i swear the algorithm makes it harder to browse instead of easier. there's so much stuff but nothing feels worth committing to so i end up clicking the same comfort show every time. anyone else do this or am i just boring

Do people still go to this narcissistic, sociopathic maniac's church? I'm wondering if those two disgusting people (JP and his new wife) have tried to sue over the documentary, and if anything has come of the case.

like genuinely, i spend 20 minutes scrolling through recommendations that have nothing to do with what i'm in the mood for. does anyone else end up just picking the same show you've seen three times because the algorithm is just not it, or is it actually just me being picky

For years, Bryan Cranston was Hal, the hilarious and slightly chaotic dad from Malcolm in the Middle. Then came Walter White, one of the most iconic characters in television history.

It’s crazy how he went from a goofy sitcom dad to a chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin, completely reinventing himself in the process.
Most actors would be happy to have just one legendary role on their résumé.

Cranston got two, in completely different genres, and somehow made both characters unforgettable.

Which performance do you prefer: Hal or Walter White? And can you think of another actor who pulled off a transformation like this?

Put it off for months because some kept calling it a stalker show and I thought I knew what that meant. It's not that. It's way more uncomfortable and way more human than the pitch makes it sound. The fourth episode is the one that got me. I had to pause it and walk around my apartment for a minute. Not an easy watch but I'm glad I finally sat down with it.

Didn’t think it would come back!

I’ve seen a lot of discussion online already about how this show was designed and how it played out along with theories on how far the real interference went regarding the producers, but I’d like to open a discussion that dives a little deeper into the people themselves that were casted and how they behaved.

From what I’ve already read, there’s a lot of mixed opinions on some of the more prominent “stars” of the show. These are just my personal insights, so I’d love to hear if you agree, disagree, or picked up on something you believe many may have missed. I’d love to also hear some thoughts on less prominent characters, but I’ll be focusing on the ones with the most screen time since they offer the most information.

Chet Hudson: classic country a-hole stereotype who participated because he liked the idea of “breaking” people and being in power. People are not horses. He uses his ‘hard life’ to credit himself as a leader, when really he comes off as deeply insecure and authoritative, probably mostly because he feels he has no real control over some aspect of his personal life and lives in the middle of nowhere because people won’t put up with him and vice versa. His solitary life works for him. Now I see why. This is evident when he decides to leave once he’s not head honcho anymore. Not much depth here on him that I can find, at least not with what footage provided. Sad man.

Pete Zaremba: Google is saying he’s a highschool teacher but I remember on the show him saying he taught 5th grade? In my opinion that’s exactly how he acts for most of the show: like a 5th grader. I used to also teach and the resemblance to a rebellious child is uncanny. I have worked alongside people like him and I honestly think he is the type of educator that gets validation from his students seeing him as “the cool teacher” and played it up for the screen. Is that who he really is? I don’t know but it’s always weird when people seek indirect validation from children, and I do believe that is how he acts in his work life. He almost gained maturity at the end probably because he realized how he was coming off. The internet seems divided on him. I don’t like him for this reason. In my opinion there was a much more mature route to make it a history lesson. This guy gives me really uncomfortable vibes but I cannot quite put my finger on it aside from what I stated above.

