The Night Of (2016)

Thread for this so that I don't spoilz the "10 TV Shows You Like" thread.

First ep of The Night Of was a good watch

― Number None, Monday, 4 July 2016 19:10 (three months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I had to stop it about 15-20 mins in when [SPOILERS I guess] our very dumb hero accidentally stabbed the doomed girl in the hand.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 4 July 2016 19:28 (three months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First ep of The Night Of was a good watch

― Number None, Monday, July 4, 2016 2:10 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Richard Price, John Turturro = I'm in

― skateboard of education (rip van wanko), Monday, 11 July 2016 17:31 (three months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First ep of The Night Of was a good watch

― Number None, Monday, July 4, 2016 2:10 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Richard Price, John Turturro = I'm in

― skateboard of education (rip van wanko), Monday, July 11, 2016 12:31 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

watched the first two, its good
somewhat hard to see gandolfini as the turturro role, wonder how much it was changed?
didnt realize its 8 eps, looking fwd to it all summer
detective dennis box is a great character name

― johnny crunch, Friday, 22 July 2016 02:03 (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

loving The Night Of! first time i've watched a series in real time in a while, and the wait is beautiful and agonizing

― skateboard of education (rip van wanko), Friday, 22 July 2016 07:36 (two months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn, The Night Of seriously went off the rails

― Number None, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:35 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I haven't watched the latest ep yet, but despite it being absolutely unconvincing fluff - i've enjoyed it up to now.

― calzino, Monday, 22 August 2016 22:43 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's one plot thread I'm not too into, but it's otherwise an interesting game that's not any less convincing than most procedurals, especially the really formulaic long-running series that tend to elide some of the ambiguity this show is into

I do keep screaming "the cat! follow the cat! there's a clue there!" at the tv, though

― mh, Tuesday, 23 August 2016 01:19 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the gal and i are watching The Wire front to back and just started season 4, so I'm behind on almost everything.
i'm watching episodes of bojack horseman as i fall asleep. it's not very good but i keep trying.

Otherwise, the current and forthcoming ten are:
Difficult People
Billy on the Street
Adam Ruins Everything
Full Frontal
You're the Worst
Eric Andre
PBS Newshour
Inside Comedy

Backlog of the moment includes: Night Of, Mr. Robot, Great British Baking Show, a gazillion american experiences about presidents
Gonna try Gomorrah.

― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Tuesday, 23 August 2016 01:45 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The direction of The Night Of has been disappointing, but the characters and performances keep me in it.

― chicken lit (rip van wanko), Tuesday, 23 August 2016 01:49 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i still like The Night Of but yeah the first few eps were very intriguing.

― Spottie, Tuesday, 23 August 2016 17:04 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Night Of - good finale. Stone's speech was good, and the kitty on TV cracked me up.

― braunld (Lowell N. Behold'n), Monday, 29 August 2016 06:11 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was so glad that they went for a low-key finale, it was looking dicey for a few weeks there.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 29 August 2016 06:33 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just finished up the night of... not really sure what to say about it, enjoyed it on a whole i guess?

― Spottie, Monday, 29 August 2016 18:02 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really liked the night of, much more than most it seems. I was genuinely moved by the last episode, particularly by how the characters themselves were moved by the prospect of actual innocence.

― ryan, Monday, 29 August 2016 18:37 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(not knowing he's innocent, but somehow believing it)

― ryan, Monday, 29 August 2016 18:38 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed. the grayness of the plot and the legal and social limbo that the characters hang in is something that I feel it did well. too many crime/legal drama shows hang on the idea that there's some resolution, but with this show there's the acknowledgment that the nature of life is changing and nothing's resolved, no one is healed, and eventually all you can hope to do is to accept that everything is conflicted. the last scene is the closest we get to outright good and it's played against what could be a really cringe-worthy moment. (no spoilers)

it was really obvious what was going on with john turturro's character but the acknowledgment in the last episode was good

― mh 😏, Monday, 29 August 2016 18:55 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I even think the parts of the last two episodes that most commenters have disdained (no spoilers but if you've seen you know what I mean) weren't set up perfectly but they pointed to something rather poignant about the character and their lack of suitability for the system they are working in.

― ryan, Monday, 29 August 2016 19:09 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

critics and commenters seem to have legitimate problems with pace and plotting and preferences about how things should be revealed and combine the two for the sake of creating one "why this show is bad" argument and it annoys me. this show is one case, but it's true of a lot of television.

