UNReal - Lifetime TV show

Two episodes in and this is cynical and funny and smart and subversive and how the fuck is this on Lifetime?
http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/unreal
Can't imagine this isn't gonna get canned quickly so get in while you can. Anybody else watching it?

Yeah, this is a fantastic show. Super dark, makes me squirm more than anything else that I watch. It has a way of introducing initially-throwaway-seeming storylines with great payoff.

Also, first four episodes are up! Two ahead of the on-air schedule!

i think i'm gonna wait and watch them on the teevee. this reminds me a bit of "dead set", it's almost as dark and just as clever.

Just watched episode 1, and yeah i will keep watching this

first 4 eps on demand, watching this

pretty sure you'll love this vg

show needs some more good word of mouth
http://headlineplanet.com/home/2015/06/09/ratings-lifetimes-unreal-slips-in-week-two-devious-maids-rises-in-demo/

ok ep 1 done and I am signed up

first show since 'enlighted' that i want to watch more of

could listen to constance zimmer say 'people' for 20 minutes straight tho

have so many ideas about how great this show is btw even if it lots of the actual content is sort of silly

I'm almost hesitant to pick up shows on tv now for fear that all the episodes won't get aired if it's got a smaller than expected audience. Wish this show would've been bought by Netflix tbh.

I'm diving in, tho.

can i be corny and say SO MANY WOMEN ON THIS SHOW

that alone makes me want to ride or die

This show FUUUUUUUUUCK

fuuuuuu cking craaaaaaazy

they're all so broken ugh i love it

Never thought I could hate Constance Summer, but My God! I hope her character gets cancer of the asshole.

Ugh, autocorrect...Zimmer!

awesome show

Zimmer is like... idk is it extreme to say she's the Hitler of fictitious reality tv

it's miraculous how deeply awful she is

xp not too far off

kinda Hitler meets Bette Davis

OMG THIS SHOW

sidebar: crushing hard on Rach AND Adam

Wikipedia says it's a 10 episode season. I don't know if I can handle 10 episodes of it.

4 episodes down I DEMAND FIVE SEASONS AT LEAST

moar!!

i wish i hadn't watched the promo for the whole season, although it has at least given me a LOT to look forward to in the next 6 episodes

i want it all to was over me in horrible waves of awesome surprise

i am still reeling over how much i dig this. it's like a beautiful, finely crafted trainwreck

*wash

As I suspected, everyone behind any of these reality competition shows is a total sociopath.

I'm only 2 deep. I'm debating on whether or not to burn through the next 2 tomorrow or pace them. VG, you're gonna have to wait 3 weeks for the next new one!

anybody got a differing opinion other than "it's great"? critical response has been excellent too... but no one appears to be watching it! lifetime is a bad station for this to be on.

xpost: i know :( gonna dvr the reruns to tide me over

There are only two things that would sour me on this show I think: if NO ONE is likeable by the end of it, or if EVERYONE is likeable by the end of it.

i feel like they humanize everyone pretty frequently, even Quinn and Chet.

it's funny because just a week ago i was working on a set with a guy who had worked on a few reality shows, and he was telling stories and this poor lady was CRUSHED to hear that shows like The Bachelor are not 100% real.

i like that they set you up to expect a cliche, quickly subvert it and then keep on moving without taking the time to congratulate you, themselves or their characters for being clever

maybe lifetime's expectations are low. right?

...right?

pleasekeeplettingmewatchthis,television

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/unreal/s01/
Currently charted as the best new show on television! Don't know anyone outside of this thread that's watching it!

Can't imagine this isn't gonna get canned quickly

If it maintains the quality I've seen so far, one batshit insane great season might be all we need. Kind of like Sex House.

Devious Maids has been on for 3 seasons, i don't think the bar is high to get renewed on Lifetime

tried explaining how great this show is a couple times today, ppl are not receptive to the idea of "like it's scripted but its about the bachelor sort of but its cynical and subversive but but but and and and"

eyes glaze over so hard

35m into ep4 and this show is fucking unrelenting

not a plot spoiler, but hard to unsee this... (i wrote it on a screenshot to keep it away from those who wish to not-see the un-unseeable)
http://i.imgur.com/vteReBe.png

I tried abt 1/2 of the 1st ep & didn't like it, didn't see myself liking it going fwd. more not my thing than thinking its a bad show or w/e

watched the pilot, this show is like 1000x bleaker than Hannibal. not sure I can keep going w. it, seems bleakly nihilistic and not much else

Episodes 3 and 4 didn't really deliver on the promise of the first two imo, but of course I'll keep watching.