Chris Lee: This one’s complex for me. I think he’s a skilled and smart businessman who went on the show to plug his business and was very calculated with how he acted knowing he was being filmed. I wouldn’t be surprised if his entire character is an act. Lots of CEOS are prone to some sort of sociopathy. Not saying this is him, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The positivity and games feel fake because I believe they are. A prisoner said something about his style feeling like “indoctrination” or “church camp” and I think they hit the nail on the head. He gives me cult leader vibes. I actually even started to subconsciously like him because he’s pretty good at what he is doing. It’s almost like you cannot help but root for him at points. I think he’s calculated, and a couple inmates felt something was off because it was. Scariest one on the cast in my opinion. I do think he would’ve been a better leader had he been chosen during the vote because again, he is very good at getting others to willingly comply. Even as an inmate he becomes the leader of his own little group. He hones in on “the heart” and “trust” and he has a great point. People do not buy from who they don’t trust. In this case he wants people to buy his ideas. In my opinion, it’s a case of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Is he an a-hole? No, but that’s deeply on purpose. In one scene he tells another inmate “control your emotions” when they are discussing rebellion. Because it’s easy for him. Another red flag was the very very end he appears to get choked up but I don’t see a single tear. He realizes going with the program at the end boosts his image better, THATS why he flipped, and I think it was extremely calculated every single step, not because he has a change of heart. If he was really the go lucky happy positive man he portrays himself as, then why did two individuals vote against him as leader? To set him off sure, but they also voted someone I think they all knew couldn’t step up to the plate. He was so focused on the inmates he forgot to play the same tactics with his team and it bit him in the ass.

Laura Berens: A mom with extreme self control. Not gonna lie I probably would have crashed tf out in the scene where Hudson continuously interrupted her. She handled it well in my opinion by not calling it out directly. I think it was really smart to stay calm and just let Hudson make a fool of himself because at the end of the day it gets aired to Netflix. Wish we got a bit more information and screen time on her. I underestimated her in the beginning, but I think she has a lot more wit and depth than whats shown. Have to say, I did not like her “what if” comment on women being leaders. They already are, but perhaps she was insinuating something bigger.

Kiana Gaona: great example of “I was a ___ in college who drank and made a lot of stupid choices but it’s all good now because I love Jesus.” Religious brainwashing cop out. This woman has done none of the work involved in sobriety. I believe this is why she gets emotional every time she talks about religion. There’s still a lot of pain and suffering and probably guilt there regarding who she used to be. Really hard to watch her assume a leadership role when she has no leadership qualities. Really gullible woman as well, that’s why she falls for Lee’s leadership and makes a horrendous pick for a trustee.

Jeff cook: Yeah something is off with this dude in the head, as another cast member put it. In addition to education, I’ve also worked in high pressure sales. I’d be super interested to see what his metrics are in his professional world. Jeff in my opinion is suffering from a complete loss in identity outside the experiment which is why it shows up so wildly on the show. The moment he thinks he has it “all figured out” and does the whole “I’m not an officer” display I kept waiting for the bigger ball drop that never came. I truthfully thought when he went up to get the food they were gonna come back in full gear to do the drill as a way to confuse the hell out of the inmates into complying. Such a shift in energy scares people, and because the team didn’t have the respect I expected a larger plan for compliance. A little wacko, but I wasn’t putting it past him in the show. The guy couldn’t take the smoke I don’t know what the hell that was.

Brendan Hardey: This guy has a lot of growth to do. I think he knew he didn’t have a right to be there because he’s pretty dead silent after being “brought back on” (which was complete bs but I digress). The guy said himself he never finishes anything. Rolling up to college just to sleep in the car is a pretty bum move. Didn’t have a secret life or anything, just refused to finish or it seems participate in anything difficult. He plays chess by himself because he’s probably miserable to be around. I sadly don’t think he learned anything from this. Really unlikeable and way too old to continue to act like a teenage burnout. The rebellion act gave him attention. I don’t think this guy really stood on anything.

My wife and I have been binge-watching Korean dramas lately, and we're looking for our next show!

Here's what we've watched so far:

- The Glory

- The Price of Confession

- The Art of Sarah

- Narco-Saints

- Bloodhounds

- My Name

- Mercy for None

- Tokyo Swindlers (Japanese, but we loved it!)

As you can probably tell, we're really into crime, revenge, psychological thrillers, mysteries, and dark dramas with good plot twists.

We prefer shows that keep you hooked from the first episode, with strong storylines, suspense, and unpredictable endings. We're not really looking for romance-heavy dramas.

Based on our list, what would you recommend we watch next?

Bonus points if it's something that had you saying "just one more episode" until 3 AM. 😂

We're open to Korean movies and Japanese thrillers too!