― mh 😏, Monday, 29 August 2016 19:37 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"I don't like how they did scripted it" and "they didn't actually do this in the plot" are two different things

― mh 😏, Monday, 29 August 2016 19:38 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Night Of followed the trajectory of immense highs followed by cringeworthy lows similar to Lost or Twin Peaks but was thanfully only limited to a single 8 episode run.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, 29 August 2016 20:20 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ that's the most "i guess i WILL watch this then" recommendation i've heard for that show yet.

― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Monday, 29 August 2016 20:58 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

― Nhex, Monday, 29 August 2016 21:32 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Night Of's implosion was epic

― pinkhushpuppies (rip van wanko), Monday, 5 September 2016 09:24 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

SIN BAD

― Number None, Monday, 5 September 2016 10:57 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Aside from The Wanderers, all the Richard Price novels I've read (Lush Life, Samaritan, The Whites) have had really unconvincing endings, so I guess that's a Price specialty. But they're terrific up until those points.

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 5 September 2016 11:44 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, it wasn't just about the ending though. It started losing the plot around episode 3

― Number None, Monday, 5 September 2016 12:26 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed - once Omar turned up, the prison stuff got theatrical and silly quite fast. Still - I super enjoyed it! Just dialled my expectations down a bit. In retrospect the whole show was pretty trope-y from the moment the girl gets into the cab.

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 5 September 2016 12:57 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And I like that Price is unfraid to try daft things (the undertaker, the itching, the cat stuff) and seeing where they lead (if not always to successful places)

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 5 September 2016 13:04 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, there's generally at least one bizarre character trait/subplot in his books

― Number None, Monday, 5 September 2016 13:07 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha okay we're halfway through the last episode of The Night Of and lol wtf is even happening

― Anacostia Aerodrome (El Tomboto), Tuesday, 6 September 2016 02:06 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I actually thought the last episode was fine.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 6 September 2016 02:07 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

poor john turturro, poor unwanted cat! also this show is taking FOREVER

― Anacostia Aerodrome (El Tomboto), Tuesday, 6 September 2016 02:56 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

will somebody tell me if rizzoli and isles finally do it in the series finale

― j., Tuesday, 6 September 2016 03:05 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

give 'er the ol' rizzoli, m i rit

(i have no idea what rizzoli and isles is about and a quick google suggests i should probably not hit submit but since when has that stopped me, #postsVMIcharacter #solitarypoststhatsumupilx #patriarchy)

― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Tuesday, 6 September 2016 03:57 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last ep of The Night Of was my favorite of the series and, in some ways, redescribes the show as a whole as not about "justice" but the presumption of innocence (a "feeling" as Stone says) in a really moving way, i thought. kinda baffled why people think it shit the bed somehow.

― ryan, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 04:22 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

single female lawyer losing her damn mind
retired cop chasing down one last lead
all so we can get to a ...hung jury
it wasn't bad per se but definitely sort of a "and all the details...don't actually matter" letdown after the incredibly well tuned first half of the series - and no bonus points for dragging it all way the fuck out

― Anacostia Aerodrome (El Tomboto), Tuesday, 6 September 2016 04:27 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

does the r+i romance ever go beyond subtext / fan shipping?

― Mordy, Tuesday, 6 September 2016 04:43 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that seems to be an ontological question

― j., Tuesday, 6 September 2016 04:48 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on balance i enjoyed the series, but the lawyering in the Night Of was just so OTT ridiculous. Law & Order court scenes are more realistic.

― serge thoroughgoods (will), Sunday, 11 September 2016 20:56 (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Night Of was great. i could have done without 90% of the eczema and cat 'plotlines' - we could have got the whole thing finished in 4 eps without that. and the prison stuff was just.... there. but anything Turturro and Dennis Box touched was gold.

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 14 October 2016 09:14 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First half of Night Of much better than second half. Turturro owned the whole thing, predictably.

― chap, Friday, 14 October 2016 10:46 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I enjoyed it, but it wasn't exactly uplifting.

Couldn't really see where popularity would locate a sequel which might be a positive. Unless it's more cases with Turturro.

Or following what the Indian lawyer does now that she sacrificed her career.

Or watching the hero go through rehab.

Just seems to have left a lot of people with pretty devastated lives but maybe that was the point.

Was thinking yesterday about Jack London a white supremacist being used as a bible by a bunch of coloured people in a prison. & wondering if they had any inkling of his beliefs.

