Hemlock Grove

[zaprowsdower 6]

At first, I sort of enjoyed the badness of Hemlock Grove but I eventually turned it off. The robot dialogue, really really bad acting, meandering plot, and hilarious lack of sense of time made it just terrible. I guess it would be kind of fun to hear them talk about it but I feel like it falls into just bad not fun to watch category.

[zaprowsdower 6]

Is this show good/bad/weird/crazy like the first season of American Horror Story was? Because that was something I didn't think they were gonna pull off but they did, in the end.

 

Second season is another story, but the first was solid.

 

Good post, EarBear. Netflix is on top of their game; now if they could only figure out a user interface that's intuitive or actually fucking useful at all. It's absurd that I have to use the Instantwatcher app to find what I want to watch while I'm sitting on my couch staring at the Netflix screen.

 

No. American Horror Story is a million times better than this.

[sillstaw 414]

While they haven’t, to my knowledge, made their streaming figures public on it

 

Part of the problem with Netflix's original programming strategy (and most likely Amazon's and whoever else tries to get in on this) is that they don't feel like they need to make the figures public. They can basically say that most of their subscriber base streamed "Hemlock Grove" or "House of Cards," and that's the end of it. They don't need to say that it was 1/8th of the base, or that a certain amount of them only streamed one episode, or if the subscribers who streamed it rated it 1 star, or anything. It makes it kind of hard to say with any certainty that it's a competitor to an existing business model like broadcast or cable TV when you don't say for certain how many people actually watch it. (Though, of course, if they're making a second season of "House of Cards" even though they say it costs more than $4.5 million an episode, either a lot of people watch[ed] it or Netflix likes to burn money.)

[BagguhMcGuirk 104]

Even if they did release the streaming numbers it wouldn't neccesarily be a good representation of how many subscribers were brought in. Because of how the shows are released, if all you wanted to do was watch Hemlock Grove you could just do the one month free trial and cancel it before you're ever billed.

 

Even if every original show Netflix releases is horrible, it will still be worth them getting into the producing game for no other reason than the upcoming Arrested Development season. Only one more month! I don't know about the rest of you, but having a season of Arrested Development is so much more appealing to me than a movie.

[BagguhMcGuirk 104]

I apologize in advance for what a stupid question I'm sure this is, but what does tl; dr mean?

[seanotron 2307]

I apologize in advance for what a stupid question I'm sure this is, but what does tl; dr mean?

 

Too Long; Didn't Read

[DeathToMikeyBay 130]

I recently came up with a theory that ANY premium channel series can become a hit as long as the production values are high enough, you have bare boobs within the first 5 minutes of the pilot (attached to a woman in the middle of a screaming orgasm), and the main character has a dysfunctional family/home life.

 

Then I caught Hemlock Grove this week: check check and check!

[BagguhMcGuirk 104]

I agree with that. I would add putting a famous name like Eli Roth as a director/producer is part of it as well. I now have a similar theory about kickstarter, any celebrity with atleast 1 million twitter followers can raise any amount of money they want. I'm not gonna say whether it's a good or a bad thing, just that it's a fact.

[imhatch 271]

cmon mcguirk we all know you are responsible for at least $250k towards zach braff's "im a stupid tween but also 35 years old" movie sequel, we are all friends here no need to hide it

[cdawg87 8]

I would LOVE if they did Hemlock Grove...the only problematic thing is that it's thirteen 45 minute episodes and that's a big undertaking. I was thinking that maybe they could just to the first 2-3 episodes (which is a shorter amount of time than some of the actual "films" we've endured) and leave it up to us to finish the rest of it if we so desire (spoiler alert: we won't). I got 2 episodes in and had to call it quits. I'd love to hear their take on it. Everyone in it fucking sucks.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

I would LOVE if they did Hemlock Grove...the only problematic thing is that it's thirteen 45 minute episodes and that's a big undertaking. I was thinking that maybe they could just to the first 2-3 episodes (which is a shorter amount of time than some of the actual "films" we've endured) and leave it up to us to finish the rest of it if we so desire (spoiler alert: we won't). I got 2 episodes in and had to call it quits. I'd love to hear their take on it. Everyone in it fucking sucks.

