f13.net

Since the last TV thread has sunk too far to be necroed,  I figured we need a new one.

Sopranos --  The big season finale coming up.  The major question is whether they'll continue to set up a NY vs. NJ war,  or if we'll have another last minute reconciliation like we did with the last season.

Supposedly next season is the last,  and a gang war would make some fun TV.

Deadwood -- New season starts next Sunday.  The previews for it have been great,  really setting the tone.  You have the mining situation heating up (Widow Garrett vs. Hearst),  Swearengen (cocksucker!) and Bullock,  Tolliver who is just an evil evil bastard,  and historically lots more Western legends are supposed to breeze into town.

Rescue Me --  Season 3 started on Monday.

I missed the premier,  but rewatched season 2 on DVD.  FUCK, this is good drama.  The most painful portrayal of alcoholism I think I've ever seen.

FX replays the hell out of it,  so will catch the premier on Sunday at 10pm.

Venture Bros -- Restarting in June with season 2.  I love this show.  It really speaks to how much potential the animated format has.  The characters manage to be real people and cartoonish archetypes at the same time.

And it's immensely quotable.

Justice League -- My nostalgia kick.  Great superhero action cartoon.  Cartoon Network has been screwing with the schedule,  so I think I've missed most of this final season.  It gets my vote as best realization on screen of what comics can be and do.

I'm still mourning the death of Dead Like Me,  which was a neat character based show with minor comedy/supernatural elements to leaven the fact that it often dealth with very serious topics (death, relationships, family, work).

Sort of on my radar:  Dresden Files and Battlestar Galactica.

Dresden Files should be airing sometime soon,  and is an adaption of Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series of books.  Noir detective fiction meets supernatural/alternate reality.  Basically,  supernatural critters live side by side with real world stuff,  but ordinary people have a tough time seeing/believing it.  Has a Whedonesque vibe,  though I hope there will be much more plot progression....

Battlestar Galactica....   I dropped the ball here.  I like the series,  but work and social pressures meant I missed the entire last season.  May have to hold out for the DVDs and catch up.

I know it's great TV.

Anyway,  folks have anything more to add?  I'm a sporadic TV viewer,  so I always like to be turned on to something good.

I finally started watching Deadwood. Season 1 was great, but I'm starting to loseinterest at the beginning of 2. Probably won't bother with 3. Burned out on Sopranos in the same way as well.

Probably not relevant to this thread, but I've pretty much kept my TV on Discovery Science 90% of the time. It's like the good ole days, when American Chopper and "When Tornadoes Strike!!" didn't exist.

There was a blub in EW this week that because Milch is starting some other show that this will be the last season of Deadwood and he even turned down the ability to have a 3-5 episode "final" season to wrap up storylines. They apparently didn't renew any of the contracts for the actors. No other confirmation beyond that at this point but that sounds really stupid.

Season 2 of Deadwood starts off slowly.  Al is sidelined for a while,  the Doctor doesn't show up much,  Janey Stubbs is kind of meh.  Bout half way in it gets going.

Tolliver starts acting like a complete evil bastard,  Woo's problems,  and the behind the scenes politicking and deal-making are all interesting.  The triumphant return of Swearengen marks where the show starts going full bore.

The Swearengen monolgues are amazing, I think.  I thought that monologues were completely a lost art.

Yes, the actors are all free to pursue other work. If they do manage to get HBO to pay for a wrap up, they'll probably have to call in other actors to fill some of the key roles. As Al would say: If I bleet when I speak that’s because I just got fuckin’ fleeced.

I was thinking about necro posting the old thread. Did you guys hear that Surface was canceled? :(

I'm not watching anything right now, but the cool thing is SG-1 and Atlantis start right after the World Cup is over :)

That was definitely an interesting show... but I never could get the image out of my head of that main star being an adolescent lesbian (http://imdb.com/title/tt0256459/).  Kind of ruined it for me for some reason.

Just started watching Boston Legal. Haven't we had like 3 threads that devolved into conversations about Dead Like Me. Dresden Files sounds interesting and maybe I'm not getting the Whedon comparison, but his shit and Dresden seem like they aren't alike at all. During the summer I generally fall back to watching foreign (read: asian) drama and anime and then pick up my american tv watching in the fall. I'll still watch the same shit: Smallville, Gilmore Girls, House, etc.

Edit: Oh, and Supernatural. That show is just fucking awesome. As much as I love Grey's Anatomy, I'm super happy they killed off Denny since he became a star on Supernatural. I didn't want to see him have to choose to play a bit part, even IF he got to touch Katherine Heigl's boobies every week - every man deserves that. Or at least Denny did.

I'm sorry....  Your post was a blur after "Katherine Heigl's boobies".

That girls is extremely hawt.  I still have a couple of her pictures on this laptop.

Yeah, I'm posting from work on a work laptop;  your point ?

I've been watching the same old stuff, Bullshit is in new episodes and is always fun. Discovery HD when it's nature or science, though I do enjoy American Chopper. HDNet has some great programming, HDNet World Report is usually intense and a nice fairly in-depth look at news like news channels don't do. Sound Off with Matt Pinfield is cool, too, he's a good interviewer.

Been into the Food stuff lately, License to Grill, Good Eats, Jacques Pepin (on PBS). Dr Who is ok, I don't enjoy it as much as I do the Stargates, but it's good saturday morning stuff (thanks, DVR). I'm watching Odyssey 5, some HD channel is playing the first season, it's not quite as good as Who imo, but it's helping fill the Stargate jones...

Mostly nature, science, food, current events (not news, though) and music.

Network stuff: The Office and Earl is about it.

Guilty stuff: Supergroup. I love Nuge.

This will be Deadwood's last season, and Justice League has already finished its run. I forgot about Rescue Me, and I didn't see it on my Tivo, so I have to make sure I get it sometime this weekend.

Most of my TV viewing has come to an end with the end of most of the seasons. I will say that The Unit, Dennis Haysbert's new thing, has been surprisingly good. It's got a bit too much Desperate Housewives, but the action bits outweigh those.

Reqiuem for a Gleet contained one of the most horrifying scenes ever put to film. /shudder

I missed Season 1, and started watching the first ep of Season 2 (then went and bought season 1!). I enjoyed all of them, to tell the truth. 2 has more multi-episode storylines, so I guess some of the eps can seem slow. I loved it though.

Was that horrifying episode the one where Al has to pass the kidneystone?

Yeah, that one makes me cringe now, just thinking about it.

If by "pass" you mean "have a metal rod shoved up his urethra," then yes.

I'm trying to figure out Justice League's episodes, but it's confusing. Justice League had 2 seasons, than the show was renamed to Justice League Unlimited and had 3 more seasons, that are not seasons 3,4 and 5 of JL, but rather 1,2 and 3 of JLU. Did I get that right?

In other news - The 4400 season 3 is starting this Sunday. Woot.

Sopranos season finale was rather anti-climactic.  It was a very good episode, but it would have been better as great mid-season episode rather than a non-cliffhanger, doom is in the air "season finale".   Waiting for 8 more emminently disappointing episodes is going to be torture.  At least I get one more year of Deadwood. Woot.

*Possible vague spoiler, SKIP IF YOU TIVO'D BIG LOVE*
Big Love season finale was great.  Cloe Sevigny can really act. The Hendrickson family is fucking screwed and seeing how they'll possibly get out of this is going to make for great TV.  Painful, but great.  It's amazing how badly they could get burnt by pissing off Roman's pre-pubescent wife to be.  That little bitch needs to die screaming (kill Roman off while you're at it, eh?).  I've got a feeling this may be a show that doesn't end up ever becoming a happy ending.
*VAGUE BUT OBVIOUS SPOILER DONE*

Gilmore Girls season finale was terrible as was much of the season.  I love how someone can set up a 5 season long love story and have it crumble in a season due to two characters all of the sudden acting differently that they have for the past five years.  A story that thrives on writing simply cannot stand being poorly written and having poorly constructed plots.  The creator (who is also the head writer) has left the show.  Either it'll get horribly worse as all of the characters will start sounding different (the dialogue in this show is rather unique) or it'll right itself and all of the sudden we'll get a "hey, sorry about last season, we know we fucked up" reversal in the current story line.  Seriously, if it pans out like it's heading, I'm going to end up garroting someone.

If I only get another half season out of Veronica Mars, I'm going to be pissed off. Best show on TV. If you watch this show and aren't hooked after a few episodes, you have no soul. 

Yes.

They're done by the same people, but it's set several years after Justice League was and includes a much, much more varied cast of characters.

Justice League contained only:
    * Superman
    * Batman
    * Wonder Woman
    * Flash
    * Green Lantern
    * J'onn J'onzz
    * Hawkgirl

JLU contained:
    * All of the above
    * Aquaman
    * Supergirl
    * Atom
    * Black Canary
    * Booster Gold
    * Captain Atom
    * Doctor Fate
    * Elongated Man
    * Green Arrow
    * Huntress
    * Mister Terrific (Michael Holt)
    * The Question
    * Zatanna
    * Vixen
    * Hawk
    * Dove
    * Stargirl
    * Shining Knight
    * Dr. Light
    * Fire
    * Red Tornado
    * Ice
    * Steel
    * Crimson Avenger
    * Speedy
    * S.T.R.I.P.E.
    * Vigilante
    * Rocket Red
    * Orion
    * B'wana Beast
    * Wildcat
    * Ah fuck it, here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_appearing_in_Justice_League_Unlimited#Full_Roster)

Naturally, with such a huge cast each given episode featured a few particular characters.  Hawk & Dove even got their own episode, pretty much.

It's more like a spin-off of Justice League than anything, except it still contains all the original characters, and it does even resolve and hint to story arcs that happened not only in Justice League, but in other Bruce Timm DC animated shows.  For instance, there's a Batman Beyond story in there.

Cartoon Network has been screwy with this series since forever.  I can almost never catch it.  I never see any advertisments for it, and they move it all over the place in the schedule.  So I gave up, and I'm going to pick it up on DVD when it comes out.

But I have to say, it's probably my favorite comic book cartoon, even among Bruce Timm's other work.

I just watched the Pilot epsiode of "Korgoth of Barbaria" on Adult Swim / Cartoon Network.  It was both hyper-violent and hilarious at the same time, esp. to DND / Fantasy fans.  Its now my favorite Adult Swim offering but won't start up until later this year.

http://media.tv.ign.com/media/829/829954/imgs_1.html

Thanks. The crappy thing is I saw JLU first, now I'll have to watch JL. Well, anyway, I'll live.

Rasix - what's that about Veronica Mars, is it going to get canceled or something? I love that show.

Yeah, it was quite good.

The show's always had horrible raitings despite being universally loved by TV critics and having a cult following (much like Arrested Development, Firefly, Wonderfalls.. need I go on).   I have hopes, however, that'll make the full 22.  After each season it's been doubtful that the show would even be renewed, but it still manages to carry on.  I hope they don't have to make too many concessions this season, there was quite a bit of new casting and plot direction that was an attempt to gather new viewers or that originated as a directive by someone other than the creative staff or creator.

Am I the only one here that watches The Office, US version?

Nope!  I didn't like the first season at all, it was too Steve Carrell focused.  Second season was solid gold though; they've really got a great cast and they used them all rather well.  Great season finale also (a ton of shit happened).  The office conflict resolution episode was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Dwight (one of his complaints against Jim, there's an entire box full of them): My phone hit me in the head.
Jim (explaining to camera): Yah, I kept adding nickels to his handset and when he got use to the weight I just removed them.

Dwight: Everytime I typed my name, it showed up as "Diapers".
Jim : Simple macro.

Dwight: At the end of my day, my desk was two feet closer to the copier. 
Jim: That one was tricky.  Everytime I got up I moved his desk a couple inches.

I have gotten into The Office in the past few months. Still think the UK version was vastly superior, but the American version is pretty damned funny.

I watch the Office US religiously. It is definitely one of the funniest things on TV, especially when coupled with My Name is Earl on the same night.

I'm not so sure its that pronounced. It's hard to replace Gervais, but there's some remarkable casting for the US version, and its just right for its market. Besides, I think they did the awkward office relationship (Tim/Pam rather than Gareth/Dawn) better this time round. I'd like to see Le Bureau (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463261/).

Looks like Deadwood will get a couple specials to wrap up the show (http://tv.ign.com/articles/711/711233p1.html).

FIVE MILLION AN EPISODE ?

How can people spend that much money making a 45 minute thing about cowboys ?

If only that other show with cowboys (err..in space) had this kind of budget. Or any budget at all, for that matter.

[edit] Production values are great in Deadwood though. I'm not surprised.

Plus it's a larger than average cast.

My Name is Earl is just awesome.  A genuine treasure.

I might look for the UK version of The Office, but the US one is really good and I don't need more TV.  I don't care for the romance portion, but of course the Jim vs Dwight stuff is top-notch.  Dwight's deadpan is one of the best I have ever seen.  The day they had badges made?  "That .. is enormous. ... I am not a security threat. ... My middle name is not 'Fart'."  One of my favorites is when Jim moves his desk into the restroom and then calls him asking for some data... Dwight's "I have given you this so many times already" or however it goes should be in a comedy textbook on how to deadpan.

The only other thing I bother to watch is Family Guy and Robot Chicken.  Waiting on Galactica and Venture.

HBO is rerunning Season 3 of The Wire starting this Sunday. It is a great show. It helps if you've seen the first two seasons (which are on DVD and are also great) but each season has a somewhat contained storyline.

EDIT: An in that same badges ep was the classic Dwight line: "I don't smile. It's a sign of submission in primates. When someone smiles at me all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life."

(http://www.todomaipu.cl/modules/Galeria/gallery/Humor%20en%20fotos/Mascotas/chimp_smile.jpg)

It would not help when the broadcaster changes its time slot every other week and decides not to air episodes, air them out of order, or produce commercials that emphasize everything the show is not.

WOOOHOOO! New Deadwood last night! I had forgotten how much I love this show until the ep ended last night and I was FURIOUS that I had to wait a week for another fix. All kinds of good stuff, including Bullock beating the everliving shit out of EB (which has needed to be done for 2+ seasons now).

I also forgot how much I liked Deadwood. Its nice to watch a quality show again.

Anyone know what was up with Bullock fidgeting with his nose when me met with Hearst?

I was wondering about that myself.  I liked the episode, it seemed to have more of a season one feel to it.  I felt like they lost their way a little bit in the second season (it was still awesome, of course).

The nose thing was some sort of nervous tic (notice he did it when talking to his wife- who, by the way, needs a nude scene stat). I am guessing there will be some sort of further explanation for it.

With the return of Woo,  Deadwood seems to be picking up the pace.  Al is minus a finger,  Hearst insinuates rape and states that he almost decided to kill Bullock,  and the Ellsworths aren't getting along.  By the way,  the doctor appears to be coughing up large portions of his lungs. 


Did I miss Venture Bros premiere?  I was watching the repeat of Rescue Me,  when I realised Venture might be starting up again.

Yes.

Random Deadwood thoughts:

I was a bit nonplused by the first two eps of Deadwood, but McRaney is really starting to elevate things.  This show is about bad guys fighting against worse guys and they seem to be getting back to that. The upcoming confrontation between Hearst and Dan looks like it might just be freaking awesome.

They can frankly jetison Joanie and Jane at this point and I wouldn't give two shits. Joanie is getting particularly pointless and lame.

Richardson is rapidly becoming my favorite character based solely on his use of antler talismen.

It's on the TiVo.  Hector took Dracula out behind the woodshed last night, so tonight is Venture Bros.

Damn!  I completely forgot about Deadwood last night.  Oh well, I guess that means I can use my On Demand (which we finally got installed last week, yay!) and catch it.

Oh, and I love Richardson, too.  When he's at the midpoint of the stairs worshipping the moose and Al walks by saying, "Fuckin' pagan." I laughed my ass off.

The Venture Bros. was outstanding. They plan on using more villains this season, as well as the Monarch, and I applaud this. Especially when that villain is the horribly gay King Gorilla.

"Death-prone children" - Le art.

Interesting. I LOVED the first 2 episodes, and thought last night, while still top quality, wasn't quite as good. I completely agree about Joanie and Jane, although Joanie needs a nude scene before she goes.

It's probably my latent misogyny showing up because I really can't find myself giving a crap about any of the female characters on this show. Since the first eps had a lot of Joanie, Jane, Alma and Trixie stuff they just didn't light my fire up all that much.  The stuff in Al's place with the murders was good stuff though particularly how Hearst is now using the second incident to back off Bulllock.

I thought the second episode was the best one, with this one right on it's heels.  Hearst is coming along as a great character, worse than Al or Cy, because he doesn't indulge in any of their petty human frailties.  He's just an insanely rich, completely unscrupulous bastard whose only focus in life is "the color".  I never thought Major Dad would look so completely evil.

And yeah, the women's arcs are completely worthless.  I never liked Jane or Joanie.  Alma could be interesting considering that aside from Al and Bullock she's the only one who could really fuck up Hearst's plans.  They just need to utilize her.

ETA:  Oh, and Ellsworth needs to lay down the Papa Stick.  He's the only saint on this show, and she treats him like shit because she'd rather be banging the sheriff.

I love Jane. "Why the fuck is everyone whisperin' 'round here lately?" "Look at that, a piss puddle. Must've missed that when I planted my ass there last night."

Seems like Joanie could be an interesting character if they'd go somewhere with her instead of just having her meander aimlessly. I was hoping she was going to off Cy and take his place over or something.

This season looks to be the best one yet.  Hearst is a great villain, and his "aunt" looks like an entertaining side character.  EB and Richardson have been A+.  I like Jane's comic relief and Seth is more interesting as borderline-insane.  I agree that Joanie's story has been uninspired; they need to give her something more interesting to do or less screen time.  I like her awkward relationship with Charlie and would like to see them do something with that.

I am a bit nervous that the big load of new characters in last week's episode, with at least two more minor characters from last season coming back next week, will dilute the focus of the show too much.  I thought that was the source of a lot of the problems with season 2, but I may be in the minority on that.

I can see why HBO was bitching about the Deadwood budget.  They populate the series with alot of recurring characters,  and like to sprinkle in some "name" actors.

Most TV series,  they're lucky to have one or two people you've heard of.  Most of the actors on Deadwood you can place from previous work.

And now Brian Cox joins the cast....

Deadwood is staying historically accurate in at least one thing with Hearst:  he was illiterate.  Hence the crude drawing he sent to Al.

McRaney is channeling a deeply disturbed individual with Hearst.  Barely held back from completely sociopathic behavior.  And Cy....  Cy is just as oily and conniving as you can get.

I'm a little pissed at missing Venture Bros premiere.  Looks like I'm staying up late on Thursday.

Justice League is ok, but no animated show can ever do the "serious" thing like Batman the Animated Series did (the first one from the early/mid nineties, not the crappily drawn later one).  That show was just so many levels of awesome.

Let me start by saying that given our nerdish love of all things superheroish I felt this topic deserved its on thread. If the admins dont agree feel free to stick in the Television thread.


Coming to NBC this fall: Heroes (http://www.nbc.com/NBC_First_Look/Heroes/)

Just saw the first trailer/commercial tonight. You can watch it at the link above.
Initial impressions are that it looks like X-Men + Unbreakable + The 4400 combined. However given NBC's normally high production values it certianly looks better than any super hero related shows that the WB has ever released. The director is David Semel whose work includes this summer's Windfall series, the mini-series Revelations, American Dreams, and more.


(Having just found out they cancelled Surface...screw NBC. Im sure this show will get a large following, I will love it, and then NBC will cancel it and replace it with Law and Order: America's Got Fear Factor)

WTF?!? Surface was cancelled? I hadn't been paying attention to this thread previously and just read that today. Why? That was one of my favorite new shows from that season! Damn them all to hell!

Im sure the idiots at NBC will replace it with some low cost low budget reality TV tripe.

(I googled the news about Surface and found that Invasion was cancelled as well.)

I guess NBC thinks everyone wants to watch either talent shows or reality shows because of their low production costs.  :-(

I've heard that Heroes is decent enough to watch. Chris Ryall of Comics 101 (http://www.comics101.com/onehandclapping//?mode=project&action=view&project=One%20Hand%20Clapping&chapter=29) seemed to like it.

And yes, they'll probably shitcan it after a great season like they did with Surface. I'd like to whoop the boys that thought not renewing Surface was a good idea. That season finale was just one of the best, most exciting pieces of TV fiction I've seen in a while.

I didn't realize Deadwood had started yet.  I'll have to catch up or something.

I wish they'd do something interesting with Joanie.  She's a good actress.  Jane is an interesting character; she needs something other than being the town drunk.

I can't get the idea that Bulloch is gay out of my head.  He just does not strike me as interested in women - any woman - at all.  I don't buy his heterosexual interest.  It looks too fake.

