HBO's Luck and David Milch

[BingeAndPurge]

I was eagerly awaiting this show because I generally like HBO's dramas, I loved Deadwood, and I just needed something to watch until Mad Men and Game of Thrones return this spring. It only took a few minutes of the first episode to become completely confused about what exactly was going on with the characters in the show. Milch's tendency for heavy dialogue goes completely above and beyond in this show. At first, I thought it was the jargon, and that only people close to horse racing in some way would get what was happening. Heavy dialogue in a seriel means a story driven by dialogue, and how can I get the plot if I have no idea what these people are saying? Deadwood confused some people the same way, but I loved it. This, though, goes a little too far for me. Then something occurred to me today, and I now see this show and Milch in a different light.

Not only is the jargon confusing, but Milch takes it to another level by using strong accents and other verbal directions. Off the top of my head, there is:

A very bad studderer
thick Cajun
thick Peruvian
Irish
Nick Nolte who sounds like he's been on a diet of gravel and cigarettes for 80 years
a guy with some lung disease
a few half-wits, one whom I think is supposed to be mentally retarded
an Asian

And I'm sure I am missing a few more. The point is, with this revelation, I can now look at the show differently and am actually excited to watch the rest of the season.

Anyone else tried watching this yet? Any opinions on it?

 

[JaDo]

I have tried watching a few episodes. Not quite liking it, yet....

 

[Oblique Human]

I've watched probably 3 episodes. I love HBO dramas but this show is a bit of a hard sell. I like the 4 friends who win the big ticket and buy the horse but Hoffman's character is a bit too over-stylized.

 

[BingeAndPurge]

Yeah, not sure about the Ace character. They advertised it as if he was the lead, but you see less of him than you do other characters right now.

 

[legrandfromage]

I watched the first episode and found myself straining to understand what was being said. I'll probably watch the second episode on demand and if it's the same, that's the end.

 

[JaDo]

Well, it looks like Luck has been cancelled.

They were in the middle of filming season 2.

 

[biloxi123]

I heard it was because of another horse having to be euthanized. This brings it to a total of 3! It's a real shame, I love David Milch's work especially Deadwood and Hill Street Blues.

 

[MichaelG]

As others have noted it was cancelled by HBO - after yet another horse accident/death. To be honest, I think HBO was glad for an excuse to cancel it - it had received very mixed reviews and low ratings.

I agree the dialogue was super-hard to follow. It was almost as if they were trying to make it hard on viewers. Some of the accents were hard to discern - I didn't have much trouble with the Irish girl, but the "Peruvian" trainer, was in fact, a Puerto Rican actor who spoke with a Puerto Rican accent.

I'm the sort of person who'll stick with a book, movie, TV show, etc., longer than I sometimes should. After about three episodes I decided to stop watching it, but something made me go back and catch up with it, but it seemed like work. Oh well,........Game of Thrones should be back soon

I was eagerly awaiting this show because I generally like HBO's dramas, I loved Deadwood, and I just needed something to watch until Mad Men and Game of Thrones return this spring. It only took a few minutes of the first episode to become completely confused about what exactly was going on with the characters in the show. Milch's tendency for heavy dialogue goes completely above and beyond in this show. At first, I thought it was the jargon, and that only people close to horse racing in some way would get what was happening. Heavy dialogue in a seriel means a story driven by dialogue, and how can I get the plot if I have no idea what these people are saying? Deadwood confused some people the same way, but I loved it. This, though, goes a little too far for me. Then something occurred to me today, and I now see this show and Milch in a different light.

Not only is the jargon confusing, but Milch takes it to another level by using strong accents and other verbal directions. Off the top of my head, there is:

A very bad studderer
thick Cajun
thick Peruvian
Irish
Nick Nolte who sounds like he's been on a diet of gravel and cigarettes for 80 years
a guy with some lung disease
a few half-wits, one whom I think is supposed to be mentally retarded
an Asian

And I'm sure I am missing a few more. The point is, with this revelation, I can now look at the show differently and am actually excited to watch the rest of the season.

Anyone else tried watching this yet? Any opinions on it?

 

[Oblique Human]

Too bad they are canceling it, it was just beginning to grow on me. Specially the last episode had me hooked with the events on the ship and the gambler's new love interest. And why they let Deadwood go shall always remain a mystery to me.

 

[chicagotrim]

Had a hard time following this series... Love HBO series,but this one was meh. Too bad it resulted in animals dying to be cancelled.

 

[jazzman]

Milch pushes the envelope, for sure. I don't think the dialogue in Luck was any stranger than that in Deadwood, which was cancelled prematurely. I just hope HBO gives him another shot.

 

[jwcarlson]

Deadwood was great, I will probably watch Luck whenever it becomes available on Netflix or if it ends up cheap on disc. Too bad some horses died and caused an end to it. HBO does seem to cancel shows prematurely, however... I'm guessing it's because of production costs (look at Game of Thrones). Some of these series cannot be cheap to produce. And once a couple of season in I'm sure the actors start wanting more of a cut.

 

[The Nid Hog]

I think that the horses were just an excuse. Ratings were not that great to begin with, and they don't seem to have built a real base that they could build on. I think that they regretted prematurely pulling the trigger on season two (someone is going to make some kind of money on that) and wanted to cut their losses.

 

[Almightys]

LOL, this thread rocks! I have tried keeping up with this show with the same opinion as posted. At the end of each episode it left me with the feelign of what happened??? not like the whats going to happen! that you want from a drama series like this.

 

[raisindot]

Wow. That's the first time I've ever seen improper punctuation used in a post here on B&B.

Just who is this Mr. Scruffy character and how did he go back in time and change my post? Or icould this be a Fight Club kind of thing?

 

[jwcarlson]

Wow. That's the first time I've ever seen improper punctuation used in a post here on B&B.

i would hope my dad who is pretty bad about: typing, spelling; and other things related to computers except YouTube would be welcome should he ever decide to register for this wonderful site that we all love so much today and he might need some help since he's a DE shaver now

How's that?

 

[BingeAndPurge]

Yeah, the show was starting to grow on me some. Oh well, not as bad a bite as Deadwood and Carnivale getting axed early.