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Comment by smoldesu | Hacker News Reader

There's a sad irony to the world's largest company producing a sci-fi dystopian drama. It's the same feeling I get watching Rings of Power, where the CGI is nice and some of the costumes are cool, but the sterile writing and direction completely undermines it. Money can buy you a lot of nice things, but good television needs to be inspired. Apple has the largest savior complex out of everyone in FAANG, and I'm not sure if that's the healthiest way to approach this book. Maybe it'll turn out great though, which might even be more ironic.

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It's a real phenomena and I'm not sure why it's happening. Every time without fail, the writer's are always uninterested in the source material and mostly known for some imitation of a not so great show.

If you're spending literal billions, why not hire a big shot writer who can actually work with the source material instead of shoe horning their fringe political opinions?

because the "shoehorned political opinions" are not coming from the writer, are coming from market research done by the executives. they will not risk their investment by hiring a writer known for taking risks and having a vision, which ironically is what dooms the product to mediocrity

Given the way most of these politicised productions have been underperforming and sometimes even crashing this seems to be unlikely. It is not the market which demands this type of programming but more likely to be an outflow of the focus on ESG by certain investment companies which will eventually find out their investments tend to loose value if they insist on pushing a political agenda before profitability. These companies are not dealing with their own money so they hold a fiduciary duty towards their clients who are, by and large, not in it for pushing politics. Once their investments start tanking they'll start looking for someone to blame and sue which is when Blackrock, Vantage and the other investment companies pushing ESG will start to feel the heat.

I thought this at first too, but actual market research shows that real "woke" opinions are about as rare as facist ones. If they did market research, I think they mistook the loud minority on twitter and the internet in general for their larger viewer base. I can't prove my ideas, but I can certainly see Disney losing billions, their CEO leaving and their stock crashing.

Severance is the ultimate example of this. It is very inspired, however, thanks to Ben Stiller at its creative helm.

IMHO Severance is the most inspirational TV since Twin Peaks. It’s a real work of art. A masterpiece.

It’s the only reason I signed up to Apple TV+. I looked for other shows on there, but cancelled not long after.

I haven't watched Severance (yet...yours is quite an endorsement!) but I have been enjoying For All Mankind.

I haven’t (yet) watched Twin Peaks but I’d wholeheartedly concur with that endorsement. For quality / episode ratio, I’d put it up there with the first four seasons of the Wire (10/10).

The first episode of Severance is quite slow with regards to plot but still visually compelling. The cinematography, music and character building stay consistently excellent throughout the series but the drama and tension increasingly ramp up so much that my wife and I were on the edge of our seats for the last few episodes. It was so good that I intend to re-watch Season One before watching Season Two (I’m guessing that there will be follow-up) comes out.

My wife and I both really enjoyed the first two seasons of For All Mankind. She generally dislikes science fiction and anything to do with space but was soon won over by the human element and the great characters. However, we both felt that the quality of the show (particularly the writing) fell hard with the third season.

We both also thought that Shining Girls was an excellent mini-series and have Slow Horses lined up to watch next.

I really liked Severance. Though I loved For All Mankind.

In a different vein. Ted Lasso and The Morning Show.

Couldn't get into Foundation though. Not terrible but meh. May try again at some point.

> yours is quite an endorsement!

And I’m massively underselling it :)

I agree. Of all the TV I've watched in recent memory, I continue to think about Severance all the time. To think I only watched it because of the Parks n' Rec guy!

Slow Horses too, that's ace. Mythic Quest has been a surprisingly good watch with some proper brilliant moments. Jason the Mammal in See is pretty good.

> Slow Horses too

S02E04 that came out today (Friday) had me uttering "He's so fucking good" out loud, despite being alone in the apartment. About Gary Oldman, that is. The way he hates absolutely everyone and cares about nothing, while showing that he deeply cares about his employees/Joes and justice. It's all there in the writing too, of course. There's just something about the way Gary Oldman portrays it that gives it an extra layer of authenticity. The man can act.

Hard agree, and I'd have used the same example and wording too. Severance validates TV as an art form.

For all mankind.

Severance is great, but it sure felt to me like a send up of Apple’s own corporate culture with some mid century IBM thrown in. I wonder how Ben Stiller was able to nail the vibe so well as someone who hasn’t spent time as a worker in a place like that. It’s uncanny.

It’s seems the show has a truly exceptional team, they collectively nailed it. Everything is sublime: the writing, the cast, the acting, the sets and locations, the cinematography, the music, even the opening credits. So it doesn’t surprise me that they nailed that weird blend of retro and modern corporate culture

And that final episode of season 1, my god that's some of the best multi-strand story telling I've ever seen in any form. Even Thelma Schoonmaker couldn't have edited that better.

Agreed, it was another level. My only fear is that there’s no way they can pull this off twice. I just hope they can get near to season 1’s brilliance with season 2

I've heard good things, I look forward to torr- I mean paying for a subscription of Apple TV+ to check it out!

On a more serious note, I'm open to the idea it could be great. I hate HBO and their business model, but I'll be damned if they didn't use their power to make some phenomenal television. That being said, the irony is more in the context of the source material, rather than how good or bad the show might be. At the very least, Rings of Power doesn't portray a Numenorean package fulfillment center...

Severance is so good it's the thing that should get people to subscribe to AppleTV+. Ted Lasso's fine and all, but Severance is astonishing.

RoP's cardinal sin was that it was boring. HotD and Andor are both examples of megacorporations producing art that resonates with humans in 2022. RoP didn't have to suck.

I don't get the positive reception I'm reading about Andor here.

