Good TV
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Mandy Moore is the choreographer for Zoe and she typically does excellent work, so the awfulness may be1 deliberate.
Mandy Moore? From SYTYCD? It has to be deliberate then.
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@TNP Yep. She even has a cameo on the show - she's the producer in the audition scene.
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@Cupcake I don't think it is deliberate. There's no reason, stated or implied, for the dancing to be deliberately bad. If it were on purpose that would have to have been addressed in some way on the show.
It doesn't surprise me that they reused this choreo though. I didn't like her choreo on SYTYCD either, so not liking it here makes sense. And I've seen amazing contemporary dancers. Like with music, just because someone is popular in the field, it doesn't make them good. Lazy producers at Fox just keep recycling the same stuff. As with anything, it gets old after a while. Someone get them a bigger rolodex.
And even if you like her style, her range of creativity proved to be way too narrow for a show that should have done as SYTYCD did and have multiple choreographers with different styles - if for no other reason than to give different characters different expressive styles. They are singing and dancing their heart songs. Unless in their hearts all these characters are exactly the same. Except for Mo. No one could ever be confused with Mo!
Add to that in this case you have a very difficult style of dance being done mostly by amateurs, which really shouldn't be done and almost always leaves a less-than-appealing result.
And I know I sound harsh on this. But it is a small decision that kept a good show from being amazing.
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@surreality said in Good TV:
Am starting to believe that flashy period epics on Netflix are the home for retired CW teen-targeted show actors, between this and The Last Kingdom inheriting at least one of them. (Medici has a couple.) It's good to see them in things that seem to showcase more range than CW tended to give 'em. So when I say, 'the cast is surprisingly good', don't give in to that inclination to see those familiar faces and roll your eyes -- it also has Dennis Hoffman, Sean Bean, Ray Stephenson, and Julian Sands, after all (all of whom I
to death).Everyone please just watch The Last Kingdom. I want more seasons of this show and there's still, like, five or six books worth of material to cover and also I would like to smooch Alexander Dreymon's face eleven thousand times.
That's all.
https://whatiswrongwith.me/Mia
There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say, cursing tomorrow with sorrow. -- Gogol Bordello -
there's still, like, five or six books worth of material to cover
...how is his name not Job already, seriously. I picture that series ending with an angry scrap of man-shaped leather shaking a defiant fist at the sky, standing in triumph on the parapet of his original land before Zeus' eagle zooms down to beak at his liver and chat about scheduling a recurring appointment.
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@surreality said in Good TV:
there's still, like, five or six books worth of material to cover
...how is his name not Job already
hahahaha
I binged through whatever seasons were on prior to this last one a while ago, so obviously it hooked me enough to keep me watching, but definitely in a sort of 'this is so bad its amazing' sense at times. How many times can you do 'Uhtred literally saves your entire fucking Kingdom' -> 'Uhtred makes some small social gaff' -> 'UHTRED IS A VILLAINOUS HEATHEN AND BANISHED'? HOW MANY?
(Runner up: how many times can you hand him a random new love interest and then kill/otherwise remove her? that fridge must be getting crowded)
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@surreality said in Good TV:
there's still, like, five or six books worth of material to cover
...how is his name not Job already
hahahaha
I binged through whatever seasons were on prior to this last one a while ago, so obviously it hooked me enough to keep me watching, but definitely in a sort of 'this is so bad its amazing' sense at times. How many times can you do 'Uhtred literally saves your entire fucking Kingdom' -> 'Uhtred makes some small social gaff' -> 'UHTRED IS A VILLAINOUS HEATHEN AND BANISHED'? HOW MANY?
(Runner up: how many times can you hand him a random new love interest and then kill/otherwise remove her? that fridge must be getting crowded)
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@bored ^ THIS. All of this. All of it. All of it forever.
How has he not killed literally everyone. Everyone. How is there still a human species at this point, between the dead girlfriends and the people worthy of a smite that some other idiot didn't wrongly smite causing the need for their smiting, I mean seriously HOW?!