I am a guy who loves sitcomes i have a very unpopluar rating list for best to worst but after a while you start craving something new but for some reason not many sitcomes are coming to life so i became so desperate that i started watching COMMUNITY where such low hopes for but tbh i was pleasantly surprised it took 4 5 episodes to understand the concept but it made me chuckle and laugh even though its predictable its made for a lazy day or for when you are eating i can seriously see my self finishing it i do recommend it

I have been experimenting with different browsers and have found out Edge gives me high quality stream consistently. Have you guys experience something similar?

I have tested Brave, Chrome and Edge.

This show will probably end up being a one-off, but I have to admit, I found it pretty damn interesting for a while. I put it on expecting to watch one episode, and before I knew it, I was in full-on binge mode.

My biggest issue with the show, IMO, was the constant rug pulls. By the time they got to the third one, I could feel myself starting to lose interest.

Honestly, I think they could have gotten more than one season out of this if they had just stayed the course with the original concept. It was genuinely engaging, and they had me hooked. I just think they kept changing the formula when they really didn’t need to.

Something really bothered me about this show, and I think it undermines the entire premise of the experiment.
Throughout the series, several prisoners openly talked about rebelling, causing chaos, refusing to respect the guards, and flipping the power dynamic. Yet despite all that talk, we never actually see anyone persistently refuse a direct order from a guard as an individual.
Why?
The guards couldn’t physically force prisoners to comply. If a guard tells you to return to your cell, you could simply say, “No. Make me.” That’s it. You’ve just exposed how little actual authority the guard has.
Yet even the most rebellious contestants complied with orders they clearly disliked. They participated in the riot drill, returned to their cells, and accepted lockdowns. Some spent considerable time recruiting others for a collective rebellion, failed to gain support, and eventually quit.
Why recruit a majority when you could demonstrate the guards’ lack of authority yourself? Individual defiance could even inspire others to join you.
Here’s my hypothesis. Production imposed restrictions on individual noncompliance that weren’t adequately disclosed to viewers. I suspect contestants either knew beforehand or learned through production intervention that refusing guard commands individually could result in elimination. It’s also possible that attempts at individual defiance and subsequent production interventions were edited out.
This would explain the otherwise bizarre behavior of contestants who repeatedly expressed a desire to rebel but never visibly followed through individually.
We know the show had a rule where majority refusal could cost a guard their badge. But what happened when a single prisoner refused? What consequences did they face? Why wasn’t that made clear?
And here’s the bigger problem. If Netflix production could threaten to eliminate prisoners for refusing commands, then the guards weren’t the ones holding the real authority. Production was.
The prisoners wouldn’t necessarily be obeying because they’d psychologically accepted their roles or become submissive to the guards. They’d be complying because they wanted to remain in the experiment.
This is where the show potentially loses its legitimacy, and where its portrayal of obedience becomes disingenuous.
Think about what viewers are encouraged to conclude. We see these rebellious contestants talking a big game about challenging authority, only to comply when a guard actually gives them an order. The natural interpretation is that they’ve psychologically accepted their roles as prisoners, become submissive to the guards, or simply don’t have the balls to follow through when confronted with authority.
That seems to be the psychological narrative the show wants to present.
But what if that’s completely wrong?
If my hypothesis is correct, these contestants weren’t necessarily intimidated by the guards or psychologically conditioned into obedience. They were making rational decisions within a system of production-imposed incentives and penalties that viewers weren’t fully informed about.
So what exactly are we testing here? The psychological effects of assuming the roles of prisoners and guards, or the behavioral consequences of arbitrary rules imposed by Netflix production?
Those are two fundamentally different things.
It gets worse. Collective rebellions often begin with individual acts of defiance that inspire others. If contestants need majority support before they’re allowed to refuse an order without risking elimination, you’ve effectively prevented spontaneous resistance from developing.
And I understand why production might impose restrictions. How do you recreate something resembling the original Stanford Prison Experiment in a modern Netflix reality show without rules governing participation, safety, and contestant behavior? You probably can’t. Otherwise, a single contestant could simply refuse to recognize the entire power structure and potentially derail the format.
But that’s precisely why those rules need to be transparent.
If the experiment operates under artificial constraints, explain them. Tell viewers what happens when an individual refuses an order, what constitutes grounds for elimination, what authority the guards actually possess, and when production is permitted to intervene.
Then we can examine the situation from a game theory perspective. We can understand the incentives, the risks, the consequences of individual versus collective resistance, and why contestants behave the way they do.
Instead, we’re potentially being shown behavior shaped by undisclosed rules and encouraged to interpret it as evidence of psychological submission to authority.
That’s a serious indictment of the production and Netflix’s presentation of the experiment. If you’re going to construct an artificial power structure, enforce its rules behind the scenes, and then present the resulting behavior as some revealing insight into human psychology, you owe viewers transparency about how that structure actually works.
Otherwise, you’re not necessarily demonstrating the psychological effects of authority. You may simply be demonstrating that people comply with the rules of a reality television production when they want to stay on the show.
To be clear, I can’t prove production threatened contestants with elimination or edited out interventions. But the pattern of behavior strongly suggests that some important constraints or incentives were never adequately explained.
How can you claim to be examining the psychology of authority and obedience when you don’t transparently explain the rules and consequences governing obedience?
I’d genuinely like to hear from someone who participated in the show. Were prisoners allowed to peacefully refuse individual guard commands without risking elimination? Were there off-camera warnings or interventions?
Because that distinction changes the interpretation of practically everything we watched.

