TV Thread - beware, [expletive] can get spoilery

[cpebbles]

The Office is losing its showrunner so Lieberstein (Toby) can go work on a spin-off, The Farm, about Dwight running his beet farm/bed-and-breakfast. Yeah, that sounds like the worst show ever, but I'm hoping they keep Catherine Tate onboard so I can write the show off completely and give up on NBC altogether. 30 Rock is slipping, and Parks and Rec is good, but not that good.

[Jocephus]

and apparently ed helms may join mindy kalings FOX show if it gets picked up

[G. Keenan]

i think rick (the actor anyway) is really actually english so his southern-ish accent is pretty awful.

andrew clutterbuck is his real name

i enjoyed season 2 a lot. i think its a fair comment to say the season was slow...but i dont think that makes it bad. lori's character is annoying, carl is just a bad actor but other than that i dont have any complaints. you need character development, even if you personally are not satisfied with the developments.

[SHOW]

it was strange, andreas annoyed me a lot this season, but i was happy that she survived.

[SHOW]

I agree with a lot of this. The season did start slowly. We talked about that around here. They spent a lot of time searching the woods for Sophia. But, I understand the writer's purpose in that after the fact. They had to set up the love affair between Glenn and Maggie, build the relationship between Daryl and Carol, increase the tension between Shane and Dale, and make Herschel's fall from righteousness believable. And unfortunately, all that dragged out the drama between Shane, Rick, Lori, and Carl.

They also fell into the trap of believing they were safe on the farm. They tried to put down roots and begin constructing a new life, but that just was never realistic or possible. Now, their world is falling apart around them again and they will have to go to even greater extremes to learn how to survive and a whole new group of characters will be thrown into the mix.

In retrospect, it all kind of fits, but yeah, it was slow as molasses during the first half of the season.

I'm not criticizing this season for being slow. It could have been twice as slow and I would have liked it if it had been written well, but the script is as thin as the paper it's printed on. Most of the dialogue is really bad. There is no nuance to it, no wit, no depth, no particular style. What is this show's aesthetic? If it's a plot-driven one then that plot is really boring and ham-fisted. Maggie and Glenn love each other now, okay, why do we know that? Because they said "I love you?" Herschel falls from grace, why? Because his character says out loud that he has done so in a bar? You can't just have characters announce their changes and call that character development. Meanwhile we watch Rick and Shane bash their heads together over a woman who is so badly cast that almost everyone who watches the show wants her to die. They should just replace that actress before season 3 and cut their losses.

I thought this was a show trying to handle zombies in a "realistic" way, meaning that there is a scientific explanation for how they work, how the disease began, what it does to the body, how to kill them, how they move and behave. There are impediments to both zombie and human movement and possibilities. So explain to me how in one shot a helicopter flys over downtown Atlanta and in the next there is a herd of zombies two-thousand strong overrunning a farmhouse 50 miles away. Talk about your bad luck.

Then there is the logic within the action scenes. When that random zombie-bate character drives the RV to save Rick and Carl why didn't he just keep driving after they'd hopped safely onto the roof? There was a crowd of walkers in front? Okay, run them over. If not, reverse. Instead he opens the door to try to flee, which makes no sense, and dies. Why not just have him drive off and crash into something and die that way if you want him out of the picture? It's lazy writing, that's why.

I don't care if 50 million people are watching this. That doesn't mean anything. It's a zombie show so it's going to get a big audience no matter what. The producers of the show can therefore get away with mediocrity because people are going to tune in anyway.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

30 Rock is having perhaps the best 6th season in the history of 6th seasons. It's been fantastic after getting stale for part of Season 4 and most of Season 5.

[Jocephus]

i think rick (the actor anyway) is really actually english so his southern-ish accent is pretty awful.

andrew clutterbuck is his real name

i enjoyed season 2 a lot. i think its a fair comment to say the season was slow...but i dont think that makes it bad. lori's character is annoying, carl is just a bad actor but other than that i dont have any complaints. you need character development, even if you personally are not satisfied with the developments.

[SHOW]

it was strange, andreas annoyed me a lot this season, but i was happy that she survived.

[SHOW]

I agree with a lot of this. The season did start slowly. We talked about that around here. They spent a lot of time searching the woods for Sophia. But, I understand the writer's purpose in that after the fact. They had to set up the love affair between Glenn and Maggie, build the relationship between Daryl and Carol, increase the tension between Shane and Dale, and make Herschel's fall from righteousness believable. And unfortunately, all that dragged out the drama between Shane, Rick, Lori, and Carl.

