Sorry. Other than some fall cleaning, got busy binge-watching the first season of Tulsa King. Haven't watched network schlock since...pretty much this entire millenium, especially not when I worked in it. Looked at Yellowstain er, Yellowstone the first season, but as I noted at the time, it's a really crappy Wyoming tin-earred echo of The Godfather, except done far, far worse than Coppola on a mac-and-cheese budget, despite Kevin Costner trying to carry the entire series on his back. Which multiple seasons of continued production just proves that the average cable Nielsen viewer will give a thumbs-up to watching turds circle in a porcelain bowl, just for being slightly less turdly than everything else on TV, broadcast, cable, streaming, or whatever
Tulsa King, by contrast, is a completely fresh idea, and Taylor Sheridan (unlike that earlier effort) seems to have hit his stride with a new concept, rapidly becoming the Joss Wheedon of the 2020s. For a bonus, as extra features noted, and unlike Justified, they didn't keep trying to sell you northern L.A. county as Kentucky (which as Austin Powers noted, look as alike as Malibu and the South of France), they actually shoot this thing in Tulsa OK. Bad for employees in The Biz, but great for production value and OK locals.
Without looking at the credits, spotting the always lovely Dana Delaney (whose voice is still music), and an aging Barry Corbin, in recurring roles was a special treat.
I don't do streaming, preferring to watch what I want on my terms, forever, and actually own it beyond their freshness date of expiration (Disn-idiots at ABC producing The Rookie who refuse to put that series out on DVD/BD, call your office). So (spoiler alert) the cliffhanger ending was a little bit of a piss-off. But so it goes. We can settle for seeing an entire season at a time when it's this fun to watch.
If you haven't given this one a look, it's highly recommended.
Fun fact: Stallone was passed over as 29th Italian extra behind the wedding cake in The Godfather, and every studio in town passed on his script for Rocky, twice. Proving the timeless truth of William Goldman's maxim about Hollywood: "Nobody in this town knows nothin'." 50 years later, someone occasionally catches a clue.
Haven't seen anything more interesting IRL lately to make any given day not a new version of SSDD.
14 comments:
In my weak opinion, everything served up on the flat screen is unwatchable, with the exception of old reruns on Me Tv and Catchy. Even Svenghoulie seems to have more intelligent programming. Enjoying your writing...
Some years there are no programs worth looking at; in a good year there may occasionally be as many as three.
(The proof of that pudding of old was the Thursday night trifecta of Magnum P.I., Simon & Simon, and then flipping over to NBC in time for roll call on Hill Street Blues.) But that was before my working years.
For those of job-holding age, in my decades in movie and TV production, I met an old propmaster once who had made a game of asking everyone working on set which TV programs they followed.
His claim was that in 25 years of doing it (when I met him) he had never found anyone who watched more than two shows regularly; if he took away 60 Minutes and Monday Night Football as options, he never found anyone who watched more than one show.
I find it difficult to dispute such careful research.
Wife and I both enjoyed Tulsa King. Looking forward to season 2.
We didn't get past two episodes of Yellowstone.
Apparently the cast and crew didn't take to Oklahoma's temperatures, so the 2nd season will not be filmed in OKC and Tulsa.
https://tulsaworld.com/entertainment/television/season-2-of-tulsa-king-wont-film-in-oklahoma-according-to-exclusive-story-from-the/article_222664c6-ae0d-11ed-bc14-077d2a1a6bcf.html
Might want to check out 1st Season of "Reacher"
GREAT series, and #2 is starting in December... true to the book(s) as well and the lead? Holy Hells... makes Stallone look like a pansy...
Check out Mayor of Kingstown
Didn't watch, will not watch Tulsa King.
@BCE,
Way ahead of you: already have Reacher S1. After seeing the clips on YouTube, grabbed that one the minute it came out, and I've gone through it twice. I'll be following that one each time another season drops. At least Tom Cruise had the chops to realize he needed to let a big guy play Lee Child's character. They still screwed the pooch trying to sell Ontario Canuckistan as Margrave GA, but Hollywood, right, whadaya gonna do? Jack Ryan has been okay too, and the 4th (final) season will drop in the near future. Paramount's cable TV division is crushing it lately. Pity they can't do the same with broadcast TV or regular movies consistently.
@June J,
Talk is cheap.
Considering the weather there goes from colder than f**k to hotter than f**k, with a chance of tornadoes half the year, I'm not surprised there's some discontent. Hollywood is in CA for a reason. But they're either going to have to go there, or somewhere like it, because the idea of selling mountains anywhere in sight of Tulsa ain't going to cut it for any daytime exteriors, and as they noted in S1 Extras, the architecture doesn't exist anywhere else, which two things is 20-40% of the show.
A sound stage is a sound stage, which can be anywhere, but you can't fake flat as a pancake, unless you want a CGI budget to Mars (and CGI, even now, always looks like CGI), and/or a travel budget there and back to match.
Anyplace equally flat has the same weather problems Tulsa has, so why screw it up?
They'll also be using a lot of establishing shots already used over and over, but they're going to be spending some time somewhere flat and sun-bleached, otherwise it'll suck, and blow whatever location cred they busted their butts to get.
Most any locations in CA or anything west of OK have ginormous mountain ranges in sight in nearly every direction.
You want Tulsa, eventually you gotta suck it up and shoot in Tulsa.
There's a reason they shot Tatooine in Tunisia, and Magnum P.I. in Hawaii.
I'm betting that eleven episodes over 16 weeks means they shoot at least half there for non-negotiable scenes, and just suck it up, whining be damned.
Bear in mind a lot of rumors in the trades are to scare the locals, so they won't jack their rental rates for locations once they realize Paramount has a hit (which every location I've ever heard of does), and can't live without them.
So Paramount seeds rumors they're not coming back, and everyone in Tulsa suddenly doesn't want to kill the golden goose too early.
That game is as old as time.
Living in and around the Tulsa area for a long time now is the only reason I started watching and kept going because it was entertaining. Sadly however it was announced long ago no more filming in Tulsa and have not seen, heard nor read any news since then. May be due to the strike as if I cared, I’m done but staying on Tulsa time for now.
As I said, that may be true, and it may be a ploy.
With Hollywood, nothing is real until after it happens.
Everything else is P.R.
I'll give it a look. I had fun with "For All Mankind", on Apple.
Agree ref Yellowstone; Sheridan did a pretty good job on 1883, though I have a couple (one, really) historical beefs.
Will look at Tulsa.
We finally pulled out the DVD's of "The Americans" given to us as a gift a few years back. It's set in 1980's DC about Soviet "illegals" and we've just started the second season. Check it out.
Boat Guy
Will give it a try.
Regarding Yellowstone. The Timothy Dalton character in the 1923(?) version is so disgusting I will not watch the last season of Yellowstone.
Who deserves to own Yellowstone?
Nobody, drop a dirty bomb on it and let no one enjoy it for millenia.
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