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March 28, 2024, 10:59:29 PM

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Fleabag

Started by Utter Shit, July 22, 2016, 05:01:14 PM

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Queneau

Quote from: hummingofevil on September 02, 2016, 11:39:09 AMI do appreciate that it leaves us with confused and contradictory views about what happens and why I like how this itself reflect the way that most of us live in this constant state of not being able to do right for doing wrong and the many pressures put on woman particularly to be all things at all times but I was kind of enjoying it for what it was. Oh well...

For me, it left me almost with a feeling of balance restored.
Spoiler alert
Okay, the best friend is dead. Not good. But she can't be brought back. She also didn't make her friend kill herself, regardless of events that led to that. Perhaps she was unstable to start with. Perhaps they both were - hence why they got on. But after having all that shit happen to her and being accused of things she hadn't done and serving drinks and treated as a dogsbody, or generally dismissed, you start to think about what is suitable punishment then. When does others' treatment go too far? Does she deserve to redemption?
[close]


Bad Ambassador

I watched the first half of Episode 1, and now I'm glad I bailed. Nothing about this sounds anything other than absolute garbage.

"Why am I such a stinker? It's because of
Spoiler alert
DEAD BEST FRIEND
[close]
. Do you see now? Do you?"

It's like the kind of adolescent drivel you get in a one-woman fringe play performed over a pub in South London.

Utter Shit

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on September 02, 2016, 04:18:36 PM
I watched the first half of Episode 1, and now I'm glad I bailed. Nothing about this sounds anything other than absolute garbage.

"Why am I such a stinker? It's because of
Spoiler alert
DEAD BEST FRIEND
[close]
. Do you see now? Do you?"

It's like the kind of adolescent drivel you get in a one-woman fringe play performed over a pub in South London.

The fact that you only watched 15 minutes of it makes everything else you said basically worthless. You could have gone with "didn't seem like it was for me", but extreme, concrete opinions about something you essentially haven't seen? Ok.

Bad Ambassador

My interpretation of the comments of others corresponds to what I saw. If anything, this shows that my first impression was absolutely correct.

The total absence of humour was a deciding factor, never mind the tedious narcissism.

I see that Amazon is pushing this in the US, where I'm sure it will be hailed as something amazing, rather than unwatchable shite.

Utter Shit

Na. You only saw fifteen minutes of a 180 minute show. You might well not have ended up liking it anyway - I liked the show, but can see that a lot of the criticism of it is absolutely fair - however outright dismissing a relatively critically-acclaimed show, from someone with no previous writing credits to pre-judge her work on, as "absolute garbage" and "adolescent drivel" based on the first fifteen minutes is just ridiculous.

It wasn't an Adam Sandler movie, where you knew what you were getting going in and could reasonably dismiss it as shit unless you heard otherwise. All you can confidently say is that it didn't seem like it was for you, everything else is way over the top.

The last 10 minutes of the series changes how you view everything that went before it - for better OR worse - so dismissing it based on the first fifteen minutes is just mad.

neveragain

Fully agree.

After 15 minutes you can give an immediate opinion but not informed, considered or valid criticism. And this isn't a personal attack Ambassador, I find it annoying whoever does it.

Bad Ambassador

I'll try watching some more, but I'm aware that there is a lot of really good media around, to the point where I have to be ruthless when presented with something that seems weak. Committing three hours over weeks is a lot if you hate it from the start.

She previously wrote Crashing, which suffered the same fate in my house.

Quote from: hummingofevil on August 30, 2016, 12:53:46 AM
Watching it with the girlfriend of 10 years

Isn't it on a bit late for her?

Utter Shit

Quote from: Bad Ambassador on September 02, 2016, 05:36:58 PM
I'll try watching some more, but I'm aware that there is a lot of really good media around, to the point where I have to be ruthless when presented with something that seems weak. Committing three hours over weeks is a lot if you hate it from the start.

She previously wrote Crashing, which suffered the same fate in my house.

I looked this up before saying she had no previous writing credits - according to Wiki (...) she only acted in Crashing.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

I haven't seen any of this but I reckon it's shit.

BlodwynPig

It's a mixture of brilliant and shit

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: Utter Shit on September 02, 2016, 09:00:46 PM
I looked this up before saying she had no previous writing credits - according to Wiki (...) she only acted in Crashing.

IMDb disagrees.

Utter Shit

Fair dos that would be a better justification for dismissing it out of hand.

hummingofevil

Its really good. I'm a bit disappointed by the direction it went andt it's not that thing I wanted it to be; but for what it is it actually very good and if you not willing to watch it before slagging it off then you are a bit of a div.

hummingofevil

To be fair it's probably a teeny bit smarter than I wanted it to be. For that it it gets two awkward, cringey thumbs up from me.

dr beat

I've been watching this over the last couple of nights and just have the last episode to watch.  Initially the setting of upper-middle class London life put me off, but it actually works well as a satire of its dysfunctionalities.  Some good performances too, particularly Hugh Dennis and Olivia Coleman.

neveragain

Olivia Colman has never given a bad performance.

Bazooka

This program is just Drifters that was on Channel 4, minus the the other two ladies.

Norton Canes

5 was good. Very good, in fact. And it looks like I might be able to fit 6 in tonight too.

[smirks to camera]

Johnny Caramel

QuoteFleabag

Rejected.

Norton Canes

Hmm. 6 tame by comparison - though after seeing so much spoilered text in this thread, I was expecting something a bit more cataclysmic. Nothing yet to really explain why she's so screwed up and nihilistic and only sees most people as sex objects (except, conveniently, the people that she needs to interact with in the show in some other way then just shagging).