Has Craig Bierko ever played such a degenerate before?

last episode was maybe a little weaker but the "why don't you get money from your folks" sequence and the clear motherly manipulation by her producer felt complicated and unique; looking forward to finally catching up with you online binge types tonight
the cheezpuff markers and fallout (so to speak) was brutal

villains and douchebags are kind of Craig Bierko's career niche. when has he not played a degenerate of some kind?

Hmm, dunno. I guess I haven't seen enough of his work to remember the type character he typically plays. I mainly just remembered him starring in the revival of The Music Man.

E5 tonight.

Fourth episode got a little soapy and wobbly but i have unrealistically high hopes they can right the ship a bit.
I also REALLY don't want a love affair side story with Rachel and Adam, fuck that noise. They appear to have demolished that with him proving himself to be an actual whore but hey, who knows.

Renewed! Now let's get Lifetime to pick up Hannibal...

yay!

fifth ep was interesting... bit clumsy but i liked it ok

CZ's depiction of her real life counterpart is 100% accurate

wait who is cz & who is her real life counterpart

i've been scared to touch ep 5 in case it nose dived... it's good?
glad to hear this got picked up; I can commit with abandon now.

it's good! it's just a bit after-school special

wait who is cz & who is her real life counterpart

constance zimmer, who plays the executive producer, who i think is pased on lisa levenson

i gave up on this show after the fourth episode btw

they seem to be moving away from the rachel/adam love interest which is good

i think the most interesting thing to me about this show was how it portrayed its characters relationship w/ 'work' and how it well it nailed the sick relationship the professional class have w/ work/careers. i also liked the more procedural parts of the show. not all interested in characters/relationships though

cosign

yup

we need a nihilist channel

aaand we're back, this ep upped the crazy again

and I may have lied abt not being interested in character romantzes, camera dude is kinda phwoar hott

Finally catching up on this. Haven't read the thread yet, but this show is exceptionally well acted and written. As my wife pointed out today, it's almost strange to watch a show where almost every character is as complex and multifaceted. No clear baddies, no clear goodies, lots of motives and muddled morality, all very weirdly plausible. Everything about it has been totally on-point. It's been a great ride so far.

:D

OK, just skimmed. Glad others like this. I like that someone mentioned "Dead Set," which I thought was flat brilliant but still working in the world of metaphor, however intelligently. As "reality," this show is similar but totally different. I've got one ep to go, and sort of wonder how they can stretch this into another season! It's sort of intense.

lol

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/05/fake-bachelor-show-worked.html

"On last summer's excellent first season of UnREAL, a scripted drama about a Bachelor-style reality-TV show, Freddie Stroma played the Bachelor and Johanna Braddy played one of the contestants. Now, according to People, Stroma and Braddy are engaged in real life, making UnREAL a successful matchmaking show and The Bachelor, well ... The Bachelor."

this appears to be getting media traction; i'm seeing it cited as MUST SEE TEE VEE in many of the slews of summer season roundups

I moved this to the top of my 'to see' list today off the back of all those roundups. Just watched the first episode and thought it was a very solid pilot - definitely the most promising of all shows I've started (and usually abandoned) watching in the last year. It reminds me of what The Newsroom might have been like if it hadn't been absolutely hateful, and I can totally see the Dead Set comparisons.

I'm going to watch the next episode. It is as exciting as watching a new season of something like The Bachelor, but without all the self-doubt ("I'm just watching this because I like characters...?") and subsequent loss of thought.

Season two starts tonight! Reviews are super positive.

Very excited! I'm up to date now. I love the insular morality in this show... I'm fully rooting for Rachel and Quinn to get whatever they can out of life by whatever means necessary.

this show turned out to be kind of amazing yeah

eeeee

catch the football and talk about your father

money
dick
power

kind of a weird tone for this ep/season but i'm willing to go with them on this journey. MRA chet vs dana is very promising though, i gotta say

just feels like they got more audacious

well they're as morally degenerate as ever so i guess i'm in for season 2

I watched the 4 streaming episodes of this last year they used to jumpstart viewership, but never went back to see the rest. Gonna have to, I guess, if so many people I know/like are this into it.

do it do it

Yeah, season one goes to some surprising places, not all of them dark (though most/many of them).