They also fell into the trap of believing they were safe on the farm. They tried to put down roots and begin constructing a new life, but that just was never realistic or possible. Now, their world is falling apart around them again and they will have to go to even greater extremes to learn how to survive and a whole new group of characters will be thrown into the mix.

In retrospect, it all kind of fits, but yeah, it was slow as molasses during the first half of the season.

I'm not criticizing this season for being slow. It could have been twice as slow and I would have liked it if it had been written well, but the script is as thin as the paper it's printed on. Most of the dialogue is really bad. There is no nuance to it, no wit, no depth, no particular style. What is this show's aesthetic? If it's a plot-driven one then that plot is really boring and ham-fisted. Maggie and Glenn love each other now, okay, why do we know that? Because they said "I love you?"

and they are having sex and she doesn't want him to endanger himself (before they said i love yous) for example she was mad he let them lower him into the well, and that she looks to glenn now before herschel (for instance when they came back with an injured randall she runs past herschel to hug glenn first). and in the finale, she doesn't want to wait out the night and wants to get gas with glenn before hershel tells her to not be foolish

Herschel falls from grace, why? Because his character says out loud that he has done so in a bar?

he didn't really fall from grace, he just realized that they are not sick people, but dead and have to be killed (and thus his wife and family are truly dead and gone). he lost faith in god and himself. he was depressed. you can see it in his face when shane kills the walker he has trapped before they unload on the barn(as herschel explains in the bar scene). plus the fact he essentially defers to rick now, whereas when they first were on the barn it was "his farm, his rules".

You can't just have characters announce their changes and call that character development.

you dont have to like it but the characters have changed. i'm not sure what would be satisfying to you, some grand, deep exploration into the mind of every character. but, the characters have changed (rick, shane, daryl, lori, andrea, herschel, maggie, hell even carl seem like pretty obvious characters who have had big changes in development)

Meanwhile we watch Rick and Shane bash their heads together over a woman who is so badly cast that almost everyone who watches the show wants her to die. They should just replace that actress before season 3 and cut their losses.

i actually dont think the actress is that bad, but they have developed her character strangely. i'll give you that.

I thought this was a show trying to handle zombies in a "realistic" way, meaning that there is a scientific explanation for how they work, how the disease began, what it does to the body, how to kill them, how they move and behave.

why did you think that?

There are impediments to both zombie and human movement and possibilities. So explain to me how in one shot a helicopter flys over downtown Atlanta and in the next there is a herd of zombies two-thousand strong overrunning a farmhouse 50 miles away. Talk about your bad luck.

1. its fiction and 2 i'd say over time they found their way to the farm.

Then there is the logic within the action scenes. When that random zombie-bate character drives the RV to save Rick and Carl why didn't he just keep driving after they'd hopped safely onto the roof? There was a crowd of walkers in front? Okay, run them over. If not, reverse. Instead he opens the door to try to flee, which makes no sense, and dies. Why not just have him drive off and crash into something and die that way if you want him out of the picture? It's lazy writing, that's why.

i suppose you could say he's a wide-eyed innocent who got rattled by zombies. but he was a throwaway character so of course he was going to die. you criticize the lack of emotion attached to characters and them turning (shane and dale) but you're mad that a person who had maybe 10 scripted lines total in the show dying? plus...its kinda what people want to see...zombies eating people. driving into a wall and exploding seems like lazier writing.

I don't care if 50 million people are watching this. That doesn't mean anything. It's a zombie show so it's going to get a big audience no matter what. The producers of the show can therefore get away with mediocrity because people are going to tune in anyway.

i dont think a zombie show is a guarantee for success. romeros last two zombies movies (survival of the dead, diary of the dead) have bombed at the box office and he's supposed to be the king of modern zombies. there has to be *some* other aspect that draws people into it. not just shooting zombies.

[vinsanity]

there has to be *some* other aspect that draws people into it. not just shooting zombies.

I haven't watched since the first few episodes cause I found it boring and didn't really find anyone engaging - but that's me. It could be one of those things that people watch cause a lot of other people are saying it's so great and they wanna be cool. Bandwagons can be powerful things.

