Succession

[shiels]

Then again, the fact that Jerry Hall had a clause in her divorce agreement relating to this show suggests he is not as relaxed about it as he likes to pretend.

Yes I heard about this and the writers being in touch with the most disgruntled son

"I don't give a shit what you think of me. In fact, I will make money from your fantasies."

That’s the more plausible explanation actually! Flaunting. Exhibitionism

 

[entertainment]

it really does make most of these other "prestige" tv-shows look pretty uninspired and artless and bloated.

seemed to haven gotten even better in this final season too.

 

[woops]

it really does make most of these other "prestige" tv-shows look pretty uninspired and artless and bloated.

seemed to haven gotten even better in this final season poo.

 

[Corpsey]

I thought the third season wasn't quite up to the previous two but it did have some amazing episodes in it. The plot had started to go in circles, I'm presuming this is why Jesse Armstrong decided to cut it off at four seasons instead of the initially planned five?

Anyway, good to hear this latest season is up to scratch. I've managed to mostly avoid spoilers although I do know the big thing that happens, which was inevitably going to happen.

 

[Corpsey]

I'm a huge fan of The Thick of It (never seen Veep) and Succession is a bit like an American TToI but with a lot more pathos to it.

 

[shiels]

I'm a huge fan of The Thick of It (never seen Veep) and Succession is a bit like an American TToI but with a lot more pathos to it.

As am I. Can imagine ianucci must see a lot of his work in there and maybe wondering why he wasn’t involved

 

[shiels]

Tom is a brilliant character. Especially his relationships with Shiv and Greg. Ruthlessness, pathetic bumlicking and real vulnerability all wrapped in this superficial camp and deviance that makes him charming

 

[woops]

Tom is a brilliant character. Especially his relationships with Shi and Greg. Ruthlessness, pathetic bumlicking and real vulnerability all wrapped in this superficial camp and deviance that makes him charming

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm still watching the first series and it's the only fictional TV drama I've liked since The A-Team when I was 7.

Some kind of McKenna-ish synchronicity going on with the name 'Murdoch' here.

 

[shiels]

I'm a huge fan of The Thick of It (never seen Veep) and Succession is a bit like an American TToI but with a lot more pathos to it.

It’s a bit like Tulse Hill drill and Brooklyn drill

 

[IdleRich]

It just gets better from their first series. And I don’t recommend or start shows easily, I need about 12 recommendations from people I respect before I commit to something

I'm glad he finally... I mean, I don't want to give anything away, but it was in danger of circling in stasis for a moment.

 

[IdleRich]

Tom is a brilliant character. Especially his relationships with Shiv and Greg. Ruthlessness, pathetic bumlicking and real vulnerability all wrapped in this superficial camp and deviance that makes him charming

Tom is my favorite character, but I do also like Greg. At first you thought maybe he was nicer than the others but he's equally vicious and venal, just less powerful which reduces him to a pathetic figure of fun trying to be nasty.

In the last episode I saw Tom and Shiv had this massive argument throwing terrible insults at each other - and because they're such horrible people and we've seen how they live we know it's all completely true. There is no defending themselves by denying their crimes, all they can do is fire back harder and crueller.

Gonna watch the latest episode now anyway which is why this thread caught my eye.

 

[IdleRich]

Election night episode was a good one.

 

[shakahislop]

found it frustrating at first, coz of the lack of resolution of anything in the first two series. i'm not used to that tv series thing where they deliberately keep you hooked by leaving things unresolved and with a load of pending questions. but there was enough there, and the third and fourth series i've found quite incredible. probably has been said elsewhere but it's a modern product that draws on aeschylus sophocles etc, ie, a much older dramatic tradition. shakespeare as many people have said. but not as alienating form-wise as all of those. for me the link is something to do with its presentation of what human beings are like, which really reminds me of those very old dramatic forms. i think is the thing that divorces it from the rest of the prestige tv world which draws much more on the US tv tradition of presenting human beings. but at the same time succession has the firepower of the prestige tv world, and the cultural relevance of the format. its killer. i think its something of an empathy machine as well. there's a lot of bad people who are also suffering.

it puts peepshow in a new light as well, it makes it more obvious that there was something more going on in peepshow that it just being funny. there was a kind of honesty to it.

 

[shakahislop]

Gus and Shaka watched it, but only to support Dasha.

i saw that series before my red scare phase. i thought that character was really good

 

[IdleRich]

found it frustrating at first, coz of the lack of resolution of anything in the first two series. i'm not used to that tv series thing where they deliberately keep you hooked by leaving things unresolved

I think that this is the one issue that everyone has with it. At the start he almost dies and the question is who will be his successor, and then it kinda goes round with one as a favourite and then another, and then another and so on, until, on the second or third time round you think "is it just gonna keep doing this?" because, from the title it did sort of paint itself into a corner a little. And of course a lot of shows are like that, but it's maybe not quite so central to everything as it was here, but, in the end, they did escape the loop thankfully.

 

[shakahislop]

I think that this is the one issue that everyone has with it. At the start he almost dies and the question is who will be his successor, and then it kinda goes round with one as a favourite and then another, and then another and so on, until, on the second or third time round you think "is it just gonna keep doing this?" because, from the title it did sort of paint itself into a corner a little. And of course a lot of shows are like that, but it's maybe not quite so central to everything as it was here, but, in the end, they did escape the loop thankfully.

It's partly that for sure. There's another thing though which is an established part of the HBO fancy drama series form, which is that they leave you without resolution a lot of the time, either in individual episodes, or with entire series. I don't watch much of this stuff so I find it frustrating. So for example the end of the first series of succession, I can't remember what happened, but I remember being annoyed that I'd got into it and was invested in it, but the series ended in an unsatisfying way, coz they left so much open for the next series. I've found that quite absent from the current series actually, the episodes stand alone much better I find. Or i've just got used to it, i dunno.

something like Game of Thrones for example did this in every fucking episode, but much worse, leaving you on a cliffhanger. They don't really do cliffhangers in Succession but there's a similarity at least in the way things don't get tied up cleanly coz they need to leave a lot open for the next series. It's a formal aspect of TV that's been around for years obviously, kind of an enjoyable thing sometimes, but also a commercial innovation intended to make sure you watch the next episode.

 

[craner]

I'm still watching the first season so I can't participate in these conversations yet, but I thought the board meeting scene at the end of episode 6 was fucking fantastic.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah obviously a lot of series use cliff-hangers etc to sustain interest... but it is a cheap trick that can kill your interest over time, especially if over used. I'm just saying that I found that the set-up of Succession was one that - right from the title - explicitly pointed to this situation where you were waiting for Rupe to die and which couldn't develop from there. It was a potential problem from which they did ultimately extricate themselves, but not before everyone became aware of it.

 

[IdleRich]

I think that we've talked about this before, but one thing I'd say is that when you got this "new" long-form telly thing that took off with, I dunno, Sopranos and Six Feet Under and various other things, it was a new format that left behind the old cliches and wrote its own rules... but then of course these rules ended up being codified and becoming new cliches of their own.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of series start off with the first episode being really good, maybe the second too, then they tread water until approaching end, at which point they pick up a bit for the last couple of episodes and put in a cliff-hanger - or if not quite as crude as that, something that needs to be resolved - so as to get a second series.