MovieChat Forums > Slings and Arrows (2003) Discussion > The debated 3rd season.....

The debated 3rd season.....


Before I watched the series I was was warned by a few people of the 3rd season. Telling me that the series goes to pot at the end. While I admit that it may not be as outright funny as the previous two... it does a fine job of wrapping up this amazing series, and rounds out the characters nicely. While it may not be as good as the first two... Does it make it bad? I think it's still way better than what gets passed off as "good television" these days....

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I thought it was great. I had downloaded it, and it was torture waiting for the next episode to come through. It did have its funny moments (I liked when Geoffrey went into the church and his soon-to-be therapist thought he dropped by because he was a homeless man).

I'm not quite sure why the people you talked to didn't like it ? I read comments on the Television Without Pity site and William & Elyse's Due South board. There were only glowingly positive comments on TWoP, and some negative on the Due South board, from someone who wasn't enthralled by the comments this season made on musical theatre. I can't disagree more with the person on the Due South board, because in general I love Shakespeare but I don't like musicals. It didn't bother me at all to see some of the characters badmouthing musical theatre and the actors who work in it.

The third season's Sophie became one of my favorite characters - just as interesting to me as Rachel McAdam's 'Kate'. William Hutt was great, and I love Paul Gross as always. I prefer the third season to the second season, with Ellen's (unappealing to me) tax audit subplot.

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I'm actually a fan of Shakespeare and musicals, but I don't think liking one necessarily precludes the other...

To respond to the main question of this thread, I personally didn't like what they did with Richard's character. I was glad to see him grow throughout the series' duration. Having him become what he ultimately did seems inorganic and more of a convenient narrative device than a true direction he would've taken. But I'm a Richard fan, so I'm prejudiced that way.

But that's my only cavil. I thought it was an outstanding season as well. I wish they'd've done a REAL version of Lear because what we were allowed to see was amazingly powerful. (Plus, KL is one of my favorite of the Bard's works.)

My other complaint about season three - IT'S THE LAST ONE!!!! No more Slings and Arrows! *sigh* :o(

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.
You neither, Sabidius.

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personally i think the 3rd series is head and shoulders the best of the 3....still funny but poignant too...not ashamed to admit it moved me to tears a couple of times

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Oh my Lord, my mother died of cancer last year and the third season has rendered me speechless. (Watching that old man sit on the floor, surrounded by his pills, unable to figure out what's going on but knowing he's lost his capacity to function... whew!) We're just getting it in the states. Absolutely gorgeous, glorious, and puts Hollywood television to complete shame.

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Ahg! I don't want it to be over! I mean, that's just it then? It didn't turn out the way I thought at all, and oh just by the by I wanted more! Oh....
But a fine season overall. Quality stuff, I expect nothing less from that lot.

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Hey, Pictureisup, I'm right there with you...my mom has Alzheimer's and I just cried and cried at Hutt's all-too-real portrayal of a man whose past is disappearing a little more each day. Season 3 didn't have the breezy fun of the previous seasons, but I think it was the most powerful season of the three.

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Season 3 is sure darker. Less laughs but just as rewatchable.

Getting the S3 DVD answered my question pretty quickly: why don't they show S3 on TV (Showcase has been running lots of the first 2)? I think it's out of respect for William Hutt, who died last summer. Considering the talk about how the show is based on fictionalized versions of real people, and he is of course most definitely playing himself, showing his New Burbage alter ego mainlining H and generally losing it in a most undignified fashion is liable to be misconstrued.

I got a great kick out of the Sarah Polley character. Because I am a bad person, I love that she's kind of a slob with a pronounced mean streak--not just nice and cute and upcoming like Rachel McAdams was. One interesting big of trivia: note the tiny little part given to Martha MacIsaac, once Polley's rival in All-Lucy_M_Montgomery Gingham TV when she played the pigtailed "Emily of New Moon", (a spinoff to Polley's "Road to Avonlea"). She was the sidekick of the girl trying to sell Richard her car. I'd like Ms MacIsaac to show up in the company, she is kind of interesting and quirky as a young adult actress (not unlike Polley, but more offbeat) and needs better parts than the drunken slut in "Superbad" (which she did make the most of).




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Living in the US, I missed the first season and only found it last year on the Sundance Channel. Having spent a number of years in community Theater, and having a large base of friends who advanced much further than I did into larger venues,the stories of last year and this year ring true.

I'm saddened this series appears to have ended. It would be nice if at some future date Sue Coyne and company do more. Maybe at Geoffrey's new theatre???

Not knowing this was the last episode and last season, I find little if any difference in the quality of the third season to the second. (I hope the Sundance Channel replays the entire series, or at least season one).

