Judge/Daniels/Schur seem to have a fascination in near future dystopian issues and the comedy that could come from the “what ifs” of the future, while also focusing on the horrors that come with it.
“What if only dumb people procreated?” Well heres the hilarity and horror of Idiocracy.
“What if we had a point system for heaven?”
Heres the hilarity and horror of The Good Place.
“What if we were able to upload our conciousness to heaven?” Heres the hillarity and horror of Upload. Etc etc.
Yeah, I just think the first episode of Upload tipped much more into horror than humor, and it didn’t come across as intentional, the way, say, the season 1 ending reveal of The Good Place was.
Both of the elements you mentioned are major themes in the rest of the season. Capitalism: yes, they’re treating that as the way things are, but that doesn’t mean it’s not satirical. Starship Troopers did the same thing (and ran into many confused people who missed the satire because it didn’t ever really make any effort to tip off the viewer). Satire that misses very often leads to confusion about tone, and advertising can make that much worse. Like if HBO cuts a trailer for Succession that introduces it as “by the creator of Step Brothers and Talledega Nights, The Legend of Ricky Bobby” it’s going to cause some confusion. And abusive relationships, yeah the story of the whole first season is contrasting the relationships of the main guy with his relationship with Ingrid and Nora (who falls in love with him and vice versa). And of course the risk to Nathan of being literally existentially dependent on Ingrid is a plot point that ties both of those themes together, and plays a major part in later episodes.
The incel coworker and the dancing scene with the niece definitely didn’t work for me either.
As far as the uploading scene, I thought it was hilarious. But darkly humorous scenes like that really depend on if you’re buying into the satire or not. I was watching this as a dystopian satire the whole time so it worked for me, if you’re not watching it with that mindset then sure.
Like whether or not you laugh at this scene depends on if you think Starship Troopers is a satire or a bad action movie
I was never able to get into madmen. Honestly I haven’t even watched the first episode. Just the plot sounds boring as hell.
Does almost everyone agree Mad Men is a super elite show or are there plenty that think its boring? I don’t really care about stuff like beautiful lighting, production value yada yada, I just care about interesting writing, dialogue, and plot lines.
I also found better call saul boring. It wasn’t bad, just boring. Gave up after 2 seasons. And I loved BB so its not that.
First maybe four or five seasons are great. Last few seasons are certainly good television but I didn’t care for them nearly as much and disliked the final episode. It’s definitely a great show though, although the writers of the show found a couple of characters way way way more interesting than they actually were (Megan, and of course, Glenn. Fucking Glenn man, jesus christ).
The actress that plays Sally is incredible, the best child actress of all time. Really a highlight of the series. The actor who plays Don’s son is less notable.
Would you say it is a show Stim will know if he likes within the first episode? I think it is a show that wears its flavor on its sleeve within 20 minutes.
I’d say it is elite in that it stayed very good to great for its entire run, including a damn fine ending. Even a lot of otherwise great shows can’t say the same (eg Lost).
OK, this alleviates some of my concerns, but at the same time-- I love Starship Troopers, and I think that the Upload pilot, at least, didn’t have a firm enough grasp of its tone to make the satire land in the way Verhoeven excels at. (Edit: Perhaps this is in part because I was unprepared for some of the aspects to be darkly satirical, but at the same time, the tone still felt all over the place to me in that regard. For another sci-fi show with a gruesome death or two, I didn’t think Avenue 5 was very good, but when the deaths started coming, the tone matched the rest of the show.)
Like the “uploading” scene-- that could have been funny if this was a consciously nasty show, but it’s really not presented that way.
For another Verhoeven example, for my money, one of the funniest scenes in film is in Robocop when the ED-109 just perforates that middle manager, and everyone else shrugs it off as part of the cost of doing business. That’s a great satire of the inhumanity of capitalism, but also, Verhoeven pitches the rest of the film at a tone that matches that moment. By comparison, Upload felt more like a placid dramedy with occasional moments of horrifying violence dropped in.
