I also thought “loud in its audio and contextual dimensions” is actually high praise. Sometimes a negative review states all the stuff I like about something, except they didn’t like it.
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As someone who loves It’s Always Sunny the shouting and chaos of The Bear didn’t bother me. That’s one of the main criticisms I hear from people with Sunny, the characters spend most of their time shouting over each other.
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Yeah me too. Carmy isn’t addicted to alcohol or drugs as far as I can tell, but it’s had an enormous impact on his life and you can see it in his behavior. As I said before, the Thanksgiving episode was incredibly difficult to watch, I had to take a number of breaks. They recreated the tension of being in a dysfunctional home like that one so incredibly well.
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Really? Absolutely zero chance anyone with a clue puts this in the same stratosphere as the actual best in class TV. Are you basing this on IMDB/RT or something else?
Even the intentionally not as good Season 1 got a better RT% than Season 2.
I don’t want to comment too much on this bc obv having only watched one ep I have only a small view of what the show is trying to achieve.
But the 30 mins I’ve seen definitely struck as extremely mediocre from a filmmaking point of view.
Btw I have nothing against “filmed anxiety”, for instance I think what the Safdies achieved in “good time” and “uncut gems” was great.
(also I don’t read many American TV reviews, but if it’s anything like here, they have ridiculously lower standards compared to movie critics, so I would never take positive reviews as any kind of argument for quality).
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Many/most shows take more than one episode to get their stride. It may be that this show just isn’t for you, but I honestly think you gave up too soon.
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Speaking of Safdie, “The Curse” is really great and if (as I’ve heard reviewers suggest), the ending is the best part, could be really elite level.
My fav segment so far is ep 4 ending humour support group narrowly followed by ep 4 opening “under the big tree”
The main cast are all great. Ive never been an Emma Stone fan but I definitely am after this…
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This is true, the majority of pilots are prettt bad overall. There are exceptions, but they are few.
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Fair and I might try again at some point.
But on the other hand there’s no world where I watch 3 eps and not the whole series(props to whoever coined the phrase "plot committed ") and then if I only like it moderately ive spent time that could have been spent watching 10 movies (most of them good)
(Doesnt help that unlike me my gf is very much opposed to “filmed anxiety” so this would have to come out of my Nathan Fielder or horror movie time which is very valuable to me 
)
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Even after watching Maniac?
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It takes a few episodes to get going but by season 2 it is one of the most cinematic shows on tv. A coupe episodes of season 2 are in the conversation for GOAT tv episodes. Surely among the greatest of the year at an absolute minimum.
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Never seen it…
Alan Sepinwall (TV critic for Rolling Stone) had The Bear Season 2 at #2 on his best shows of 2023 list.
Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald (of The Watch which is one of the most popular TV podcasts), both had it as #1 of 2023. Andy has also written quite a bit of tv, so he has some idea of what it actually takes to make a thing.
Places like the New York Times, Vulture.com and Roger Ebert.com all had it within the top 5.
And the first season rankings were all very high as well.
The Bear might not be for you (and that’s fine, not everything is for everyone) but among people who get paid to watch tv and discuss it for a living, both the first and second seasons are rated very highly.
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Pretty strong Sepinwall list this year. I wasn’t as high on Cunk as he was, but otherwise, all of the top ten are reasonable.
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if you want to watch emma stone knock it out of the park, that’s a certified 5-bagger on netflix
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Same. The Thanksgiving episode both made me feel seen and yet devastated with them. Even the seeming moments of things potentially turning positive were overwhelming and too volatile to enjoy. And then as the episode continues and each person becomes more intoxicated on the thing that makes them crazy yet they can’t live without.
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Right, this is one show I’d hope someone watches for at least a few episodes to get in the groove. It hits so hard.
Here is my favorite essay on the show by Filmcrithulk.
As of last Saturday morning, I had not seen one frame of The Bear.
Five days later, I had seen all of it and quickly became my favorite show of all time. You can argue that season one is a perfect season of tv. But season 2 is even better. And now, all I want to do is talk about every single aspect of the show. Which is why I’ve spent the last seven days writing non-stop. And the result is a 25 chapter, 30 thousand word essay about the show, its dramatic construction, the world of fine dining, the process of creativity, and ultimately, the need to grow past the toxic family behaviors that you have to undo in yourself.
So really, this is an essay about everything.
And this is my favorite video essay on The Bear.
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Ok the bear is great, but really loving the first two episodes of Scott Pilgrim! Super creative, even the fight scenes are entertaining (I’m often bored by fight scenes). And goddamn what a cast!
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I enjoyed this a lot. I appreciate how they took the story from the movie and flipped it instead or remaking the same thing in animated form.
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OK, normally I hate these Neflix anime adaptations, but if you like Arrowverse superhero shows, YuYu Hakusho is worth checking out. It’s got the look and feel of a great episode of The Flash, but with much rowdier fight scenes.
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