I too find it difficult to commit to not giving a shit about something for more than, oooohhhhhh, I'd say eighty-eight minutes or so (tick tock), and even then it can be a bit of a chore. If this were a network show or at least wasn't dumped out in one big 13-episode chunk, it might be easier to do an episode on it because sometimes it's fun to imagine it can better or you can speculate on what might happen next, because no one really knows what the hell is going on yet. Speaking of that, I'm not sure how dumping out a whole season of something all at once is that good of a thing. Others have mentioned that you could get a free month subscription, burn through it all, and then never use Netflix again, and while I'm sure they're prepared to take the hit, wouldn't it be much better to drag it out for a couple of months and keep people talking? They might pick up more subs along the way, and those people that want to watch it all at once would have to wait past the initial buzz.

[Wien 401]

I watched all 13 episodes of this, guys. Let me just say...

 

Episodes 1-10 are complete garbage, awful shit.

 

Episode 11 and 12 are kind of neat, things finally pick up, the story finally starts to move (still makes no sense, but at this point you won't care about that) and it actually becomes, dare I say, fun.

 

Episode 13 is completely fucking nuts. The show's most fatal flaw is exposed in the season finale; it has absolutely NO pacing. 10 episodes of nothing happening, and suddenly in episode 13, EVERYTHING IN THE GALAXY HAPPENS. Its like some producer got railed on coke, got super frustrated with the slow pace, and then wrote episode 13 himself to wrap it all up in a hurry. There is SO much that happens in 13, so many crazy ass revelations and characters dying left and right, resolutions to shit that happened 8 or 9 episodes ago, things being set up for the future... it doesn't even feel like an episode of TV. It feels like a season synopsis montage, like you'd see before the season premier of Game of Thrones or something to remind you of everything that happened last season.

 

Brian McGreevy shouldn't even be allowed to write his own Facebook updates.

[neilly 105]

Where do you crazy people find the time or energy to watch 13 episodes of garbage? I could understand if the show was good; but I watched the first three minutes of this crap, and could tell that it was fucked and turned it off. If you're watching it to review for work, I get it, and I'm sorry you have to sit through like 13 hours of bleh. However, if its not for a job, why watch something that's not even good-bad?

[BagguhMcGuirk 104]

While I agree 13 episodes seems a bit much, I can understand somebody being so amazed at how shitty a show is that they feel compelled to watch it. It's especially forgivable when all the episodes are available at once and the entire season is basically one long movie.

 

What I can't understand is how somebody could possibly judge a show that is basically a 13 part mini-series based on the first 3 minutes. Even if you were going into it expecting the worst, which I was, to judge it based on 3 minutes is much more ridiculous than being sucked in by the shitiness of it. It took me 3 episodes to give up on it and unless you had no intention of trying to like it, you would've given it more than 3 minutes.

 

Also, even though you don't find something to be good-bad, other people might.

[Wien 401]

Where do you crazy people find the time or energy to watch 13 episodes of garbage? I could understand if the show was good; but I watched the first three minutes of this crap, and could tell that it was fucked and turned it off. If you're watching it to review for work, I get it, and I'm sorry you have to sit through like 13 hours of bleh. However, if its not for a job, why watch something that's not even good-bad?

 

Watching terrible shit has been a curse of mine long before HDTGM was ever a thing. Hell I watched all of Paul Reiser's last sitcom. It used to be an easy thing with TV shows, they'd get canceled after 3 episodes and I'd be done. But on Netflix, its 13 episodes.... its all there. And on a night when I have nothing better to do....

[EricStevens 1]

It's not a movie, but it's horrible. Atrocious acting, bizarre accent choices, wonky plots and someone vomits in almost every episode. If you ever decide to review a TV show, you should consider this one.

[NickArnold 74]

I agree, I like to call it the Room of tv shows. The accents go in and out, its supposed to be set in my neck of the woods in Southwest PA but they have Canadian accents and Jean Grey decided to do a British one for no reason. The acting is terrible and the story makes no sense.