[G. Keenan]

i think rick (the actor anyway) is really actually english so his southern-ish accent is pretty awful.

andrew clutterbuck is his real name

i enjoyed season 2 a lot. i think its a fair comment to say the season was slow...but i dont think that makes it bad. lori's character is annoying, carl is just a bad actor but other than that i dont have any complaints. you need character development, even if you personally are not satisfied with the developments.

[SHOW]

it was strange, andreas annoyed me a lot this season, but i was happy that she survived.

[SHOW]

I agree with a lot of this. The season did start slowly. We talked about that around here. They spent a lot of time searching the woods for Sophia. But, I understand the writer's purpose in that after the fact. They had to set up the love affair between Glenn and Maggie, build the relationship between Daryl and Carol, increase the tension between Shane and Dale, and make Herschel's fall from righteousness believable. And unfortunately, all that dragged out the drama between Shane, Rick, Lori, and Carl.

They also fell into the trap of believing they were safe on the farm. They tried to put down roots and begin constructing a new life, but that just was never realistic or possible. Now, their world is falling apart around them again and they will have to go to even greater extremes to learn how to survive and a whole new group of characters will be thrown into the mix.

In retrospect, it all kind of fits, but yeah, it was slow as molasses during the first half of the season.

I'm not criticizing this season for being slow. It could have been twice as slow and I would have liked it if it had been written well, but the script is as thin as the paper it's printed on. Most of the dialogue is really bad. There is no nuance to it, no wit, no depth, no particular style. What is this show's aesthetic? If it's a plot-driven one then that plot is really boring and ham-fisted. Maggie and Glenn love each other now, okay, why do we know that? Because they said "I love you?"

and they are having sex and she doesn't want him to endanger himself (before they said i love yous) for example she was mad he let them lower him into the well, and that she looks to glenn now before herschel (for instance when they came back with an injured randall she runs past herschel to hug glenn first). and in the finale, she doesn't want to wait out the night and wants to get gas with glenn before hershel tells her to not be foolish

Herschel falls from grace, why? Because his character says out loud that he has done so in a bar?

he didn't really fall from grace, he just realized that they are not sick people, but dead and have to be killed (and thus his wife and family are truly dead and gone). he lost faith in god and himself. he was depressed. you can see it in his face when shane kills the walker he has trapped before they unload on the barn(as herschel explains in the bar scene). plus the fact he essentially defers to rick now, whereas when they first were on the barn it was "his farm, his rules".

You can't just have characters announce their changes and call that character development.

you dont have to like it but the characters have changed. i'm not sure what would be satisfying to you, some grand, deep exploration into the mind of every character. but, the characters have changed (rick, shane, daryl, lori, andrea, herschel, maggie, hell even carl seem like pretty obvious characters who have had big changes in development)

Meanwhile we watch Rick and Shane bash their heads together over a woman who is so badly cast that almost everyone who watches the show wants her to die. They should just replace that actress before season 3 and cut their losses.

i actually dont think the actress is that bad, but they have developed her character strangely. i'll give you that.

I thought this was a show trying to handle zombies in a "realistic" way, meaning that there is a scientific explanation for how they work, how the disease began, what it does to the body, how to kill them, how they move and behave.

why did you think that?

There are impediments to both zombie and human movement and possibilities. So explain to me how in one shot a helicopter flys over downtown Atlanta and in the next there is a herd of zombies two-thousand strong overrunning a farmhouse 50 miles away. Talk about your bad luck.

1. its fiction and 2 i'd say over time they found their way to the farm.

Then there is the logic within the action scenes. When that random zombie-bate character drives the RV to save Rick and Carl why didn't he just keep driving after they'd hopped safely onto the roof? There was a crowd of walkers in front? Okay, run them over. If not, reverse. Instead he opens the door to try to flee, which makes no sense, and dies. Why not just have him drive off and crash into something and die that way if you want him out of the picture? It's lazy writing, that's why.

i suppose you could say he's a wide-eyed innocent who got rattled by zombies. but he was a throwaway character so of course he was going to die. you criticize the lack of emotion attached to characters and them turning (shane and dale) but you're mad that a person who had maybe 10 scripted lines total in the show dying? plus...its kinda what people want to see...zombies eating people. driving into a wall and exploding seems like lazier writing.

