Netflix

[welshbairn]

Binge watching this, lost count of what episode I'm on, and it's a fascinating story about media hysteria and manipulation of police resources, not so much about what happened to the wee girl. 

Edited March 17, 2019 by welshbairn

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, PB1994 said:

 

The Scottish millionaires son really pissed me off. Pretty much coming out and saying that he didn’t care if he ruined people’s lives as long as they found maddie was outrageous

 

I hope this isn't a spoiler but the fact that the son managed to find a taxi at an airport was very impressive. He's on route for CEO.

 

Edited March 17, 2019 by welshbairn

[welshbairn]

Watched it the end and I'm no wiser. The last episode about there's always some hope in an American basement was despicable. Especially if they didn't kill her.

[Muzza81]

Gerry McCann’s voice, absolutely excruciating. At least they got to speak to the Pope.

[Swordfishtrombone]

On 15/03/2019 at 18:00, The Real Saints said:

Baffled that anyone could possibly believe After Life is anywhere near the same level as The Office or Extras. It's painfully clear that Gervais (who I'm actually a massive fan of) really struggles without the contributions of Stephen Merchant as a co-writer. For me, as with Derek, there is absolutely no subtlety in the script. Instead of talking heads routinely telling us that Derek is a nice person, we have numerous characters routinely telling Tony that he is a nice person. We require constant reminders from Tony that his wife has died and he is very sad and he wants to kill himself. For me, it didn't ring true as a particularly realistic depiction of depression. Somebody is saying something half-poignant, so let's play some slow instrumental music over it to make sure that the viewer is left in no doubt that this is VERY sad. This Tony guy seems very grumpy at the moment, so let's insert another flashback of him playing an irritating prank on his wife to make sure that the viewer knows he used to be hilarious and that they had a fun relationship where she called him a c**t and a fat twat all the time.

Less is more, but I'm not sure whether Ricky fully grasps that notion. 

The junkie storyline comes to a very unsatisfactory end. It isn't mentioned again. He isn't found out or punished for what he did. Therefore, what is Gervais trying to say about the decision that Tony makes? Does he approve of it?

On the plus side, there are some very nice moments, good performances all-round, and I especially enjoyed the scenes with his father at the care home. I shed a tear on more than one occasion. So I'm not saying that this is bad. I actually thought it was pretty decent and an overall improvement on Derek. But his best work of all time? Absolutely not. Worthy of the widespread praise? Not quite. 6/10

I thought it was okay but a waste of a good supporting cast. Tom Basden and Diane Morgan in particular. The episode with the addict was just strange. I thought Derek was shite and this was a vast improvement. Watchable but as subtle as a sledgehammer.

[Newbornbairn]

[sergie's no1 fan]

I was convinced the parents had something to do with it, now I'm maybe 70/30 they didn't.

The whole thing was a cluster f**k, as soon as the crime scene is tampered with it destroys any potential leads they could have had. She has literally vanished, which makes me think peado ring.

[printer]

Just watched the first two episodes. What absolutes c*nts british tabloid journalists/editors are.

[Armand 2]

Have one episode left of the Madeleine McCann documentary and it's certainly changed my view. I'd say that I was sceptical of the whole kidnapping story beforehand but I'm fairly convinced that was the case now.  I feel very sorry for the McCann's to have gotten caught up in such an absolute shit-show from Portuguese authorities and the UK media.

I know the McCann's didn't want to feature but it seems to have done little but shine them in a relatively decent light. I'm not sure about other countries but here, the story seems to pop up every now and again but is certainly not in the forefront of peoples minds - having it streaming globally on Netflix can surely only be a good thing. That's on the basis that she's alive though which I think is, sadly, very unlikely.

Still unsure what qualified Brian Kennedy's knucklehead son to become an investigator - what a complete and utter tosser. 

Not sure whether Robert Murat sued the journalist who decided he was a weirdo off her on back and compared him to Ian Huntley but he fucking well should have.

[Co.Down Hibee]

48 minutes ago, printer said:

Just watched the first two episodes. What absolutes c*nts british tabloid journalists/editors are.

Piers Morgan was one....nuff said.

[printer]

Piers Morgan was one....nuff said.

Yeah, I'm not sure whether they are all c*nts before they start working in the tabloid world or working there turns then into c*nts. I reckon they are c*nts to start with but become even bigger ones.

[LiviLion]

Rattled through After Life over the weekend. Thought it was very funny but couldn't tell you any parts that were overly emotional, but I'm probably just a bit heartless. One of those weird endings where I hope there's a second season but would be worried about it being taken too far. 

[We Are Pars Fans!]

I really enjoyed After Life

[King Kebab]

If you've ever wondered what a mash-up between The Water Margin and The Walking Dead would be like, then check out Kingdom, excellent stuff!!!
Only 6 episodes, give it a whirl!!!

[Derry Alli]

Watched Triple Frontier. Went into it expecting big things, extremely disappointed. It looks like there will be a follow up too. 

Only a couple episodes into the Maddie documentary but I'm coupling it with the Podcast "Maddie". Scarily complex case and at one point everybody so far has been called a lying b*****d from I. 

[Christophe]

Sat through the final couple of After Life eps out of morbid curiosity, opinion hasn't changed, absolute SHIT, genuinely baffled that anyone is praising it. Sure this will upset some of the previous precious fans on here but bored on the nightshift so here goes:

Edit: Trying to put some thoughts together but it's difficult to write coherently about something that is such a mess - so I've done some bullet points..