So, I saw the first 2 eps of this and I had to bail on it. I just couldnt deal. These people are all relentlessly horrible and should all die in a fire.

:D

It made me SO MAD! lol :(

Maybe they do all die in a fire and now you'll never know.

There's definitely a lot in common with a show like "You're the Worst," with horrible people still capable of nuance and our empathy. But yeah, it's dark.

This show has gone particularly crazy and crazy dark this season. It's also pretty uneven, but I'm not sure they can tell the story they're telling any other way. It's like it's built to be unstable and erratic.

this season is terribly written and everyone on it is exceedingly unpleasant

in a cartoonish way. it feels like the creator's extended tantrum at the network

Yeah, I can't get a bead on it, tbh.

every episode brings a fresh 'hey they went there'

it's pretty good stuff really

i agree w/ the critics that the most recent one was hamfisted and not well thought out. but at least they're true to raising the w-t-f quotient every ep.

I found it interesting that the episode was apparently written 6 months ago!

Jesus I couldnt stand the unrepentant terribleness of the first SHOW, how can s2 be even worse!?

:D

as silly as this show gets, shiri appleby's ability to tell us when rachel's manipulating ppl through her acting w/o "telling" the other character is one of the most remarkable things about this show. latest episode, when (SPOILER)coleman shows the phone hack & she says she's scared & hugs him(/SPOILER) reminds you jsut how awesome and scary she is

I don't really know why I'm continuing to watch this show. I haven't seen the latest episode (avoiding spoilers, ty ^), but the previous one ate my psyche and I still don't think I've recovered. It stands to reason that the writers of this show are just as irredeemable as the characters they've created. At the same time, I find Rachel loathsomely relatable.

Did you read the New Yorker profile of Sarah Gertrude Shapiro? You might not be totally off base on multiple fronts.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/sarah-gertrude-shapiro-the-savagely-clever-feminist-behind-unreal

Haha wow! That's an uncanny read, ty. I actually feel a lot of catharsis from reading it and understanding her driving motivations and ready to move onto the last episode...All that super meta network/studio interference stuff is fascinating.

um this SHOW

Jumped ship halfway through second season. I assume new season started?

underway! i've really never had an issue with any of the episodes as crazy as they have gotten. i'm super into the Quinn and Rachel's relationship and they're both such dynamic actors.

they do go a little heavy on Shiri's makeup though damn.

i've barely seen this show beyond early stuff, though i have deep opinions on the IRL people involved...but that's not for writing down on the internet.

now thats some shit i deffo want to hear

Make a 77 thread and dish plz

oh it's barely enough to make a thread...i'll have to consult my Comey-esque journals from the era and see if there's anything worth talking about.

yes plz

season 4 (the final one, eight episodes) just landed on hulu

onar where’s my tell-all expose :(

omar, even

There’s a 77 thread where I answer questions iirc... 🤫

ty

i thought s3 was a marked improvement on s2, but i dunno...

best part was the marissa nadler song at the end

We loved the first season, tuned out halfway through the second (police shooting?) and never gave a shit enough to tune back in, including the third season, which I'm not sure my wife even knows existed.

VG if you have any specific q’s I can maybe answer them either on the my 77 thread or via pvt msg, depending on how specific and naming names they are...

roger that <3

OK I just got into S1 on an airplane. This show has probably more omg moments per episode than Breaking Bad. SO MUCH happens in each ep! It's fucking insane! I finish an ep and I feel like I've just seen, like two movies

The reality star is SO PERFECT. EVERYONE is perfect. The casting is MIRACULOUS. This really is my favourite show. I was talking to Nick Quah (!) and he told me he's not as into a couple of the later seasons but dammit I will ride so hard for this show I don't care

<3

that first season is incredible

it's basically 100% perfect tv. still haven't gone in on season 2, not sure I'm emotionally prepared

I quit a few episodes into season 2 can’t remember why tho.

This show (now on netflix) is insane. I can't decide if it's "good" or just melodrama but it's certainly compelling & stressful.