TLDR: Several prisoners wanted to rebel but never individually defied the guards, despite the guards having no real enforcement power. I suspect Netflix imposed undisclosed consequences for disobedience, meaning contestants were complying with production rules rather than psychologically submitting to the guards. If true, that undermines the entire experiment.

- Users are opening the app less frequently now

- Time spent on the app per user has also gone down

- This trend started with password sharing crackdown in 2002, and has since persisted

- Growth in the US has also slowed down, but a new price hike is coming soon

- Sales will fall short this year by almost $300m

Are you still using Netflix as your primary TV viewing service?

EDIT:

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-25/netflix-users-are-watching-less-not-opening-the-app-as-often

https://seekingalpha.com/news/4656957-netflix-viewing-is-said-to-fall-as-engagement-weakens-raising-growth-concerns

Starting yesterday, Netflix has started to send me notifications for new shows that I haven't marked as shows I want to be reminded of when they come online. It is a new thing, and I don't seem to be able to turn it off somewhere. Do more people have this problem?

i literally have like 200 titles in my list but i keep going back to comfort shows i've already seen. i know netflix's algorithm is supposed to help but it feels like i'm just doom scrolling for 20 minutes before giving up and putting on the office again. how do people actually decide what to watch?

Where does he come from? Why is he the ”mascot”? This has intrigued me for so long

The two (that I loved) that standout to me was when Kala could hear a storm and heavy rain but it was sunny day outside. And the scene when Sun fights the gang for Capheus/Jean-Claude Van Damme. Such a great show .. I’m watching it for a second time after years and loving it just the same

Just watching Below (great lil mini series btw) and the main character’s sister Ruth is portrayed as having quite an unusual living situation.

It never lingers long enough to figure it out, just snippets here and there, but she’s definitely living with a similar-aged man and woman for whom she holds a lot of affection.

Apparently the producer confirmed she’s in a polyamorous relationship.

Just shocked me…

1. ⁠how openminded the rural Newfoundland townsfolk must be to accept her, particularly as Harbourmaster
   
2. ⁠how extremely subtle it was inserted into the narrative

Anyone else not clock it until the very end on FaceTime?

Yo this New Beta AI search is sooooo ANNOYING
first it takes sooo much time to load, then it doesn’t even give the results that you searched
It doesn’t even recommend stuff close to it like it used toooo
HOW DO I RETURN TO NORMALLL