ScalziWatched the first episode of a highly regarded television show that people I know and like thought was great and I was absolutely fucking bored with it, which goes to show that either individual tastes are ultimately idiosyncratic, or that all my friends and at least some television critic have shit taste in TV, honestly it's a coin flip which it is
Lee@scalzi okay, now I want to know what the TV show is.
Tom Wasilewski
zendao42
John M. GambleHow dare you. My Mother The Car was pure gold.
Jeff@scalzi I regret to inform you, as someone working with both anonymous and critic TV and movie review data for 15 years, it is indeed a coin flip.
Michael O’Neal@scalzi Doesn’t it prove that tastes are idiosyncratic if all of your friends and at least one critic have shit taste?
Nefarious Celt
Marc Criley@scalzi Same here. Watched 3 1/2 episodes of a series that many are lauding--finally conceding that after waiting in vain for some semblance of a plot to develop, it wasn't going to happen, and there's lots of other things to stream.
Iain McLaren
EyeQ62@imclaren Oof! I will not hear a bad word said against my beloved Andor. I'm 60 years old and it was one of best seasons of TV I've ever watched (four times and counting). ;)
Saying that, I honestly don't care what other people like or dislike. We can't all like the same things. The world would be colourless and grey (Yeah, English).
Saying that, I honestly don't care what other people like or dislike. We can't all like the same things. The world would be colourless and grey (Yeah, English).
@EyeQ62 yes most of my friends love it
Calicoday 
@scalzi I don't think most people generally distinguish between their own ability to enjoy what's put in front of them and what's well crafted to be more easily enjoyed. Honestly I prefer to find a show starkly dull, so I can drop it instead of wastrng hours trying to tease out enough I like not to regret starting it.
Evelyn 
@scalzi If it was The Expanse, the first four or so episodes must be gotten through.
Steffen Christensen@EvieAlways @scalzi Same thing for Game of Thrones, but you can just stop at Season 7.
There is no Season 8.
Vee@Wikisteff @EvieAlways @scalzi I stopped watching GoT at the end of Season 4, and have not once regretted that decision.
Brad Wilson@Wikisteff @EvieAlways @scalzi Man it's super unfortunate that Lost got cancelled after just 2 seasons. It had a lot of potential. 😉
Clem H. Fandango@EvieAlways @scalzi really? I was engaged from the first episode...
Mike J👹🐀 🤘🏻@EvieAlways @scalzi I've think I've watched the first episode four times, but none of the rest of it.
I read the first two books and enjoyed them, but at that point I didn't feel a huge need to continue.
Strypey@EvieAlways
> The Expanse is one of my all time favorites
Best space opera since Serenity, character-wise, and head and shoulders above all the Star Wars TV shows (except Andor).
With an uncommon attempt to tell the human part of the story with roughly realistic tech. Which makes the future space magic the alien tech does all the more otherworldly and creepy.
Ohh, the parallels between the treatment of Belters and the tragic events unfolding in a certain part of the world...
Seppo Helava@scalzi if it’s Andor, I hated the first three episodes, and loved it afterwards, and it was worth the slog through the opening.
Nathan Stohlmann
Maisie Summers@scalzi
Never judge a TV show off the first episode alone. It's like books and covers: it might actually get good later.
Never judge a TV show off the first episode alone. It's like books and covers: it might actually get good later.
@maisiesummers @scalzi catch22 felt like the horse was stumbling and still getting flogged.
Dr. Fancypants, Esq.@scalzi A little from column A, a little from column B?
Michael BaconOkay so was it The Diplomat or was it Ahsoka?
Coles Street Pothole@scalzi I have watched stuff and HATED it only to try it again years later and LOVED it so who knows.
Charles Bryan@scalzi I think that it's frequently a matter of personal taste. There are at least a couple of highly regarded series that I did not enjoy. I can think of one - Succession - that I didn't like at first, but tried it again a couple of years later and got into it.
The good thing is that there's plenty of other shows!
@scalzi I appreciate that you didn't identify the show. Your point applies to a lot of shows, and why invite a lot of "How could you?"
HollieK@charleshbryan @scalzi And does it matter which one it is, anyway? I've watched stuff that I really *should* like, but I just don't, for some reason. There's also stuff that I did like when I watched it before, but now falls completely flat.
