|
|
Post by Anders on Sept 14, 2008 8:21:12 GMT -8
In no particular order...
New shows:
* Sons of Anarchy
Seems promising, and I always find Ron Pearlman worth watching.
* True Blood
Could be good, could be crap. They didn't sell me on the main character in the first episode.
* Fringe
Seems a lot like Global Frequency for TV, and much more X-Files than Lost. Promising.
Returning shows:
* The Big Bang Theory
I liked the first season. The geeks were authentic enough for a sitcom, and it was funny and cute.
* Californication
The first season was awesome with a few dips to merely good. The ending was perfect IMO, so tacking on a second season is risky, but I'll definitely watch it.
* CSI
I've given up on Miami and New York a while ago, but the original is still decent.
* Desperate Housewives
Still entertaining, though their episode formula is getting slightly annoying.
* 30 Rock
Occasionally brilliant, always entertaining.
* Family Guy
Not a high priority for me anymore. Not bad but not very innovative either.
* Robot Chicken
Ten minutes of geeky fun when you don't feel like thinking.
* South Park
Has the edge on Family Guy in nearly every way, except they often get a bit too heavy-handed.
* Terminator
It's good, but there's something about it that keeps it from clicking for me (other than the fact that Linda Hamilton is missing from every episode).
|
|
|
|
Post by jessebaker on Sept 14, 2008 10:33:55 GMT -8
New shows:
Decent but slow moving, as far as pacing is concerned. Hopefully it will pick up sooner than later.
I'm more in line with it being crap. The concept (what if someone introduced synthetic blood, allowing Vampires to come out of the closet and live alongside normal humans) would work better in a humor/satire situation, what with the way that vampires have become such a major pop culture cliche.
Not really interested at the moment; I should note that I didn't really get into X-Files until midway through season one, but it will probably take some decent word of mouth as far as one-off episodes to get me interested.
Returning shows:
Is BBT on DVD? I've been meaning to check it out.....
Haven't watched the show in ages and even then, I only watch it for George Eades to begin with.
Still watch and love it (largely for Marcia Cross, who can do no wrong in my eyes as an actress), though I would love to see them drop Felicity Huffman's character down an elevator shaft.
For me at least, since Seth McFarlane has started using his AS contract to have the AS versions of the newer episodes be sort of "directors cut" episodes as far as having content not in the Fox versions of the episodes, I usually skip Family Guy in favor of taping Desperate Housewives and watch the new FG episodes when they debut on AS....
It's good but the show can be hit or miss at times, when they go for non-geek related bits.
South Park=Fail and AIDS when you compare it to Family Guy. How Parker and Stone have avoided career suicide ala Dennis Miller with their "We give Bush a free pass" card shit is beyond me.
Also, they've purposely stripped Cartman of any remotely redeemable qualities, turning him into an utterly unlikable sociopath. The "Imaginationland" trilogy, with it's plot point of Cartman wanting to orally rape Kyle come hell or high water was the turning point IMHO, since it took Cartman fully into the real of unredeemable villainy IMHO.
|
|
|
|
Post by Mario Di Giacomo on Sept 14, 2008 11:05:18 GMT -8
Am I the only person who sees "The Mentalist" and thinks "Psych with added grim?"
|
|
|
|
Post by sinanju on Sept 14, 2008 13:00:57 GMT -8
Am I the only person who sees "The Mentalist" and thinks "Psych with added grim?" No. "He's not really psychic. Just very observant." Yeah. Been there, done that. And didn't much like it the first time. Pass. As for True Blood--I've been reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels for years. (Along with all Charlaine Harris's other novels--she's a good writer.) I thought True Blood did a good job capturing the character. Anna Paquin doesn't exactly match my mental image of Sookie (she'd be a bigger, more buxon gal), but she's close enough and I think she's awfully cute in her own right. We'll see how closely the series sticks to the feel of the novels, but I like what I've seen so far. |
|
|
|
Post by lostphrack on Sept 14, 2008 20:23:02 GMT -8
I'm actually enjoying True Blood at the moment. It's not blowing me away or anything yet, but it's still pretty enjoyable and I'll be sticking with it for the foreseeable future.
