The Penguin (TV series)...

Eight episodes. Just got started. I'll be watching the first episode tonight.

Oooh! Review after a couple of episodes please!

Neil wrote:Oooh! Review after a couple of episodes please!

I'll let you know, boss man!

Just "acquired" this

Watched the first episode earlier tonight and loved it.

Farrell is excellent. Good writing, direction, etc etc etc. Thoroughly dug it and looking forward to next week's episode! 

There's also a companion podcast...

I concur. Nicely grounded in reality as well.
The sister gives me the creeps. Total lunatic

kidgloves wrote:I concur. Nicely grounded in reality as well.
The sister gives me the creeps. Total lunatic

She's got those 'crazy eyes' at times ... you definitely feel quite uneasy in her presence and never sure of your footing.

Hopefully it continues to be as good as the opening episode, because it's got the makings of something very good.

I was surprised that some of these folk had no interest in it prior to its airing. I was intrigued as soon as I heard it, but I was also a big fan of The Batman.

It's also strange because this was so clearly not going to be one of those junky Batman TV show spin-offs we've recently had, all very networky or full-blown pandering ... I mean, a teaser trailer alone was evidence enough that this wasn't going to be friggin' Batgirl, I mean come on, lol.

I dearly hope they keep up the quality, but it's off to a good start and the showrunner seems to have a clear and balanced vision for the show and doesn't seem to be one of those box ticker types in her thinking - character and story is what's important and, you know, all the things that made great television before the recent years of so much poorly written pandering wank ... The Penguin definitely isn't that, so it appears.

4 episodes in and i'm still liking it. Penguin is definitely a piece of work.
Why oh why is it so hard to have a linear story these days?
Everything has to have flashback storytelling

Well ... sometimes you've just gotta pace the details of the story in that way, it can't all be linear and formulaic.

Non-linear wouldn't work for all those CSI, NCIS, LMNOP shows as it's just not the formula, but it's also down to the overall pacing of the season's three act structure ... no spoilers, but the events of episode four's climax make for the middle-of-act-two 'big event' that shifts the balance or throws certain things into a new direction ... and sometimes in order to tell that aspect without leaving the audience figuring it out too soon, then you've gotta jumble things up.

Sometimes a character's past will influence the story, but when the time is right for it. No point having big time jumps forward all the time, so you're still showing these key events but in a linear fashion, it'd be too disjointed. This way it keeps it more contained to the individual episode so you don't lose important threads or pacing across multiple episodes (i.e. weeks of passing time for viewers).

Sometimes, though, I do agree that a show can overdo it, or use it when it's not really necessary, or make a complete hash of it - but I think it works here, and can also give the viewer a contrast for the characters - we see them one way and get that established, but then we see something else that changes the playing field or alters our thinking of them.