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| Malcolm Tucker making a cameo in Alan Moore's Century 2009 but no appearance at all in The Thick of It S4E1 |
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Watching The Thick Of It on Hulu did not help the experience. I didn't mind the ad breaks, that after all is how you make your money, but the cheerful 1950s style ads for dog food repeated 3 times doesn't gel well with The Thick Of It's audience and that ad in the middle of the show that froze the programme until I clicked the screen to tell you that I was happy with my phone service made me seriously annoyed. The biggest problem with watching The Thick Of It on Hulu was the ever so slight disconnect between the audio track and visual track which got old very quickly. If there's a big disconnect between A&V then you're in Sergio Leone territory and its somehow ok, but if its just slightly off then I'm afraid you're looking at a kind of Uncanny Valley situation and its extremely creepy and difficult to watch.
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The Thick Of It S4 E1 B-
Hulu's presenation C+ (at least they didnt bleep the swearing like the fucking fuckers of BBC America). Oh and speaking of fuckers. Immediately The Thick Of It ended Hulu began playing a horrible show about an English vicar starring the actor who played "the fucker" on The Thick Of It. Sad. Really sad.
15 comments:
I admit to liking S4 ep 1, but then I am living 'under' the coalition government... (remember that I am speaking as a fatcat public sector worker with a gold-plated pension...).
I preferred the vitriol of earlier series, well, Malcolm, really, but am willing to give this series the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the swearing quota could be raised? and be more inventive? wittier?
We will see.. I would hate to watch it with the 'quality' of advert breaks you describe. Can't you record and then fast forward through the dross??
I ain't on Twitshit, so want to comment here on the shocking, so shocking mass coverup that was the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster.. utterly appalling. At the time it happened (April 1989) I was horrified by the 'popular' press coverage. Do you recall an image of a lad who was very obviously dead where he stood, pressed against the fencing, with the mealy-mouthed caption that he was struggling to escape? I almost can't believe it as I write it.. can I have made this up? misremembered?? I was moved to tears when I heard that during this morning while families of those who died were allowed prior viewing of this report, three of them fainted...
Of course since you tweeted, there have been a mass of apologies. The dignity of the campaigning families is to be much admired.
Deb
The Thick Of It will only get better as they give us more Malcolm. I hope!
As for Hillsborough...as a childhood and lifelong Liverpool fan Hillsborough was one of the worst days of my life. I had actually been in the away end at Sheffield Wednesday several times in the year before the disaster and once I had a similar experience at the Coventry City v Sheff Wed FA Cup Quarter Final in, I think, 87 - no one was hurt but my God was it terrifying in there not helped by the incompetence of the South Yorkshire Police.
I am not surprised at all that the South Yorkshire cops lied through their teeth for the last twenty years and now its all finally come out...
The press coverage was disgusting. As a Liverpool fan I will never buy The Sun under any circumstances nor go to their website. Murdoch and his 80's editor Kelvin MacKenzie should now apologize for all their lies.
The ads we get in America are for a brand of car that I hereby swear never to buy, and for an insurance company whose commercial features a character talking earnestly about the features of that insurance company's app.
Fran Lebowitz once said that big people talk about ideas, medium-size people talk about things, and small people talk about wine. Today she'd add that infinitesimally tiny people talk about their apps and smartphones.
The Thick of It episode is fair so far. Peter Mannion is better as world-weary than he is at deer caught in the headlights.
Don't know about The Thick of It--I mean I do know about it but am not up to speed. So I'm wondering instead where you are about the end of the half season that was Breaking Bad.
Peter
You're lucky. They must have changed the ads on Hulu, that dog food one was insufferable.
I think the problem with s4 e1 is that all the characters are equally sassy. Apart from poor old Glen they all feel they can rip each other. It was so much funner when Malcolm came in to stir things up.
Seana
I thought BB was brilliant. A fantastic arc and they did a great job of really finally making me want Walt to go down.
Hank and Jesse are the moral centres of that universe and I'm pretty worried that both of them are going to go down in the end.
"The ads we get in America..."
Oh, wait. You're in America too, now. I forgot.
Right. Nobody is afraid of anybody. That Tweedledee and Tweedledum pair of LibDems could be good supporting characters, but the first episode had no real center, not just no Malcolm, but no Nicola Murray or Hugh Abbot.
Maybe that's the idea: A coalition government lacks central figures, that minister whose arrival at the office in the morning could constitute an spisode's opening sequence.
I know I'm on my own tack here, but I really felt that as Walt became the archvillian instead of picking them off, the show got less interesting. And without wanting to give away too much to those who haven't seen it yet, I thought Walt's idea that he could change direction at this point was beneath his otherwise marked intelligence.
Peter
In a missed opportunity the PM's enforcer only appeared sotto voce via a phone call.
Peter
And "The Fucker" is off making a show about a vicar in London...o tempora
Seana
Yeah I can see why you think it looks rushed. It is rushed. They decided on an episode limit and they are sticking to it. But still I loved the last 2 eps in particular.
Well, after last season, I see why they'd want to pick up the pace a little. I guess I don't really buy Walter White as a lean, mean killing machine, but as he seems to tenatively be making his way back from the abyss in the last episode, I'll probably like the last part of the last season better.
For me, the crucial points of the best episodes have been the Walter/Jesse dynamic, which was largely missing, some sort of real threat, which was missing too, and the kind of fringe character like Gale. I do like the actor who's playing Jesse's surrogate, but this isn't enough of a role for him.
And there really hasn't been enough Hank as adversary in it either. I know it's coming, but some of this season was just, well, boring.
Seana
No, I can't go along with you there, I think, I really have enjoyed this mini season and havent found it boring at all.
That said I always fast forward through the scenes with Anna Gunn and Betsy Brandt.
Episode 2 is off to a better start, though both Ollie and Nicola have crappy haircuts. And Ben Swain has a good scene near the beginning.
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