• Most of Tony's nihilistic, no holds-barred behaviour in the first couple of episodes is just kind of low-level dickishness, being blunt and rude to people. It's basically what I imagine Gervais would be like on a bad day IRL? The worst bit was the argument in the café about the children's menu - obviously going for a CYE-like thing except in CYE either it would escalate to the point of ridiculousness or there'd be some sort of repercussion later, whereas here it ended with Tony stuffing some fishfingers in his mouth and the waitress pulling a face. Not funny!
• The actual SHOCKING stuff he does is undercut by the total lack of consequences of any kind (remember, this includes threatening a schoolchild with a hammer in broad daylight).
• I am 100% convinced that Gervais only had Tony miss Julian's funeral because he was too lazy to try and write a decent funeral scene. It certainly didn't serve any narrative purpose did it.
• The scenes in the newspaper office were all so horrible and flat, the other characters just sit at a desk and then get up to interact with Tony at their allotted times. Remember how The Office went to lengths to make Wernham-Hogg look like a working office, all those incidental bits with people doing their jobs or chatting or mucking about? None of that here!
• What was with all the interminable scenes  of Tony walking the dog to sad music? Pointless
• The only character besides Tony who gets any kind of arc is Sandy and it's so badly executed. You'd think they'd have a scene with her interviewing Brian, listening attentively, asking questions, discovering something to use as the basis for her story...Basically showing that she's a good journalist and contrasting her empathetic approach with Tony's contempt for ordinary people. Except no, that would mean scenes without Tony in them so the bits at Brian's house are played for laughs and we just find out Sandy's story is really good because at the end Tony reads it and goes "it's really good".
• The feelgood montage of kindly acts at the end is one of the shittest things I've ever seen.
• How the prostitute ("sex worker" harhar) goes from being a women he pays 50 quid to do his washing up for him (literally just so he could get a joke in there about "i'll pay you 50 quid to do something for me phnar phnar"and also to show what a lovely guy Tony is because he's not even expecting a hand job out of it) to being one of his bessy mates who (naturally) thinks he's a lovely guy in the space of like two interactions.
• This is in line with nearly every character constantly saying how nice Tony is, the whole thing might as well be in Tony's head. Saw someone say that it's almost like The Truman Show (more like USS Callister) in that no one actually seems to have any life outside of their interactions with Tony, they're all just taking it in turns to speak to him with him going through each of them usually once per episode.

I think I laughed twice. After Life is literally the entire cast looking at him saying how nice he is while he acts the absolute c**t. 

[TheScarf]

Aye but apart from that, good?

[19QOS19]

I'll respond bulletpoint to bulletpoint.

• He made it perfectly clear from the start that he was going to do and say what he pleased. As a normal person we can all see he is acting like a total dick. It's clear that he's given up on life and as a viewer we are obviously a bit sad about that fact but I don't think any decent person would think his behaviour is justified. In the cafe, it was the waitress who was the dick though and I liked Tony's actions as a "get it up you". I reckon most normal people would react similarly and for me that showed there was still 'hope' for him yet as he reacted like most people. Had he truly given up you have to think he'd react in a much more aggressive manner. To compare it to Gervais's behaviour doesn't help your case that you really just despise him tbh. I don't know why else you would compare a character to the actor.

• The hammer scene resulted in him almost not being allowed to see his nephew again and at that point the brother-in-law was at the end of his tether.

• What would make a decent funeral scene in there? It was a junkie wanting to die. It'd be difficult to write a touching scene when the touching/shocking moment has already been achieved when we see he's successfully killed himself. Sometimes less is more. A funeral scene wouldn't have added anything as the garage scene was enough.

• The office scenes appeared to me that everyone was almost tiptoeing around him. I think bags of comedy in there wouldn't have worked and would have been totally against the vibe being created. It was clear his presence was making other folk miserable. The flashback scenes of him and his wife and the fact no one had told him to f**k off at this point gave me the impression that before his wife died he was clearly a funny/up for a laugh type of guy. He had obviously built up enough credit. The only person who did have a go at him was the nurse, who I imagine never knew him previously so therefore she just sees him acting like a dick all the time and assumes that's just his personality and therefore calls him out on it. Again, comparing it to The Office is just bonkers.

• The dog is what kept him alive. I think those scenes were in there to remind us of this fact.

• Sandy is a weird one and is the only part I can't really figure out. She just appeared to be a new start who was a bit nervous. Had she not been nervous she may have been used to be the one to shoot down Tony (like the nurse) for the reasons I already highlighted.

• I suppose it had to be a montage given they were running out of time. Another episode may or may not have been better.

• I don't think it was to show how nice Tony was. I think it was to show how utterly hopeless and depressed he was. He clearly had no interest in sex and his main priority was trying to get his shit together. A tidy house being a start. I can't go into the psyche of a prostitute but I imagine she trusted him given what he asked of her.

• This comes back to an earlier point. Clearly he must have been nice before the tragedy or they would have cracked long ago. The brother-in-law was clearly getting to that point.


To get two laughs from a programme dealing with loss and depression is pretty good going tbf. I laughed a couple of times as well but knowing the subject matter I never went in thinking it was a comedy. I'm baffled anyone would.

[renton]

Churning through Love, Death and Robots. Never going to win awards for the originality of it's genre twists, and a lot of it is very, very derivative but on the other hand a number of the CGI animated episodes are really fucking gorgeous to look at.

[Ira Gaines]

Once again, Christophe's total arrogance shines through. "Baffled anyone is praising it" just because he doesn't like it. f**k anyone who has that level of ego.