Television thread

[Paelos]

Lost is really starting to pick up.

Yeah, it is. In ways that I honestly can say I never saw coming at all. Still, they aren't answering any questions, they are just revealing things you didn't really give a shit about in the first place. Oooooooh, so that's how Locke broke his back. Who gives a shit?

[HaemishM]

Lost is really starting to pick up.

Yes. I think they finally have a destination they are moving towards and I like where it's heading, especially with Locke's character. Needs more Sayeed ass-whooping though.

[Merusk]

Lost is really starting to pick up.

Yeah, it is. In ways that I honestly can say I never saw coming at all. Still, they aren't answering any questions, they are just revealing things you didn't really give a shit about in the first place. Oooooooh, so that's how Locke broke his back. Who gives a shit?

You may not care about the how, but it's significant to the character, his evolviing story and "the magic box" (which apparently IS very large) why it happened and who did it.

How many more new episodes this season, though?  5? 6?  I see this going the same place it did last year.. almost but not quite giving us answers, then stringing us along some new direction next season.  Grr. 

[tazelbain]

Is it a real magic box, or a clever turn of phrase on Ben's part because he had Locke's dad and knew it'd be Locke's dream come true?  Ben is too slippery to take anything at face value.  Although it would explain why the Others live so well, but why didn't they repair the communications. 

And the preview for next week was even more puzzling.

[Sky]

G4 makes me wish it were possible to kick a tv network in the balls.

Destroy TechTV and solid programming like Screen Savers and Call for Help. Then air only G4-format 'tech' shows (vapid trendycool young hipsters). At 2am for an hour. Then fill the bulk of the day with Star Trek reruns and other syndicated garbage that has nothing to do with gaming.

Comcast took a decent tech channel (and a crappy gaming channel) and destroyed both of them, a ghetto Spike or summat.

Bah. Right in the nuts.

[Merusk]

I usually enjoy AMC ignoring the whole "Classics" part of their name...

but "Catwoman?"

W. T. F.

[Zetleft]

Well at least they showed Conan first, CROM.   Since catwoman came on I've gotten alot of stuff done at the house :)

[HaemishM]

I usually enjoy AMC ignoring the whole "Classics" part of their name...

but "Catwoman?"

W. T. F.

I saw that on the guide and had a similar WTF moment. Catwoman is like cancer, it does nothing for the viewer except eat away at the very physical fabric of their being. I mean, ok, some of the more recent things they've shown could be considered a Classic, but shouldn't a classic be at least 5-10 years old and not, you know, suck more nuts than a gaggle of crack whores?

[Rasix]

There is a god! Now, if only someone can get Kornnheiser the hell off MNF.

And in sadder news, Rome is done. Decent ending and the last episodes were pretty good.  I'll miss it.  My HBO subscription is on its last legs.  It's probably to the point now that just buying full season DVDs is magnitudes cheaper than subscribing.

[HaemishM]

Jaws over Theismann is a damn good thing, but fuck do they need to euthanize Kornhole. He's just death to the broadcast.

[WayAbvPar]

There is a god! Now, if only someone can get Kornnheiser the hell off MNF.

And in sadder news, Rome is done. Decent ending and the last episodes were pretty good.  I'll miss it.  My HBO subscription is on its last legs.  It's probably to the point now that just buying full season DVDs is magnitudes cheaper than subscribing.

Thank GOD someone finally listened and shitcanned Theismann. Have the last 4 Romes on DVR, and am working my way through the first season on DVD. At least Entourage is starting back up soon! (Sue me- it is a guilty pleasure, and Piven fucking ROCKS).

[Paelos]

Jaws over Theismann is a damn good thing, but fuck do they need to euthanize Kornhole. He's just death to the broadcast.

Jaws is a great move as he's always been the smartest football announcer I've known. I've never had the same malice towards Kornheiser that yall do, but I do think he should have one more season to shake off the image he had last year. He would be a great announcer if he'd take the handcuffs off a little about the players themselves rather than just trying to analyze the game. He's much funnier when he does that on PTI.

[HaemishM]

No, Kornhole is just a loudmouth douchebag who has no business being in a booth. He doesn't add anything to the discussion besides vitriolic attitude. It would be like putting me in the booth if every player was Terrell Owens. Nothing good would come off it, other than venomous ranting.

[Paelos]

He doesn't add anything to the discussion besides vitriolic attitude.

The comedic irony here is gold, you do realize? 

[HaemishM]

Which is why I put this bit in my statement.

It would be like putting me in the booth if every player was Terrell Owens. Nothing good would come off it, other than venomous ranting.