With regard to the Sopranos, I thought it was the worst season ever.  None of it was compelling to me at all.  Time to wrap it up.

Rescue Me has been great this season, although the end of last week's episode was upsetting.  I'm still puzzling over it.

Yeah, me too. It reminds me of a rape scene in an issue of the comic Cerebus years ago. How does one sympathize with a main character who rapes his wife?

The scene with him and his (soon to be) wife drinking tea sitting side by side was awesome. Victorian culture ftw.

The canceling of Surface was pretty bad. But what do you want? All of the actors were shitty. There's a reason Lake Bell was removed from Boston Legal.

:heart:Or, you can get the fix. (http://www.adultswim.com/adultswimfix/index.jsp) :heart:

My problem with the end of Rescue Me last week was he raped her and she got all into it. That's the stuff bad usenet groups are made of.

This season Tommy has been made to look like a complete bad-ass in very contrived ways.

Saw that.  I'm not going to watch Venture Bros on a tiny screen.

It actually isn't staying up late with my crazy insomnia.

As for Rescue Me:

Tommy has never been a sympathetic character.  He's completely broken.  Everytime the show does something to make him sympathetic,  they've always turned around and had him be a complete asshole.

Every character on the show is a completely dysfunctional mess.

Garrity is fucking hilarious.  Especially when he and the proby start up the synergy of stupid.

Agreed.  Every time I start to like him he goes and does something completely fucked up and then I hate him again.  I have really started to hate Janet this season.  She's every bit as fucked up as Tommy, which I didn't exactly see before.


One of the things I liked about Laura was that she wasn't completely dysfunctional.  She was a particularly nice foil for Garrity.  I would have preferred to see her and whatsisname prettyboy continue to function as coworkers after their thing was over.  Too bad she's out.

And yeah, Garrity and Proby.  Gold.

Article about the rape scene controversy with some statements by the writer (http://www.sltrib.com/outdoors/ci_3991358)

That confirms what I thought about the scene, that at some point, karma was going to pay back Tommy. It always seems to.

I think the scene was MEANT to make you uncomfortable and confused. The whole show should do that, considering just how much of a cocksucker most of the characters really are. That scene just happened to do nothing to really protect you from that realization, whereas most others do.

Can I just say that I fucking  :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: Deadwood? This (last) season is going way too fast. Loved last night's episode, although I could have done without even implied sex involving Con Stapleton. The preview for next week looked AMAZING too.

Also- Holy CRAP the guy who plays Hostetler is huge. He towers over Bullock, who isn't exactly short.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the Dan vs. Captain Turner cage match.  I also expected Al to at least act a little bit more obsequious towards Hearst in that meeting, if only to lull him.  Al losing his shit strikes me as out of character.  It is nice seeing Cy so utterly playing the bitch, though.

Blah...

Got a call and had to go out to dinner and drinks, so missed my TV.  I watch 3 damn TV shows and I tend to miss them.

Caught Venture Bros.  Still good.  Henchmen 21 and 24 are great.  A little disappointed that Brock got rid of the mullet,  though the giant sideburns are nice.  The interactions with the henchmen tend to be the best part of the show.

The kegger with Monarch's and Underbite's henchmen was hysterical last season.

Going to have to catch Deadwood one of the million times HBO replays it.  Like the Sopranos,  this is a show that you want to see blood in the streets and the main characters (Bullock, in particular) going on a rage-fuelled rampage.  I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the Hearst plotline is going to resolve in an akward and unfulfilling manner, though.

I think the blowjob soliloquy about the orphanage was telling- Al feels the same sort of impotence against Hearst as he did against the proctor who wouldn't let him join his mother, and it REALLY REALLY bothers him (even to the point of physical impotence with Dolly). Hearst sounds like he might be moving away from the camp soon since it is getting to civilized for him, so Al might get to take some measure of revenge against a few of Hearst's proxies. God I hope Dan kicks the shit out the Captain...his "Morning....great time of day to go FUCK YOURSELF!" was priceless.

I just started watching Battlestar Galactica (bought the first season).  HOLY SHIT.  This is awesome!  I hope the rest the series remains this good!

It actually gets better.

I am beyond impressed.  Friends have told me to watch it for awhile.  The military representation is completely spot on.  I mean reactions, how people respond, all of it.  I have an enormous erection and am only on the pilot (first?) episode!

Yeah, normally I'm not a big Meatloaf fan, but the Dan character just seems to bring out all the good acting ability in him. Al's impotence was very key; it's what's been keeping Hearst alive. Otherwise, he'd just have someone take care of Hearst or at least try. The "civilizing" of the camp is just as big a symbolic restraint on Al as is the attack by Hearst.

The story is working on a whole lot of levels and building to what will be a great climax.

EDIT: Battlestar does get better. There are going to be some "filler" episodes, which are still better than most things on TV nowadays. But for the most part, it just keeps ramping up.

Ummm, that's not Meatloaf.  He played Cameron Diaz' retarded brother in Something About Mary.

I find that I am really enjoying It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  I only just heard about it and now I am watching it on Fox, FX and my wife's Ipod.  I could have been Charlie if it wasn't for my wife's intervention, and if I had eventually developed more of a work ethic.

Venture Bros teasing with many of the rumors of what would happen in this episode was great.  It's like the writers were laughing at us.

Alright,  Deadwood was great.  Thank god HBO replays the hell out of things.

The Bullock character is very good:  he's intelligent, principled, and surrounded by scumbags and lowlifes.  He can barely keep his anger in check.

The dog loyalty of Dan really makes him as a character.  The way he takes a child-like hurt when Al passes him over for a job.  It makes what could be a one note thug character much deeper.

What was the deal with Al and the bagman? (Can't remember his name....)  He was a buddy of Wolcott's?


I have to admit,  I watched some UFC junk on Spike.  Got sucked into a program showing Royce Gracie's old fights.  The old stuff has almost a cartoonish supervillainy air about it with guys showing up in odd costumes sporting nth degree black belts in martial arts schools you've never heard of.

Seeing Gracie make guys that outweighed him by 40-75 lbs tap out is kind of interesting. 

Old UFC is awesome, I remember watching it for free on USA.

Back then it was truly a wacky mix, there were no weight classes and MMA was not well-known. You would end up with a pure boxer, a huge wrestler, a skinny karate dude, etc.

New UFC is still good, from a technical and skill persepective it is much better, but the flavor is not the same, it's no longer the clash of styles it once was.

---

It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia is good.

New UFC looks like they really changed the rules to give strikers a better chance.  Padding on hands means you can hit people HARD without breaking your hand (which happened quite a bit in old UFC),  and it looks like they toned down the more brutal stuff (Gracie's elbows, all kinds of groin shots, etc.)  Standing everybody up each round also gives strikers a good chance.

One of the Gracie/Shamrock fights went to time,  the ref stood them up for another 5,  and that's when Shamrock demolished Gracie's face with one punch.  It went to a draw,  but Gracie was a mess.

Old UFC was like watching a car wreck:  in a matter of seconds someone could be permanently disabled.  Most of the time, the grappler closed and then avoided shots until he could throw on an arm bar or choke hold. 

The ref reactions were great in old UFC.  They'd jump in the second someone got a disabling hold on and tapped,  or when some big bruiser finally lined up some solid hits.  Even then, they were late sometimes.  Gracie managed to break some kung fu guys arm in a matter of seconds when it looked like the kung fu guy had the advantage.

Meh...  Guess I'm just channeling my inner meathead a bit.

Holy shit, you are correct (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0114868/). I have been laboring under the misapprehension that this actor was Meatloaf, when he actually played Meatloaf on that VH1 movie or something. I R DUMBASS.

Silas Adams. He used to run with a guy named Hawkeye (who Dan beat the ever-living shit out last season- or maybe the first). Al doesn't like Hawkeye, and has apparently forbidden Adams from hanging out with him. Al wants to use Adams to act as a disloyal employee- he has been with Al the shortest time, and is probably the most intelligent of Al's henchmen.

Ahhhh.  Al said Hawkeye and not Wolcott?  I was confused because I misheard what was said. 

 

I don't think Al said his name- he referred to him obliquely. Adams used the name Hawkeye when he responded though.

If my memory serves, Adams was one of the bagmen for the judge that was trying to blackmail Al with the warrant back in Ohio (or wherever). Al essentially turned Adams and he helped in Al's plot against the judge. I think the latest conversation was about how he wanted Adams to act as a similar double-agent type guy with Hearst and that he could because of both his reputation and somewhat looser ties to Al.

I posted this in the comics thread, but Blade The Series has been pretty good so far. The pilot was a bit slow but set up some stuff, the second episode was 5 times better, it was really enjoyable.

I'm a sucker for this sort of genre stuff. It reminds of the kind of stuff I loved to watch when I was a kid.

Emmy nominations are out,  and people are bitching about them already.

The big (and well deserved) news to me:  Dennis Leary got a nom for best Actor.

Other than that....   Deadwood, BSG, etc got shut out.  Surprise.

About time. Did the Office get some best actor/actress nods for Jim and Pam?


A fucking crime.

How does Rainn Wilson not get nominated?

The biggest point of contention seems to be the number of nominations for L&O: SVU.  At least they could have nominated Ice T.  I love the delicious irony of the guy who made "Cop Killer" playing a TV cop.

Sopranos got alot less noms then usual, too.  The only notable one was for Michael Imperioli (Christopher),  who has really grown as an actor throughout the series.  I thought his performance in the season finale was excellent.  Nothing for Gandolfini or Falco.

People are pretty confused by Lost not even getting nominated.  It did win the Emmy last year.

Latest episode of Deadwood has left me at a loss for words. Dan v. Captain "Sea Creature" Turner was worth the advanced billing.

Just a great episode, Deadwood is at its best when stuff is happening left and right.  I can even forgive the opening scene with Con Stapelton.  I'd say more, but I'd hate to spoil this episode for anyone that has it on Tivo.

edit: I want some Wu. Can we please get a little Wu?

Re: Deadwood

Holy Fucking Shit!


That is all.

Dennis Leary does not deserve a nomination. It isn't acting if you just play yourself.

I don't think that's entirely fair. Yes, there are definite moments in Rescue Me where Leary is doing a stand-up routine within a script, but there are many other instances where he acts out emotions pertaining to the script that are good, solid acting.

If on the other hand you're bewailing the horrible trend in Hollywood in general, namely, to have actors not really take on a different personality but essentially just play themselves within a story, then I agree. But if that's your beef, start a lot higher than that. Harrison Ford, Nicholas Cage, Christopher Walken, Jack Nicholson, just to name a few, simply play themselves within a script.

ARRGH! Didn't get home from Cali until midnight last night, so I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Can't wait!!

Yeah, that really isn't fair. Sure, there's bits of himself in there, but there's also some truly good acting moments that have nothing to do with the standup. Sure, it helps that the  part is written for you by you, but you still have to pull it off and he does.

In fairness, his movies wouldn't be as good if he played anyone but himself.  He is simply more entertaining that just about any fictional character out there.

Walken acted in the Deer Hunter at least...and in Joe Dirt.

Leary's character in Rescue Me is basically the same character as in Demolition Man, Suicide Kings, etc.

Chiklis and Walton Goggins both deserve a nod far more than Leary. I suppose it's bad form to nominate the same people over and over again but really. I would rate Julian (Christian Troy) from Nip/Tuck higher than Leary as well. (Truly an underrated performance) Leary isn't even close to the best male actor on his own network.

Yes.

God I love Poolhall Junkies.

If you want a good Walken performance in a good movie that few people saw I would suggest Scotland, PA.

Uh...."Acting" isn't necessarily being something than what you are, but being something other than what you feel or think. There's a difference there -- You can still essentially be "yourself" and act. People do it all the time.

Say, for example, you come to work late and your boss wants an explanation -- If you simply give him a convincing story/lie, then you are acting. If you say your lines in a way that's believable, then you're acting. It's not all funny voices and/or flashy character transformation. It's more generally about conveying things that aren't really there -- And sometimes, that's simply about fabricating emotions.


Or in other words, Christopher Walken acts all the time.

* This post brought to you by the Stella Adler School of Snobbery

"Rescue Me" deserved a best drama or a writing nod.

Just the fact the show has the balls to give you characters that can do such despicable things.  There isn't a one, besides maybe Lou,  who isn't a mess.

Leary does play the same guy everytime.  I think he gets credit, though, for the way he handles the character in the "big event" things:  the death of his son,  dealing with his wife troubles, the fights with Sheila...  and what might be the most painful depiction of alcoholism going.  Sitting in his truck, chugging and wincing, and just looking mean/depressed.

There are alot of actors who deserved the nod over him, though, I agree.

But the problem is, that's the sort of acting I can do.  And do really well.

And I'm not an actor.  So it's not impressive that someone who gets paid shitloads of money, solely to do that, can do it too.

Now becoming an entirely different person, that's impressive.  I can't do that.

STARGATES THIS FRIDAY. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Watched a preview thingie. Richard Dean Anderson is appearing in episodes in both atlantis and sg-1. Awesome. Can't wait. I'm a fanboi :(

Any bets on Eureka?

WOOHOO. I'm an SG fanboi, too. Been watching for so many years now.

Impressive, sure.....But nobody actually does that. Actors aren't schizos. They're just liars.

Any role that calls for a little more surface decoration is still going to rely on and employ the same exact things as the "actors who play themselves". The real masks are joy, anger, pain, sadness, experience with a thing, inexperience with a thing, etc.. If an actor can't do those convincingly, then they're just an impressionist and a clown. A Rob Schneider (sorry Rob). Not an actor. Good actors are the ones who can interpret and display all the emotional/experiential subtleties of the person contained in a script, regardless if the role requires them to do it in a funny voice or not (and 9 times out of 10, there's just little room for that kind of stuff. It's not an actor's fault if they appear to be "normal").

I think there are actors out there who occasionally take on roles that are entirely different personalities from who they are commonly seen as. Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, Charlize Theron in Monster or Brad Pitt in Snatch come to mind. Not a matter of simply acting out emotions pertaining to a character's circumstances, but adapting an entirely different person's point of view. That's the kind of acting that impresses.

Of course, you're fighting a hollywood trend that only wants roles for main characters that Joe Schmoe can empathize with, so its not often a good measure for an actor when there are so few roles that are really demanding.

It certainly looks interesting enough to Tivo.

EDIT: I finally caught the Deadwood episode. Holy fuck, that fight scene turned my stomach. Maybe it was because I dig the Dan character, or just the gruesomeness but fuck, they pulled no punches. That show continually amazes me.

I finally caught it last night as well. WOW. The fight scene really felt REAL, and was just brutal. The rest of the episode was top notch as well. Poor Hostetler. I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope Steve does something out of line so Bullock can just shoot his ignorant racist ass.

Agreed.  Goddamn that fight scene was amazing.  This show just continues to get better and better, not even a mediocre episode yet this season.  They have all been fantastic.  When are Joanie and Jane gonna hook it up?  :-D

When they move into Joanie's new place and Jane takes a bath. This story line will be great just for the reaction it will illicit from Charlie.

My wife and I are hoping for a violent end for Steve (and a final resting place in the belly of one of Wu's pigs).  I'm somewhat amazed at how high strung Hostetler was, but one can only imagine the shit he's had to endure throughout his life.

Ohh, and the new season of Reno 911 started up.  The last scene had my wife laughing for minutes after it ended. 

All of the things I mentioned are about adapting to an entirely different point of view. All good actors are displaying a different point of view other than what they have -- It's just that "different point of view" isn't always going to be so loud and externalized. Such things shouldn't be some kind of litmus test. It's not that simple.

[edit]

To further add (and this will probably better sum up what I'm trying to say here): The process and amount of preparation in creating good characters is always the same. No matter how they look in the end. The actual mechanics in the performance phase are dictacted by the character itself, and what you learned during the preparation.

But it isn't like there's a whole of group of "better" actors out there who somehow have a better use of mechanics. Any good actor can do that stuff. It's just that not every character they have an opportunity to play or are interested in playing makes use of those things all the time.

If anything, what you should be judging people on is how they approach the first phase. The bad actors are the ones who do nothing here and lack the imagination to build a character. It's either all mechanics and gags to them, or worse yet, some can't even do that. Some just say their lines and suck on both fronts.


All that being said, I haven't even seen the Dennis Leary show that originally sparked this discussion. Maybe he sucks. I don't know.  :-P

We should just make a new thread so me and sky can froth about how awesome sg-1 and atlantis were :)

Holy shitballs. I liked when Sheppard referred to his stunt (latching onto the hive ship just before they went into hyperspace) "Something I saw in a movie once" Very strong shows for each series.

I'm a week behind on Deadwood, but that was a prett good episode, too. Dan vs the Cap ftw!

All hell has broken loose on all three series :)

i heard the new season of weeds is supposed to come out in august, anybody else watch that show? I think the first few episodes of season one are amazing but it sort of tails off with really funny parts mixed. I'm really looking forward to the new season though!

Venture Bros. last night cracked me up.  God, I love that show.

How are Claudia Black and Ben Browder doing on SG-1?  I loved Farscape,  but the few times I've caught the new lineup on SG-1 I'm depressed by how sane and staid they have Browder's character acting.

An intereting link to AICN on HBO programming:

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23840

Looks like Rome may be done.  Not surprised.  Mediocre ratings for a massively expensive program are trouble.

Big Love is back,  but can't say that it kept my interest.

Deadwood is done and the creator's next series is slotted into the lineup.  Deadwood was also supposed to be massively expensive to make.  My take is mostly that the creator wanted to head on to different projects.


Any of our Canadian friends know if/when the next season of Dr. Who is coming to a Canadian station?  I think I get most of the national Canadian stations,  so I'd love a heads up.

I'm not sure which show gave me a bigger chubby last nice; The Venture Bros. or Deadwood.

They were both great.

I always wanted to get Poe in a headlock!  Look at that thing, it's like a pumpkin!

Black has been great, she was given an interesting character. Maybe one of the strongest characters in the show's history. Crichton isn't bad, but he isn't real compelling, either.

While not current shows, they are TV shows, so I thought this would be the best place to mention.....

Carnivale Season 2, as well as the complete series of Brisco County, Jr., are supposed to be released today.  I should be picking both up pretty soon.  I loved Brisco, and I'm looking forward to watching it again.  And Carnivale was....well....Carnivale.  Shame it had to be cancelled, especially on the cliffhanger of sorts it left off with. 

That's a damn shame about Rome, and I knew the news about Deadwood. For an episode where not a lot happened, the Deadwood episode from Sunday night was just great.

Venture Bros. was great. Reassure me that I'm not on crack... there wasn't a Part One of this story, right? The voice of the guy who played Katz's son (and Coach McGirk) as Orpheus' master was just perfect.

Agreed. Much man-love for Bruce Campbell.  I don't get paid until Friday, but that's why we have Credit Cards. Thanks for the heads-up.

I seem to remember something about last week's being Escape From The Mummy Temple or whatever, but I didn't watch it.  That's just what it was on my Info button.

And yeah, no one delivers deadpan like H. Jon Benjamin.  He's a riot in everything.

Anybody heard anything  about Heroes?  New show on NBC Mondays starting this fall.  The premise has me queasily optimistic. I'll watch the pilot, at the least.

Here's one of about  a half dozen or so YouTube clips NBC has put up there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbR-c1rm5oM

The good news about Deadwood, anyway, is that Milch (and everyone else) agreed to make 2 2-hour movies for HBO, so that'll be something.

No there wasn't a part 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Venture_Bros._episodes#Season_1:_2004)

I think the joke is that we never get to see Venture Bros. actually go on their adventures.  We only get to see small clips and left to wondering WTF! is going.

That's exactly what I thought.

Chris Ryall of Scott Tipton's Comics 101 seemed to think Heroes was decent (http://www.comics101.com/onehandclapping//?mode=project&action=view&project=One%20Hand%20Clapping&chapter=29).

Rescue Me continues to be pretty fucking good.

I also watched Eureka....  and it was...  uncharacteristic of Scifi's usual output.  Sort of X-files with a sense of humor, the production was good (unlike the cheeseball junk they usually serve out), and the BSG preview looked amazing.  I might actually watch it again.

Anyone here ever watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia??  I ask just because you get bombarded with commercials for it while watching Rescue Me.

Bah, forgot to mention:

The only reason I saw any of Eureaka was because Scifi started airing Dead Like Me tonight (pilot was tonight.)  A damn good show.  They'll have to edit down some of the language (I seem to recall that they liked saying fuck alot)....

I feel I should point out that the complete set of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (http://www.warnervideo.com/brisco/us/html/) was just released on DVD.  Now there was a good TV series.

This may be old, but the Wiki entry on 24 has some info on the next president.  Sort of interesting and something I didn't expect at all.

Isn't reading ahead on a show like 24 completely missing the point?

