High Maintenance - Very good web-series. Discuss.

funny-sad occurrence re: media etc: i got rid of my HBONow because i was sick of flipping thru menus and not watching anything, and none of their new shows were hooking me

i got Mubi in an attempt to be more intentional about how i spend my couch time. i just watched The Cruise from 98, about Timothy Speed Levitch as a tour guide, and *now* i get this extra resonance for having him appear in and narrate the S3 finale (and the title duh) and i can't go back to watch it! i can barely find any commentary about it, nothing has made it to youtube except the trailer

I can't remember at all which seasons are which with this show, seems like a weird one to have strong season-ranking opinions about to me given the lack of any arcs. Obvs the web series is distinct, though even there the transition to broadcast hasn't been that jarring on second watch, and there are things in the web series I'd misremembered as happening later, like his niece visiting

― rob, Saturday, January 16, 2021 12:26 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i get this but also i just remember not enjoying s1 at all (first adaption to HBO, felt uneven), then they caught a rhythm and the show developed, and then 4 kinda falls off IMO, it felt like a pretty natural arc to me

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Sunday, January 17, 2021 3:20 PM (one week ago)

Having moved on to S2, I have to concede that S1 is indeed messy. It's definitely not entirely a wash: Grandpa, Tick, and Ex are good imo. But the first two eps are half good/half not, and "Selfie" is all meh. So yeah if you were coming into that having followed the webseries, I can see being pretty disappointed.

Plus then in S2 they seem to have figured out how to use the longer running time to much better effect compared to S1's tendency to simply combine two short segments. I watched "Derech" last night and the way it sort of floats from story to story is so impressive; "Globo" also does this trick extremely well.

Series 1: meh episodes - Meth(od), Selfie

Series 2: meh episodes -Ghost, goalz

Series 3: meh episodes -Craig, Proxy

Series 4 - meh episodes -Voir Dire, Backflash, Screen, Adelante, Hand, Soup.

Looking at the list of episodes, the first 3 series are pretty evenly balanced - though I think the highs of the good episodes in series 2 and 3 are good.Series 4 was a dramatic falling off - with over half the episodes being poor.

Not enough discussion of series 4 though. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of the ketamine nasal spray (esketamine) featured in 'Solo'?

* highs of the good episodes in series 2 and 3 are greater.

Series 1: meh episodes - Meth(od), Selfie

I get why one wouldn't, but I actually like the hyper-annoying friend couple in Meth(od). The segment with the british actors pretending to be american meatheads falls flat though, that should have been a 2 minute throwaway joke at most. And then I really don't like the sex party / bickering couple segment in Museebat, which I think uniquely and distractingly features three more-recognizable-than-usual actors.

I'll have to check the rest of your list once I catch up rewatching.

I should probably cut Meth(od) some slack as having some good qualities , but it's only episode I skipped when I rewatched the whole collection over Xmas as I just couldn't get past the beginning.. And it was such a disappointment as HBO opener.

def a hugely perplexing decision to launch the series with that episode, the webseries is mostly warm and inviting and even the part I do like is HM at its most acidic

the part *of Meth)od)*

Really miss this show sometimes