I don't care if 50 million people are watching this. That doesn't mean anything. It's a zombie show so it's going to get a big audience no matter what. The producers of the show can therefore get away with mediocrity because people are going to tune in anyway.

i dont think a zombie show is a guarantee for success. romeros last two zombies movies (survival of the dead, diary of the dead) have bombed at the box office and he's supposed to be the king of modern zombies. there has to be *some* other aspect that draws people into it. not just shooting zombies.

Yes, all of those things have happened, but, imo anyway, none of them are interesting from a character or plot perspective. Also, the script leaves viewers too many blanks to fill in. We are shown two or three pedestrian 1 minute scenes between Maggie and Glenn and are therefore supposed to care about their "relationship?" I'm not saying the show needs to hold our hands through every development but it needs a sense of proportion. The overwhelming attention was given to the Rick/Lori/Shane love triangle which was essentially fully explored long ago. In the meantime the rest of the characters grow increasingly one-dimensional while the writers turn Shane into some slobbering brutish monster so that when Rick inevitably kills him we are on Rick's side. It's all so simplistic. Where is the adventure? Where is the sense of discovery? The "everyone's infected" bombshell was a dud. So what? Not to mention that it was telegraphed like hell with all the "they ain't got no bites" examinations. How stupid do they think the audience is? The show reeks of something that a bunch of number-crunching network executives have drained of any intelligence, edge, or style. Instead of awesome it's just sort of watchable. But every episode I watch just makes me frustrated at seeing the same dumb formula over and over. It's a really boring show.

But maybe it's just me.

[Jocephus]

Yes, all of those things have happened, but, imo anyway, none of them are interesting from a character or plot perspective. Also, the script leaves viewers too many blanks to fill in. We are shown two or three pedestrian 1 minute scenes between Maggie and Glenn and are therefore supposed to care about their "relationship?" I'm not saying the show needs to hold our hands through every development but it needs a sense of proportion.

there was only 12 episodes for glenn and maggie to develop a relationship. not sure how much time is required but i think having sex and they both obviously caring about each other means they are in a relationship. whether you want to care about it is your own choice.

The overwhelming attention was given to the Rick/Lori/Shane love triangle which was essentially fully explored long ago.

i find it strange you criticize rick/shane/lori for having too long of a relationship, but with maggie/glenn its not enough time.

In the meantime the rest of the characters grow increasingly one-dimensional while the writers turn Shane into some slobbering brutish monster so that when Rick inevitably kills him we are on Rick's side.

not sure what you mean by 1 dimensional and in what regard. as far as shane, i would guess a lot of viewers thought he might be a better leader, which i think was the idea. who is more right in their actions in a zombie apocalypse

It's all so simplistic. Where is the adventure? Where is the sense of discovery?

i think the characters are hesitant to be adventurous when there are potentially zombies around every corner. seems like why they were on the outskirts originally and then the farm. now they are on the move again, so theres some adventure i suppose.

The "everyone's infected" bombshell was a dud. So what? Not to mention that it was telegraphed like hell with all the "they ain't got no bites" examinations. How stupid do they think the audience is?

so you figured it all out early on. cool. doesn't mean its bad. i guess i am stupid though. especially since just about every zombie series has its own rules.

The show reeks of something that a bunch of number-crunching network executives have drained of any intelligence, edge, or style. Instead of awesome it's just sort of watchable. But every episode I watch just makes me frustrated at seeing the same dumb formula over and over. It's a really boring show.

i definitely disagree. i mean, the guy who created the comic, the true source of this story is heavily involved with the show and i believe has written some episodes. additionally, IIRC, AMC made the show reduce staff (forcing out original showrunner frank darabont)

[cpebbles]

30 Rock is having perhaps the best 6th season in the history of 6th seasons. It's been fantastic after getting stale for part of Season 4 and most of Season 5.

Disagreed in general, but are you seriously trying to tell me that this season of 30 Rock has been better than season 6 of The Simpsons? Because that's pretty much unforgivable.

[docellis]

I haven't watched since the first few episodes cause I found it boring and didn't really find anyone engaging - but that's me. It could be one of those things that people watch cause a lot of other people are saying it's so great and they wanna be cool. Bandwagons can be powerful things.

this is the only show (other than Mad Men) I can remember being somewhat interested in discussing with other people. i might be an anomaly, but i have zero interest in watching a television show because lots of other people are watching it.