Also:  Eureka was good.  I'm going to be watching in the future.  Dead Like Me: meh.  It feels to me like a show that could have been great except for some horrendous miscasting (cept its one of those situations where I can't feel out exactly who is miscasted, but I know its holding the show back).  I'll skip it.

Time Warner in this area picked up Universal HD a couple months ago, which is airing BSG in HD. Now, I'm not a big BSG fan (remember my "Heretic" grief title?), but it brings home one thing that's bothered me a long time:

I want SciFi in HD!

Mostly for Stargates, though. I think the rest of their programming sucks, especially their cheesy movies. Mansquito? WTF.

Triforcer, Ellen Muth, Mandy Patinkin and whoever plays the british-ish white dude make Dead Like Me COMPLETELY worth watching. it's ont of the best shows I've ever seen. Ever.

Also, only 6 weeks or so til the new Boston Legal. Anyone else see the season finale this past May? Fucking brilliant.

Yes. That show is fifteen kinds of wrong, but it's funny as fuck. It's like watching four friends from the Vault Network try to get along with intelligent society, or similarly it's like Seinfeld with cursing and no filter.

It's also $79.95 at Best Buy.  It's a good show, but I don't know that it's $80 worth of 'good' for 27 shows.

Triforcer was in Dead Like Me?

Ha ha The Adeventures of Brisco County Jr. ruled, one of the few shows my dad and I both liked.

It's Always Sunny is great, it's just so wrong all the time.

Loved that show.  Only 65 at mine, you sure they priced it right?

Older shows with limited popularity I'll wait for it to hit the clearance rack.  Picked up The Job complete series that way for $30.

Likely not.  This particular Best Buy has a history of pricing things wrong.  I got Stadium Arcadium for $9.99 that way.  I'll take a look someplace else over the weekend, thx for the heads-up.

BSG season 3 preview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7_ccvhY5-I)

Holy hell.

Edit: I just clicked my own link because it's that good.

Been watching Lucky Louie on HBO. Pretty funny show.

Uhm, pray tell what grabbed your attention? It looked positively awful. More teenage angst with accompanied emo soundtrack.

So you didn't like season 1&2 then?

I liked season 2 better than season 1, but obviously not for the same reasons that the people who made the above trailer think I did.

I don't know what it was, but last night's Venture Brothers had me laughing the whole time.  The pill-popping Johnny Quest was another nice nod & slap at its source material after last season's Race Bannon death.

 "IGNORE ME"


Metalpokalypse I'm not sure on, though. It was amusing but so hard to understand (audibly that is.) I didn't catch all the jokes.  Their fans pride over the injuries sustained and dropping the stage on the crowd gave me a good laugh, though.

Venture: It's pretty clear that first season wasn't a fluke. I absolutely love how they are slowly filing in the pieces of Venture history.  I was hoping Sally would move in with Rusty for a while.  A co-dependent girlfriend would prefect for the show.

Metal: I am getting tired of the 15 min cartoons, just when you start getting interested in whats going on its over.  It worked for ATHF because there is no story, so they can just jump in.  HB:AL works because scripts are really tight.  Last night's metal was neither.  Plus the hard to hear/follow problem, it kinda sucked. But it was interesting enough that I give another look see.

I do love Brendon Small, but Metal wasn't nearly as good as Home Movies to me.

I won't change the channel when it's on (like I do for some AS shows), but I won't be seeking it out or anything.

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to Craphole Island on Oceanic Flight 815 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tni4h7kRb-k)

LOST MEETS THE A-TEAM!

Blade: The Series kicks ass.

I've been pleasantly surprised by Blade.  I didn't like the movies and the potential for camp seemed very high but so far the writing for the show has been solid.  I like all the political machinations; it reminds me of Vampire: The Masquerade only without all the emo angst crap.

Someone should do a review of this show.  I had no idea there even was a Blade: Series!

It's on a shitty channel. I keep forgetting about it.

I do exactly the same thing.  I stumble across a show I like, such as Monk or that new Psych, and unless I miraculously remember to set it to record with the DVR, I forget the whole channel exists.  I've never even stumbled across this show, however.

I'll write a review tonight!

(Springs into action)

Seriously, he already wrote it.  That was some good springing.

I'm tightly coiled.

You can take that however you want. Multiple ways even.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Last night may have been the best episode of Deadwood in all 3 seasons. If not for the ongoing annoyance of the theatre troupe subplot (which, while I love Brain Cox, is slowly killing me), and Jane's long drunken rant about her dream, it was nearly perfect. Al was in season 1 form, leaping off the balcony like fucking Batman to rescue Mrs. Ellsworth, and then later kicking the everliving shit out of the head Pinkerton and then slitting his throat. Good times.


I have also finally been ensnared by Entourage. Jeremy Piven was SO born to play Ari Gold.

Yes, last night's episode was buckets full of awesome and Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown) wrote it! So many great lines and scenes..

Johnny: "Longest a rug's lasted so far.."
Al: "Wu." (as to what to do with the body)
Al goading Hearst after killing the head "brick".
Hearst spitting on EB to make himself feel like a big shot again.
Alma: "I'm going to need to remove my corset."

And Bullock looked pissed. That was a look of such complete fury that it completely unnerved Sol and Martha.

Next episode looks like a "bad times" episode.  Hopefully leading to a waterfall of comeuppance for Hearst.

W. Earl Brown (Dan Dority) played Cameron Diaz's retarded brother in "There's Something About Mary".  That kind of blew my mind.  Not as much as when I was watching some History Channel show on Roman engineering and they had Peter Weller (Robocop) on as one of the experts on Rome.....   I guess he's a part-time history lecturer at Syracuse.

Good episode of Deadwood.  Great night of TV.  I do get the feeling that the whole buildup is going to be anticlimatic.

I've been sucked into Entourage.  Piven has always been entertaining,  but Ari Gold is his niche.  He plays a sortof asshole better then anyone.

Venture Brothers was hilarious.  Brock running around naked (with appropriately placed gray square), covered in blood,  carrying around a severed head....   Trina's goth friend gets propositioned by Dr. Girlfriend to go into the supervillain business.  Hank ("sort of looks like Buddy Holly") and Dean ("looks like Fred from Scooby Doo")....

Oh...

The second season of "Dr. Who" is set to start playing on Scifi in late September (29th?),  at about the same time BSG makes it's return.

Yeah, I saw that too.


He's definitely great at that, but I still can't bring myself to watch that show. That aspect of Hollywood the writers are drawing from just doesn't interest or entertain me. If the show was totally about Piven's character, and everything was done through his eyes, maybe I'd watch it.

That is basically how I watch it. Everything that happens all leads to Ari's reaction to it. Hell, waiting for him to explode is half the fun!

You echoed my opinions about the theater troupe plot line exactly. I like Cox and he was good with McRainey in that scene they did together, but otherwise he could have never shown up and nothing would have changed. I really don't know where Milch is/was going with that whole thing, unless he is setting up some weird Hamlet play within a play thing with Hearst or justaposition on where Al "might have been."  Meh.


The way Al is twisting up Hearst is just a beauty to behold and I'm just waiting for Oliphant to "Go" batshit.

Deadwood was indeed a fantastic episode. The way Milch can have me laughing my ass off at the death of the Pinkerton guy is just beauty. I still don't know where the theatre troupe subplot is going, but I dig Brian Cox enough to trust him with it. Watching him chew scenery is just great. And Oliphant is just showing his acting chops to be exemplary.

Venture Bros. was one of the best of the entire series. Brock and the villains make that show, especially the Monarch. Following on the heels of last week's brouhaha with the Impossibles, which was the next best episode of the series, I hope Adult Swim did the smart thing and signed them for at least 2 more seasons after this one.

Brock diving in through the bathroom window, naked and covered in blood, for some reason cracked me the hell up.

Ummm...  No.

That show has single handedly pushed me far in the direction of cancelling HBO.  With them stupidly killing off a Deadwood season 4, and 2007 being the last season for Rome, I'll cancel happily.  If shit like Big Love, Entourage, and Lucky Louie (I can't emphasize enough how much I loathe that fucking show) are any indication of future programming, HBO just isn't worth the money anymore.

Rescue Me had another solid episode.  Shit hit the fan, big time.  Some good funny parts,  but looks like a couple characters my not be returning for the next season.

Did anyone see SG1 last night? It had a Farscape parody in it that was hysterical.

Ok. I've moved from being disappointed that HBO didn't do anything it could to keep Deadwood going to now being seriously fucking pissed.

Great quotes tonight:

"Reason....  ain't his long suit"

"Woo.  Big man."

They pulled the same crap with Carnivale, and I'm not going to put up with any more.  I get jerked around enough by network TV shows, I'll be damned if I'm going to pay good money to continually get the rug pulled out from under me.  I'll be cancelling on Monday, and I'll just torrent season 2 (which has been chooped down to 10 episodes) of Rome.

Carnivale was pretty decent (and I'm a huge Clancy Brown fan) but Deadwood is on a whole different level. They should have thrown David Chase under the bus two years ago so they could have all that Sopranos money to put into shows like Deadwood.

But....Deadwood has a huge budget as it is. Same with Rome.

People simply aren't watching them, that's all. Don't blame HBO. Hell, they were the ones who had the guts to actually make TV shows based off of ancient Rome, a traveling carnival troupe, a funeral home business, a Mormon polygamist, and the Wild West in the first place --- Which nobody else is doing. If there wasn't an HBO, you wouldn't have gotten any of it. They deserve some credit.

(http://www.threemoviebuffs.com/miscreview/highlander3.jpg)
(http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/images/bb_3.jpg)
(http://www.kartelle.com/actors/spongebob/krabs/Krabs10.gif)

He and I share a birthday.

My point being that Deadwood could have had more seasons, not that more money could be spent on it right now.  And HBO doesn't make its money on ratings, it makes it on subscriptions. Getting people into great shows only to yank them away is not a good way to ensure retention.

Agreed. I was all set to cancel HBO after Deadwood was over. Then I got hooked on Entourage. I should probably just buy the DVDs after this season though; cheaper than paying $15 a month or whatever they are raping me for.


Poor Ellsworth. Didn't even get a chance to take any of Hearst's hired guns out with him. That sucked.

Yeah, I had to rewind that part of Deadwood to make sure Ellsworth got capped. That sucked, because I really loved that character. And who knows how fucking long we'll have to wait to finish the story once the season is done. They haven't specified a starting point for the movies have they?

I loved the direction on this episode, especially the closeups on E.B. and some of the shots of Al. They just fit the situation so perfectly.

Ummm...? Is Rome canceled? I was wondering what the fuck happened to it... They came and shot the second season here (Bulgaria), 'cause it's cheap so I naturally assumed they were at least going to air that. Never really heard anything about it after that.

They trimmed down season 2 from the usual 12 episode allotment to 10 episodes, and it will apparently be the last season.  It also sounds like they'll have to drastically speed up the pace, because from what I hear they're planning on going all the way to when Octavian received the title of Augustus.  He was well into middle age by that point, so we're talking a timeframe of 30-40 years they're going to have to breeze through in 10 episodes.  Sure, they accelerated the timeline in season 1, but not that drastically.  So much so that they're going to have to replace Max Pirkis, because there's no way in hell he'd be able to play a man in his 30's or 40's.

I don't necessarily mind that shows get cancelled.  I do mind shows being cancelled without resolution when I'm paying a subscription to watch them.  And that's why I cancelled HBO earlier today.

Yeah, I never understood the impetus behind the cancellation of things like Carnivale. It can't be for bad ratings, because they don't make their money off of ratings. The only thing I can figure is that someone at HBO isn't happy with the cost vs. profit from DVD sales. Rome I can understand, as it's damn expensive. I wasn't aware Deadwood cost as much but that may be because of all the talent in the cast. It's still a damn shame.

I think it's earlier in this thread, but Deadwood is really really expensive to shoot.  Period pieces generally are,  and the huge cast on Deadwood must not help...  I remember reading something about union minimum salaries for recurring actors/"listed in credits" being fairly onerous,  which is why so many shows have a small stable of main characters with others only showing up enough for "guest" status.

HBO must have some formula they use to calculate ratings as a function of subscribers brought in....

Sopranos, despite not being as good or as popular as it used to be,  still generally dwarfs the rest of the lineup in ratings.

I put alot of the blame on the creator of Deadwood...  David Milch, right?  He knew the show was getting poor ratings for the budget,  and HBO offered him an out to close up the series (6 or 8 episode season),  and he passed.  That's more than alot of networks do....  the fact that he was pushing his surf-drama thing must not have helped him out.

For all that I like Deadwood,  you have to admit the pace of the show is glacial.  This past season,  we spent 6 or 8 episodes with barely anything happening while we had to follow a huge number of plotlines that were just not very good.  Kahn (Caan?) and whatever the hell he was doing,  Jane, way too much Steve the Drunk (reminds me of how much Sopranos focused on Vito), the ultimately pointless Ellsworth/opium/Mr. Ellsworth moving out thread, the theater troop, etc.

The show tends to suffer when they don't feature the actors that chew up the scenery....  Al, the Doctor, Bullock, Tolliver....  And many of the more entertaining minor characters were used poorly or ignored.  Udder is a pretty interesting character,  and plays well off of the mains.  Jane is better playing off of Udder the rest.  Sol Star was massively underused,  and Trixie was given not much real meat.  WOO! who disappeared for most of the season.

Spoilers

Last episode was great, don't get me wrong.  Should have known Mr. Ellsworth was going to end up dead...  every character that isn't an asshole (Al, Tolliver) or tragically flawed (Jane, Bullock, the Doctor) gets killed real fast.  I honestly expect Mrs. Bullock or Udder to buy it some time soon.

I just wish they had cut the buildup down a few episodes and kicked off the climax a couple episodes back.  Even if there was going to be a new season,  I don't see how this one could have ended on anything but an anticlimatic note.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. They cancled SG-1 (http://www.gateworld.net/news/2006/08/istargate_sg-1i_cancelled_iatlan.shtml).

What the fuck? And after the 200th episode which was fucking awesome.  I've been watching that for YEARS. :cry:

It was only a matter of time.  I begin to think Ben Bowder really pissed some exec over at Sci-Fi off.

For a moment I thought it was the expense, then I remembered BSG which has to be much more expensive.  Wonder if that'll survive another year. 

That article mentions Sci-Fi is a top-10 cable network.  Really? The fuck? I can't tolerate anything on it anymore with the exception of BSG, am I missing something here?

Obviously you underestimate the draw of cliched B-grade monster movies.

SG-1 cancelled? Now I'm down to 3 shows on normal cable. Maybe by the time I buy a house they'll have cancelled everything I watch. One can hope. I don't see the Daily Show being cancelled any time soon, but I thought that about Stewart's great talk show.

I wish they'd cancel that shitty BSG. And every movie SciFi has ever made. Mansquito? Really?
And that sucks. I don't think they'll be able to close the story arcs, unless they somehow do it via cameos on SG-A.

I was, at one time, afraid they might merge SG-1 and SG-A.  Looks more likely now.

Carnivale at least somewhat deserved its cancellation.  The last 4 episodes of the 2nd season were a complete mess.


*record-needle-screeching-off-the-track*

BSG is the best thing Sci-Fi's ever aired.  This includes shows with muppets, and belt-buckle headed aliens.

My old grief title was 'Heathen' for my views on the BSG crapfest.

We watched the Spike Lee flick about Katrina on HBO, it was intense. There were four acts, and only act three was a little weak (Spike being Spike), the rest was required viewing for all Americans imo. Make sure the kiddies are in bed, though. Bloated bodies and f-bombs galore.

That's it?!?! (http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/)

Talk about an anti-climax.  You've got 18 of Hawkeye's thugs, plus a midget who's apparently good with a knife, 150 of Wu's chung kuo motherfuckers, and a whole posse of Hearst's Pinkerton's and nothing happens?  The only body in the episode was the scapegoat whore's...  What about Sophia and Ellsworth, etc?

BSG was a shitty political drama disguised as shitty sci-fi.

Gonna have to agree.

IT HURTS MY EARS. I'd be amused to hear what you consider good sci-fi. It'd probably include Nic Cage in some way.

At least you can recommend a good RPG. So, you've got that going for you..

Good sci-fi?

Are you kidding?

On TV?

I dunno, maybe an episode or two of X-Files. The rest was awesome government drama disguised as shitty sci-fi.

I'll try not to be too negative, but BSG doesn't contain many of elements of sci-fi that I usually gravitate towards. I've commented on it's militaristic theme before, so I won't get into that. The main reason why I don't like it is that there's just no sense of adventure, mystery, or otherwordliness to it that I tend to associate with science fiction. I don't feel like I'm being transported anywhere. The BSG world seems to be 100 times less stimulating than my own.

BSG is Vampire The Masquerade IN SPAAAACE!! A notch down from Deep Space 9, and lord knows that was a pile of crap. Last decent sci-fi out there was Firefly, then before that Farscape, but even that lost steam towards the end. Even Star Trek Enterprise was a better show than BSG by far, and I refer to Enterprise as 'Teh Republican years'.

Deep Space Nine had some of the same bleak undertones, but at least not everything was like that. It's Trek -- it can't be too unadventurous or negative, no matter how hard you try, whether you place the characters on a space station, or toss them in a galactic war. Quite a few DS9 episodes were some of the funniest things in Trek, I think. Especially this one (http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/DS9/episode/68242.html). Any of the episodes with this guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Combs) were always great as well.

Please realize that shortly after I conquer this pitiful planet..

I will execute all those who dislike BSG and DS9.

You have been warned.

See, I said I wasn't going to be negative, but now you're threatening conquest.

It's not Vampire the Masquerade in SPAAAACE. It's worse. It's part Flight 93 in SPAAAACE and part shitty Nam flick like Hamburger Hill in SPAAAACE. Sci-fi couldn't be more depressing. And boring.

Secondly, there are few portraits of the universe, life, and cultures around the characters and their war. Few moments of civilian pleasures or off duty storylines -- It's like going to a party and hearing someone talking about their job all night. It's all business and war and bad actors playing space marines.

Thirdly, no Han Solo. Fuck all of the characters in BSG. They're all sheep.

And the ladies...Man, the ladies. Every single one of them (except the robot!!) is so butch, they make Tasha Yar look like Strawberry Shortcake.

(http://online.tvguide.com/images/pgimg/Battlestar-Katee-Sackhoff6.jpg)

A cigar? Are you fucking kidding me?

You know who she reminds of?

This guy:

(http://www.canalrcn.com/images/imagenes/Williamgr)

Third Rock from the Sun is more compelling sci-fi than Battlestar Galactica.

BSG is one of the few sci-fi series I can bare to watch. I've seen some eps of the old school trek, and some of enterprise. I simply can't stomach it, it just gets to fucking silly once they start talking about technology. Also, unless it's comedy, I can't keep the intrest up in series where it doesn't matter if I miss 50 episodes, where there's no meaningful plot advancement at all.

I'm glad other people also hate BSG, it's a fucking terrible show.  I'd cite specific examples but I have blocked out almost all the memories.  The only really stupid thing I remember is the pointless parallel of the flower nuclear girl (http://www.adjab.com/2006/06/12/lyndon-johnsons-flower-girl-ad/) that got killed.  I threw out the first season DVDs I bought (which I only purchased because so many people here liked it) so that they could not be viewed again.

Though I really enjoy Firefly, I have to question classifying it as sci-fi.  It happens to be set in the future, but all of the themes and plots make me classify it as a Western.

And Starship Troopers (the book) was bad political commentary disguised as sci-fi.

Oh wait, no it wasn't. I'd really be interested to see what you think is GOOD sci-fi. BSG is great drama with a sci-fi tilt. It doesn't need "Beedeebeedebee" Twiki to make it good sci-fi.

EDIT: Good sci-fi has more to do with just having "teh futchure" or technology or alien cultures. The science/alien/tech stuff is just a prop for a good story. When it becomes the focus of the story, you have the shitties parts of Star Trek, or the Matrix.

Western motifs, yeah, but I don't see western themes. Still looks like sci-fi to me.

Dune has elements that resemble stories containing the clash between imperial and native cultures, like the ones you'd see in Last of the Mohicans. In other places, it resembles Anna Karenina or War and Peace. In others, the Bible or Koran. The story is set 10,000 years in the future, and looks more like something from the 7th, 18th, or 19th century. There's virtual no space travel, no computers, and barely any kind of warfare outside blades and hand to hand combat. Not even Firefly is that much of a throwback to older times. And yet, Dune is considered one of the greatest (if not "the" greatest) sci-fi stories ever.

Yay, a sci-fi definition argument. The internet loves those.

I think good sci-fi is that which is based on fictional science.

Hey, I'm just trying to have a conversation with Llava. Didn't know it was going to be some big internet event.

Yah.  Fuck.  THIS IS WHY YOU GOT CANCELLED.