I am a lifelong pacifist and have never thrown a single slap or punch in 46 years and so help me there are so many people I would have bruised knuckles on over the course of that hellscape.
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BUT HOW DO YOU KEEP TRACK OF ALL THE AETHELS...???
"If you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?"
-- Hamilton: An American Musical -
"Girl Aethel-, Shitty Aethel-, Old Aethel-......"
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Adding a warning to those who might start travelers--there are two episodes that involve a pandemic that might be kinda triggering. I had to keep looking back to when this was made (though I do not think the modeling for how that would affect things was any secret and I'm sure that other shows have done a bang up job of it too, it just was firmly in the speculative realm for me then, or reading about them elsewhere).
Because of events in my own life now I found it super difficult to sleep this week and a big increase in nightmares for a few days when we binge watched through those episodes this weekend! But honestly still worth the discomfort, I thought I'd give a heads up though.
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Re: Zoey,
My guess is the choreography is meh because your main 'name' cast aren't actually dancers, they're actors who can ..kinda move. And kinda sing. But mostly not so much.
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I make things via patronage.
The Long Dig -
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Re: Zoey,
My guess is the choreography is meh because your main 'name' cast aren't actually dancers, they're actors who can ..kinda move. And kinda sing. But mostly not so much.
Personally, I'm totally fine with that. For me, it adds to the charm.
I'm a little salty about it but 100000% because I am a singer and look like Jane Levy and WHYYYYYY.
I still really like the show.
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I make things via patronage.
The Long Dig -
@wahoo My issue wasn't with the quality of the dancing. Non-professional dancers who are actors portraying normal people shouldn't be expected to dance as if they were on Broadway (though it would be nice cause I love good dancing). My issue was the repetitive choreography itself. It's just bad. And I say this as an armchair quarterback who has watched SYTYCD for years.
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@wahoo My issue wasn't with the quality of the dancing. Non-professional dancers who are actors portraying normal people shouldn't be expected to dance as if they were on Broadway (though it would be nice cause I love good dancing). My issue was the repetitive choreography itself. It's just bad. And I say this as an armchair quarterback who has watched SYTYCD for years.
Right, and I'm saying that my guess is that you're getting repeated moves because they're actors, not dancers.
AND because TV moves at an insane pace, trying to get actors (and GUEST actors) to learn new dances (and songs. and lines.) literally every week is .. insane.
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@wahoo So you're saying that quality shouldn't be based on what is accomplished, but on what is intended?
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"They're not dancers and singers, they're actors..." Then why are they in a show built around dancing and singing?
Casting can't find anyone in Hollywood who can act and dance and sing??? Except for every third person in LA... I mean, just throw a rock.
So why would people on this show get a pass for sucking at their job? Yes, they're playing normal people. But the magical singing and dancing of their heartsongs that only happens in Zoey's mind doesn't necessitate that they suck at doing so - as demonstrated by Zoey's dad. That's the magic... of magic.
Its not like the dancing and singing was some curveball that was thrown at them the day of shooting that they just had to deal with. Why were those people cast if they couldn't do what the role called for?
If the show hiring people for stuff that they can't actually do, I'm down to take a role on the show. My acting will be horrible, but I'm not an actor so I don't think anyone should mind.
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Ugh, the more I watch Motherland: Fort Salem the more I wish it was a viable universe to rp in, but I don't see how it would work. I'm sure system mechanics could be found, but I don't think there would be so many people interested in the theme.
I think the only way this theme would work is if the PCs were either Spree or the Spree won and they were fighting back against odds.
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@Admiral said in Good TV:
@wahoo So you're saying that quality shouldn't be based on what is accomplished, but on what is intended?
I am. You wanna put together a 45 minute musical in 7-10 days?
I don't know how to answer this. Yes. That's how this business works. In order to get things made, you hire people who are known to the industry. Most of those people are not triple threats. No one is going to hire a nobody.
ETA: MOST people in Los Angeles aren't triple threats. TRUST.