I've watched it since I've seen it mentioned in positive light multiple times - the rebellion plotline is nice but main character development is super dragged out and feels pointless - the arduous childhood flashbacks, dramatic sister searching - to end up screwing in Miami - so many episodes felt weak and irrelevant. The heist was dragged out far too much - who cares what sw goat milk tastes like ?

Entire season could be condensed into a one and a half hour movie and nothing of value would be lost.

Not saying it's bad - but far from "the wire in SW universe" or other praises people seem to be singing it.

It's made up of three arcs and the first arc is bad. No way around that. It doesn't set up any themes or have any payoffs, it's just a boring slog. However, the spycraft and prison stuff was the most engaging thing Disney's ever put on a screen.

The final action sequence of the first arc is good, and had a great emotional payoff.

Yeah but it wasn't worth the two hours of setup. Considering where they end the season I really feel like they wasted not setting up stronger themes and motifs. It could have had some juicy payoff.

I agree on the flashbacks, but they were IMO the only weak part of the series. The costumes, music, sets, cinematography, writing, and acting were all superb. And it built up into a culmination at the end that tied everything together, without wasting previous setups.

Also, the bittersweet sense of sacrifice and hope shining through a tsunami of oppression is so relevant and positive compared to so much of the pointlessly dark series out there.

Did you finish the season? It gets progressively more tense and entertaining.

Could not agree more. It’s fine and certainly better than Obi Wan and the Book of Boba Fett, but by no means is it rave-worthy.

It puts the war back into Star Wars.

I don't know. RoP engaged me more than HotD--not that it was great. I'll probably give HotD another shot starting at the beginning over the holidays. I'm liking Andor more than I liked either of those. Disney has mostly done at least a B/B+ job with Star Wars overall.

I too like Rings Of Power, it was one of the few shows I'd anticipate watching the next one. It had heart, some mystery and some fun characters. I'm a sucker for that music too (Bear McCredy). better than I hoped.

Andor was compelling and very Star Wars. HotD lost me, I didn't make it through. It seemed kinda soap opera. People are raving about Severence, I watched it, and though decent, but didn't have the positive reaction others in this thread had. Though I'm old and have had time working for the big co under my belt, which may have skewed things.

But I guess everyones different tastes are why they're making so many shows...

Unfortunately Disney burned a lot of people due to their other offerings, so the public is ignoring the genius that is Andor. I credit the show's quality to Disney keeping their dirty mouse mits off of Gilroy and team.

I think they simply burned people out on Star Wars. Too much too fast. The 'Marvel Cinematic Universe' got media executives thinking that the public have an infinite appetite for their favorite multimedia franchises, but I think they're now discovering the limits of that appetite.

I agree, in an alternative universe with a different director (maybe even a different edit), the show could probably be pretty good. HotD was good, but frankly it's a capitalization on how god-awful GoT's 8th season was. They could have produced a wet shit like Amazon did and it would still be a redemption arc for G.R.R.M's television adaptations.

Andor I haven't seen yet (not a disney guy) but I sorta get the same vibes. Disney, for all their artistic weal and woe, makes a ton of safe and boring films these days. It doesn't really impress me that they can put together an M-rated show that doesn't suck.

Andor is really less of a Disney thing so much as Disney allowing the Gilroy brothers (who were involved with the Jason Bourne series and legal thriller Michael Clayton) create an elaborate espionage show stuffed with sociopolitical commentary and historical allusions, which just happens to be set in the Star Wars universe. Others involved with it include people who worked on House of Cards, The Americans, and Black Mirror, so it has that level of pedigree.

It's basically doing to Star Wars what The Wire did to Baltimore.

FWIW I watched Andor on the advice of a friend (I'm also not a Disney guy, nor really a huge Star Wars fan past the originals) and really loved it. The Star Wars tie-ins are a bit besides the point, though the design references are neat. It feels like a movie about an insurgency against Franco, just set in the future.

That's a good point. I'm only part-way through but, so far, you could pretty much take out the various design references to Star Wars and make a few other tweaks and you'd still have a good series not set in the Star Wars universe.

I didn't really dislike the sequels to the original trilogy but they were forced to do way too much fan service.

It's probably no coincidence that the best entrants in the universe in the modern era are probably Rogue One and the Mandalorian which in spite of very obvious tie-in are mostly unrelated to the original series.

Thanks for that recommendation. It sounds like Andor should be worth watching.

I was totally sceptical about new Star Wars shows when Rogue One came out and had no interest in going to see it. However, I ended up watching it while I was tired (but not able to sleep) on a long-haul flight. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed it as a solid adventure film and I watched it again a year or two later on Disney+.

Do yourself a favor and watch Andor. It’s the least Disney-ish Star Wars property there is since they bought the IP, and the first time I’ve truly liked Star Wars since I was a kid reading the Thrawn trilogy.

I heard so much hype on Andor. I watched the first ep. I just find I'm no longer interested in Star Wars. Studdering androids/robots make no sense. Same with a world with all the tech around and yet people living in tipis.

"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson

I feel a similar sentiment, but since that sentiment sells ( see Bill Hicks on advertising dollar[1] ), company might dial down the usual propaganda in lieu of actual customer satisfaction. If you are looking for more recent example, check Amazon's "Expanse". It is very anti-corporate space opera and came from a company that is likely to eventually put ads in orbit.

edit: I will add one more thought. Assuming it is a decent adaptation, it may introduce a younger generation to what risks some people predicted in our developing society. At the very least, it may get them interested.

[1]https://genius.com/Bill-hicks-on-advertisers-and-marketing-a...

It’s clear by the ratings that The Peripheral, based on Gibson, but also an AmazonVideo product, has Rings of Power beat by a significant margin. And “The P” was the underdog here. So theres a chance that AppleTV+ (as well as AV) will learn from that and steer clear of the more obvious mistakes.

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