laceblade

I now have at least a month of HBO NOW, so that I can watch the Pod Save America midterm election specials.

I am wondering whether people have recommendations for other HBO TV shows. nicasiosilang has already demanded that I watch Young Pope, in which the Pope is 1) American, and 2) played by Jude Law. SOOOOOO THAT'S HAPPENING. But I will entertain more suggestions to make the most of this month.

Ongoing
Free! - I'm behind on this, but I'm still watching. It's pretty heinous & fun. I do wish that as many people watching this show watched K-ON! - maybe they did, I guess I wasn't into K-ON! while it was actually airing, so I wouldn't even know :3

Silver Spoon - I'm really digging this show, I get excited every time a new episode appears in my crunchyroll queue. This show makes me laugh! I'll watch anything created by Hiromu Arakawa. Also I should correct earlier posts - the protagonist is in high school, not college.

Teen Wolf - Wow, show, I had intended to be casual about you. I went to "Teen Wolf night"s at were_duck's to watch currently airing s3 episodes despite not seeing seasons 1 or 2. "It'll just be a hanging out thing, I like the people who go, but I won't get into the show," I said.
READERS, I WAS WRONG.
I watched...all of season 2 last weekend, lolol. And am now basically caught up.
I wish that I liked Allison more than I actually do. I feel like I should like her more, because it's mostly the narrative's removal of her agency (AT EVERY POSSIBLE MOMENT) that infuriate me, particularly in season 2.
I love Stiles, I <3 Lydia, and really just everyone.
It's disappointing that there are so many boring expository narrative dumps going on right now in season 3, and their budget drop from seasons 1/2 to 3 is almost painfully noticeable.
The lighting also seems to be done by the same people who did Glee season 3 (aka: it's terrible).


Finished
Orange is the New Black - I watched this whole thing in like, less than a week. I'm glad I did - just about my entire Tumblr dash is talking about it.
I really loved this show. In addition to being hilarious, it uses its platform to make lots & lots of statements about the criminal justice system as well as the way women are treated in society - all women.

The show deconstructs its white privileged protagonist. More on that in this autostraddle post.
I also really enjoyed this post about Piper's bisexuality at a new website talking about queer women in TV shows, started by two BNFs from Glee fandom.

I think my favorite thing that happens in the show (even though it's awful when it happens) is when Larry (Piper's husband) goes on NPR to tell the host all of the stories about these "crazy prison women" that he's heard from his wife, framing it as being about HIM and it being about their long distance relationship/etc.
And as he talks about each prisoner, the camera lingers on them - triumphant fists, smirks, hands over mouths in horror, tears of shame - depending on how he portrays them in his stories - appropriate from Piper, who told him the stories in the first place.
The show is pointing out how much representation matters, the effects it has on people depending how they're represented in the stories that get told about them.
It can hurt, it can be uplifting. It can be both.
Anyway, this show was fantastic, and it only gets better as it goes on & Piper's heaping privilege gets dismantled right up until the very last scene.
Highly recommended.


Dropped
Servant x Service - Sometimes there are little gems of insight, like the characters saying that a lot of people working in the civil service didn't have any particular "dream job," & just end up there because they don't know what else to do (G P O Y). BUT, the sexual harassment & large-boob-jokes used for hilarity/etc. have made it unwatchable for me.