Oscar Baechler@scalzi Scavengers Reign is a masterpiece, how dare you
Crumbs the Cat
b4ux1t3 
#1️⃣@scalzi is it Yellowstone? I bet it's Yellowstone.
Net-Dude@scalzi
The Wiggles never did anything for me either.
The Wiggles never did anything for me either.
Paul Chiusano@scalzi though what does it mean to say someone has shit taste? To me it just sounds like a snobby way of saying someone has different tastes than you. Like it’s not enough to say you don’t like pistachio ice cream; other people need to be WRONG for liking it. Which is silly, both for ice cream and for TV shows.
Christian Lauf (Backupaccount)@scalzi I TOLD you NOT to start with the last Game of Thrones Season!
Cypherfox@scalzi I mean honestly most of Next Gen’s first _season_ was a wasteland of crap. 🤣 I kid, mostly…
More seriously, absolutely don’t hesitate to move on.
Nobody has ‘shit taste’, they have _different_ tastes than each other, because they’re looking for different things in their entertainment, and come from different places in life, and that’s for the better.
As much as social media tries to make EVERY @$%#! dispute about matters of taste, it is still true that de gustibus non disputandum est.
tinydoctor@scalzi I stopped watching TV because I became embarrassed for the actors and the writers and had to leave the room, which annoyed my wife. Same thing with movies. My wife was even more annoyed when I would leave the theater because I was embarrassed for the actors and the writers.
simsa03Was it the staleness of the scenes/dialogues, and the stiff and mechanical way of acting?
Jeffrey D. Stark@scalzi which 1?
Corb_The_Lesser@scalzi I talked someone into watching one of The Thin Man movies with Myrna Loy and William Powell by telling them it was absolutely one of the best movies ever. They thought it was "Insipid". They were wrong, of course.
Lady Guru@Corb_The_Lesser @scalzi an ex had never seen Casablanca. I convinced them to watch it. After watching it I asked them what they thought, "it's really cliched" they told me. In retrospect that was a sign to get out of that relationship.
Pete ZicatoI can only imagine they had a head injury or some such.
Dan Silov@scalzi Absolutely proves the point made in the infamous Vulture article (The Binge Purge): without strict creative control and supervision — a crucial part of TV before — today’s television has become artisanal and highly segregated. The “good” is no longer uniform, but is broken into pieces, allowing such idiosyncratic tastes to blossom.
Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴♂️📷 🗺️
Al@scalzi You’ve got to give it about 23 hours then it gets going
Good grief, it's you@scalzi Ted Lasso
T.W. Day@scalzi Taste is an elusive thing. Personally, I have been mystified by country music fans for 60+ years; and I grew up in Kansas and lived in the Midwest for most of my life. I just don't get it.
@scalzi Or maybe sometimes YOU have shit taste in tv. We must always take into account the possibility that we are wrong.
JohnJWyatt@scalzi the first few episodes of the Kardashians are rough, but it gets good later
@scalzi most great shows have rough starts. Not The Wire and Treme, but that's the David Simon exception.
Chris Barrus@scalzi After years of living and working adjacent to the sausage factory, the only takeaway I have is that it's either a mistake, a miracle, or both that anything good* gets made. OTOH, I think it’s misguided to just blame The Industry - it's like hiring the Army Corps of Engineers to build your house and then criticizing them that it looks like a concrete dam. Once in awhile, you might get a cool-looking dam.
*”good" obviously subjective, let's go with anything with a dedicated audience.
Chilly Squid@scalzi Well, de gustibus non est disputandum.
Wait, what am I saying, this is the Internet! Disputandum! Disputandum!
Colin Rosenthal ✡️🕎 ❤️🇮🇱❤️ 🕎✡️@scalzi Well I think Bodies is promising, although I do wonder why all theme tunes sound the same since Westworld.
@scalzi Helloooo Frasier reboot 😂
RodneyPetersonTalentAgencyTed Lasso “if this show was a meal it would be white toast and water”
GötterdämmerCät@scalzi It must have been Apple TV+ Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. After just 30 minutes I stopped watching and won’t go back. It’s truly terrible.