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I purchased all three seasons on Amazon, (season three was just released). I have one complaint, there is no closed captioning. As someone suffering some hearing loss, I have a hard time hearing any type of accent at all and really quick dialog.

It is nice to see season one and know what the relationship was between all the three.

I've read that Martha Burns (Ellen) and Paul Gross (Geoffrey) are married in real life, and they are teaming up with Sue Coyne for another series, Trojan, which should air soon.

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Chuckewe, it is close captioned. There is no subtitle feature on the DVD, but the video is encoded with captions. You just have to turn them on on your TV set.

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I have significant sound discrimination problems myself and was sad that they didn't have built-in subtitles. I had trouble with the closed captions as well; they did not work consistently.

I found, however, that when I watched the disks through my actual caption decoder (Telecaption), the CC worked (and are accurate and thorough). I've been showing the show to anyone who'll let me and I've found that the CC work on some TVs with the built-in decoder chip (as you probably know: all TVs of 13" or over marketed in the US since June 1993) and on some, not so much.

You may find that playing the disks on some televisions with the captions on may display the captions for you. Best of luck in finding a machine that will display the captions for you!

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After reading the comments I finally got to see Seasons Two and Three and thought Three by far the better of the two. The first episode of Season Two was a wrap up of Season One and all that time wasted on Ellen's taxes was, well, wasted time, it felt as though the story was cheated of those minutes; also the arc of the story didn't correspond as well with the stage production. One and Three seemed to fill the time alloted; Two felt compressed.

Was there less of Geoffrey, or was he less crazed, in Season Two, something was missing. Yes, it was still better than most everything on television and I was happy to see Three - to me - bad in stride.

I might have felt badly for Richard had he not been such a jerk in his last sense with Geoffrey. There's no sin in loving musicals, I thought it gave him a sweetness that was lost in his fooling around with the young cast and recreational drug use.

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I thought it was fantastic (and I loved the character of Sophie, as well. I loved her interactions with Charles and the fact that she was the last person to see him alive).





"If you get tired of being a Hare Krishna you can come live with me and be a lesbian!"

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I never saw the first two seasons, but after watching the third I will definately be buying the first two.

Really terrific.

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I found the third season terrific.

It's just the opposite of a meal: with food, one expects the light fluffy dessert at the end. Here, the end has a bitter-sweet poignancy: Richard Smith-Jones, shut out in the cold, alone with the realization that he has the Festival but has no soul. That's dark.

The sweetness of the first two seasons was enjoyable. Many of the gags have become tag-lines around our family. (E.g., "Horses don't like fire. We learned that the HARD way, didn't we?") But while the third season is not as light and frolicsome, it is every bit as good -- and in terms of emotional power, stronger -- than the first two.

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The 3rd season is 2006 and IMDb doesn't seem to have a separate entry for it. Thus, some unlucky souls are seeing 3rd season SPOILERS in the context of the 2nd season message board. Does anyone know how to get IMDb to correct this situation?

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The first time I watched season 3 I thought it was a bit of a step down from the first two, but still pretty great. The 2nd time through I really felt it was pretty terrific, different in some ways than the first 2 maybe, but just as good.

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I sort of liked and disliked what they did to Richard in season 3. I liked it because it keeps showing just how naive and impressionable he is (in season one, he becomes mean like Holly, in season 2 he becomes weird and crazy like Sanjay and in season 3 he is influenced by the young cast) but always returns to his old insecure self at the end. I just think that in season 3, they took it a little too far.

I also think Darren wasn't as funny in season 3 as in the other seasons.

But I loved, LOVED all the scenes involving King Lear. William Hutt was absolutely brilliant in it and so was Paul Gross. It was really nice to see the relationship between the two.

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Darren wasn't nearly as funny in Season 3 as Season 2, or in Season 2 as in Seaason 1, but don't you think he had to be especially moderated in 3 if he was going to be a believable choice for the next AD? even by Slings and Arrows standards.

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I think it was a great series. Season 3 wasn't as good but still worth seeing.

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Each season had me guessing as to how the characters were going to pull off the play. It wasn't as predictable as most television shows are and I love that about this series.

I wasn't sure how they were going to pull of King Lear, but I never suspected that they would leave the festival. I liked it. I threw a curveball and, in the end, it allowed us to imagine each character beyond the festival, which is an excellent way to end a series.

I was disappointed in how Richard ends up, but I'm not sure if I'm upset with the writers or with Richard himself. He seemed to go to the brink of loosing control in the first two seasons, but something happens and he regains control. In the third season, he doesnt. It's like Anna said, he almost became human. I'm okay with that. There are several people I've know(n) that almost become human, but fall short.

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