I mean....  You could take this season,  cut out all the useless and boring scenes and plotlines,  paste it together and have maybe 2 or 3 hours of decent TV.  And most of that would be Al and Woo. (I'm looking at you Steve the Drunk and Theater People.  Get out.)

The two redeeming moments:  Tolliver gets back to being an evil bastard,  and Al has a conversation with the indian head in the box for the first time this season.

Is Venture Bros. a new episode next week?

He talked to Chief Head-in-a-box before the Dan/Sea Creature fight.

You guys are on crack. That finale was great.  I loved how Cox was basically the Greek Chorus for the episode with his opening soliloquy and was instrumental in getting Hearst to beat feet. His character finally paid off.

Al was masterful the entire episode and Johnny finally got some balls. Utter was awesome in his confrontation with Hearst and his thug in the voting line.

What did you expect? A street war?  They always knew they were outgunned, outmanned and outmaneuvered with Hearst. The shot of Hawkeye's people was hillarious as they were so pathetic.  Rag-tag townies don't get over on someone like George Hearst.  They were always in survival mode and managed to survive. That was all they could ever hope for.  

This was filmed before it was established it wasn't coming back so of course there was no grand conclusion.  Powerful people like Hearst don't get a "comeuppance" that would make you feel all fuzzy. Hell, he died as a U.S. Senator.

BSG is ok but I can't get into it because the pacing is just atrocious.

My problem is that the "Hearst vs. town" plot was hugely watered down by the inclusion of marginal or forgettable plot threads.  The fact that the plot had to come out with Hearst winning meant that you had a...  18 or 20 episode buildup over the course of 2 years for nothing, because of the way the last few episodes were handled.

If you can never use the threat of violence/extermination, then the characters behavior becomes unbelievable posturing for the camera.  If you wanted to emphasize that "surviving=win" then you needed to stress and pile on the characters' vulnerabilities, desperation, slim chances, etc.

If you're going to have a anti-climatic winddown that proves that plot/story is unimportant,  you better have some great characters with interesting and witty interactions.  Season 1 & 2 had the characters and the interactions,  season 3.... not so good.

I disagree that it was anticlimactic. It is more that the characters we rooted for essentially lost, which makes it more of a tragic ending. The final shot of Al scrubbing his floor, literally with the blood of the innocent on his hands was pretty powerful if you ask me.

I also disagree that there was a lack of good/witty character interaction, but that is likely more personal taste/opinion.

BattleStar Galactica news:

September 5th "webisodes" will air.  Evidently they will be through www.scifi.com/pulse/ , 10 episodes total, and will feature events between the second and third series.  Also, a new series is currently in development.  It is titled "Caprica" and will take place 50 years before the current episodes.

My fan boi meter just blew!

Great. Another series. I bet it'll be awesome like Atlantis. Or Lone Gunmen.

In GOOD tv news, new episode of House next week. Also, Grey's Anatomy. I expect Heroes to air in a week or so as well, but whether or not that's good TV or a Colors of Benetton ad in disguise is yet to be seen.

Whats with the negativity lately?  You getting all gothic on us?  I think you just need a hug!

Greys Anatomy.  <snicker>

What negativity? If it's directed to television sci-fi, WoW, or UO MMOGs - I can't really say it counts. So I ask! What negativity?

Did they air the pilot of Heroes or was it some leak or something like that? Anyway, it was boring, dull and uninspired.

House  :heart:

House is to Grey's Anatomy as Hill Street Blues is to Dukes of Hazzard mang.

I think Heroes isn't until the 25th of Sept.

About the Deadwood finale, I don't think it was so anticlimatic as it was not meant to be the ending. They didn't discover it was the last regular show until after it was done. As a setup for season 4, I thought it worked fine. Had it been the last thing ever, it would have been galling.

Speaking of sci-fi on telly: Kirk shot first! (http://trekmovie.com/2006/08/28/star-trek-tos-gets-redone-with-new-cgi/)

I also have my reservations about a BSG spinoff.  BSG is (was?) great, but unless the writers have so much extra energy that they can devote it to another series, it's just going to be Typical TV Writers and end up being the DS9 of this universe.

You mean superior to the show it spun off from in every way except ratings?

I can't have a coherent discussion with anyone who likes DS9.

DS9 was a decent show, and actually went beyond the "solve all problems with completely made-up tech terms" formula that TNG fell back on. Better characters (mostly), better plots, better everything.

DS9 got going once they changed Commander Sisko into Captain Hawk and they gave him a cool ship.  They still should have given him a big-ass chrome .45 though.

REVERSE POLARITY, DAMMIT!

It's a major problem with the series' tempo if they're slow playing the plot to stretch out through multiple seasons/years at a glacial pace without any kind of intermediary plots or resolutions.  If you're a casual viewer,  or if you just don't bother to rewatch old episodes,  you start missing important details from 2-3 years ago that are being dragged out as plot devices currently. 

It's a good way to turn a decent or entertaining series with a continuing storyline into a self-referential circle jerk that alienates the casual viewer.  Look at the last few seasons of X-files, for instance.  I used to watch that show off and on until about the 5th or 6th season when you couldn't tell who was dead or not, and what exactly the sides/plot lines were, etc. without keeping a journal.

I had no clue for a while who the hell Hawkeye was, before folks here reminded me he was Adams old partner from season 2.  And all of a sudden in the last 2 or 3 episodes he became an important figure that got referred to a bunch. 

After seeing season 3 in it's entirety,  I don't have much of a problem with the cancellation.  Obviously, HBO had issues with Milch's pacing and lack of intermediate storylines/resolutions.  The original HBO offer of 6 or 8 episodes in season 4 to wrap up the series would have meant Milch could have parsed out the filler storylines (theater group; anything with Kahn & Tolliver's flunkies; cut back the EB/Richardson stuff, the Joanie/Jane stuff, the Joanie/Tolliver stuff, the Steve the Drunk stuff, the fire engine, the Aunt Lou stuff, etc.) while finishing the main conflicts.

The secondary/tertiary plots are good in small doses,  but the amount of time devoted to some of them was amazing.

Season 2 was better,  with the intermediate plot involving Wolcott that resolved in the last episode while at the same time setting up the season 3 conflict with Hearst.  Season 2 just felt more focused.

Sounds like DS9 where often times the irrelevant subplot would be the main point of the episode.

DS9 as originally conceived had a huge problem in that without a ship they can't really have any adventures other than people invading the space station, which seemed to happen an awful lot in the first few seasons.

In TNG you can fly to some new planet and have wacky adventures, in DS9 the adventures have to come to you.

---

I also had a real problem when they introduced the Dominion and the episode where the Enterprise-class ship gets destroyed. The entire thing seemed really stupid, send a giant ship with hundreds of crew on it to rescue one guy or something like that. I forget the exact details but I remember it being really contrived in that it was some of the dumbest tactics ever. Risk our biggest and best ship with hundreds of crew when we are clearly getting our asses kicked...

What's with "Tourgasm" anyways? I never heard of Dane Cook before, but the audience attendance at his stand-up shows are like rock concerts. Some of these are like arena sized venues. Thousands of people surrounding a center stage with this guy telling half-assed Seinfeld meets Fratboy jokes. And they don't laugh at him -- They scream. They go freaking wild everytime the guy opens his mouth.

And apparently, he's a good and popular enough comedian to have an HBO series that documents the "behind the scenes" of his tour, but not the actual stand-up routine. According to HBO, he's so good that I shouldn't really have to hear his jokes at all.

The actual concert is on HBO tomorrow night.  Here's an interesting take on him:

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2006/09/03/dane_cook/

Amazing. I could have probably written that same article word for word. Must be some "shared experience" thing for people who don't like Dane Cook, in the same way Cook shares complete and utter bullshit with his audience.


Though I would disagree on the point that HBO is forsaking other interests. They've also been good to Bill Maher (something like 4 specials, as well as the fantastic Bill Maher Show). He is everything Dane Cook is not.

I remember hearing about Dane Cook recently and I thought to myself "is that the same guy they show of 4 year old repeats of premium blend on Comedy Central who does the routine about the ex-girlfriend from Aliens? WTF!"

His "humor" is horrible. I think he just plays to the college crowd who go for "the experience" more than any real value. I was really confused when I started hearing about how popular he is now, since he's just a jobber with zero talent.

You guys are full of shit.

Standup comedy is one of the things I'm really into, and I have a lot of it.  Dane Cook, while overrated, is a funny guy most of the time.  He's no Mitch Hedberg or Patton Oswalt, but he's a funny fucking guy.  If you can't see that, you're too old for comedy.

As he goes more and more blue, I feel his act gets weaker, and I wish he'd turn it around and start doing stuff like he did on his half hour special for Comedy Central.  That was him at his best- funny in the same way that Robot Chicken is funny.  "Dangerous If Swallowed" was a good performance, but "Retaliation", while it had some classic moments, was definitely weaker.

Are his jokes political or philosophical?  Fuck no.  He's just up there making people laugh.  If you can't get into that, you've made comedy too complicated.

Most of the press surrounding him, though, is because he's a good looking and young guy, and there really aren't any of those in comedy.  Women want to fuck him.  He gets groupies.  That's pretty unique.

What does that mean really? I don't understand.

Whatever it means, the guy is 5 years older than me. And I'm probably just 5 years older than you.

Granted, I didn't go to college and fratboys come in second on my hate list, but that really doesn't matter. I'm quite capable of being entertained by people of all walks of life. Hell, my favorite comedian ever is a British transvestite who does a big bulk of his act entirely in French -- Without translation at that. And I still find it hilarious. Carlin, Maher, and Penn Gillette are rabid atheists, more or less, while I'm a Christian, and I love those guys. I have every single Richard Pryor album -- and he's a dead black man who once lit himself on fire smoking crack. I have little in common with him either.

Rita freakin' Rudner is funnier than Dane Cook.

I'm really that unimpressed by him. I would barely even call him a comedian, let alone a funny one. I'd like to think that he's just the fortunate beneficiary of stupid friends in high places. Or that he sold his soul to Tony Robbins. I don't know.

Dane Cook really isn't that funny.

Neither is Mitch Hedberg really. For that matter, drug jokes never did it for me unless they came from George Carlin.

It's not a matter of being too old for comedy. It's a matter of not laughing at shitty jokes.

Dane Cook is kinda like Battlestar Galactica.

The thing is, Dane Cook got really popular when Comedy Central aired his half hour special and everyone who saw it made a big deal out of it.  He's in my top 5 for those, easily.  And this happened before he got really famous.  I hadn't heard of him, I saw the special, I made an effort to remember his name and check him out more.  If I got into him then, is it so unbelievable to imagine that other people just agreed with me?  Given that he's been doing standup since the early 90's, is it hard to imagine that he's refined a style that, while it might not appeal to you specifically, appeals to a lot of people?  Because it doesn't appeal to you specifically, does that make him untalented and unfunny?

And it has nothing to do with hating fratboys.  I hate them with the white hot passion of the sun, but I still like Dane Cook.

Him, Dimitri Martin, Mitch Hedberg, Dwayne Kennedy, and Brian Posehn all had fantastic specials that made me want to learn more.

Unfortunately, Dane Cook is undergoing what happened with Ron White- he's getting more exposure than he has material.  Ron White just kept throwing out the same jokes that worked before, and Dane Cook is hastily trying to make up more jokes, with limited success in my opinion but it's selling so more power to him.

Is he as amazing as people are treating him?  No, not really.  But he was good enough to stand out.

(Schild's opinion doesn't count.  The only things in the world he seems to think are funny are Family Guy, "GENTLEMEN... MORE CORN!" and that horrifying Hulk comic.)

You have to admit his incredible popularity is pretty silly. The guy is not any funnier than 100 other comics. He just appeals to the right demographics.

The extreme popularity he has is excessive, yes, as I've said.  But he's good enough to stand out among the crowd.

(Forgot to mention Todd Glass in the list of comedians above.  But he's only really strong when he's making fun of standup comedy cliches.  "My dad was always in the wrong business.  Like we'd call the plumber, '$100 for plumbing? I must be in the wrong business!' Or at a restaurant, '$7 for a hamburger? I must be in the wrong business!' One time I heard him haggling with a hooker, '$20 for a handjob? I must be in the wrong business!' And I keep doing the bit over and over and over.")

Neither is as good as Demetri Martin, though. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=GydbEUAA5Mg)

Man, that show Patton was doing about his tour was pretty good. Except that Zack douche that my girlfriend labelled the 'comedy dementor' (instead of sucking out life like a dementor, he sucked out the funny). Patton and Brian just sitting around laughing about how geeky they are is funnier than Cook imo.

I know taste is subjective, but I don't know how you can't like Mitch. My girlfriend doesn't like drug humor at all and has to laugh when he's on, because he was hilarious. Sure, he's no Carlin....but Carlin is no Carlin anymore. Got too bitter after the FCC battle imo.

I wondered where I recognized Martin's name, from the Daily Show, one of the few shows I watched not cancelled this year. I'm really going to miss Rob Cordry, he was comedy gold. Whenever I see a Hummer I think of 'Cut to my hooptie' and him driving from the back of the Hummer to the front in a compact car.

"The Comedians of Comedy" was the name of Patton's special. Yeah, that was pretty funny.


I liked Mitch Hedberg. I don't see him as a "stoner" act so much as I do a "Stoner Steven Wright" act. And Steven Wright is hilarious. The stoner part of Mitch was just a brand of delivery. Sometimes funny in itself, but not the actual gimmick.

The subject matter of his jokes infrequently deal with drugs.

"I like an escalator, because an escalator can never break.  It can only become stairs.  There will never be an 'Escalator Out Of Order' sign.  Only 'Escalator, Temporarily Stairs.... Sorry For The Convenience'."

I'm surprised you don't like Zach Galifianakis (http://youtube.com/watch?v=OvX3hzYaRmg).  His style is similar to Mitch's, just minus the stoner tone of voice and slightly more absurd.  The first three minutes or so are a bit weak, but once he starts doing his characters I crack up, and most of the jokes with his piano are gold.  I didn't get to see all of Comedians of Comedy, unfortunately, so I didn't get an impression of him on that, just from his half hour special.

Patton Oswalt had a special previous to Comedians of Comedy, just a standard half hour (maybe an hour, can't remember) standup performance.  His Facts About Midgets are priceless.

Come now. That's not even remotely all that I find funny. But let's just take a long look at the comics discussed here.

If we were to make a tiered list, would it look something like this?

A. Robin Williams, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Seinfeld, Richard Pryor, etc.
B. Jon Stewart, Lewis Black, Dave Chapelle, Chris Rock, Pauly Shore's Dad, Stephen Wright etc.
C. Everyone else.

I know. That list is entirely unfair. I gerrymandered it. No one has the balls to drop Chapelle in the same category as Cosby. No one is going to say Stewart is a better satirist than Carlin (though he may be, but Carlin had a much better vocabulary being a linguist and all - also, Stewart is kind of a pussy). And most certainly Hedberg, Cook and the like are not going to be placed in the second category because - while they may write their own jokes - none of them are completely original. And none of them are even remotely near as funny as say Chappele or Black when they're "on."

That said, what a bunch of third tier fucking predictable daytime comedy hacks. Keke.

I know,  I'm just being a smartass because you don't like Futurama or the Simpsons and I don't understand that, but whenever I've been around you you're laughing most of the time so you definitely find something funny.

By the way, I changed my avatar to St. Augustine in reference to us going to Austin.  Still available are Stone Cold Steve Austin, Austin Powers, The $6million Man Steve Austin, and way more I'm not thinking about.  But no one's going to do this but me, are they?  Hrmph.  Fine, I'll just be the only cool one then.

Uhm, what? Not to rush to some patriotic defense of Stewart, but at least he's ruffled enough political feathers to get news media coverage. Can't say the same for anyone else on that list.

Heh?

I thought I knew a lot about Augustine....Didn't realize Austin was short for it. And I'm ashamed that an atheist did.

Anyhow, I could meet up with you guys, y'know. If you dare.

[edit]

Speaking of Texas and Comedians:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNzQEQjfYog (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNzQEQjfYog)

You know what, you are probably right.  I think my problem was that I started watching it from the start, before TNG went away, whereupon DS9 magically got better.  Not better enough for me to give a shit about Emotionless Alien #3 and O'Brien's marital issues with his shrew, and I really felt no compassion for how hard it must be to be a single father in charge of a space station.

Hedberg was funny.

I think he's confused with Florida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine%2C_Florida). I've linked Old Three Hundred (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/OO/umo1.html) before, it's this guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_F._Austin)'s doing.

Yeah, I knew Austin was named after Stephen F., but apparently, the "Austin" name itself is a shortened/Anglicized? version of Augustine.

There was a St. Augustine of Canterbury some 200 years after the original St. Augustine of Hippo. Somewhere along the line, the Canterbury guy became known as "St. Austin". Either for linguistical reasons or to differentiate from the original Augustine. Could be the same deal that happened with "St. Anselm". There's the original St. Anselm of Canterbury (widely known for the Ontological argument), and another St. Anselm -- Who's better known as St. Elmo (patron saint of Muppets and shitty Rob Lowe flicks).

Also, the monastic sect known as the "Augustine friars" is also called the "Austin friars".

Yes, that's the etymology - from the old French contraction Aousten of the Latin Augustine. But it's a bit of a jump to throw in the old Hippo as the source of Austin. You could as well choose Octavian.

You give me way too much credit.

I went to Wikipedia.

I looked up 'Austin'.

I picked one of the options listed on the disambiguation page.

I liked this better than the others one I recognized.

Just limit an image search. (http://images.google.com/images?q=austin+-texas+-tx&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images) But, yeah, nice cleric.

(http://austinhealey.com/gallery/3003/falawn.jpg)

(http://www.austingtr.com/images/products/AU850N_large.jpg)

(http://www.netglimse.com/images/celebs/bio/sn_deniseaustin.jpg)

My favorite was the universal air chest. Oh, its the one below.


[ Edit: removed image link for password protected page: ]

http://www.austinorgans.com/images/logo-new.gif

I think you've invented a new term. We've all heard of airheads, but the new class of airheads, the botoxed and blimp-chested versions...airchests. I like it.

Or airthreads.

I'm a big Deadwood fan, but they did have an unwieldy number of characters for what they were trying to do.  The actors, for example.  I know the point is to show that Deadwood is becoming a real town.  And Giving Al a friend to play off of was a useful device.  But why spend so much screen time with the other actors and their relationships?  I just wasn't feeling it.  Then you have perfectly interesting characters like Joni and Tolliver who just kind of didn't get used much at all for the first half of the season (Joni) or all of it (Toliver) except for forced scenes here and there that amount to little more than "remember this is a character, we might use him/her again sometime so we don't want you to forget him/her."

The one thing that really bothered me was how every single female character on the show turned into a weepy, irrational coward by the end of the season.  Calamity Jane spent most of the season cowering from Tolliver and avoiding getting involved in the brewing battle between the town and Hearst.  SHE'S GODDAMN CALAMITY JANE.  CALAMITY.  Not "shrinking violet Jane."  If Utter was going to plug some deserving jackasses, she'd be there.  The same is true of Trixie, who was portrayed as pretty clever for two seasons and then suddenly loses her head, takes off her shirt (of course!) and shoots Hearts with a pop-gun in the least vulnerable spot imaginable, and then collapses into a sobbing heap.  That's just not the Trixie I've grown to know and love for the past two seasons.

Still a great show, just those two things got on my nerves.  Looking forward to the two 2-hour episodes to see how they finish it up.

I agree with what you said. I think they wasted the entire interlude with Tolliver and the preacher. And Joni was traipsing through the plotline like she wanted to do something, but just farted around to no avail. I didn't mind the Steve plot too much, but it just seems the whole season meandered way too much and wasted a lot of good potential. Maybe it's a good thing it got cancelled.

Was that a Hedberg gag?  If so, I unknowingly channeled him.

No, I am just too lazy to quote people.  My wife hates how I start talking about something without giving context, but that's just who I am.

Nice avatar, just when I think you've gotten a super lawyer avatar, you find one that is superer.

Heh. Thanks. For some reason while I was arguing with some people online (not here) that sketch popped into my head. It is one of my all-time faves. I have a special place in my heart for Cirroc, but Nathan Thurm fits my view of lawyerdom at the moment.