Another kind of new HBO produce program I started watching is Capadocia. It's a Spanish language series that's available with English subtitles on HBO On Demand. I've only seen the first episode so far but I definitely enjoyed. It's a series about a privatized woman's prison in Mexico, the money involved hopes to use it as an example of what they can do with all prisons, etc. Looks good so far.
Looking forward to Little Britain USA too.
|
|
|
|
Post by jessebaker on Sept 14, 2008 20:49:08 GMT -8
If that succeeds, anyone want to guess the over/under on Catherine Tate being offered a deal as far as HBO or Showtime offering her a developmental deal, in hopes of making Tate the next Tracy Ulman?
|
|
|
|
Post by joegualtieri on Sept 14, 2008 21:03:40 GMT -8
In no particular order... New shows: * True Blood Could be good, could be crap. They didn't sell me on the main character in the first episode. Returning shows: * Californication The first season was awesome with a few dips to merely good. The ending was perfect IMO, so tacking on a second season is risky, but I'll definitely watch it. * 30 Rock Occasionally brilliant, always entertaining. * Family Guy Not a high priority for me anymore. Not bad but not very innovative either. I'm tentatively interested in True Blood for two reasons: Anna Paquin and Alan Ball. The concept is, well, it has been done before as a pseudo-comedy by Howard Chaykin and David Tischman as Bite Club. I'm not surprised the mainstream media hasn't mentioned that, but I'm surprised no geekier sources have. Paquin's gret though and Six Feet Under, while highly overrated,* was a decent show. *It was a soap opera. A ground breaking and exceedingly well written one, but a soap opera nonthless. Yo're absolutely correct about Californication, though I'm still happy to see it continuing. It's got all the Duchoveny one could want, plus hot, naked girls, and none of the elements that eventually made X-Files a chore. 30 Rock/the American Office is the best out on TV this fall, period. Same here for Family Guy and it's sunday mates on Fox. If I'm home, I may watch, but the quality and originality has dropped enough that they're not the must-see TV they were for so long. |
|
|
|
Post by Anders on Sept 15, 2008 7:41:19 GMT -8
New shows: Decent but slow moving, as far as pacing is concerned. Hopefully it will pick up sooner than later. I think the first episode did a good job of providing some action while setting the scene and introducing the characters. I've only just started watching the second one. Re: True Blood (Nestled quoting doesn't seem to work quite right here. I think it could work, provided the actors can hold up their end. Re: Fringe I've seen maybe two episodes of the X-Files all put together, but I know what kind of show it was. And yeah, if the episodes can't stand on their own I probably won't hang around (unless the big story is very compelling). The actors are good so far, and though the science is babbly I might be able to accept that if it's also cool. In a way it's a bit like the Middleman played straight. Amazon says yes, since Sept. 2. I never particularly liked Cartman in the first place, so that change isn't very big for me. To me he has at best been an opportunistic, egotistical, sadistic asshole, so turning him into an actual villain isn't really a change. Where I think they're better than Family Guy is primarily in being able to tell a story well. |
|
|
|
Post by Anders on Sept 18, 2008 23:09:26 GMT -8
The second episode of Fringe was a huge disappointment. (I haven't quite finished watching it yet and I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to bother.) I had thought that this would be a show without writers raised on a steady diet of stupid pills, but I guess I forgot they are working in American television.
Pseudo-science is fine as the concept for a show, I don't mind that at all, as long as they babble enough and stay within spitting distance of reality, or at the very least remain internally consistant in their deviations from it.
But when their explanations are directly contradicted by what happens in the show it doesn't matter how much they techno-babble if they don't adress that. And here they don't.
Specifically, if you posit that the eye captures the last thing you see before you die (which they themselves point out is an idea made up by Jules Verne) and then go on to use an extremely stupid explanation as to how that could actually work (muscle relaxants making the electrical impulses stay in the optical nerve for hours after the person dies), they produce an image that wasn't the last thing the person saw.
Yes, that's right. They get an image that shows "one of the last things she saw". Because apparently muscle relaxants make your optical nerves work backwards, taking back the electrical impulses it already sent to the brain.