Couldn't really see where popularity would locate a sequel which might be a positive.

it's Box and the prosecutor investigating the financial advisor obv, which i would watch the hell out of

I dunno, after Broadchurch and Line of Duty, I'm done with shows where season 2 is re-prosecuting the case from season 1

fair

almost everything in the prison shdve been cut out, and anyone wanted to cut out the cat subplot is a monster

not sure I agree completely but that is an interesting idea

OOGA BOOGA!

Cut 90% of prison/cat/eczema and you've got a pretty killer 3 hrs of material

I'm so mad at the dopey dad!! Every time he meets his taxi partners they're staring daggers at him - but he's like "hey, what's up fellas?" When they're finally like fuck it, we're getting a new cab I think his line literally is "Hey, that's great!" Um, guy.

Jeannie Berlin's had an interesting career:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0075588/?ref_=tt_cl_t6

denial's not just a river in egypt! xp

Turturro's final speech kinda an argument for racial profiling? "reasonable doubt is a _feeling_ man"

I even think the parts of the last two episodes that most commenters have disdained (no spoilers but if you've seen you know what I mean)

What parts?

The first and last episodes of this and were absolutely brilliant TV but it sort of sagged in the middle. The prison storyline in particular was boilerplate stuff. All well acted though.

This and the revival of the D'Onofrio thread have led me to the question of why there isn't a UK detective series with Freema Agyeman and Amara Karan as the leads. Seems like the most important question of our time now that I thought of it.

Agree with all anti-prison-subplot posts. The rest of the show was pretty smart and interesting about how people working within an imperfect system operate, for better and worse, but the prison stuff felt like total fantasy. I was excited to see MKW at first, but then irritated at him being such a cliche -- intellectual gangster. And the idea that this kid whose previous worst behavior was selling his adderall is within weeks going to turn into a prison-tatted junkie -- while still trying to prove his innocence -- felt like a betrayal of the relative realism of the rest of the show.

I did like the lack of resolution and the way the cat ends up being important but not for the reasons you expect.

What parts?

the junior lawyer (already forgot everyone's name) who kissed him and ruined her career. this is maybe OTT but it was sorta poignant in another register.

re: "feeling," looking back i think the conceit of the show was to thrust an innocent man into the justice system and put all the circumstantial evidence against him and still have the audience, and his lawyers, inexplicably believe in his innocence, almost as if the very subject of the show was some metaphysical notion of innocence thrust into a system which can hardly recognize it. the very thing that motivates and structures the whole system is somehow not locatable in it. on the flip side you get a series of characters in which we/they (wrongly) leap to a belief in guilt--many of them black men.

yeah i agree with that. re: his transformation in prison it felt like they were trying to pull a mini-Walter White, complete with baldy look. turturro's closing argument refers to it explicitly: here's what our criminal justice system does to innocent suspects. it feels like in the process of writing it, that theme became vestigial as the show couldn't help dwelling on box and turturro which is like, fair enough i guess

i should say, pull a Walter White but an existential flip of it: a man who goes from innocent to fallen purely as a consequence of external forces acting on him, rather than as an individualistic will to power

The lawyers didn't really believe in his innocence though? Turturro certainly didn't for a long time.

wellll - he had a vibe from the beginning. it's why he went back into the precinct in the first episode. this kid is different.

yes and his repeated assertions that it "doesn't matter" if he's innocent or guilty as far as the actual trial goes are really interesting in that context:

I never watched the bbc version of this and don't know if they did the same, but the benevolent psycho protecting him in the prison is the point where I lost a lot of interest. So not going to happen in real life and quite at odds with the much more verite style of the first ep and a half. But then suddenly within a few weeks a nervous muslim kid is Cool Hand Luke etc.

honestly it made me question whether "this kid is different" was him detecting innocence or detecting that the kid wasn't "the criminal type." the people who get lesser sentences, lower bail, or more fairly judged at trial aren't necessarily more innocent. they just happen to look like people who don't fit the stereotype of a "real criminal." people on both sides of the bars got that -- it's why he kept getting fresh shirts to go to court, the blue jumpsuit instead of the orange one.

was it the detective that passed him the college sweatshirt? I was trying to figure out if it was a sympathy play to make him look less criminal, or part of staging him as a particular type -- a premeditated, intelligent killer

If I'm generous, some of the tats & freebasing stuff is to show the conflict between his belief that he didn't do it and his belief that he's probably going to get convicted anyway. Also that there's nothing to do in purgatory (after your push-ups and sit-ups) besides light up and get inked.