For the Brits - you lucky bastards:

BBC4 TV Stiff Weekend  schedule

BBC FOUR Week 37 / 2006       
Friday 15 Sep

21:00 Ian Dury On My Life - 60mins Stiff Night   
22:00 If It Ain't Stiff Part 1 - 45mins 1 of 2 Stiff Night   
22:45 Stiff At The BBC Part 1 - 30mins 1 of 2 Stiff Night   
23:15 2nd House:So You Wanna Be A Rock'n'roll Star - 80 mins Stiff Night   
00:35 The History of the Pub - Time Shift - 40mins Stiff Night   
01:15 If It Ain't Stiff Part 1 - 45mins Repeat                     
02:00 Stiff At The BBC Part 1 - 30mins Repeat

BBC FOUR Week 38 / 2006
Saturday 16 Sep

21:00 Stiff At The BBC Part 2 - 60mins 2 of 2  Stiff Night 2 
22:00 If It Ain't Stiff  Part 2 - 45mins 2 of 2  Stiff Night 2 
22:45 Young Guns Go For It: Madness - 40mins Stiff Night 2 
23:25 Shane Macgowan: The Great Hunger - 60mins Stiff Night 2 
00:25 Son Of The Stiff Tour Movie - 50mins Stiff Night 2 
01:15 If It Ain't Stiff  Part 2 - 45mins Repeat                   
02:00 Stiff At The BBC Part 2 - 60mins Repeat               

But hopefully I'll be able to get torrents somewhere. :)

Just a reminder that The Wire starts a new season tonight (Sun) on HBO. If you haven't watched this show you are missing out. Although there are recurring characters/plotlines from previous seasons they tend to be rather self-contained stories each season.  However, if you miss episodes you will get lost quickly so hop on board with the premier.

The Wire is possibly the best television show of the last 3 years, with the possible exception of Monk, which is so different a category that its hard to compare. By best, I mean better than the Sopranos, better than any CSI, including Vegas and yes, dare I say it, its better than Deadwood. It makes NYPD Blue look like quaint amateur theatrics.

I envy those people who have never seen it, that they get to see the whole 3 seasons on DVD whenever they please! I want to go back in time, or have my memories deleted so I can see it again. I just finished the 3rd season and I have been down about it, since now I have to wait at least a year for the 4th season to come out on DVD (I don't own a television, I rent all tv shows).

Don't ask what its about, because the topic, wiretapping drug crime bosses in Baltimore, doesn't adequately capture its art. Just warning, tho, the 1st season starts a bit slow, much like Deadwood did.

Pink is singing "I hate myself for loving you" with modified lyrics to introduce NFL on NBC.

I can't decide if this is amusing or the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Watched Heroes last night.

Liked it. A lot.

Can't it be both?

It can and it was.

That's how I feel about The Shield and Rescue Me - which in my opinion are the best shows on television today, maybe ever.

Rescue Me did not disappoint this year - I think it gets better each season.  And I'm so very looking forward to The Shield again.  I've not yet caught The Wire, but I set it up for TiVo.  Need to rent the previous 3 seasons also.

Started watching House, which is compelling.  Wish it was on an edgier network - like FX or HBO.

You know, I totally forgot about The Shield and Rescue Me. They come in close seconds to the Wire. The Wire is just a few hairs better.

Ah crap. I forgot to set the TiVo. Are they going to replay the pilot any time soon?

The show premiers on the 25th of September.  I'm assuming you've missed nothing you won't eventually see. 

I like Rescue Me and it has sustained levels of brilliance but it can also be worthless melodrama.  That we now apparently have to have AT LEAST two tragedies happen at the end of every season is wearing a bit thin on me.

Rescue Me is about halfway between The Shield and Nip/Tuck.

Nip/Tuck is all melodrama and I can watch it for what it is, a male-oriented soap opera. The Shield is serious.

Resuce Me kind of annoys me because it tries to toe that line without really deciding to be either. I can't take the serious parts seriously.

Heh, the Wire makes the Shield look like casual viewing. Don't get me wrong, I lust after both, but with the Wire, I've found myself saying to myself, "I'm not emotionally ready to deal with an episode of the Wire today". It can be dark dark dark, without any glamor or glossing over the horrors of poverty and drug use.

If I ever manage to get a position teaching public administration I am going to include The Wire in my curriculum.

Re: The Wire - Checked my local video store for season 1.  It was checked out.  TiVo'ing season whatever it is now, though.

Should I wait until I'm up to sequence?  Does it matter?

Re: Heroes - is that now on, or is that premiering Sept. 25?  I'm confused.

It's premiering Sept. 25th, but there is a version of the pilot out on BitTorrent sites now.

I'd have to say yes, its worth waiting, simply for the enjoyment factor. The new season will give away a lot of surprises in the first 3 seasons. In this series, main characters die when you least expect it.

The Wire always kills off my favorite characters :(

Well, here's a site with a breakdown of the Fall Preview:

http://www.bullz-eye.com/television_reviews/fall_preview/2006/home.htm (http://www.bullz-eye.com/television_reviews/fall_preview/2006/home.htm)

My take on a few of these shows:

Brothers and Sisters - don't see myself watching this, it's about quirky grownup family life supposedly. Arrested Development already did that in a better, more insane fashion.
The Knights of Prosperity - I just can't see a show about robbing Mick Jagger having legs.
Help me, Help you - God, Ted Danson looks really really old now. Please go away and stop pissing on my memories of you in Cheers.
The Nine - It's supposedly about what happens to people after a hostage standoff, but you don't actually see the standoff when the show starts. Thanks, but I don't need another LOST trying to fill in the gaps of characters' lives.
Ugly Betty - whoever greenlighted this estrogen-fest should be personally dragged out into the street and shot.
The Class - it sounds like a Friends clone
Smith - great actors, but the premise of a man with a double-life trying to get in one last job before he goes straight? That's really cliche at this point.
Shark - It's got James Woods, it's worth checking out for that alone.
Jericho - yeah it's like LOST meets The Stand, no more clones please.
Vanished - I simply don't care where she went or anything about this show.
Standoff - I keep waiting for Ron Livingston to ask the hostages if they got the memo on TPS reports.
Justice - it's like Law & Order, except meaner.
'Til Death - it could go either way. The premise of two married couples in completely different periods of their marriage is solid, but if the writing isn't sharp it would go from a scathing comedic analysis of American marriage to sheer stupidity.
Heroes - comic book geeks across the US will overload the internet on this one with both the good, bad, and extremely nerdy.
Studio 60 - Matthew Perry in a deadpan comedy role. If you like him, and you like making fun of SNL, this would work.
Friday Night Lights - please, God, no more glorifying Texas Football. I lived it, I went to school in Texas, and it's a pathetic crock of shit. We shouldn't be diefying these rednecks.

I watched the first episode and couldn't get into it. I don't even recall laughing.  I never liked the guy from Raymond, though (Perhaps because I despised that show.  Hand in your balls, Ray, oh wait your mom & wife have them.)  and I keep seeing the young guy and want to yell "Shitbrick"  or wait for him to hit on the older woman.

The show after it - Happy Hour - has gotten very little press and was pretty good. (Smalltown boy dumped by his Hot hometown girl once they're in the city.  He moves in with a Bachelor whose just lost his bacheloring buddy to a shrewish controlling woman.)    Perhaps because the alcoholic drifter lead reminds me of a guy I knew in college, but I found it to be a much better show.

The series premiere of Men in Trees was on last night and I caught part of it. It looks like Northern Exposure meets Sex in the City  -- i.e. cliched already and they are just getting started. I like Anne Heche when she plays comedic roles, though, so I may watch a few of them.

_Standoff_  had an excellent premiere, which in the second show became just another show.  I'm so disappointed; it had great potential - not to mention some of my favorite watchable actors lately (Gina Torres/Ron Livingston/Rosemarie DeWitt), and now it's normal drek.

My thoughts exactly.

I missed the premiere of Standoff, but watched the second episode last night. I liked it well enough, so the pilot must have been really good.

Universal HD is putting on a couple of scifi shows, they're just wrapping up season 1 of BSG. It's not too bad, but I'm still not that thrilled with it. I'm just an HD whore and it's a SciFi show in HD. Wish they'd start SG1 from season 1 in HD!

Sunday the 24th starts BSG season 2 plus Firefly. Just saw Serenity, which was very enjoyable, so I'm looking forward to Firefly.

Anyone watch Supernova over the summer? I like that it showcased rock talent, and I'm glad Dilana didn't win and get stuck playing with crappy Supernova :)

Here is my list of things to add to my DVR. Ones marked with * are my girlfriends shows, and ones marked with a ? and shows I wanted to check out.

Nip/Tuck (FX) Sept. 5
Cops (Fox) Sept. 9
Survivor (CBS) Sept. 14
CSI: Miami (CBS) Sept. 18
CSI (CBS) Sept. 21
Office (NBC) Sept. 21
* Without A Trace Sept. 24
? Heros (NBC) Sept. 25
America’s Funniest Home Videos (ABC) Oct. 1
Lost (ABC) Oct. 4
* South Park (CC) Oct. 4
Rome (HBO) Jan. 7
The Shield (FX) Jan. 9
* American Idol (Fox) Jan. 16

I hope heros turns out good, I like the xmen rip off theme.

Your girlfriend likes South Park and you don't?  Without knowing either of you, you don't deserve her.

I had no idea this was still on, or that anyone still watches it.

I loved the first season of Lost but the second started really badly, I stopped watching about five episodes in.  Did it ever get better?

If the pilot is any indication, Heroes is worth watching.

I love the DVR version of America's Funniest Home Videos. It's about 20 minutes long.

The short answer is yes. The long answer is not until the last 4 episodes. So, the long and short is if you took an average, it ended up meh.

I thought season 2 was great.  Any ep where Eko or Locke had a big role kicked ass.  Plus, more Clancy Brown!

I agree and I like season 2 more because it feels like it is going some place.

Anyone see the premiere of 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip'?

I really enjoyed it.  Good pace to the show, Sorkin writing is never horrible, and I like the parallels to real events (i.e. one character's drug addiction, like Sorkin). Anyway if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

I think Perry and Whitford will make a good team, hopefully they keep up the momentum.

I like South Park, but not enough to add it to my DVR list. For me its more of a watch it when its on and I have time show.



I love watching Cops. I get a kick out of seeing the white trash people.



Yeah. Also, it makes me feel old when I get excited about AFV. But since the new host took over the show has been much better.

Surprised _House_ didn't make your list.

I cant stand House. Every episode I saw was exactually the same. Some patient comes in with a wierd problem no one can figure out, and then House figures it out on a hunch with no real evidence, then he has to go against the hospital and the family of the patent to administer treatment that saves the patent just in time. Blah.

Fast forwarding past that dopey new host is partly why it's so short for us :)

I haven't given much of a chance to any TV series outside the HBO ones in awhile, but I'll probably watch Smith tonight. A criminal/heist show with Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen has to be good, right?

Also, as a sidenote, Bruce McCullough, of all people, recently directed a comedy with Liotta in it. Not sure when it's being released though.

Yeah, but its the host who does the voice overs also. The new guy mostly lets the videos be funny for themselves. The last guy tried to *make* all the videos funny with wierd voices and stupid shit. If you watch one of the older shows now, its painful compaired to the newer ones.

Yeah I saw it. Has promise. I thought they were trying too hard with the dialog. The odd thing about the show is that it's supposed to be about an SNL-type show but there was very little humor -- i.e. it's a drama about a comedy show. The next episode may be better in that regard.

Matthew Perry was addicted to Vicodin in RL as well.

Yeah they do make a good team -- it definitely feels like they've been buddies for a long time.

Studio 60 will be good shit. I enjoyed it.

I understand what you are saying but I see it more like Sherlock Holmes' "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." They have all the symptoms so they do have evidence but after they rule out all the conventional diagnoses all that remains is the improbable one.

Heh.  Every episode, my husband says, "I bet it's caused by a tick!"

I love House.

We blame Epstein Bar syndrome when every episode starts.

(http://www.roberthegyes.com/kotter9.jpg)

Funny, when I watch house I'm always thinking it's a fun game of "Find the Tumor."

Copper.  Watched two episodes of House in a row where the problem was Copper.

You'd think they'd pace it better.

House isn't about the illnesses, or the mystery. House is about watching these characters grow through shit in the context of the diseases. House could be about sewage workers trying to find the dead alligator corpses clogging up the toilets of everyone in New Jersey, and it'd still be a fantastic show, because the actors are fantastic and the writing is crisp and consistent. It's also one of those shows that if you only watch it once, and out of order, you'll be missing all the context that makes it worth watching and it will just look like "disease of the week" TV.

You know my feelings on House.  It's awesome.  But the point still stands - Pacing of the problems could be better.

And some of them are really and truly awfully disturbing.

(Favourite Episode was the Lecture Hall One.)

The pacing of the illnesses on House are just an artifact of the format. If there were any sort of sense applied to them, each one would stretch across several shows.

Just caught Smith and Studio 60, both were decent and worth a watch.

Smith reminds me of Heat which is always good and I'm interested in where the characters are going.  Also makes me wonder whatever happened to that show Thief.

Edit: The Wire ruins all other cop shows.  Be careful if you watch it.

Caught Studio 60 last night on TiVo. I really liked it (but I have a hetero man-crush on Aaron Sorkin, so that was to be expected). The casting was mostly good, but I couldn't get over the fact that Amanda Peet appears to have 10-15 extra teeth in her head. Chandler and Josh Lyman look like they will make a good team. I hope they get a chance to bring Judd Hirsch back at some point- I liked his character a lot.

It got shitcanned after the first season finale.

I like the premise/concept of Smith. However, the instant I heard "from the Producer of The West Wing and ER" I instantly abandoned all hope. Not sure I will bother to even check it out.

Thief didn't live up to it's promise for me.  Started off great, then fell apart.  I don't know what happened; it's as if they got a whole new team of people or something behind the scenes.

I won't miss it but I hope to see the actors again in other interesting shows.  They were great; just not given much cohesion.

Friend had taped it and I watched it last night. Much better then I anticipated.

Heroes definitely has some potential, but it might take a while to get there. Too many characters, too little exposition to tell me wtf was going on. I don't get Ali Larter's power at all (other than to be continually cast as a hot girl when she is actually a butterface). Is it a split personality? Does she have a ghost twin that fucks people up?

All in all I still found it intriguing enough to Season Pass it. God bless TiVo.

I dunno, I didn't like Heroes much. I'm going to give it another shot and DVR it next week, but it's On Notice. I'm glad Universal HD picked up Firefly, that's a good show. They're going to air the Dickey Betts show on HDNet again, for those that have that channel. His band smokes, and he's upgraded his second guitar player (on tour, not in this show) to Andy Aledort, the guitar magazine guy. The Stargate cliffhangers leading to the season ends were both great, I can't believe they'll cancel SG-1 now that it's back in full swing. Ah, well.

Dwight got a hooker!  :-D

LMAO! I wish that was a one hour episode- so much more they could have done with that situation, Michael's 'party', and the rest of the convention.

Heh... pretty much the only thing I watch now is The Office and Venture Bros.

S60 was solid again last night. Amanda Peet is slowly growing on me in her role, and I think Steven Weber is great playing a corporate stooge. Once we get to know the characters better it will really be fun.

TiVo'ed Heroes, but haven't had time to watch it yet. Still have high hopes...

Heroes was very good last night.  Writing looks good so far.

Speaking of good writing, it seems that Blade isn't going to be renewed for a second season.  I guess Spike TV couldn't find any room in their schedule for a well written show, what with the eleventy billion CSI reruns they play every single night.

Has anyone seen Smith?  The description makes it sound like it's a rehash of Thief, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  Haven't had a chance to watch it yet though.

Blade got shitcanned? Bit of a shame considering the cliffhanger they left it on. But really, it wasn't a show about Blade, it was a show about a bunch of vampires that happened to have Blade in it. And it was more like Blade-lite than actual Blade. Or Blade 3-era Blade.

I finally caught the season(series) finale to Thief the other night. That show started with a good bit of promise, but the wheels really came off in the end. The whole subplot with the daughter was interesting on paper, but it just seemed to get in the way of the story rather than deepen it. The same goes for the Chinese assassin subplot, especially when he kills his boss. If the whole point of his pursuit of the main character was to save face for Uncle Lau, why kill him or his annoying nephew?

That sucks about Blade. Maybe sci-fi will pick it up or something like that.

They really blew it with the pilot, which was terrible compared to other episodes. It was nice to have a fresh genre-fiction voice amongst the Stargates and Whedon-projects of the world.

Enjoy it while it lasts, it's sinking fast in the ratings. My problem with the show is that it's not nearly as well cast as The West Wing was. Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet and Steven Weber are all good but all the cast members are incredibly uninteresting including, sadly, D.L. Hughley.

http://hughley.ytmnsfw.com/

Over the weekend I discovered that SciFi is now showing the Tenant episodes of Doctor Who, and of course I have removed the thingy from my Tivo since it seemed to want to continue recording the Eccleston episodes... dammit.  Now I will have to either wait until they start showing them again or torrent them.  Bleh, I guess it's Torrent Time for me.  And BSG starts up again this week, no?

Yep. Seems America isn't as interested in being smugly told how bad TV is as I am  :evil:

Watched the 2nd ep of Heroes. Wow. That is some dark shit. It is kind of giving me a Lost feel, in that they feel the need to show several minutes of scenes from previous episodes to catch everyone up. Hope that doesn't continue- that just bugs the hell out of me.

Heroes was real good. I imagine they are probably going to continue with the "previously on" type of scenes, because the continuity is going to get pretty complex. There are what, 7 major characters, each with a set of minor characters who have their own subplots, as well as the "villain." That's going to be a lot to catch up on for a new viewer.

The resemblance to the Lost format wise is striking.  We have come a long way since Babylon 5.  If I like a show, I don't mind recaps.  It is better than the episodic format.

Heroes is nothing like Lost. Lost had no clue where it was going. Just when it couldn't get more ridiculous, it raised the bar. Heroes on the other hand seems to know EXACTLY what it's doing. There are multiple, very clear and very present dangers. They come in the form of 2 supervillains and 1 g-man. The groups and their motives are well-defined. Also, they've created the ULTIMATE storyline character. You have a guy who can jump Into The Future. That's right. He sets up the story arcs. He's Spoiler Man, he tells you how it's gonna be, and it's fucking brilliant.

Well, and the painter guy.

Best shows on TV right now:

1.) Weeds
2.) Gray's Anatomy

I have heard good things about Weeds. If the show was called Izzie's Anatomy and was on HBO (to provide numerous glimpses of said anatomy), I would be far more interested.  :heart: Katherine Heigl...

Storyline driven TV in a 22 or 26 episode format sucks.  Catching a show every week becomes a necessity,  rather than a joy,  and the storyline tends to get either MASSIVELY dragged out (Firefly, most Whedon stuff)  or so convoluted that it's impenetrable as the run progresses(X-files seasons 5+).

I refuse to watch anything with an ongoing storyline of more than 13 episodes in a season.  Rome, Sopranos, Rescue Me, etc.  all tend to have ongoing stories,  and wrap them up well and on time. 

Deadwood would have been in that last group if season 3 didn't seem to drag it's feet so much.

Heroes is great. I'm sticking with it.



Until it gets canceled, of course.

No, it really isn't. Grey's Anatomy is just ER with more sex and less medical stuff. It's painful to watch. You want a good medical drama? Watch House.

Also, Eureka's season finale was last night and it was damn good. That show has consistently been pretty brilliant and if Sci-Fi fucks it over, they deserve to be trampled by Sodomites.

I've only ever seen the premiere episode of Eureka and that season finale and I liked em both.  Hell if sci-fi decides to actually show the rest on rerun, instead of all the bug-of-the-week-movies-crap, then I will definately watch them. 

I've been watching it occasionally.  It's Northern Exposure meets X-Files, and a pretty good show.  My life is too stressful at the moment to do much else.

Wiki link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_(TV_series)

According to Wiki,  it's picked up for a second season as well as being broadcast in the UK.  I vote for an Ironwood review!

Edit:  Bah,  get to the end of the wiki story after writing this and they make the Northern Exposure comparison.

I couldn't agree more. I've loved her ever since she was in that movie on the Disney Channel. Mmmmmm...

I'm liking Shark.

I want to work in Jim's new Office, though I'd get them to play BF2 instead of CoD.

Crappy work computers could probably only handle CoD.

I think The Office is the only program I actually bother to watch on TV, I'll watch My Name is Earl but mainly because it comes on before The Office.

That was a great episode.  Him running around trying to kill people with the smoke grenade, the emergency meeting, getting yelled at for spawning as a sniper, heh.

Coworker "Why did you do that!?"
Jim "I'm just trying to kill the Germans."
Coworker "WE'RE THE GERMANS, SHOOT THE BRITISH."
Jim "We're on teams?"

Smith is gone. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061007/tv_nm/smith_dc)

BSG was awesome.. and then they ruined part of it in the 'this season on BSG' trailer.   :-(

James Woods rules so there is a limit to how bad Shark can be. Hell I'll even watch John Carpenter's Vampires.

How many movies has Woods been in where he wasn't the best actor by far?

Casino maybe? And even then, I'm not sure about that. At the very least, he was just as good as Pesci and De Niro. None of them were as good as Sharon Stone.


Anyways, I like him too. Didn't realize he was in a new show.

I wanted to see this, but have managed to miss EVERY SINGLE EPISODE so far.  And it's been on for a while.