All of this is of course ignoring the fact that it's the brain and not the eyes that create the images we see. If you could catch the light that entered the eye, sure, but the signals in the optical nerve correspond to highly abstract things like edges; it's the brain that puts all this together to an image. Not that I would expect writers for American television (or, to be fair, any kind of television) to know this, but you'd think that they would at the very least try to stay consistent with their own ideas.
Oh well, I guess that's what I get for getting my hopes up. I'll give it one more episode, but only because John Noble is brilliant as the crazy mad scientist.
|
|
|
|
Post by Anders on Sept 26, 2008 0:58:47 GMT -8
The third episode of Fringe didn't improve my impression of it. Instead of using actual fringe science (perpetual motion, orgone accumulators etc) they're mostly just doing bad sci-fi. Add that the only interesting character is John Noble's, and what little chemistry exists is between him and the guy playing his son and that is at best moderately spark-worthy and the horrible deus ex machina-like way they're handling the knowledge Noble's character has and this ends up in the Bleh-Files. I'm not going to bother with it again unless I get indications that it's improved considerably.
Sons of Anarchy shows real promise, on the other hand.
|
|
|
|
Post by jbhelfrich on Sept 26, 2008 9:23:59 GMT -8
I apparently missed the second episode of Fringe, but I've liked the first and the third. Yes, there could be a bit more fringe science, but they're trying to set up the players, and I don't think they want to be explaining too much, so they're kind of hand waiving over the science. The trouble with using stuff on the edges is you have to explain why it's on the edge, without boring everyone.
That said, it's X-Files for the 21st century, with a good dose of Alias thrown in, since it's from JJ. If it can avoid the flaws of those two series (X-Files wrote itself into a corner where advancing the story would end it, Alias and X-Files both got too wrapped up in their own mythology) it should be good.
Of course, television for me at the moment is just marking time until the return of Pushing Daisies and Battlestar Galactica, and the premier of Leverage.
|
|
|
|
Post by Anders on Sept 26, 2008 15:21:55 GMT -8
My problem isn't that they're handwaving the science but that they're being stupid about it, going against well established theory (not to mention very basic logic). To me that's not "fringe"; it's just laziness and/or inexcusable ignorance. If you're going to write a show based on the concept of fringe science then you should at least be able to bluff your way past someone who passed high school biology or physics, but they're not even trying to rise to that level.
Still, if the show had been funny and cool or had engaging characters or if the stupid make-up science had been really out there instead of rehashed sci-fi concepts made up 50+ years ago or if the big arc had seemed really cool I would stay. If I hear that they get better I may come back, but when two out of three episodes annoy me more than they entertain me I'm not hanging around to find out for myself. I've got Burn Notice to catch up on, and Supernatural is supposed to be good, and I probably should get going on House, Galactica and all the other shows I haven't bothered to get into yet.
|
|
|
|
Post by temporis on Sept 30, 2008 17:27:50 GMT -8
Regarding Sons of Anarchy: while it's still wonderfully evil and violent, I appreciate how they are starting to introduce concepts from actual anarchist philosophy into the series, which is pretty heavy stuff for basic cable.
|
|
|
|
Post by jessebaker on Sept 30, 2008 17:52:35 GMT -8
SOA is still a hit and miss show for me: I think that it would have been better if they had downplayed the action sequence-filled gun-running plotlines in order to concentrate more on the biker subculture/motorcycle club interacting with the normal folks of the town. Both "The Shield" and "The Sopranos" took their time setting up their little universes and characters in equal balance with the action sequences, whereas SOA is rushing these action scenes-driven plotlines out and taking away time from setting up the characters and who they are/why they are as far as their backgronds are concerned (which given that the show is Hamlet on motorcycles, is kind of dumb).
|
|
|
|
Post by Patty on Oct 29, 2008 18:20:56 GMT -8
Watching on broadcast TV:
TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES
HEROES
HOUSE
FRINGE
PUSHING DAISIES
LIFE ON MARS
Watching repeats on weekends:
LAW & ORDER: SVU - seasons 1 through 8
WITHOUT A TRACE
COLD CASE
|
|