I liked Turturro, the prosecutor, and the detective. FUCK the rest of it.

I did note that the latest Rogue One trailer features like 300% more Riz Ahmed than all the previous ones. Which also made me want a Star Wars movie with Turturro in it.

This went off the rails for me when the show the young defense attorney suddenly turned into an idiot for no apparent reason. I'm an easily-manipulated sap when it comes to animals in movies so the cat stuff made me bawl like a baby.

really, nobody else for the Agyeman & Karan detective show?

Found the BBC series on pirate bay so may give it a look and see what's been carried over. See if lawyer has motivation for career wrecking temptation better explained or anything.

That has a 2nd series though not sure to what extent it interconnects with 1st where young guy wakes up unaware of events of previous night.

seems very much like Chandra got shafted by the script so that they could have Turturro deliver the closing statement. :/

Criminal Justice seems to be a pretty close model for the story except for a few details, the main protagonist is a working class white guy played by Ben Whishaw from London Spy & James Bond's current Q. The dead girl is played by Ruth Negga of Love/Hate and Preacher's tulip.
The Turturro character is a similar seedy looking eczema suffering run down lawyer but he's the ascribed one already rather than an ambulance chaser who happens to be around the Police station. Box is Bill Patterson who looks more prim and correct than the character does in the Night Of. Though does seem to be quite lived in.

Explanation for why Ben coulter is in his dad's taxi is given more clearly, his own car wouldn't start and the taxi wasn't going to be in use taht night. Looks like the taxi picks up the girl in camden when he's stopped to receive a phonecall that says his plans for teh night have fallen through. & he has to take of because there's a car behind him beeping. He winds up driving her to Brighton then to the house. When he takes off after waking up and finding things have gone weird he crashes the cab into a stationary car where he's picked up by cops who are brought back to where he's just come from. He hasn't actually been arrested but is put in the back of teh car. Box happens to be at the station desk when he's being searched and arrests him for suspected murder when the knife is brought out of his pocket. he's actually sent the pair of cops back to the station to process Ben and get the male cop who's discovered the dead body and been vomiting all over the outside of the crime scene.

So looks like they took a lot from the original and morphed it to fit a story set in the US. Also altered racial profiles for several of the characters.

Criminal Justice has a lot of rather annoying handheld shaking camera use. I guess it semi works to show the state that Barry's in from the E he's been given by Melanie.

Oh yeah, looks like there's no cat either.

& the payed for lawyer team is 2 men so looks like that aspect isn't going to happen either. But only got through first episode so far so may be other people in play.

Episode 2 has just introduced an Indian female junior barrister, who turns up late behind the male barrister team who'd been introduced in the first episode.
I was wondering if they'd introduced elements of the 2nd season into the remake or something. looks like the 2nd season has a male barrister and a female defendant.

Good show overall, but surely whoever killed Andrea would have been covered in blood?

Yes that bugged me too. A lot of things bugged me and were unbelievable mainly Nas's transformation but I liked it ove all for the acting and it was beautifully shot and I like to look at Riz.I liked the slow pace too. Another beef was that you couldn't actually have worked out who (probably) did it because it was revealed so late so there was no connection between the viewers experience because those details were withheld HOWEVER (spoilers) the British version was much much worse in this respect. The killer was revealed and was someone who was in the first episode for like 30 seconds selling the protagonists ice cream, if I recall correctly. It was just stupid and made no sense and left you feeling very cheated, which wasn't the case in this. It's so much better, it's ridiculous.

Plus I can't stand Ben Whishaw, from CJ,anyway. Everyone talks him up as great but is he really? All he does is look shy and shifty and he moves his eyeballs from side to side all the time like one of those eagle eyes action men when he's doing his *thinking* - really once you notice it it becomes quite hilarious to watch.

The second series of criminal justice was a completely discreet story with no recurring characters from series one.

I thought having the actual killer be ephemeral to the plot of the series (having only watched the American one) was actually a high point? The show was the inverse of a police procedural: instead of spending time on detectives hunting down clues, doing legwork, and talking to possible suspects, the show is about the accused and even he's not sure what he's done.

I mean, the truth of police work is that usually they find a suspect quickly -- although not necessarily tied up with a bow, like on this show -- or the case remains unsolved. The ones where it drags out more than a couple weeks are unlikely to ever result in an arrest or trial.