#1
Posted: 10/9/15 at 11:50pm
What happened? Why is this season so boring? Even the lip syncing is bad.
Has EMPIRE Jumped The Shark?
#2
Posted: 10/10/15 at 12:35am
I'll give it a few more episodes--I think the main problem has been trying to keep up with the first season's crazy pace--when really it has to (at least for me,) slow down...
#4
Posted: 10/10/15 at 10:48am
I'd say Episode One of this season was as batsh*t crazy and over the top as we've come to expect and relish from EMPIRE. That was a wacky and incendiary hour of TV, and no coincidence, THAT episode was scripted by Danny Strong and directed by Lee Daniels. The last 2 episodes have not had the hand of either creator at the helm. Tells you all you need to know. I too hope they get their mojo back and quickly!
#5
Posted: 10/10/15 at 11:08am
I thought it was heading toward shark jumpage mid-season last year.
Pretty pretty please don't you ever ever feel like you're less than f**ckin' perfect!
#6
Posted: 10/10/15 at 11:26am
I liked the first episode of this season well enough (although I tend to fast forward through the songs now), but I haven't been able to get motivated to watch the most recent two backed up on the DVR. I may dump them for the space.
Twitter @NamoInExile
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#7
Posted: 10/10/15 at 12:00pm
Namo, the only thing to glean from the last 2 episodes is:
Everything you thought you knew at the end of last season is history!
Every alliance has already been rewritten, every prison story has been dropped, everyone you loved you'll now hate, and oh, maybe Luscious has some unnamed illness again, maybe not. Hope that wasn't too much of a spoiler.
#8
Posted: 10/10/15 at 12:34pm
Ha! Thanks. That may be just what I need to decide to not watch anymore.
Twitter @NamoInExile
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#9
Posted: 10/10/15 at 1:30pm
I will say for once I think network interference maybe made a smart decision by toning down footage of Chris Rock (who was an awful choice anyway) and his character. Apparently it was meant to be clear that he was eating other people (In his jail cell...) http://zap2it.com/2015/09/empire-season-2-premiere-chris-rock-frank-gathers-cannibal/
#10
Posted: 10/10/15 at 2:06pm
I think the idea of everyone trying to take control of the company or starting a new label is wearing thin. I feel like it is the same thing over and over. I think they need to come up with some new ideas and subplots. I also think they should challenge themselves more with the musical numbers. There are many characters that you don't give 2 cents about and I think it is harming the show.
#11
Posted: 10/10/15 at 7:22pm
I hate-watch it now.
Too many cameos this season from stars of screen and stage who distract from the story arc and the main characters. The Andre-Rhonda-Vernon-Bun-in-the-Oven arc would be enough to pique and hold my interest for an entire season, with Cookie and Porsha providing comic relief. Since the creative team doesn't even take the murder of Luscious' lifelong associate Vernon seriously, why the hell should I? Don't give two shaites about Cookie's start-up or Luscious' trial. While on the subject of trials, has anyone ever seen a female prosecutor appear in court with her titays pushed up to her collar bone?
And Jussie Smollet's signing voice annoys me. He sounds like a bad karaoke version of Michael Jackson & R Kelly's spawn on autotune. This series, as well as Project Runway this season, has left me underwhelmed. But, I check in each week to get a sense of the zeitgeist.
ETA: the only thing I consistently praise the show for is the language. Those mofos neither retreat from nor apologize for the the hip hop idiom.
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.
Updated On: 10/10/15 at 07:22 PM
#12
Posted: 10/11/15 at 9:10am
I just caught up with this season. Very lackluster so far. Also agree that I think it jumped the shark near the end of the first season.
"I hope your Fanny is bigger than my Peter."
Mary Martin to Ezio Pinza opening night of Fanny.
#13
Posted: 10/11/15 at 11:46am
I feel like this show jumped the shark out of the gate. That's part of the reason I love it. And I thought last week's episode was worth it for Cookie's "Everyone wants to be Beyoncé but you don't WANT TO DO THE WORK!" line alone.
#14
Posted: 10/11/15 at 12:13pm
I don't think it's "jumped the shark" yet. But it is already repeating itself at 15 episodes into the entire series. If this show is going to go on for years and just be about who's going to take control of Empire and who's deceiving who into getting control, it's going to get extremely repetitive.
#15
Posted: 10/14/15 at 1:03am
I LOVED when Cookie was channeling Miss Debbie Allen from Fame with her cane and everything. Brilliant!
#16
Posted: 10/14/15 at 8:41am
This show jumped the shark 10 minutes into the first episode of season one.
#17
Posted: 10/14/15 at 9:09am
EMPIRE was in mid-air over the shark before the first opening credits were complete.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#18
Posted: 10/14/15 at 9:51am
I enjoyed the first season despite myself. I found it fun and funny and had some good performances. We still make each other laugh by singing "Drip Drop".
This season is just bad. We're hanging in there so far, but I'm almost done. The hubby is more into it than me. The Chris Rock cameo was so bad that I couldn't even laugh.
The show needs to decide if it wants to retell "King Lear" or "Dynasty". They'd be more successful with the latter.
