Industry on HBO (1 Viewer)

[livefromDC]

Is anyone watching this show? I just finished the season (it's in its first season) on HBO Max.

It's a British television drama (read as, no American spoon feeding the plot or explaining each passing scene). It follows a group of young graduates compete for permanent positions at a top investment bank in London, but the boundaries between colleague, friend, lover, and enemy soon blur as they immerse themselves in their new world.

I thought it was very enjoyable but you have to pay attention, not a casual watch.

Warning

I don’t know if it's the culture of investment banking types or just rich kids, but there's a lot of drug use, sex and partying depicted. It's not GOT level nudity by far but these kids are doing a lot...oh to be young again.

Favorite character

Easily my favorite character is Eric, one of the desk leads and mentors. As such, he's not one of the main characters. That distinction is reserved for the graduates trying to get one of the permanent seats with the investment bank. But he does play a significant role throughout the season. In a world of characters with questionable morals, and he's not excluded from that group at all, I think he's likeable. It's odd for me to enjoy a show where I'm not rooting for anyone and this show fits the bill. None of the characters are "genuinely good people" but I guess that's part of the point. Eric though at least owns who he is.

 

[Cage1]

I have a hard time getting into shows where I don’t like any of the characters. Just not how I’m wired. Couldn’t enjoy Yellowstone for that reason.

 

[Saintman2884]

Is anyone watching this show? I just finished the season (it's in its first season) on HBO Max.

It's a British television drama (read as, no American spoon feeding the plot or explaining each passing scene). It follows a group of young graduates compete for permanent positions at a top investment bank in London, but the boundaries between colleague, friend, lover, and enemy soon blur as they immerse themselves in their new world.

I thought it was very enjoyable but you have to pay attention, not a casual watch.

Warning

I don’t know if it's the culture of investment banking types or just rich kids, but there's a lot of drug use, sex and partying depicted. It's not GOT level nudity by far but these kids are doing a lot...oh to be young again.

Favorite character

Easily my favorite character is Eric, one of the desk leads and mentors. As such, he's not one of the main characters. That distinction is reserved for the graduates trying to get one of the permanent seats with the investment bank. But he does play a significant role throughout the season. In a world of characters with questionable morals, and he's not excluded from that group at all, I think he's likeable. It's odd for me to enjoy a show where I'm not rooting for anyone and this show fits the bill. None of the characters are "genuinely good people" but I guess that's part of the point. Eric though at least owns who he is.

Without revealing too terribly much of the show's plot, story arcs, different character's personalities and how they interact, intertwine initially at show's beginning to very end of first season, is it fair to say most of the main characters are naive, ultimately selfish and self-centered, cleverly connive and manipulate one another like unprincipled opportunists to get ahead as stock traders or investors to advance their careers?

 

[livefromDC]

Without revealing too terribly much of the show's plot, story arcs, different character's personalities and how they interact, intertwine initially at show's beginning to very end of first season, is it fair to say most of the main characters are naive, ultimately selfish and self-centered, cleverly connive and manipulate one another like unprincipled opportunists to get ahead as stock traders or investors to advance their careers?

Self-centered naive, early twenty somethings, yes. I don't know if they make attractive twenty somethings any other way to be honest. But not so much the rest. The main characters are all on "different desks" so their struggles to get a permanent position don't pit them against each other. The stakes are high, but that's more about impressing their bosses while arriving as lowest person on the totem pole with no financial relationships to bring in money to the company. It's kind of like where Will Smith's character find himself in "The Pursuit of Happyness".

It's not so much that the characters are unlikeable as much as I don't relate with them at all. Granted, I'm assuming it's a different personality type that goes into finance versus my chosen field. At least, there's a definite personality type that HBO is assuming goes into this industry. At any rate, like others, I often find it hard to watch a show where the main character(s) aren't personally relatable, but this was an exception. I watched it like a neutral bystander for the most part. Though I did find my self rooting for certain outcomes at the end. I also did have a favorite character, but the person wasn't one of the leads.

 

[livefromDC]

Still no one else has checked it out? HBO renewed it for a second season. I hope I didn't deter anyone. It really is a good show. Perhaps not traditional since all the characters have faults.

If anyone else has watched, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the characters. Reading reddit and it's interesting the different takes people have on each character.

 

[Saintman2884]

Still no one else has checked it out? HBO renewed it for a second season. I hope I didn't deter anyone. It really is a good show. Perhaps not traditional since all the characters have faults.

If anyone else has watched, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the characters. Reading reddit and it's interesting the different takes people have on each character.

I apologize if I've already asked this question to you, DC, or any other poster perhaps in a similarly framed question but based on some people I know who've watched it or seen some segments aired on trailers and they tell me some, if not a slight majority of main characters, and a few supporting characters aren't very likable, are selfish, self-centered, egotistical, have shown this Machiavellian tendencies to screw fellow employees over, figuratively or literally, just to advance their own careers.

Basically, a rather honest, amazingly realistic portrayal of how Wall Street or Fleet St. hedge funds or stocks/commodities firms operate on a daily basis and their "rock star" hedonistic lifestyles.

I know there have been quite a few TV series or even movies where audiences generally speaking, didn't like a certain actor/actress character from a personality standpoint but it's vision, and execution was excellent and we like the series for it. Keri Russell was great at that with her Elizabeth Jennings ideological super spy on Americans.