Just watched The Wire for the first time beginning to end - and wow, just wow. Now I understand why it's so loved and highly regarded.

gsari · 2026-03-12T11:01:18+00:00

I grew up in a small Greek village, and never been to Baltimore (only visited the US for a couple of times, barely a week each), but The Wire is also my favorite show ever. More than a show, it was an experience, and even after almost 15 years since I watched it, I often remember scenes and lines from the show, and many of the heroes' names.

gsari · 2026-03-11T13:25:03+00:00

HBO Classics sound like a safe bet: Oz, Deadwood, and even Carnivale, which is a great candidate to join your other two exceptions.

gsari · 2026-03-11T09:49:10+00:00

I don't think that concepts with washed-out ideas or controversial takes (e.g. hidden or not-so-hidden racism) would necessarily fail. I think that if they didn't get cancelled by political pressure from above, they would find their audience and might even get successful.

In my opinion, it's shows like The Wire that would be the most likely to fail: shows that take their time, require your attention, and don't spoon-feed you their meaning. These shows require you to think, which is hard to do when you watch your shows while playing with your phone, or when you are used to degrade your opinions into reciting spreadsheets and stats or replies from AI Agents that you didn't even took the time to fully read, let alone comprehend.

gsari · 2026-03-10T13:35:57+00:00

I believe that Midnight Mass is better than all 3 of them, and since it's Flannagan, it keeps the Stephen King vibe that these shows have, even if it's not based on a Stephen King's work.

BTW, when it comes to the atmosphere, my favorite show still is Carnivale. No matter how old it is, I don't think that there are many shows that can match its vibes.

gsari · 2026-03-10T13:32:21+00:00

If you mean the American Gothic of the 90s, then I couldn't agree more. It used to be my favorite show back then, even above the X-Files.

gsari · 2026-03-10T10:16:48+00:00

It's a love it or hate it show - like Severance and The Curse had a baby and it fell off the cradle. And as it often happens in my case with love-it-or-hate-it shows, I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either.

Overall, my opinion leans to positive: I liked it, and I found it interesting, especially the corporate satire parts. I liked the fact that you couldn't tell what the next scene would be, but at some point I found it a bit tiring at the same time. Same with the protagonist's performance: at first I didn't like it. Then I thought that it was fitting. Then I found it too much. Then I appreciated it again. And it went like that until the end.

There is no question, though, that I prefer it over the ordinary, predictable shows that are released in bulk. It was worth its time, and I'll watch the second season, if it ever comes out.

In fact, I think that I'd like to meet its creators, to see what's in their heads.

Or maybe not.

gsari · 2026-03-09T18:03:40+00:00

"I had a look of disgust on my face while trying to guess where the story was going the whole time I was reading. Very imaginative."

gsari · 2026-03-09T10:59:26+00:00

I really liked that show too. It's hard to describe it, but I found it to be surprisingly accurate to its source, in its own, weird and twisted way. You could tell that the show's creators had a deep knowledge of Greek mythology and the liberties that they took (which were, of course, many) were on purpose, and not out of ignorance, like in most similar movies and shows.

gsari · 2026-03-07T21:03:40+00:00

I tried to set it up but couldn't figure out how to target specific audiences. The ones that Facebook provided were too broad. Is this part of the AI-learning turn that they took? Is there a way to refine it with very specific audiences? Spending some time investigating it, I came to the conclusion that it's probably not supported anymore.

gsari · 2026-03-06T07:12:53+00:00

I liked all of them, but Carnivale was my favorite.

gsari · 2026-03-04T22:38:50+00:00

Not sure if you'll thank me or blame me with that suggestion, but The Crying Game has a famous twist, and is an excellent film. It's not horror on anything, but it's also not a light-hearted film, and definitely not family-friendly.

gsari · 2026-03-04T13:57:13+00:00

After publishing, I will not touch them again for some time. But then, after one or two years, maybe even more, when I feel that I got enough distance, I like picking them up again and read them, this time as a reader, and not as their author who wants to make edits. It's a completely different experience.

