
Anyone watching “Mr. Robot”? - smacktoward
Any other HNers out there watching USA Network&#x27;s new hacker-themed drama series &quot;Mr. Robot&quot;?<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usanetwork.com&#x2F;mrrobot<p>If so, what do you think? I&#x27;ve been enjoying it so far -- so much in fact that I feel like it might be cool to have a weekly thread here to discuss new episodes, if there&#x27;s enough others watching to make such a thread worthwhile...
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tptacek
My friends in the industry seem to like it a lot, but I couldn't make it
through the first episode. It's like the sterile hybrid of BBC Sherlock and
Fight Club, with the computer plotline of the movie Hackers and DDOS
substituted for Gibsons.

If you're watching Mr. Robot now and haven't watched at least the first two
seasons of BBC Sherlock, stop what you're doing and switch shows.

Halt and Catch Fire was, I thought, a lot better than some of the reviews I'd
read.

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Tomte
I've only watched the pilot of Sherlock and found it so-so. Is the rest
comparable?

I got sucked into Elementary a bit (Lucy Liu is very good, didn't expect
that), but decided after half a season, it's not that great to justify the
investment of time.

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tptacek
Sherlock isn't perfect. But: apart from (to my ears painful) tech jargon,
everything good about Mr. Robot is done better by Sherlock. Sherlock also does
a bunch of stuff that Mr. Robot doesn't --- it's not humorless, the dialog has
a point and isn't just the narrator from Pi (seen Pi? Watch Pi before Mr
Robot!), there are multiple dimensions of conflict and they work differently
(Mycroft/Sherlock, Moriarty/Sherlock, Watson/Sherlock, &c).

Sherlock is no The Wire, but Mr. Robot makes it look like that sometimes.

(Caveat: I'm now only 2 eps in, but OTOH: consensus seems to be that Mr. Robot
gets worse, not better).

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Tomte
Okay. I never "got" The Wire or The Sopranos, either.

Adequate, sure! Best TV series ever? Strange.

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ectoplasm
I liked The Wire, particularly Season 4, but I too like a lot of things more
than it. What are your favorite shows? I'm always looking for recommendations.

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Tomte
Firefly is great, albeit short.

I was forced to watch Buffy, but while the first season makes you cringe, it
is pretty good. Not as stellar as people claim, but really good. I think Joss
Whedans masterpiece wasn't Buffy, it was Toy Story. But do watch the musical
episode "Once More, With Feeling"!

Babylon 5, of course, if you can tolerate the (even for the time) bad CGI.

I've just watched DS9 from beginning to end, something I had wanted to do for
15 years now. Hasn't aged well, and I hadn't seen it in English before. Avery
Brooks' overpronunciation is painful, but it is the best Star Trek series by
far.

Friends was something I've enjoyed as a teen, and later as an adult. It was a
totally different experience as an adult. I think that's worth a lot, to have
a depth that appeals differently to you in different stages of your life.

Modern Family was way better than expected.

ALF is a bit painful to watch nowadays, it also hasn't aged well.

Golden Girls are probably still great, The Cosby Show definitely is!

Boston Legal is fun, fun, fun! Hey, why shouldn't Nantucket be allowed to habe
its own nuclear weapons? But do watch all the newer Star Trek series before
BL, so you can appreciate the ST heavy cast.

Dallas! Oh my. Incredible how old Victoria Principal is today.

ER was great, but I haven't seen much of the last seasons. I also liked
Chicago Hope, but it clearly lost.

The 2004 Battlestar Galactica. Probably the most modern TV series of its time,
great themes and issues, pretty current, fantastic buildup to the big finale
and then... disappointment.

Game of Thrones, if only for the shock value ;-)

And at last, the Tv series I've probably enjoyed most in the last few years:
the first two seasons of Veronica Mars. But make sure you can stomach it, the
season finales are sickeningly evil (especially season 2).

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ectoplasm
Hey cool thanks, that's great! I haven't seen many of those, but I liked
Firefly, BSG, GoT, and VM S1-2 (haven't seen S3). I've seen Buffy S1 and the
musical episode, I probably should revisit it.

My top recommendations would be Twin Peaks, My So-Called Life, Freaks and
Geeks, Sports Night, and Arrested Development. I like a lot of shows that get
cancelled "early".

The "myth arc" episodes of the X-Files are worth it, but don't try to sit
through all 9 seasons. Recently, Better Call Saul is awesome for the emotional
depth and film noir aspects, and the previous Breaking Bad to which it's a
prequel is still a masterpiece even though I find the premise implausible. The
Walking Dead is seriously addictive too.

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swanson
Haven't checked it out yet, but it's getting good reviews so I will at some
point.

"Halt and Catch Fire" is another great show currently airing that HN crowd
would probably enjoy. It's a period piece set in Texas during mid 1980
personal computer revolution. Pretty accurate on the technical level and has
top notch actors/production.

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warmfuzzykitten
Mr. Robot showed promise in the first episode, until he got near a computer.
Then it became ridiculous.

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coppolaemilio
I liked it, but it is getting worse every week. It started very cool but then
everything is downhill... Hope they recover the spirit

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avinassh
I have been it watching it since the first episode when it was launched and I
am totally hooked to the show. Some of the tech/jargon they mention are highly
accurate and I really enjoy that. The last episode even had Raspberry Pi and
also Python [0]. Pretty cool!

[0] - [http://i.imgur.com/cGN3FQw.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/cGN3FQw.jpg)

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iokanuon
I like that on the remote server he prefixes commands with a space so they
won't get saved in the history file.

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straik
I stumbled over it last week. Being in Germany I prever legal ways to watch it
and ended up on Amazon. After watching the first episode I was so hooked that
I bought all 4 available Episodes and had a long night. Now I am waiting for
the 5th to show up but Amazon does not give a hint when it will be availabe.

"He´s too old for a long password. I must be missing something."

I love it.

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smacktoward
Note: submitter here. I have no affiliation with either the show or the
network. (There's contact info for me in my profile if you wish to validate
this.) I'm just digging it and thought other HNers might be digging it too.

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byg80
Just watched the first episode yesterday. Really good so far and looking
forward to it for sure!

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kilimchoi
I loved the first episode but the rest were just meh.

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phibz
spoiler Mr. Robot is Elliot

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angersock
A weekly thread to discuss a TV show?

On Hacker News?

For fuck's sake, people.

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byg80
It's a relevant (and GOOD) TV show that many people here (coders/hackers) can
relate to. What's wrong with that?

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angersock
There're any number of other sites that are good for this: reddit, 4chan /tv/,
dozens of others.

Maybe we should be using Hacker News to, I don't know, _show off cool hacks
and build projects_ , instead of living vicariously through stereotypes on TV?

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pliny
>Maybe we should be using Hacker News to, I don't know, show off cool hacks
and build projects, instead of living vicariously through stereotypes on TV?

Not mutually exclusive.

