Macrodata Refinement

“The Americans” doesn’t get enough love as one of the top shows of the past decade.

The darkness sneaks up on you. The people who start out seeming like James Bond characters end up carrying the full intolerable weight of their lies and destructive actions. People who looked like side characters are followed up with entire life stories in the shadows.

The Americans also has the advantage of being done. It's six seasons long and, imho, manages to the stick the landing.

One of the best endings of any show I can remember. It answered the biggest question of the show (concerning Stan) so well, and the ending was both surprising and fully earned. Masterful television.

I never finished The Americans but The Shield had the most perfect ending possible for that show and it was amazing! Worth checking out for anyone who has not already seen it.

Keep an eye on The Diplomat with Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell.

Two short seasons down, it's tight, it's sharp, it could go far.

You’ve sold me, I’ll check it out.

For someone clearly interested in Cold War era espionage movies ("my voice is my password"), you should definitely go back and finish The Americans...

agree totally. Shane…OMG, Kenny….

Yep. Recently I've been enjoying "Slow Horses" which is also a spy thriller, though it doesn't hit quite like "The Americans" did.

passport not password. ugh, been too long since I watched Sneakers

Too "Bondish" if not grotesque in my opinion. It started pretty well, but after some events in the show it feels caricaturistic.

The Bureau is an even better spy show IMO though I loved both. Something about how low key and realer The Bureau feels makes it more intense. It felt like The Wire to me though completely different shows.

FWIW I absolutely love The Shield, one of my favorite shows. The Americans is better. But it was also hard to get into, and I stopped a few episodes in the first time. It gets much better the more the story goes on.

As a fellow The Shield-lover, I highly recommend you try to finish The Americans.

I couldn't agree more. It was masterful, and had an enormously shocking ending emotionally - in multiple ways, including the Stan ending, though I'm sure we're both talking about something else.

Btw, funny enough, on rewatches, I actually focus more on the one big Stan question that isn't answered (and, in fact, is actually asked to him for the first time). I'm happy it was never resolved, though I keep wondering if there's some clue that they are hiding in there that will resolve it for real one of these days :)

I'm enjoying The Diplomat, but it's silly, popcorn stuff. Not "one of the best of the last etc".

The Bureau is excellent. One of the few shows where the hacking is relatively realistic (as opposed to magic to advance the plot). The Wire is an apt comparison.

Le bureau des légendes was a great series from start to finish! I honestly enjoyed all of the characters, even when they seemed a bit manipulative or cold.

The Americans absolutely gets enough love as one of the top shows of the past decade. People say that all the time

Yeah what a bonkers comment. "The Beatles are never recognized for their cultural influence!"

>and, imho, manages to the stick the landing.

That last part is the miracle. So many shows start out strong, and are just dogshit for the finale. Does anyone really believe that Severance will manage this trick? Would love to be surprised and mistaken, but they're just throwing crap at the wall to see what will stick, and that only lasts so long.

critics say that, but its viewership is low compared to other dramas. Usually when I tell people that it's one of my favorite shows, their response is that they've never seen it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Americans_episodes...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prison_Break_episodes#...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lost_episodes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episod...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(TV_series)#Rat...

^ compare the viewership. The Americans was getting fewer than a million viewers in its final seasons, Lost regularly got over ten million. You can't easily chalk it up to just the fact that Lost was on network; The Last of Us was getting more than 10x the viewership of The Americans and it was on HBO. While The Americans is very critically acclaimed, it is not as widely watched as it really should be.

Anna Ouyang Moench is involved, and she wrote the best play my friends and I ever saw (Birds of North America), so that gives me hope.

I've watched the entire series twice, but it's been a bit. You mean jurgure Erarr vf XTO[1] or something else I'm forgetting?

[1] https://rot13.com/

Same, it's not quite Americans caliber but it scratches a similar itch.

Got introduced to Rufus Sewell in 'The Man in The High Castle'. He played an SS commander. Most intimidating and frightening presence on the screen - without raising his voice and no (direct) acts of violence. Great actor.

He is indeed an extremly good actor .. wasted in some earlier US productions that bought him in for the Shakespearean Gravitas (pissed away by poor scripts in Eleventh Hour) .. but a shining light in various UK productions such as Petruchio in ShakespeaRe-Told.

https://thetvdb.com/series/eleventh-hour-us

https://thetvdb.com/series/shakespeare-told/episodes/375791

Yep exactly that.

There must be a disconnect between viewers and critics, because viewership declined over its entire run. Compare that with a true masterpiece like Breaking Bad which saw viewership consistently increase over the course of its run.

Pretty rare for any show to increase in viewership year over year. Breaking Bad had monumental word of mouth towards the end. Better call Saul dropped year over year but was still fantastic.

Since Severance is a "comedy" -- I really liked Preacher and never see any love for it. Incredibly funny

The 2009 English-language series or the 2015 French-language series? Both share the same title.

I knew of his villainous presence as being the baddie in Knight's Tale. He exuded privilege and eliticism so perfectly. Fantastic actor!

The French one there's an English language remake happening now called The Agency but I've heard mixed reviews