I guess I'd have to do something about that to do a review.

Or I could just assume I'd hate it like the rest of existence.

:P

I laughed so hard during that sequence, my fiance seriously thinks I am retarded now.

After catching up with the premier I had on DVR I can firmly say without reservation that BSG is robot fucking Jesus.

Hi.

Is there a show that started this year where the moon has exploded?

Don't do a search for that. You'll regret it.

Don't diss Space 1999 bitchcakes.

New best Venture Bros. ever!

OH YEAH, WHAT THE FUCK?!  Jesus.  God damn them.  Way to screw it up, jackoffs.  Still, BSG gets eleven thumbs-up.

The Call of Duty section of The Office was, alone, approximately as game-funny as the entire Southpark WoW episode.  Hell, just the part where his boss called the emergency meeting was as game-funny as anything.

Moon exploding?  What?
(http://www.thundarr.com/thundarr/trio.jpg)

The meeting part was awesome. On an unrelated note, I decided to set up a season pass for Heroes today, have I already missed too much?

Download the torrents of the first two episodes.

Considering torrenting Heroes as well.  But I have some Doctor Who to catch up on, and Final Fantasy VII isn't going to play itself.

Yes. Heroes is going to be heavily continuity dependent, and if you haven't caught it from the first episode, you'll miss a lot. But it's worth it to find the episodes. Do it now.

BSG was fucking awesome. They pulled it off. I thought for sure advancing the timeline like that would fuck them up, but it's actually freed them to do some interesting stories. I was a bit disappointed in the overly-obvious references to current events (suicide bombings, torture, etc.) as I felt they were a bit too heavy-handed. But other than that, a great start. The whole Kara stepford wife thing was freaky.

Bones continues to be fantastic. I was worried about the change in directors, as I liked the old guy, but the new chick has a different dynamic that hasn't screwed up the show, just pushed some relationships in different directions.

I may be in the minority here now, but I still think Lost is pulling off a good season.

Also, watch the Nine. I was skeptical of the show and don't know if they can pull off a full season, but I liked the pilot a lot.

It's about one hundred times more freaky if you have a child.  Just saying.

I'm fine with the social commentary, that's the purview of sci-fi after all.

I agree, I just thought they were a bit heavy-handed with it.

What ?

They removed one of the characters, the head (or director) of the Jeffersonian Institute (said he was on sabbatical for two months) and put in a new character (Cam) who was over Bones and her team. She's very direct and abrasive, and comes from a police background. I liked the actor and character of the old director, and wasn't sure about the new chick. But she's worked out well, pushing the relationships in unexpected directions.

I just didn't want to write all that, because if you've seen the show, you'll know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't seen the show, you should.

Um, No.  Please Dear God No.


Please tell me you're not talking about Bones, the show about reconstructing crappy crimes with a supercomputer while Angel looks on with puppy dog eyes ?

'Cause if so I watched the whole first series while my wife dribbled over Boreanaz and all I can say is it's the worst and most moronic show I've ever, ever been subjected to.

Say it ain't so.

I finally caught up over the weekend and watched The Office and Lost.

The Office-
Just HILARIOUS. God that show is good. Although Jim can no longer be my hero if he sucks at FPSs. Nothing is more annoying than a n00bler with a sniper rifle (and a smoke grenade!). Obviously he is going to start dating the woman behind him and then Pam will pine for him and it will be a reverse of the past 2 seasons. I am fine with that.

Lost-

Wow. I keep waiting for this show to get boring, but I was fascinated. It was pretty dark watching the heroes get mind-raped into submission/compliance. Also very interesting start with the book club in the bucolic village being interrupted by the EMP and the plane crash. What King book were they reading? I was guessing it was The Stand, which has a lot of parallels with the situation between the crash survivors and The Others.

It is. Don't know what you're complaining about, I like that show. I like the chemistry between Boreanz and Deschannel. I like all the characters. It's like House, it's a show you watch for the characters with the mysteries being window dressing. Of course, House has much better acting, but still. I like it.

 :cry:

I watch it for the gooey bits.

I watch it for Bones (the Doctor). She reminds me of an old flame of mine. Eerily so, even down to the way the hair falls into her face. Of course it could be that emotionally stunted thing, but who knows.

Bones is one of my "must record" shows. It has that X-Files/Odd Couple thing going where the guy, Agent Booth, is the "touchy-feely" type and the woman, Dr. Temperance "Bones" Breenan, is the logical/rational one, though Brennan is much more of a nerd than Scully was. Though it's a forensic show a la CSI I actually watch it for the characters rather than the forensic/science. I like the chemistry between Boreanaz and Deschanel as well and this season they are fleshing out some of the other characters like with the cute romance between Jack and Angela, two of Bones's assistants.

Lost and House are on at the same time.  Going to have to TiVo one on the kids' so I can TiVo the other on mine.

I'm on the fence with Lost right now.  Not as good as it was, but it all depends on where they go.

I've missed BSG completely.  Guess I'll rent it when the DVD comes out. 

Shark - not only stars James Woods but costars Jeri Ryan (played 7of9 and incredibly watchable) and is directed by Spike Lee.  I'm liking this more and more.

The Wire - I rented Season 1, first 2 dvds, the video store doesn't have the 3rd, but they have the 4th and 5th.  I now have 5 episodes on my TiVo from this season, so I'm going to just start watching now.

Pika?  Lost and Gray's Anatomy are on at the same time, I thought.  They moved House to 8:00 on Tuesday instead of 9:00 so they could fit in that horrible missing senator's wife show.  However, the official site says it's coming back at 9:00 on Tues. the 31st. 

Lost and Grey's Anatomy are both ABC so it would be hard to schedule them at the same time (Lost is Wednesday's, GA is Thursday's).

I wish I could fast forward a year ahead so I can buy the entire season of Heroes on DVD. This is the first time in a long while where I've watched a show as it was being aired -- that kind of pacing will not do.

So does Christine, but Angel never seems to get them out.

I don't get the love.  It's like you've all admitted that you like watching  Emmerdale.

Holy shit. Ookii and I JUST had that conversation.

I swear to god if it suffers the same fate as Veritas, I will go off the grid for years.

My mistake, I remember what it is the co-worker was complaining is on at the same time now, CSI and Grey's Anatomy.  I think I also know why Xanthippe is thinking House and Lost were on at the same time; last week Fox showed a House rerun on Wednesday in place of whatever was usually there.

What does Heroes have to do with the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System?

Luck that girl has the power to regenerate because she has a habit of dying. 

I sighed very loudly when that mistake football hit turned her into Linda Blair.

BSG was Cylon Jesus. Lost was good (Jack has a glass jaw).

Tonight I subject myself to more punishment via Gilmore Girls.  Watching someone destroy a romance angle that they spent 6 years building tends to raise the bile in the back of my throat.  At least Veronica Mars follows it up and tends to wash the bad taste out of your mouth.

Veritas (http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/veritas/index.jsp)?  What?


I actually enjoy this show when my system is muted.  Well, OK... tolerate.  I'm not really sure what is going on most of the time, whereas something like Desire is perfectly understandable without sound.

Maybe I'll start calling her the Venture Sister.

That's why DVD's and downloading TV rocks (Heroes is on iTunes and probably illegally available all over the place).

As far as dragging out plot, that doesn't have to happen if they take a lot of time to develop the plot up front.  If they are writing from scratch every week then yes, you get lots of filler, but you just have to look at B5 for how it can be done right.

I agree, and I hope it makes Pam realize how retarded she was. As far as Lost, I seriously think they need to start giving answers to some of the plot lines, but they just keep introducing new stuff. I might have to read The Stand, I think I have that book in my room actually.

Just read up to where they meet up with the old woman, then skip to the end.

I really hope Heroes has 1 or 2 seasons and then says, "We told our story. Thanks for watching." Otherwise it is going to turn into a steaming pile of badness. I have the same fear about BSG in a couple years too.

It has some Steven King-y bits that are annoying, but for the most part it is a really interesting book. I would have loved it if he left out the semi-supernatural bits; the story of the world basically coming to an end was worth telling by itself. Well worth a look IMHO.

I agree on the Stand. The post-apocalypse survival part was great, the pseudo-magical gathering of villians in Las Vegas was stupid. Glad I read it, though. He's written a few good books hobbled by crappy magic plot devices.

The end was a cop-out like the end of the Dark Tower.

The Stand had the same problem that other King books do for me: he starts off with a perfectly engaging realistic story, then cocks it up by totally changing things and going supernatural.  I can also point to Insomnia, although it didn't take too long for the weird shit to get in the way of the startup story.

I probably should have not suggested you skip to the end.  Now I remember the end was retarded.

I accidentally caught the third episode of Jericho, found it intriguing, and watched the fourth ep last night. Having grown up in the Cold War, any post-apocalyptic tale is going to hook me, but it's essentially Fallout 90210. OC of the Flies, Dawson's Apocalypse. They keep *almost* running out of food/fuel/luxuries, but never quite enough to affect them. So there's a bar open, a party at a teenager's house, and everyone has good personal hygeine.

Well it looks like WayAbvPar was spot on. Jim and that girl behind him seem to be hitting it off. He went through so much trouble to get her that big of chips, awwwwww  :heart:

We need a Pam/New Girl oil wresting match over Jim.

Jericho would be better if the whole cast slowly suffered from radiation sickness.

In real life.

Ah, shit. We forgot to watch Earl/Office last night. Sonofa.

Please tell me you have a TiVo to go with your ginormous TV, Sky. Otherwise I shall be forced to laugh uncontrollably at you  :evil:

I keep forgetting to DVR those two shows because we normally watch them in (ecch) real-time.

How can you stand to watch TV in real-time? I get antsy.

I always think that when we are watching it. It's the only couple shows we still watch in real-time. We were at my mother's house monday and it was pure torture watching plain old tv, no cable just the old roof antenna. From suffering through commercials to having no idea what was on other channels, it's amazing how quickly you can get used to the luxuries of modern pay tv.

Even if I want to watch in real time I will wait x minutes/hours and then catch up to it midstream (I do this with hockey games alot). I can't STAND commercials. Although the cell phone one with the guy confronting his friend about seeing his girfriend's # in his friend's phone and then it rings to the tune of "Secret Lovers" cracks me up to no end.

Lost was excellent again this week. Season 2 was uneven, but 3 is hitting home for me. I think there should be copious shots of Kate bending over in every episode, both frontal and from behind. That is just quality TV right there.

There was some cell phone commercial with a mom and daughter doing a bizaroo teen conversation that was chuckleworthy the first time I saw it.

But ohfuck the slimey national committee campaign ads. One is accusing our DA who is running for some office of thinking it's ok to let rapists walk. A guy who spent his career thus far trying to put away rapists. It's nuckin' futz. I love the voice-over guy, though. I want that job, political slime ad voice-over guy.

You missed Earl, Sky?  The you missed a great little montage of all the after effects of  Randy's various breakups.  It was him sitting there holding the 80's cassette player with with "Time After Time" playing through all these various scenes. It had me in stitches.  I just couldn't stop laughing.

/tangent: For a better 800 page Post Apocolyptic book - try Swan Song by Robert R McCammon.

Me too. The only time I see commercials is when I watch football, cuz I HAVE to watch the Cowboys live.

Oh yeah, that would be awesome. I got $50 on the new girl.

I'm completely hooked on heroes now. Bastards.

Me too. Anyone know where I can get the first two episodes? Or will I have to wait until it comes out on DVD?

Still enjoying Six Degrees.

Never even heard of it? A quick review?

Handful of people meet one another through a series of coincidences. It's basically taken from the Six Degrees rule where you know everyone through a minute chain of people (ya know, 6, like Kevin Bacon). But it's actually very well cast. You've got Bridget Moynahan, that guy from Crazy/Beautiful (who ends up being a damn fine actor - tv caliber at least), Erika Christenson, that dude from Rodger Dodger (who is just awesome), and a hdnful of other b-list people who are turning out the performance of their lives.

The story ain't half bad either. I fear though, at this pace, they won't have a big enough reveal for me at the end of the season. There's a couple loose ends I'm already worried about. It's probably the fourth best show on TV right now (tied with Grey's Anatomy). That's not particularly fair though since Heroes, House, and Shark are all above it...

Torrents. I sent you a PM.

I find it obnoxious you can watch the latest episode (http://www.nbc.com/Video/rewind/full_episodes/?show=heroes), but not the previous ones legitimately (http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/). Oh well, they don't really need another solid gold humvee.

Also, I can confirm that BSG is robot jesus. I have seen the light. I held off for 3 episodes, trying to give myself a head start, but after this evening I'm now stuck week to week just like everybody else. I really need to limit myself to watching only box sets.

I actually saw part of that the other night, lol, I didn't even realize that's what it was called. A Gray's Anatomy fan? Awesome, me too. You forgot Weeds, which is definitely top 3. I thought Six Degrees was alright, and am in love with that woman photgrapher. Mmmmm.

Thank you very much. Yeah I don't really understand why they would do that. I can see taking them off when they get ready to release it on DVD, but whatever.

Sorry for the double post, I don't know how to quote two replies in one post. I'm a noob :)

That's why they play two games at once except for the night games, which seem like they go on for years. We tend to gather for the first game of the day and switch between NBC and Fox (who really need to get their HD shit together on Time Warner imo). Bills game wasn't even in HD. I was rooting for the Lions because my buddy is a hardcore Bills fan, but that Losman scramble pass was sweet. Roy Williams had a hell of a day, even if one of the dipshit announcers referred to him as the singing cowboy (who was Roy Rogers).

Siragusa should not be allowed to have a microphone, Shannon Sharpe is also on notice for his primitive grunting.

I wasn't sure the 3rd season of BSG was going to be that great, the first episode was sort of blah to me. Then the second one just rocked.

QFT.

Also, why do the halftime shows feel they have to spend 3 minutes per commercial break, and 30 seconds trying to break down highlights and stats on 5 or 6 games. Fuck, you'd have to be on crack and speed just to try to keep up, and with guys like Bradshaw and Sharpe, it's impossible. JUST SHOW ME THE GODDAMN HIGHLIGHTS. If you have to continue giving out 3-minute commercial breaks, at least cut out the peanut gallery commentary and just focus on the stats and highlights.

Goddamn Heroes.  This is worse than watching 24 on the 'show me more, damnit' factor.

Was trying to figure our what was happening on the subway last night, and damn - I expected it was who is was but the loop they threw in was awesome.

Hiro is the man, and Heroes is the best show on TV right now. I was practically cheering at the ending they threw in there last night.

Also, Venture Bros. 2-parter was fan-fucking-tastic. They took what was a fairly low-key sardonic show and just threw in everything and the kitchen sink. I can't believe Adult Swim actually considered not renewing that show.

Not only is Venture awesome, and the two-parter superb, they love Bowie.  Half his lines were lyrics, and when I pointed out his reply to Brock's direction to start on the second verse, she pointed out that I like Bowie way too much.

Edit: pretty sure the shirtless guy was Iggy Pop but I can't place the other one... although my wife took the obvious one: he's Taco.

Yeah, the shirtless one was Iggy Pop, but the Taco guy? Not sure, but Taco is a good guess. Falco maybe?

Good ol' Wikipedia says it is Klaus Nomi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Nomi).  He was a backup singer for Bowie on SNL in 1974.  Awesome.

I can't say enough good things about Venture Bros. and BSG.

I am worried Heroes will going south.  There has been a few cheesy things and this "Save the Cheerleader, save the world" thing looks more of the same.

Lost is really pissing me off with their refusal tell us who the Others are.

They are the people charged with making sure no one fucks with the equation on the island. Or something (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-eHEYswgK8).

This last Heroes episode felt shorter than the others.

Also, like all of you, I'm really liking it, but I just realized how slow this storyline is developing. It's only now in the 4th episode where more characters are actually meeting and interacting with each other.

And I still don't know what's going on.

Is this going to be an X-Files thing or what (i.e. Mulder still on the search for his sister 6 seasons in)?

The creators of Heroes has already said get comfortable for an epic. I'm thinking more like Babylon 5 than X-Files, since it probably has a structure of beginning, middle and end (or will) whereas X-Files just lost its way after season 4 and never did wrap the story up with any clarity.

X-files last episode (or was it 2) wrapped everything up nicely.  I hadden't caught anything out of the Robert Patrick season, and I was able to follow just fine.   Cancer man explained it all, Scully heard we were all fucked, found Mulder and they waited for the inevitable in a Motel room as Cancer man was blown to bits by an Apache.  The End.

That was not a good wrap up at all. It felt completely unfinished to me. It was like that was the halfway point of the story, not the end. Great, there's an alien invasion in 2012 and we're all fucked. That's it? Weak sauce.

Ok, that video really confused me. Not trying to look too stupid here, but was that released by ABC or something?

I still enjoy Smallville (six seasons going strong).  Season 5 and 6 (so far) seem to be getting away from the "Kryptonite infected angsty emo kid kidnaps Lana and Clark throws him through a wall in the three second window Lana is looking away" theme.  The show has been written well pretty consistently and I've never found a reason to stop watching. 

I stopped watching when they introduced an actual Lois instead of that being Chloe's pen name. I liked that it was Lana and Clark, but you always knew he'd end up with Chloe. The show itself was meh aside from that triangular tension, once they blew that I had had enough.

It was part of some web marketing push they put out before the season 3 began. It was split up into 5 or 6 different pieces and someone put it all together. It doesn't answer a lot, but you can infer a bit from it.

Yep, that's it.  We're all doomed, end of story, fade to black.  Congrats, you spent the last 6 seasons enjoying, not a heroic epic, but a tale of future doom. No happy ending here for you, anything you do is futile.

X-files always enjoyed the gloomy endings.  Just look at the poor Lone Gunmen.


Of course, I'm also one of the folks who hopes when Jordan writes his last book everyone fails, the Shadow wins, the end.  I like dark endings.

30 Rock is showing promise.

Also there's a three hour Heroes marathon on Sunday starting at 8/7c for those who missed them.

Thank you, I'll have to watch it again with that in mind.

Locke is getting ridiculous.   It wouldn't surprise me to see him buy a pet turtle and then in the next scene watch the turtle betray him.

So I see you've hit the spoilers too, tazelbain!

But seriously, there are suckers that fall for everything and therefore get conned more than other people. The Sawyers of this world can smell the Lockes of this world miles against the wind. Thats one of the more believable things in Lost.

We call them Bush supporters.   :rimshot:

Oh, and if a friend comes over, sees that you have a lot of fertilizer and offers to help you blow something up, that's not a time to laugh.

After that subway scene I have decided I shall now refer to him as Hiro Protagonist.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. That shit rocked the house.

I just watched episode 4 of BSG.

I'm in awe.

There's just no other way to put it.

I was actually jumping out of my chair and yelling.  In a good way! ^^

Truly powerful television show.

I will cut and paste possibly the best quote summing up last night's BSG over on TWoP (http://televisionwithoutpity.com).


Amen. Best show on TV? Battlestar Fucking Galactica.

Even knowing what happened, it's badass.   I watched it the second time just to see it again.  :-o

Me too. I never watch the epidodes of anything we DVR really, but I fast forwarded to this to check it out again.

I also like how every other SF show/movie has to come up with this huge justification as to why they have to leave the atmosphere/system to jump to light speed.  BSG?  Hover 5 feet off the ground, jump.  Sweet.

If Michael Hogan (Tigh) doesn't win the Emmy, they might as well just close up shop and forget about the whole thing.

(Unless they give it to James Callis-Gaius)

You assume the Academy hands out things based on merit.

Think he means they should shut down the Emmys.

Which they should anyways.

You corrected Yegolev, and I correct you:

Numtini is a she.

Yeah, that BSG episode kicked all kinds of ass, especially the jump in atmosphere bit. Talk about a nut clenching moment. How do you top that? This season is going to have to work hard as hell to ramp up the tension, because that was just spectacular. I have to tip my hat to these guys. It was a huge narrative risk to jump the timeframe a year forward, even more of a risk to break up the dynamics that existed by splitting up the characters and putting them on the underside of a repressive society. And they pulled it off.

How do the producers of Independence Day manage that? Who thought they had it in them to hire the writers capable of it? Hats off.

Fuck, I keep forgetting.

Girls should stop using the Internet to make things less confusing.

Who are you referring to here? I don't think David Eick, Paul M. Leonard or Ronald D. Moore had anything to do with ID4.

BSG is one of the better shows on TV,  when Olmos isn't on screen.  When he is,  it becomes something mythic.  "Prepare for some turbulence"....


Was running down some Jim Butcher stuff this afternoon, and came across info on "Dresden Files" which is set to air on Scifi in January.

The producer is the guy that brought us Relic Hunter and Mutant X.  <shudder> And Nic Cage is a producer.

Maybe I'll skip this in order to not poison my appreciation of the books.

