaphored it. Telegraphed it. And therefore he became the Meth Fairy, slipping into people's houses at night to leave giant piles of money on top of the pillow or lottery tickets to grave sites.

It's okay.

I saw no redemption given to Walt in the finale, (Felina).  Just because his gadgets worked and he got revenge, does not mean he received forgiveness. On the contrary. He admitted, finally, that he had chosen his own ego over his family.  Verbally, to Skyler and in the last scene where he dies fondling the prized meth tank. He was evil and warped, but yet, had humanity, unlike Scarface. All of this was true to the character from the beginning.

Yeah, giving him superhero status was a bit much, but certainly enjoyable.  And I did feel that he had a transformation of sorts. We didn't get enough time with him in New Hampshire, but we certainly saw him hit rock bottom, (in the Granite State).  He was reduced to a small box of money, no family, friends or loved ones.  Let with only himself which is what he craved and was not enough and never is for any of us. 

"I know for instance that I was supposed to understand something by Walt's phone call to Skyler just before he leaves Holly behind. And I tried. But it didn't look transformative."

I don't think it was supposed to be transformative. I think it was just a way of helping Skyler with the police. To say, knowing it was being recorded, that she knew about none of this, that he did it all.  But, we saw his tears so he knows the separation from his family is now permanent.

The wrist-watch being left on the telephone was interesting too.  I heard it was just to fix a continuity error, but it seemed to symbolize that he knew he was out of time.  Or that he was soon to be beyond time. Or that I just can't read symbols...not sure which.

In case anyone is having Breaking Bad  withdrawals, there is always Metástasis

Been watching the third season of "Hell on Wheels", now that is a good show