"Carson has combined his passion for helping children with his love for one of Cincinnati's favorite past times - cornhole - to create a unique and exciting event perfect for a corporate outing, entertaining clients or family fun."
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
#19
Posted: 10/14/15 at 3:44pm
>>I think the idea of everyone trying to take control of the company or starting a new label is wearing thin.
Hm, sometimes I think that too. But then again, the first thing I observed last season with all the crazy, was, "this show is like the black 'Dynasty.'" (With music, of course.) Back in the '80s, that show was based on some rich person and/or relative always trying to take over Carrington-Colby-Dexter-Whoever Else's Name-Oil-Enterprises (or whatever it was called, lol), and take it back again, and that series lasted for years.
"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had the practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." --Alice in Wonderland
Updated On: 10/14/15 at 03:44 PM
#20
Posted: 10/14/15 at 6:29pm
I watched DYNASTY with religious devotion during the Reagan Eighties. While it was on ocassion glitzy over-to-top fluff , the series arguably dealt with topical issues of the day with a bit more aplomb than EMPIRE. Americans needed levity and a restoration of hope that we'd all get our slice of the pie.
We had somehow survived President Jimmy Carter's disastrous foreign policy, the Iran hostage situation, the energy crisis that led to long lines at the pump, and staggering inflation. An inspiring late night rags-to-riches soap opera about a virile middle-aged wealthy American business tycoon bathing in oil with his trophy wife was an easy sell. The fact that he had an openly gay TV son and a sexually liberated daughter was SHOCKING at a time when Americans were still coming to grips with Madonna, 2nd wave feminism, fallout from the sexual revolution, and the emergence of a disease afflicting young adults that would later be called AIDS.
But, most importantly the show's key antagonist Joan Collins as Alexis Carrington Colby did not make an appearance until the start of the second sense to incriminate her ex-husband Blake who was the family patriarch. Aaron Spelling and company kept the focus on the central characters, did not parade an endless list of b-z listers on screen in cameo appearances, PACED THE SCENES MASTERFULLY, and wrapped up each season with a brilliant cliffhanger, at least for 3 seasons. EMPIRE's season 1 cliffhanger will go down in the annals of American TV history as one of the absolute worst.
Taraji P Henson has done a commendable job as Cookie but no one has played a better bitch on American TV than Joan Collins. I suspect that to sustain viewer interest in the Cookie character, a foil will be introduced at some point ala Diahann Carroll's Dominique Devereaux. I have no idea how to make the characters other than Porsha interesting.
Sorry for the lengthy post.
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.
Updated On: 10/14/15 at 06:29 PM
#21
Posted: 10/14/15 at 6:37pm
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.
Updated On: 10/14/15 at 06:37 PM
#22
Posted: 10/14/15 at 10:01pm
More people across all income strata were closer to having their slice of the pie in Carter's era than at any time since. And THAT is why rich people think discussion of income equality is utterly gauche.
Twitter @NamoInExile
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#23
Posted: 10/15/15 at 6:43am
No one will ever accuse me of being a Reaganite, Namo, but conditions were perfect at the time for someone of Reagan's ilk to get elected POTUS. He rode in on an ok-the-grown-ups-will-take-over-from-here wave.
Remember, in the 1980 Senate election, the Republicans surprisingly won a majority. Back then, the GOP bosses knew how to consolidate power and work around the ultra-conservatives thanks in large part to Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker & House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
While it's nothing to brag about, Reagan also had a bigot named Jesse Helms to advance the gaul-awful social reforms he instituted in CA as governor. Reagan owed Helms, and Helms would call in his chit. See http://www.carolinajournal.com/opinions/display_story.html?id=7548 Don't mean to be pedantic, but there's a reason Republicans are elected at all levels of gov't.
Some folks I know have even suggested that projects like MADAME SECRETARY and EMPIRE would have never been given the green light prior to the ascent of Hillary Clinton and an Obama presidency.
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.
#24
Posted: 10/15/15 at 10:42am
Thought last night's episode was more fun than most this season. Credit to co-creator Danny Strong, who wrote AND directed the episode, keeping a whole lot o' balls in the air all at once.
Speaking of which, not sure why they were so cagey with the implied nudity with the boys -- Jamal in an almost-opened robe for that ludicrous "photoshoot", Luscious opening his bedroom door to the FBI full-on starkers. Come on, FOX! This is 2015. Network TV has managed more legit naked boy-shots than yours. Let's see the goods, dammit.
#25
Posted: 10/15/15 at 5:15pm
Definitely the standout episode of the season so far. I almost always find myself rooting for Andre & Ronda as a couple and as potential over-throwers of Luscious' regime. And man was Cookie on point style-wise. She looked like she had raided Donatella Versace's closet. I really enjoyed the catty banter between the prosecutor and her over weaves and wigs. That's Cookie's lane.
Unfortunately, the episode also reminded me that Terrence Howard is arguably miscast in the role of Luscious Lyon. He has a baby face and doesn't cut an imposing figure on screen. The episode left me thinking how much more credible Dennis Haysbert, Blair Underwood, Morris Chestnut, or Idris Elba would have been heading up the Lyon pride.
#FactsMatter...your feelings not so much.
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