I was happy that NBC the last three episodes of Heroes tonight, wish they would have aired the pilot, but at least I got the torrent for that already. Thanks guys ;)

BSG + Heroes + Venture Bros. = all the television anyone needs.

Heroes + House + Shark + Grey's Anatomy + Six Degrees + Supernatural = more hours than I have in a week for TV.

math itt

You are correct. For some reason, I kept thinking Devlin had something to do with BSG, and he was completely unconnected. Oh well, still a great fucking show.

The UniversalHD run of BSG is up to the one where the Chief builds the stealth fighter monster-garage-style. I've stuck with it from the first episode and it's starting to grow on me.

I'm liking Studio 60 more. Hopefully it'll get picked up for the rest of the season.

Can we break off a Heros spoiler thread?  I have all four hours on my Tivo and haven't caught up yet.

Or is this whole thread considered a spoiler free-for-all?

Yeah I was just thinking about doing that this afternoon before I stepped out for the evening.

It's kind of hard to make a thread about television shows spoiler-free but I did split the most recent Heroes stuff off on its own.

New Heroes thread (with lots of spoilers) (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8498.0)

What?  BSG on UHD?  Time to find an extra $10 a month, obviously.  I watch The Office in HD, but HD is rather wasted there.

I just saw BSG 4th episode.  My God.

Greatest.  Movie/Show EVER. 

I am in AWE.

By "Movie/Show" do you mean greatest out of any TV movies, or do you literally mean greatest out of any movies and shows?

Like, is it merely greater than Roots and Lonesome Dove, or is it also greater than Citizen Kane and Belle De Jour?

That came off far too serious. Mentioning Catherine Deneuve can in no way be used for friendly jest.

So....

What is the best TV movie anyways?

Back in Community College I decided to take a Screenwriting class, and my teacher made a big deal out of his experience.  See, he'd been nominated for an Emmy.  As a producer.

What did he produce?

Some shitty made-for-TV movie starring the guy from Quantum Leap (I want to say Scott Bakula was his name).

He showed us a clip.  It was Quantum-Leap-Guy crashing a small plane into a lake.

I nominate that for best TV Movie ever.

Yep, it's in the second season I think. Anyway, the ep I mentioned with Chief building the stealth ship was the latest one. They also just started the first season of Firefly, that's a great show.

My film appreciation prof and I used to argue like crazy. We agreed Hitchcock was cool, but he went to school with Brian DePalma and thought he was the best director ever and I was heavy into Kubrick at the time, who he dismissed as a hack. I can't really think of any tv movies, so I'll just say when the Bradys went to Hawai'i.

I think it's the Canadian influence. (For anyone who doesn't know, it's shot in Vancouver and half the cast is Canadian)

TV movies?  Does the Dune serial count?  The non-Lynch one?

No no no, wait... The Man with the Screaming Brain.

Wife and I just ran through the DVD set of Firefly again. She's not a sci-fi fan by any means, but she can't understand how that show "failed" either. Such good stuff.

I am staring to think the name is an issue.  Neither firefly nor serenity gives you much of a clue what the show is about or entice you investigate more.

Another thing, big story arcs.  Firefly had one.  It was pretty good too.  But if you watched only one show, you may not even notice it. Needed to make it more obvious.  And of course if you are going to big story arcs, show the episodes in order. Duh.

The problem with Firefly was primarily the scheduling and how it was jerked around so badly. I am a sci-fi nerd and I never even heard about it until it was off the air from Fox.

Yeah they played the Firefly episodes out-of-order, in differing timeslots, and some episodes were missed (never aired). So what you see now - episodes in order, with a story arc - was not an experience anyone had until the DVD was released, months after the show was cancelled.

Speaking of Firefly/Serenity, are they making more?

Nope. Josh Whedon (sp?) has said over and over again he is DONE with that universe and would the rabid fans please leave him alone, thanks.

He's busy working on Wonder Woman. He should open the license up for books to get all the fanbois off of his back (maybe he already has, I don't follow franchise fiction).

I'd write one.

 You killed Chewie you bastard!

Well, I feel he's learned his lesson. Maybe next time he won't work for Fox and thus CREATE rabid fans who then feel they've gotten the shaft and have to follow him around, begging for more.

I understand Sci-Fi did a bit of gentle checking to see if Fox would part with the rights for new shows (this was before Serenity was released) and Fox said "No". Whedon won't work for Fox anymore (I believe he was quite emphatic about that), Fox won't part with something it suspects is worth money, and I don't think the rights revert to Whedon until something like 2010.

Pity, though. Looked like there was a wealth of good stories there. It's been a good decade for decent Sci-Fi. The latter half of DS9, Farscape, Firefly, BSG, the Stargates, the new Dr. Who... Heroes counts too, I'd say. Even Futurama is coming back. Sci-Fi isn't all technobabble and gadgets (hell, that's the lazy side of it). Good sci-fi talks about what it means to be human. What it means to reach. It's ethics, and humanity, and fucking people and I for one was sick and goddamn tired of it just being phasers and teleporters when it came to TV.

The Lathe of Heaven's gadgets didn't have a goddamn thing to do with the book, anymore than Sense and Sensibility was about how fucking boring Victorian England was. Dune wasn't about ornithopters or sandworms and Childhood's End was not about "Fucking aliens! In spaceships! Woah!".

Goddamn lazy ass writers. I'll take my 13 episodes of Firefly and consider it's death worthwhile if it means future writers have to actually know what the fuck sci-fi is supposed to be because of it.

I've come to the conclusion that Futurama is the greatest sci-fi show ever. I'm glad it's coming back.

Seriously. It seems like my favorite elements and episodes of other sci fi shows is the comedic stuff --- and Futurama is all about being funny. I tend to hate science fiction that takes itself too seriously (I'm looking at you BSG).

And if it isn't overt comedy, at the very least, I like sci fi to have some absurdity to it. Dune (especially the books), what little of Heinlein I've read, Star Trek, Buck Rogers, most comic books, Arnold movies -- all pretty funny on some level.

This might be why I hate fantasy (outside Conan...and some stuff from Warhammer....both of which are funny).

Rule #1 of Showbusiness:

Never leave them wanting more.  Drive off your fans with as much oversaturation as possible. See: George Lucas

(That started off ironic and ended up looking true.)

I don't get that.

Apparently not. Studio 60 getting the axe? (http://www.tv.com/story/6954.html). That's just sad, I really liked that one :(

They did order up 3 more episodes but it's unclear if they will be aired -- last night they showed Friday Night Lights intead of Studio 60 but the Web page says they will be back next week so presumably they will show at least one more episode and then decide.

My DVR was all set to record the office and earl last week, I checked a couple hours beforehand because we went out of town. But it didn't record it. Goddamned technorogy.

IIRC they were re-runs.

I'm not sure what you don't get, but as best I understand the situation:

1) Fox owns the rights to Firefly until something like 2008 or 2010, when they revert to Whedon if Fox doesn't actually make more shows. These are JUST the rights to air new episodes, and only for TV. I think Whedon also has to agree.
2) Whedon owned the non-TV show rights -- so he could sell and produce Serenity. I think Whedon might own the syndication rights. If not, Sci-Fi either bought those rights or paid for the right to air Firefly on Sci-Fi.
3) Whedon won't work for Fox anymore -- period -- so even if Fox said "Okay, I wanna make new episodes of Firefly", Whedon won't do it.

Whenever TV shows, movies, books, etc are being created and sold, there's a shit ton of legal crap. Rights to the show, rights to syndication of the show, rights to toys, rights of first refusal to spinoffs of the show, rights to this and rights to that. Whedon -- when he made the deal with Fox to produce Firefly -- gave up as little as possible (I think he still has bad memories of some of the Buffy and Angel shit).

Whedon has not exactly stated that he has moved on; just that there will be nothing in the foreseeable future.  He did say he would like to delve into the universe more, but in the manner of a movie, not TV.  He stated recently that he would like to do a straight to DVD format with like 12 hours or so of footage, that way he could shoot the whole thing and people would not need to wait for the story archs to finish.  Check out his blog, he is filled with ideas.

But, due to legal reason, he cannot at this time.  Who knows what may happen in the future.  At least Serenity was close to breaking even.

There's going to be some SG-1 straight-to-DVD action to wrap up the Ori stuff, I read on some fansite.

I don't get why they think it's worth money.

I have no idea either. Perhaps they simply don't want to sell the property and see someone else make money on it, but don't want to invest to make money on it themselves. Perhaps they've been trying to get Whedon to restart it for Fox, but he won't play ball, and it's just a big game of "FUCK YOU/NO, FUCK YOU!" on both sides.

Perhaps they're just morons. I mean, their TV executives do seem pretty stupid.

It's Fox. When the fuck have they ever made any sense whatsoever? They throw more good money away than the government.

I think they should cancel Family Guy again.

I really liked BSG ep 6. Those profound episodes with the moody music and editing are unlike any other sci-fi series. Didn't miss the action element at all.

Bravo started airing episodes of Six Feet Under recently, and I'm hooked.  I can't believe I didn't watch this when it was on HBO.  I think I assumed it would be a "gay" television show, and just dismissed it.  It's the first show I've seen that portrays gay people in a way that I not only can stand watching, but actually find enjoyable.

It's also been amusing to see half the leading cast of Deadwood having small roles on the show.

Last night's ep had some seriously hysterical moments.

Studio 60 picked up for a full season (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061110/ap_en_tv/tv_studio60).

I was just making fun of Fox, their dumbass moves and clear inability to tell what their audience wants.

(http://www.jenanne.com/mt-static/archives/20050326trainwreck.jpg)

Men in Trees is moving to ABC's primo time slot for new shows -- Thursday's at 10pm after Grey's Anatomy -- on November 30th. That means that Six Degrees, which has that slot now is either moving somewhere else (perhaps swapping with MiT) or is being cancelled.

American Music Awards. What a complete bag of garbage. The only remotely enjoyable thing was Fall Out Boy, and I don't dig the new pop punk, and their mix was terrible (but then, so was everyone who didn't have a 8Hz bass drum beat). It got bad toward the end when they announce that joker chamillionaire and we just bust out laughing. The presenters were a procession of people I can't abide. Manilow medley?? My lady owes me big time for making me sit through that garbage. Glitzy mainstream clear channel riaa force-fed garbage.

There was literally nobody on that show who I listen to, RHCP won two but they weren't actually in the building.

Yeah I don't get popular music these days but I get to say that cause I'm an old fart. Like that Gwen Stefani "song", for example. Rodgers and Hammerstein must have been rolling over in their graves. Carrie Underwood looked good, though, even though that outfit was a bit odd. She looks like she's been working out. And I'm glad they invited the Dixie Chicks to perform. Tenacious D was a let down -- hopefully the movie will be better.

Edit: "movie" not "move"

Kyle did pretty good but Jables just phoned it in vocally.

Do we have a place yet to talk about the BSG "Fight Club" soap opera episode? I kinda liked it, but people all over the Internet want to kill me for that.

There's nothing preventing you from starting a thread to discuss the show.

No, but we usually discuss it in here. Having been away for a week, and posting over a day after it aired, I was thinking I'd missed something. Seen so much negativity about that episode elsewhere.

The thing I found bizarre was the amount of blood and the vicious beatings, as opposed to actual boxing matches. Beating someone into unconsciousness seemed to be treated like a minor event, among people who are the last surviving members of the human race. Other than that, it was a better episode than I expected it to be and I thought it answered some questions about Starbuck's frame of mind and set her moving forwrads again, but lots of people felt it was a substandard soap opera.

I think Anders and Dee (spouses of Starbuck and Apollo) now stand to become wild cards in the plot if Kara and Lee are an item. What will the scriptwriters do with two strong actors with tough, aggrieved characters? Hope it's a bit more sinister than just making them an item, too.

I liked the episode a lot. When I saw the promos I was thinking, "Ohh shit, another craphole gimmick ep like that noir one or Scar". It managed to work in the boxing framework very well. Lots of little nuances everywhere and some rather biting bits of dialogue.

It's interesting, it seemed like Anders walked away assuming they were still fighting. Dee seems to be a bit more perceptive (can't stop feeling sorry for Dee, I like her). Whether this leads to another attempt at their doomed-to-failure romance?  Who knows, but at least they reconciled.

I liked the episode for itself to some extent (I've seen better) but what I really was hoping for was some downtime, which this episode delivered. 

I think it's a mistake to have the heroes save the world in each and every episode.  Sometimes you have to slow down and have some good old fashioned character development.  I think realizing that is what separates good scifi from more of the same.

So.....They've been airing Rome Season 2 commercials on HBO.

Also, World of Warcraft and Peter Gibbons unite (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT6hKRyZL4g).

I am so stoked to watch the season finale of The Wire in 45 minutes that I invented a 14 foot PVC pipe with a golf club cleaning tool taped to the end Dish Snow-Scrubberoffer.

12 Oz. Mouse must be some project to see just how far one can get away with broadcasting complete crap.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force has also gone off the deep end of suck. Williams Street needs to take a break.

I keep seeing (what seems like) repeats of ATHF. I've missed quite a few though, so it's still funny to me.

More than half of Williams' series are pretty bad though. I agree.

Yeah, the latest season of Aqua Teen seems to have ceded all control to the guy who writes 12 oz. Mouse. It's just 10 minutes of seeing how many times they can say the word "dick" "pussy" or something else offensive without any real reason for any of it. The guy making the rocket ship out of dicks was just retarded. The only episode this season that was any good was the one with the Mooninites and it didn't have nearly the same oomph as previous appearances by those characters.

Thirteen episodes later and they are finally going to start to open a criminal case, next season.  I know it's a slower moving police drama but damn.  :evil:

Yeah, yeah, I know it was more about the kids and school this season.  I actually started watching it because a few of you said you liked it and have since bought seasons one and two.  I'm hoping someone will track down season three as a Christmas present but if not I'll pick it up myself so I can find out how that whole Barksdale thing ended, although it was already alluded to this season.

I always feel bad when people don't watch The Wire from season 1 when I tell them to.

Nah, Supernatural, BSG, and Dexter is all the TV anyone needs. I can't believe none of you people talk about Dexter, I am more hooked on it than BSG now.

About Dexter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_%28TV_series%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_%28TV_series%29)

My Dad keeps telling me about Dexter, but the main actor really turns me off. He looks and behaves like a cheesy soap opera villain. I could possibly tolerate him in one episode, but not an entire series.

About the BSG Airing of Grievances, my wife said it was very soap-opera-y, to which I replied if it involved boxing matches I'd probably watch Knot's Landing.  Character development is good.  Also, my wife never liked Kat.

I didn't like the boxing episode, but I have come to accept that there is going to be a few filler episode between the "OMG WTF awesome!" episodes.

Anyway, This one was good but I loved this weeks pre-view. "Take Baltar, please!"

That episode last night was pretty amazing. That little 3 minute montage at the end packed more substance and plot into it than most shows have in an entire season.

I've caught bits and pieces of Dexter,  was sort of interesting,  but haven't made the effort to sit down and catch an entire episode.  I was mostly trying to figure out where the hell I knew the blonde that plays Dexters girlfriend from...

Very much looking forward to season 2 of Rome,  and really hope my closing comes through before it starts.  The process of buying a house has been killing me, and I'm without HBO at the moment.  I look forward to more Pullo,  Verenus,  and Octavian;  not to mention what a serious asshole I'm sure Antony is going to be. 

Bring back Cleopatra.  Please.

Hate to say it,  but I've really been caught up with UFC on Spike.  Some really pretty good fights there (not counting anything with Ken Shamrock),  and they've made good efforts to add the drama element with the Ultimate Fighter while simultaneously pushing their more charasmatic people and fighters (Ortiz, Dana, St. Pierre, etc.)

Some of what goes on is pretty amazing.  BJ Penn's flexibility and natural talent,  Liddell's intenstiy (that guy's scary),  the power some guys like Hughes and Ortiz show off....

Anyone else think The Lost Room is great.  Maybe I am just a sucker for Fantasy set in the present.

The Lost Room is pretty good.  Helped much by the fact that they went out and snagged some decent actors (dude from Sports Night and Six Feet Under, Juliette Marguilles, Kevin Pollack, Spud from Trainspotting) and a good writer.

It feels very much like an adaption of a Tim Powers book.

She played Darla on Buffy and Angel. (for you Whedon haters  he has nothing to do with Dexter, and no other actors from his shows are involved.) She was also in an episode of Supernatural about a faith healer. (My girlfriend told me who she was, I was going "she looks vaguely familiar".)

I highly recommend Dexter if you have Showtime. It has beat out BSG as the best thing on TV IMO. They somehow manage to balance intense and humorous at the same time.

So, BSG is moving to 10pm/9c Sunday.  What kind of time slot is that?

Pretty good midseason cliffhanger.  Though it's pretty clear that the nukes won't hit the ground, given the fact that the preview shows people on the ground still alive, which sort of dampens the hanging part.

I think The Passage (previous episode) was one of their best so far.

A fucking shitty one.  I'd actually be angry about it if I wasn't using TiVo.  The question I have is, what is going to be on Friday night now?  Extra SG-1?  That show is a pox upon our civilization.


I can't watch those upcoming-scene segments.  They just fuck up everything.

Isn't Sunday considered a better time slot than Friday evening?

Now it will be in the same time slot as Adultswim's 9:30c slot where they have been putting their flagship shows.  I hope I don't ever have to choose between BSG and Venture Bros.

I think the Dresden Files?

Generally speaking it is. BSG may have a skewed demographic with nonstandard viewing habits since it's a Sci-Fi show and it's on cable but for a typical network broadcast show moving from Friday to Sunday would be a huge promotion like when Fox did that with X-Files.

Dresden and BSG are going to be on Sunday nights, either the 8-10 slot or the 9-11 slot.  I'm not sure what's being left on Fridays.

Friday (and Saturday) nights are fucking killing grounds for TV shows, in general.

Anyone else notice how piloty The Lost Room left it's ending?  Are they just fishing for a part 2 mini,  or was the network thinking of trying to produce a series?

That would be pretty interesting.

I haven't watched it yet, but Lost Room was built as a pilot type of deal. Sci-Fi does own an option for a series.

I think the Riverworld mini was the same deal.  Too bad that didn't catch on.
Given the lack buzz about LR, I doubt it will be picked up either.

Now that I think on it, I agree - Sunday is a promotion.  It's hard to remember what it's like being the sort of person that does ... stuff... on Friday nights. I'm domesticated.

On an unrelated note, I came back a day later to check and see if anyone had responded to my BSG post.  I was still the last post when I checked the thread, but by the time I returned to the forum, Yegolev had posted! Eerie...

(I was too lazy to make note of it then, but I hereby attach this interesting coincidence to this post as a rider.)

Weekends...  keke.

I didn't even realize that BSG was in the dreaded Friday night slot. Up here it plays on Saturdays at 6:00PM. Thank noodlies for DVR.

The Passage did impress me. As soon as the episode started I had it pegged for a generic filler episode. "Oh my god will she make it?!? Yep she did." type stuff. They suprised me with how it went.

Bah. Unless you have SciFi in HD or have a burning desire to view shows brand-new, just watch it on UniversalHD (again, if you have that option). HD BSG is friggin great, like the ep where they faced Scar in the asteroid field.

Yep.  Excellent, excellent show.  I like the fact that they really haven't tried to "humanize" the character.  He's a flatout sociopath, and you can never really forget it.

Oh I don't know. He came across as pretty humanized when his girlfriend gave him that little surprise a few episodes ago. :)

Finished the Lost Room the other night. Wally kinda made the show for me. The ending was far too weak though. Also, did they want Dakota Fanning and just couldn't get her?

The objects thing was totally cool when they were talking about them. Dark and hilarious. But the total package was just unbelievably meh.

I think I'm gonna watch Taken for the 4th or 5th time though. That's a miniseries that just doesn't get old (for reasons I can't quite put my finger on).

I've been enjoying 4400 for some reason I can't put my finger on either.

I just finished watching the season finale of Dexter. It was just amazingly good - better than any other show I've watched this season. Kudos to whoever it was that first mentioned it here.

Lab geek my ass!

I liked the whole idea of the Objects,  and how they created huge moral dilemmas because they expanded the capacity to act.  Sort of a modern take on the whole Ring of Invisibility shtick.  Generally,  people who had Objects led miserable lives...   not because of mystical curse mumbo jumbo,  but because the Objects freed them to behave outside of societal norms and their actions then conflicted with the characters own moral codes.

Lots of interesting characters,  and good character development.  Would be interesting as a series if they kept the same caliber of writing and acting.

I actually liked Margaret Cho in this, too....  and I think she's terrible in nearly everything she does.

I love Dexter.  It might have been me who mentioned it on f13.  We have a special deal from Comcast because we're new in the area for Showtime, Starz and HBO and I thought I'd get rid of Starz and Showtime, but now I'm keeping Showtime because of Dexter.  I watched Lost, too, and thought it was pretty good.  Better than most stuff I've seen on the Sci Fi channel.  I appreciate when people post about stuff they find on the Sci Fi channel because I never remember to check it.