[robinsbruce 4985]

pretty sure there's already a thread for this.

[DeathToMikeyBay 130]

While I agree 13 episodes seems a bit much, I can understand somebody being so amazed at how shitty a show is that they feel compelled to watch it.

 

I'm pretty sure that's how True Blood took off. The first season was so fascinatingly dull. It should have been called "Meandering: The Series"

 

Season 2 went downhill. They realized they were unintentionally funny and turned up the self aware camp factor. Unintentional humor does not mix with self awareness. If Season 1 was Birdemic, then season 2 was Birdemic 2.

 

Season 3 was by far the best, thanks to the best character and villain being introduced.

 

Season 4 was bonkers garbage. Premiere has bonkers fairy/imp/fireball/earthquakes, then it just got BORING. Every single character was suddenly supernatural; there were no more ordinary people to play straight men anymore. Dull dull DULL plot of two guys becoming Mexican wizards. One of the worst season finales in television history.

 

That is the final word on True Blood. Don't question it.

[robinsbruce 4985]

Even if they did release the streaming numbers it wouldn't neccesarily be a good representation of how many subscribers were brought in. Because of how the shows are released, if all you wanted to do was watch Hemlock Grove you could just do the one month free trial and cancel it before you're ever billed.

 

Even if every original show Netflix releases is horrible, it will still be worth them getting into the producing game for no other reason than the upcoming Arrested Development season. Only one more month! I don't know about the rest of you, but having a season of Arrested Development is so much more appealing to me than a movie.

 

Cant wait!

[seanotron 2307]

True Blood falls into the Spartacus category for me. The sex & violence is SO over-the-top it just loses me. I think I Netflix'd the first season and gave up. Sooooooookaaaaaaay!

[Petunia Fist 0]

Please, please, please. I know you guys don't do TV shows. But for real. This 13 episode Netflix series will quite possibly, literally, make Jason's head explode, and will also severely disturb June on more levels that anyone ever even thought they could be disturbed. It's basically twelve hours of nothing but non sequiturs and unanswered/unexplained questions. Plus nudity.

[jarrycanada 2483]

Never mind, me.

[DeathToMikeyBay 130]

Okay wow. I only watched the first episode before, but I gave 2 more a try.

 

Wow.

 

This show is basically True Blood if you took out the Sookie character and interesting backdrop (what if vampires didn't need human blood anymore and lived openly?).

 

That, and...

 

...NOTHING MAKES SENSE

 

Characters and plot bits float in and out with no setup or point. Okay, there's been a murder and there's a werewolf kid and a sort of vampire kid? Then there's some psychiatrist I don't remember from the first episode, some blonde girl impregnated by an angel who we're supposed to know but I don't remember from the first episode, said blonde girl spends the next episode in a wig costume before the audience knows her enough to recognize her so I thought it was a new character, some mysterious pharmaceutical company, some frankenstein girl, some curly hair kid we're supposed to know but I don't remember?

 

At the costume party the curly hair kid sees something in the stairwell that scares him and the editing makes it look like he saw a staggering body on the highway(?), the dance is evacuated, and we see a garter snake on the stage? What?

 

To give a general idea of how confusing this show is, 3 episode in and I couldn't tell you a single character's name. Well, I do know the werewolf kid is "Peter", but only because they just had a scene where he says it four times. I have no clue who any of the characters are or what their relationship to each other is. The doctor and sheriff are plotting? The evil mother is upset that someone saw her (dead?) ex-husband? Who is the curly hair kid? Now everyone is panicking because a "special agent for the Fish and Wildlife Service" (Dee from Battlestar Galactica) is investigating and she's a top notch brilliant bloodhound detective oh my god please.

 

It just hurts. Every new scene is like you just walked into the middle of a different show. This isn't even getting into the painful overwrought writing trying way too hard to sound clever. I wouldn't even call it so bad it's good, but it might be worth watching a couple episodes if you have too much free time and want to be baffled.

 

If they made confusion into a drug it would be this show.

[DeathToMikeyBay 130]

I've just figured it out.

 

This series is what would happen if Tommy Wiseau tried to copy True Blood.

 

It all makes sense now.