(
Spoiler alert
I was guessing some kind of sexual abuse. Roll on series 2!
[close]
)

MattD

#82
Coming from a Glaswegian perspective, this immediately came off as a posh middle class Guardian readers version of Rab C Nesbitt.

Okay, apart from breaking the fourth wall and that both characters are ultimately lost, it's obviously under entirely different circumstances and not nearly as likeable and without the 'gift of the gab'. I found all the characters genuinely awful, and really difficult to like as a result. Really hard to sympathise, let alone empathise given how prosperous, pretentious and rich everyone seems in it. I realise having unlikeable characters is the default mode for dark sitcoms, but even the really great sitcoms make you genuinely sympathise for even the most difficult of characters - e.g. Basil Fawlty, Alan Partridge or David Brent.

This was compelling viewing at best - but in a way that an M25 pile up is. Not essential mind, no matter what the Bollinger quaffing, sandal wearing, kale eating Crouch End Guardian journalist tells me.

Norton Canes



I saw that new Hamlet on BBC4 last night, and it was good, and I liked the story and that, but... he's a prince, and his new dad's a king, and pretty much everyone else is lords and dukes and that, so... how are we supposed to relate to his struggle against the inevitable course of destiny and the paralysing effect of his chronic indecision?

</devilsadvocate>

Yeah, I agree. Posh kid writing directly and exclusively from experience of her posh world.

sevendaughters

#84
Of course Shakespeare himself was not a lord, duke, or king.

Dived in with a mid-series episode and found it shy on laughs and think it would have been better presented as a drama with bleak comedic undertones. For all of the Miranda comparisons, I kept thinking of it as something a bit post-This Life. Sex, work, and ennui in the city, with the odd scrape and taboo.

It's all signposted like a drama.
Spoiler alert
Main character says that guy grieving in graveyard is 'shit at grieving', we learn that she is bereaved and visits the graveyard every day so presumably knows more about grief, there's those lingering wistful/painful unspokenness shots with the sexy neighbour of the deadfriend and the offhand reference to her death being do with him sleeping with 'someone'...it was the main character right? Or wrong?
[close]

Even if wrong then the humour fell flat for me. Having the main character being smarter than the the uncomfortable person in a sex shop doesn't mean you're not writing a 'why buying dildos is weird' bit in 2016. Brett Gelman is good as ever and I don't think anyone disgraces themselves. Just...not for me.

EDIT: so I covered that spoiler tag as I watched EP6 and it transpires I was right. I preferred episode six as a piece of drama, with odd bits of humour contained within. I stand by my initial assessment. The bits that are meant to be funny-funny don't quite hit, the looking at the camera tic is very annoying (even if it is meant to be a signpost that she's somewhat solipsistic/narcissistic), and it the upper-middle class London setting makes it even harder to care about people deliberately set up as amoral selfish brats. I mean the pivotal scenes of ep6 take place at an art opening for gawdsakes!

Norton Canes

I actually think it might have worked well as a feature film. Pared down to 105 minutes it could have lost a lot of the weaker scenes from the first three episodes and climaxed with episode 5's superb dinner party, eschewing the Sexhibition (which was basically an excuse for a few willy jokes) altogether.

Pancake

Enjoyed this but don't think it's worth the kind of analysis people are granting it, it was a nice little dram-com, everyone was a cunt, she was a sloppy self-centred cunt before deadfriend deaded and she remains one after, no one is sympathetic, my only takeaway is that I'm glad I don't have such an ice-cold husk of a life.

hewantstolurkatad

Quote from: BlodwynPig on September 02, 2016, 10:55:37 PM
It's a mixture of brilliant and shit
Yep, that's about where I'm at with it. Some really weak shit lumped in where it felt utterly desperate for laughs and the stuff about the friend was weak but overall I liked loads of it and have recommended it to a few people (with tons of caveats)

Quote from: neveragain on September 04, 2016, 05:31:46 PM
Olivia Colman has never given a bad performance.
Yep, she's fucking great. She's someone who's gonna gradually slip into winning tons of awards for supporting roles.
What I'd love to hear is how much input she had on the development of Sophie in Peep Show. Even from the get go the character being obviously ludicrously idealised by Mark was way better done than in most cases of that and the characters ongoing evolution was pretty great without ever seeming like a different person to the one in series 1.

I REALLY enjoyed this up to ep.5, but then it started laying it on thick from there.  Olivia could basically flat out insult his daughters in front of him and the father didn't even say a word.

By the time Fleabag was acting as a drinks waiter, it became fucking ridiculous.  THEN the sister turns on her, having the conversation with the husband next to her grinning.

What a disappointing end.

Small Man Big Horse

I was a late comer to this but I loved it, and am surprised at the harsh criticism of the last two episodes, they were what made it so good for me.

Anyway, turns out Waller-Bridge is trying her hand at drama next. From Chortle:

QuoteNew TV series for Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge'Cat-and-mouse' thriller for BBC America
Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge is to write a dramatic thriller for American TV.

BBC America has commissioned her to create an eight-episode series of Killing Eve, which will premiere in the States in 2018.

She will serve as showrunner and executive producer, Hollywood trade press are reporting.

The series based on the the novellas by Luke Jennings, about Villanelle, a psychopathic assassin and Eve, the bored, smart,desk-bound agent charged with hunting her down.

'Killing Eve is a brilliantly fresh take on the cat and mouse thriller from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a major new talent in television,' said BBC America president Sarah Barnett.

'Underneath the deceptively simple and entertaining surface is a subversive, funny, obsessive relationship between two women, that plays out across some of the most and least glamorous locations imaginable.'

The series is described as a combination of brutal mischief-making and pathos with sharp humor, originality and high-stakes action.

Fleabag and Waller-Bridge have just been nominated for Critics' Choice Awards in the states.