Scifi is like alot of cable....  Huge amounts of suck/mediocrity with occasional gems.  Farscape and BSG,  for some people Stargate.  Eureka is a pretty good show,  as are some of the things they pick up after cancellation like Dead Like Me and Firefly.

I think Dresden has alot of potential....  fun books, and the author is involved in the series.  For Hoax,  later books add a pretty neat overall storyline going on in the background while they lose some of the very episodic feel.

I'll have to catch up on Dexter, sometime.

Those new Rome commercials on HBO are getting me stoked. Starts January 14. Yeah!

Personally, I find the rise of Octavian and the Cleopatra/Marc Antony story to be more interesting than Julius.

Also, Titus Pullo must die.

No!  Not Titus Pullo!

It will be interesting to see what they do with Caeserian (the kid Cleo had that she claimed as Julius Ceaser's)...   I believe he was assassinated by one of the factions to clear up who was the successor to Julius.

Moving into my new place now, hope I have cable for the Rome premier....

Octavian kills Cleo's kid.

Since it's really Titus' son in the show though, and Titus and Octavian are pals, that will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Titus still needs to die though. What he did to Eirene's fiance was the last straw (speaking of Eirene, I hope it isn't her who does it. She's possibly the only character in the entire series who've never done one thing wrong. A complete innocent. She should stay that way.).

Titus is also the greatest character on the show too. Don't get me wrong. I like him.

[EDIT]

Actually, just about everybody should die. They're all horrible.

You really think Augustus would hesitate to kill off Pullo's offspring?  Not a chance.  And Pullo won't be dying anytime soon.  He's allied himself to the winning faction.  Vorenus, on the other hand, has tied himself to Antony's sinking ship.  If they cover the battle of Actium, that's where he'll likely bite the dust.

I definitely don't think Octavian would hesitate, but I'm curious what Pullo would try to do to Octavian.

Thanks Stray,  couldn't remember if it was Antony or Octavian that had killed Caeser's (faux) kid to clear up who was Caeser's heir.

Octavian and Antony were allied under the Second Triumverate (fuck if I can remember the third partner....  he was really sort of a warm body) after crushing the Senate forces.  Octavian switches sides a couple of times in there,  so it'll give Lucius Vorenus a chance to come on over to the winners.

Octavian is just too smart and manipulative not to see the value of getting Vorenus over to his side.  Vorenus is a popular/near mythic figure in Rome for the rescue of Pullo,  has served/commanded in the Legions,  and was bumped up to Senatorial rank by Gaius Julius.  He's worth about 8 or 10 Brutus' or any of the other conspirators that did Julius in.

And of course,  he's going to be vulnerable to some heavy duty manipulation with the death of his wife.

The third man in the Second Triumvirate was Marcus Lepidus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aemilius_Lepidus_%2849_BC%29). An old supporter of Julius Caesar, but a politician who also had the ear of the Senate. He was also married to Brutus' sister. Octavian eventually turned on him after defeating Antony, but only sent him off to exile.

He also rescued his mother-in-law from execution (Servilia/Caesar's mistress/Brutus' mother).

Kind of odd that they didn't introduce this guy at all in the first season.

I mentioned Dexter a few pages ago because I was hoping to get some of you guys to watch it. It's currently, by far, my favorite show on TV. I sometimes go a week or two before watching my DVRed BSG, but I watch Dexter the night it comes on.

Bah, you Wiki'd it.  No fair!

I kept wanting to say Crassus,  but he was in the First Triumverate with Ceasar and Pompei.

Oops! Sorry about that ;).

Now that you mentioned Crassus, it kind of sucks that they didn't start Rome Season 1 during that period. Would have been interesting seeing the younger Julius and Pompey, as well as Spartacus. We could have had all of that, and not such a quick departure of Caesar for the series as well.

Yah, but then you'd have to show the conquest of Gaul,  the invasion of Britain (twice), etc.

Crassus' son was one of Ceasar's generals for a while,  before he joined his father out east in time to be slaughtered by the Parthians.

One thing the show didn't do enough of:  the casual brutality endemic to Rome.  More than once,  Ceaser condemned one of his legions to decimate themselves...  Or emphasize the very poor standing of women (even noble women) in the society.

One of the reasons why Christianity spread so quickly was that the religion was much more egalitarian then basic Roman society.

Universal HD is a great channel. They just picked up Stargate Atlantis, I'm assuming to fill the gap now that season two of BSG wrapped up (I think - the crazy two-parter about the election and New Caprica). I really hope they get the new seasons, BSG was made to be viewed in HD. How far did Firefly get before it was cancelled? I mean seasons, no spoiling please :) Time slot for SG:A was Thursday 10pm, not sure if that's going to be permanent. They also picked up Surface, I'll DVR the first few episodes to replace my Firefly viewing time if it's not too bad. Surface ep1 is on Saturday (and then repeated ad nauseum for some reason).

Also in HDland news, InHD2 disappeared :( but was replaced by Music:HD, a conglomeration run by MTV, VH1, and CMT. So far a pretty weak lineup, a weak new Skynyrd was on last night (the third guitarist was some Johhny Hollywood douche, but worth watching for Billy Powell), HD Storytellers with Pearl Jam. A bunch of shitty pop country videos. Pop country is so bad. I love country music (especially bluegrass), but that CMT shit ain't country, boy.

CMT shit isn't country, it just smells like it. Like shit, I mean, shit stuck to cowboy boots.

Firefly had 13 episodes I think. Not even a full season, and not all the episodes were aired originally.

The BSG episode you speak of was the finale of season 2. Season 3 starts with the occupation of New Caprica by the Cylons.

Surface is worth sticking with. It had some characters that were annoying, and it stretched believability in places, but it all builds up to one helluva season (and unfortunately series) finale. I've seen few finales that were that good.

Apparently I just saw the last aired episode, Objects in Space. Sucks it got cancelled, it was a fun show with good dialogue. They had also aired the previously unaired episodes, which is cool. So I guess that's that for Firefly.  And looks like BSG is wrapped up for a season or more unless they overlap the SciFi season, which I kinda doubt.

http://www.tv.com/battlestar-galactica-2003/show/23557/episode_listings.html?season=3&tag=nav_bar;3

I'll take your advice on Surface, as I like to have two shows to watch. I wish they'd start SG-1 from the beginning, too. Or maybe even Farscape, though that show was pretty loony.

Found this too:

http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/video/index.php?cat=webisodes&vid=29339

Update: just saw a commercial during UniversalHD's airing of Atlantis...BSG season three starts later this month! I think it said the 28th..

Update 2: Saturday January 27th (http://www.universalhd.com/Schedule/search.bravo?month=2007-01&time_zone=ET&keyword=Battlestar).

The dad from Stuart Little saves another life and goes to court tonight.

My wife pointed that out to me, and it sticks in my head every time I watch House.

He was in two of the Blackadder series as well.

He was the villain in the last episode of series II (as well as the drinking contest ep), so he was actually in 3 of them  :-D

I still find it really hard to mesh the way he talks in House with the nancy boy way he spoke in BA III.

ROME!!!

HBO is replaying Season 1 at 8 all week in preparation for the rollout of Season 2 on Sunday.
 

About damn time, never saw half of them and damned if I'd pay HBO series prices.

I got my refill through On Demand. Do you guys have that? It's almost as much as a convenience as disk recording.

My friend has that.... thats how I watched the first 4 or so then it disappeared entirely for a few months and then only showed the later episodes.  I can't stand skipping eps so I just didn't watch it after that. 

So I'm hoping and praying that the local DirecTV installer shows up on Saturday the 20th like they claimed they would, and gets our new HD dish and DVR setup.  I want to be able to finally record some of these shows.  Plus, The Dresden Files start Sunday evening and I'm sure I'll forget to watch.  Not sure how I feel about that though.  The guy playing Harry just doesn't fit my mental image.  Still, I'm hoping it's interesting and well done.

Oh yeah, maybe I'll watch part 2 of season 3 instead of waiting for the DVDs to come out.  That reminds me, must get season 2 DVDs back from friend so I can watch. EDIT - maybe I should mention I was talking about BSG in this here line.

Not in HD :(

I can't get too down on Time-Warner right now, the addition of UniHD has been too cool, even if the MusicHD channel has sucked wind thus far. Watched the first ep of Surface and it seems pretty cool, in an x-files way. One thing that bothers me is the female scientist is actually /too/ hot. Distracts from watching the actual show.

Ok. I've pimped this before, but I just finished up watching the second season finale of The Wire. I've been watching the 1st and 2nd seasons that I received for X-mas, one or two eps a night since. If you have not watched this show

GO BUY IT, RENT IT OR ON DEMAND IT RIGHT NOW

This is the single best television show ever put to celluloid (or whatever the hell they use for TV). Start at the beginning because it is important. Things that happen in the very first ep reverberate through the whole series.



/currently as drunk as Bunk or McNoltey pissing on the tracks

When you say it's the single best Television series ever, you mean it's HBO caliber. Fucking every show from HBO gets called that. And you know what? They're all good fucking TV. And anyone who likes TV eventually ends up watching HBO stuff. Either that or they don't have any interest in good TV. This isn't a subjective thing. Except Carnivale, what an overrated piece of shit. Thankfully HBO realized that pretty quickly.

Rome starts this week.

My wife has suddenly become a big fan of Metalocalypse.  She's so fucking metal.

Lucky.  Mine just shakes her head, rolls her eyes and says "Oh, jeez."    She wasn't all that impressed with Kogarth of Barbaria either.

So, anyone know what this season of Rome has in store for us? 

Brutus vs Mark Anthony ?

Mark anthony vs Octavian ?

Both ?

I am pretty surprised, really, because she is really the opposite of metal.  It took a couple viewings, maybe three.  Also, she's a fan of Home Movies and Brendon Small, and was willing to give it a shot.  It helps a great deal that it is actually very funny, particularly Skwisgaar's comments.  "...a producer det can't find snakes from dildos..." and whatnot.

We can only understand about ten percent of what Murderface says.

"If He can't keep me dry, Triton can suck my dick!"
"Pullo!  When will you ever learn to keep your mouth shut"
<ship sinks>

If the show follows history, potential spoilers:


Senate vs Mark Anthony.  Octavian switches sides to Anthony.  Octavian/Anthony/Lepidus take out Brutus/wayward Senators (Cicero dead).  A couple of Pompei's sons try a rebellion in Spain,  put down.  Peace,  while Anthony heads out to Egypt.  Ocatavian vs. Anthony.

I must admit I am not metal and luck warm towards the show. But I kinda like where they are going with the Illuminati and the band manager.  Frisky Dingo is more my style, but they need to find a part for Brett Butler.

nice summary, but you left out Anthony banging Cleopatra, his slave girls, his officers wives, random chick A. etc etc

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Pullo will be on Octavian's side until Octavian decides to kill Caesarean. Then shit will go crazy after that.

I found some cheap Xena: Warrior Princess DVDs the other day.  It is still as timeless and perfect as when the episodes ran. 

This was a dumb post. 

Rome!

Good kickoff episode, though they kill you with what they show and what they don't.  Octavian will emerge as a player next week.  Atia was just whiny and self-centered. (More so then usual.)  Anthony was pretty good.  Verenus and Pullo at the end of the episode were classic.

I really like what they do with the cinematagraphy and shadow in this show.  They like to put shadow on one side of an actors face, especially in dramatic moments, that forces you to focus on the side that's lighted.  It's almost like you're looking at a bust in profile.  Or something.

Anthony kicked ass.

I really hope that dude was just lying to Verenus (about his daughters). Maybe he just knew it was over for him, and decided to say that.

Yep.  I really wish they'd showed Octavian laying down the law more, though.  He's the pater familias, and he needs to put Atia in her place.  Sure, he mentioned it this episode, but he really didn't push the matter.  I'll grant you that noble women had some say in Roman society, but the pater familias was the fucking law, period, and Atia would be well aware of that.  They could kill members of their family, sell them into slavery, etc and it was all perfectly legal.  The head of the family had absolute power in that society.

I also wish they'd had it so he heard about Caesar's will while he was in Greece so he'd have to come back and confront Antony, rather than this immediate partnership they seem to have going.  Antony was not at all happy to have someone calling himself Caesar barging into the city while he's chasing away the liberators and trying to set up his own dictatorship.

It was better times.

I think Anthony has a good actor starring as him, matched with him being histories better characters.

Actually, I liked how rather than trying to just bully his mother in to doing what he wanted (and thus making an enemy of her), he played subtley to her greed and got what he wanted anyway. The wry little smile he showed after she changed her mind about leaving Rome was perfect.

True enough, and I'd sort of thought about that, but on the other hand her little edicts still irk me when she isn't the head of family (that's Octavian), has never been the head of the family (that was Octavian's father until his death, and then Caesar), and never can be the head of the family (she's a woman).

Rome has the opposite problem Deadwood had:  Too much story to pack in.

12 episode seasons mean they have to fast forward through some interesting stuff to get to the big events,  and cuts down on the character development.  Anthony was great,  but they pushed the rift between Anthony and Atia really quickly to ready the way for Cleopatra next episode.  Octavian is great,  but they haven't been moving his character development quickly enough so there's going to be one episode where we get the brief transition from kid to defacto leader of Rome.

It looks like they're going to fast forward to the Second Triumverate (maybe not even bringing in Lepidus as more than a stooge) to get to the Anthony/Octavian confrontation.

That said....  I really liked the way Octavian started to man up this episode.  He put forward the plan,  which worked,  and also pushed him ahead as a power behind Anthony.  All of Gaius Julius' land and property to Octavian, as well as his name?  Oops, you fucked up Anthony.  I loved how he went to Pullo and confessed his whole part in the disaster. 

Honestly,  Pullo will be torn but he may stick to Octavian (there seems to be some kind of budding mentor/student or confessor-type relationship building there) even over killing Ceasarion.  Pullo would make a hell of a Praetorian bodyguard for Octavian.  The dude is flat out a badass,  who life treats poorly...   only two people show him the respect he craves:  Verenus (awkwardly, as is his way) and Octavian, who treats him far above his station.


Also, agreeing with Big Gulp, they really don't push some of the innate inequalities in Roman life (I've said it before) in favor of the "omg, they weren't repressed Puritans when it comes to sex!!11!1" angle.

Literally,  Roman women had virtually no standing in Roman society.  Sure, the Romans weren't afraid of public nudity or explicit sexual portrayal (see temples to Priopasm!) but....  HBO hammers home the sex angle,  then makes Servilla an equal partner in the conspiricy.  It glorifies how liberal the Romans were in some aspects,  and ignores how amazingly backward in others.

Hell, one of the reasons why the Roman mob turned on Anthony was because he was seen as being too much under the influence of Cleo.  And of adopting too many foreign customs, of course.

There was an Emperor who was widely criticized (maybe even deposed) because he was seen as listening and doing what his wife wanted.

That being said,  there have been some good scenes showing the difference in standing...  like Niobe serving Verenus while not eating,  and some of the husband/wife interactions.

The head of family had nearly all legal rights in Roman society.  The lesser men,  and all women, couldn't even legally own anything.  This extended to patron relationships between noble families and freedmen.



Well...  I'm in a bind next week.  I want to watch Rome, but either Dresden or BSG will be on during that time slot.  BSG is great TV,  that understands pacing,  and I have high hopes for the Dresden adaption....

They also don't really go into just how deep the whole pater familias concept goes.  Just because you've reached the age of maturity, gotten married and started a family of your own doesn't mean you're now the pater familias.  Father still alive?  His brother?  You and your entire family will be living with him (along with your brothers and unmarried sisters), and you technically own nothing.  Everything you own (including your life) belongs to the pater familias.  Your children belong to him, your slaves are his.

The wrinkle here is that when a woman gets married off (usually around 13-14 years old) she belongs to the family she marries into, and then belongs to the pater familias of that family.  Now the woman is given a dowry that can't be touched (actually it can, but it needs to be paid back), and if she's divorced (a common occurence), the dowry comes with her.  Then there's adoption, which the Romans had a strange view towards.  There was no bias against adoption...  Caesar may have been Octavian's great uncle, but as soon as he's named heir he's Caesar's son, end of story.  The Romans didn't really see any difference between adopted children and biological children.  Furthermore, Octavian inherits the name completely.  He's no longer "Octavian", he's "Caesar" and would insist that he be addressed as such.  This'll come in very helpful when Octavian needs to get together a private army that's completely loyal to him.

Because nobody else said anything about it.

WITH.

HIS.

FUCKING.

TEETH.

BITCH.

Ya, that was pretty hardcore.  Enough to ignore the fact that all major terrorist plots against the United States originate in Los Angeles 15-20 minutes from CTU headquarters.

In my mind when ever he does anything crazy, he screams, "I'm Jack Bauer, bitch!"

Yeah, that particular plot point got pretty thin around the 3rd season, but now I just have campy fun with it. (Part of the problem being LA thinks it's the center of the known universe..)  The same with everyone who dobuts Jack dieing some horrific/ tragic death.  (Which is why I'm fairly sure Chloe is safe this season.  She's the Prophet of Bauer) I'm thinking that some sort of biblicly-toned epic poem could be written, and it would be hilarious.

   "And on the 5th day, Jack did rise from the dead and rip-out the throats of the unbelievers.  Then did CTU fuck-up by disbelieving and was incinerated in firey, nuclear death."


Doesn't everybody?

So, has he died and been miraculously brought back to life yet this season?

No, but after being stabbed by what I can only assume to be rebar in his ass, and being stabbed in his shoulder, he's just dandy (apart from the nuke and shootings) a few hours later.

What kind of torture would make those marks on his hand? Electrified water?

I've been going with acid.  Why on the hand? I dunno, makes cool scars?


And since I'm amazed nobody's posted it here yet; HBO picks-up Song of Ice & Fire (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117957532.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1&p=0).  Each book is to be a season, but there's no timeframe given as to when the first season might happen.

I posted it in the Book thread. Wasn't sure where to put it.  :-)

Was it just me, or did they irreversibly fuck up Dresden Files in just one episode?  :|  Really disappointed with the changes they made.

Of course, I've only been through book 2.. are they perhaps starting after the books conclude?  I can't imagine that much changing. Gah, maybe it'll get better.

Rome season 2 is shaping to be better than the first. The guy playing Antony is perfect. I just hope the new guy they got to play the older Octavian (at least that's what I heard they were doing) is as good as that kid.

Lucius Verenus has tranformed into a Dark Pimp Lord from Hell. Awesome.

Decided to watch Weeds S1 because of the sale at Target (they have like 30 series at $17.99 for a season or two). Picked that up with some Roswell, Grey's Anatomy, and Dead Like Me. $80 for 4 box sets? Ok. But yea, Weeds was pretty damn great. I can deal without the housekeepers though. Short of that, the show is fantastic.

Having read all the books, I was rather annoyed with all the changes they made, with most of them seeming pretty arbitrary.  And I had thought the premier was going to follow the plot of the first book, just to get into the swing of things.  Either way, I'm rather meh on it, but my GF liked it.  I'll keep watching to see where they go and if it gets better, but....I had higher hopes. 

Desden:  Not a bad show, has potential.
BSG: Still kicking ass, Caprica Six pwns,  D'anna gets pwned.  Baltar is still worthless and brillant. The stupid love square is still annoying.
Frisky Dingo: Great ending, but the kinda of ending where you doubt the show is going to be renewed.

Adultswim has really been sucking these days.  Smokingun, Assy, squidbillies, endless parade of FG and Futurama.  Actually I don't mind 'rama, but I figure most people are tired of it by now.

But Dingo and Metalapocalypse have made up for the crappy new shows and the really shitty quality of Aqua Teen this year.

The Cylon models changing allegiance every other episode is beginning to grate on me.  Never knowing for sure if it's Caprica Six, Boomer, etc only makes it worse.

I've also never been happy about the little insight into Cylon rebirth process.  I think it's been implied that they somehow share memories when they resurrect.  That would make more sense as to why they needed to box Xena's entire model line.  But if they share memories, wouldn't Athena have gained all the memories of Boomer?  Wouldn't those new memories drastically change who she is now?  Meh.

And the whole, "Oh look, another ancient relic we've just happened to stumble upon which is imminently important but never have talked about before just now, and won't again after this episode" is very snooze.  I get that it's supposed to be fate (or at least really, really look like it), but it feels like they're just trying to force the plot along.  Do not like.

HIS FUCKING BROTHER IS THAT DOUCHE???  Lame.

Agreed. This season is not starting out well. I think last season was the pinnacle with Itzin and its heading way down hill from there.

I'll take a thousand flip-flop toasters over the hot-cold love affair between Major Douche and Caption Skanky.