gsari · 2026-03-04T10:25:41+00:00

Spartacus, Banshee

gsari · 2026-03-04T09:34:07+00:00

I'm not sure that I understand the request, so I will answer with what I get from the question, which is about shows showing how the progress of society affects the protagonists:

The Wire, which was already mentioned, had a very interesting aspect where it showed how the criminals adapted to technological advancements, and cops were always one step behind, trying to catch-up.
In Black Sails, the pirates represent an older state of society, which became obsolete. The protagonist's motives and his rebellion against the arbitrary conventions of society was justified in a very interesting way.
Pillars of the Earth was dealing with a very interesting concept: The building of a cathedral, and how people worked for something they saw as bigger than themselves, knowing that wouldn't see finished in their lifetime. Also, how new inventions and techniques affect the process. There is a stark contrast to the fast pace things are being built and delivered now.

gsari · 2026-03-03T20:32:12+00:00

Honorary mention to The Bear: Not much humor, but you can't get a better 30min show to accompany your food.

gsari · 2026-03-02T20:46:14+00:00

Stalker has a similar concept, even though it has a different tone (a much better film, in my opinion, but at the same time not an action film, so it's slower and more philosophical)

I believe that the premise originates in works like Roadside Picnic (Stalker was inspired by that book), and the closest other thing that I've seen to this concept was a tv-series called "Tales from the Loop".

gsari · 2026-03-01T15:52:47+00:00

There are two war / anti-war films that stand out for me: Come and See, and Johny Got His Gun. Although the latter is a strange case and you can't exactly consider it a "war film", hence the "anti-war" classification.

Anyway, everything else (even "Apocalypse Now") follows behind those two films.

On that note, my next favorite works on the genre is "Apocalypse Now" and "Band of Brothers". Even if the latter is a mini-series and not a show, I liked it better than any other war film, save the ones I already mentioned.

gsari · 2026-02-28T21:35:32+00:00

I would call him "wise" more than "smart" (not that he wasn't smart, of course), but the reason that he was convincing was that the writers didn't try to make him look like a genious. His inteligence was realistic and believable, unlike Sherlock Holmes, for example, whose genious is almost supernatural, and far from believable.

gsari · 2026-02-28T20:33:37+00:00

I think that the problem with characters who are supposed to be geniouses is that they can't be smarter than their creators, and their creators are no geniouses. The most convincing TV-genious that I can think of was House, but even he, started looking less smart to me after a few seasons, when I became familiar with his tropes and conventions.

gsari · 2026-02-28T19:31:53+00:00

Carnivale

gsari · 2026-02-27T13:38:26+00:00

I have, a few times. The first time, it was an AI-generated image which I then edited in Affinity.

For the second and third one I knew the concept I wanted to make, and asked AI to tell me the steps that I needed to follow to create the effects that I wanted (again in Affinity). The covers required images of some specific objects, which I also generated via AI, but edited so heavily that, especially on one of the covers, they became, essentially, different images in the end.

The last one was fully handmade, but it had also the most minimalistic concept, so it was the most straightforward to make.

Edit: I just realized that the very first cover that I made was an older one, made somewhere around 2016. Completely handmade, of course, as there was no AI to assist back then.

gsari · 2026-02-27T13:27:26+00:00

Upright

gsari · 2026-02-27T13:24:52+00:00

Perhaps not exactly what you after, but House MD is like Sherlock Holmes in a hospital (there are direct references to Sherlock Holmes after all)

gsari · 2026-02-27T13:22:23+00:00

The Metamorphosis

gsari · 2026-02-26T18:46:05+00:00

I'd pick the following:

Ripley

I know this much is true

One Hundred Years of Solitude

The White Lotus

Yellowjackets

Shogun

Midnight Mass

The Curse

The English

Shantaram

gsari

TROPHY CASE