Right, Verhoeven is maybe the greatest satirical filmaker alive, and his satire is misinterpreted all the time. Which I think kind of demonstrates how tricky film and TV satire is – a sizable fraction of professional film critics didn’t understand that Starship Troopers was satire when it was released. And of course Showgirls is still a misunderstood masterpiece (I don’t actually know if this is true, I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and watched the whole thing, but maybe?).
And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that Upload is a satire on par with Starship Troopers. And like a lot of satire, it kind of works on the unironic level as well. Starship Troopers is a serviceable if dumb straightforward action war movie, and Upload kind of works as a quirky comedy. And maybe they didn’t tell the cast what sort of show they’re making, like I don’t think Paul told Casper Van Dien or Denise Richards they’re making a satire. Kind of works better that way maybe.
And anyway, I’m not trying to say your tone complaints aren’t valid. I’m saying that satirical misfires lead to the biggest disconnects in tone, and that’s maybe what happened.
I definitely struggled with it at times, and don’t like it as much as the consensus, for similar reasons. Production values for me can’t top a well-written and well-constructed plot. Although there’s an interesting contrast here with The Sopranos– since Weiner started there before creating Mad Men– where Chase loathes his characters and makes it clear they will never change, Weiner loves his characters and is telling a story of their growth and change, in fits and starts though it may be.
The Shield sounds like it might be for you. Shows like Mad Men and The Sopranos bear, I think, more of a literary influence-- building details to create a world that the reader can envision and go back and visit any time. The Shield has more dramatic influence, as in the classical drama of Shakespeare and the Greeks-- there is/are protagonist(s), an inciting incident that starts the plot, and subsequent actions and incidents build until the protagonist(s) are forced into confrontation with themselves.
(My favorite Mad Men episode is still “Shut the Door. Have a Seat,” because it’s the best- and tightest-plotted of any individual episode, and because I love cunning plans and crazy capers.)
I think that’s true but ironic in that many many people loved characters like Tony but hated characters that Wiener was infatuated with like Glen and Megan.
Anyway, the Shield’s great but stim should just watch the first episode of Mad Men. It’s 45 minutes long and the whole show’s right there.
Man this makes me want to watch Mad Men again but I’ve decided to quit drinking for a month or two and there is a zero percent chance I’ll stay on the wagon when I’m binging Mad Men. I’ll be drinking Old Fashioneds in no time.
Hah, yeah, good point. Weiner had a few weird ideas, one of which was that Glen came across as a cool independent-minded kid and not affectless with undiagnosed ASD. Another was that he really seems to think advertising is a noble profession and an artistic medium he has genuine affection for.
I never liked the distinction between “character-driven” and “plot-driven”-- the plot only matters to me insofar as the characters matter. The way I like to frame it is “detail-oriented” vs. “action-oriented” (not action in the sense of gunfights and explosions, but characters making decisions and dealing with the consequences).
Mad Men is detail-oriented. It tries to paint a full portrait of life for ad men of the time, recreating the 60s in painstaking detail in setting, attitudes, wardrobe, etc. It also focuses on the details and psychology of its characters-- how Don’s backstory informs his present, for example.
The Shield is action-oriented. Its characters are drawn vividly, but their backstories and psychology aren’t as important as their traits, as knowing what they would do in a crisis. It stays focused on the series of events: The Strike Team takes Action A, which leads to Consequence B; to solve Consequence B, they take Action C, but that leads to Consequence D; etc. etc.
It’s also not as concerned with building a full world around it. We get some very L.A. details, and it’s mostly set in the grimy underbelly of the city in a way you don’t usually see on TV, but it’s not intended for you to be able to recreate the city from the work, like you could with, say, David Simon’s Baltimore.
I watched all of mad men and enjoyed it, but for sure a lot of it was extremely boring. They seem to love long shots of characters staring into space. I probably wouldn’t watch it now, because I have a lot less time on my hands, and there’s more interesting things to do.
Wait a sec, we were supposed to find Megan interesting and like her?