But I'd at least like to think my vitriol has base.

[Paelos]

Most of the time, yes. Although, I'd love to see Kornheiser call Theisman a cockmuffin just for the inevitable fallout.

[HaemishM]

That would be glorious.

[El Gallo]

Was sad to see Rome end.  I was at least hoping they would keep a window open for a possible future special or something.  Agreed on the HBO subscription losing its luster.  So many good shows are gone or going; soon Curb Your Enthusiasm will be all I have left.

Ditto on Kornheiser needing to be shot like a dog.  It was bad enough that he took over the Washington Post sports page but MNF is too fucking far.  He knows jack shit about football and tells jokes only 55+ year old white guys think are funny (nonstop no less).  Clearly he's the answer to MNF's ratings problems.

[Miasma]

I'm hoping that the final episodes of The Sopranos are as good as the first three seasons were since they can start killing everyone off as they please.  It will probably wind up sucking as bad as seasons 4, 5 and 6 though.

[Sky]

My DVR snatched the new Penn & Teller episode. Woohoo! Kinda weakish (obesity, don't remember much of the content but it didn't make us argue, so it had to have been weak :P), but I hope the new season delivers like in the past.

If you guys get a chance to see Flip This House with the Montelongo's, I recommend it. Scary if you're in the market; also funny.

[stray]

Was sad to see Rome end.  I was at least hoping they would keep a window open for a possible future special or something.

I was hoping they'd extend the Antony and Cleopatra story into a 3rd season. Then it just skipped like 3 or 4 years around episode 18 (telling from how much Verenus' son/stepson/grandson grew up).

Oh well. Rome was originally intended as a miniseries anyways. We're lucky we even got two seasons worth.

[MrHat]

Ya, just finished Rome, good stuff.  Ditto re: the time jumps, I do like the way they used the younger children to show us how much time had passed.

Although, I do have to say wtf to Marc fucking Anthony doing a whole:

"What do ya mean, funny? Let me understand this cause, I don't know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how? I mean, funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh... I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?"

[Abagadro]

Great episode of Lost tonight. Now that things are back on the main island the show is really picking back up.

[Paelos]

Great episode of Lost tonight. Now that things are back on the main island the show is really picking back up.

Interesting. I sort of thought of it as a copout "clip-show" type of thing for them to waste time. I was sitting there at the beginning going, "Oh good, we're going to focus an entire show around characters I couldn't give a shit about." The fact they went all Cask of Amontillado with it was just a twist to cover up the fact they didn't say anything the whole time.

[Evil Elvis]

Yeah, it was a filler episode.  At first I didn't like it at all, retconning a bunch of stuff to make them seem important.  But then it started to feel almost like an inside joke.

And the ending was perfect.  I've been wanting them to die since they appeared.

[Abagadro]

copout "clip-show"

I didn't think that at all. I'm a sucker for self-referential stuff so I thought it was very clever how they worked them into the prior story-lines/scenes, particularly when everyone's reaction to them (likely planned) was "who the fuck are these people and where did they come from," cleverly voiced in the ep. by Sawyer. Seeing parts of the crash was cool and there were payoffs like why Paolo was in the bathroom at the Pearl and that Ben used it to spy on Jack/create the plan. It wasn't a "clip show" so much because it was from a different perspective. Very Rashomon. The ending was nice and creepy as an added bonus.

[HaemishM]

I didn't much like last night's Lost episode. It did feel very much a filler episode, dispensing with characters I never really liked. The fact that every 3rd person on that plane was some kind of con man or crook is getting a bit hard to take. What I really didn't like was the two of them finding a hatch and just opening it like it was nothing. Didn't Locke find the first hatch near the airplane and have to get dynamite to blow the thing open? That part didn't fit to me.

[tazelbain]

Explains a few little details like were the Other's poison darts come from.
I think that walkie-talkie is going to be important.

I hope they bring back Bernard and Rose.  The island seems to like Rose in the same way it likes John.  She could still play an important role and he undoubtly would be her knight.

[Merusk]

I'm with Abo.  I liked it as an episode, filler or not, just because it got back into the 'fucked-up stuff' vibe of the first season.   The ending was perfect, and I just laughed like a madman at how dark and twisted it was.   I almost empathized and felt bad for them, until I rememberd how they offed the geezer.

[Paelos]

Ok it wasn't a clip show, but it felt like that to me. The whole "let's look at things from a different perspective" is bullshit in this kind of show because it's an island. Honestly, if they keep throwing more crappy character backstories at us, they could go on forever. I just don't care about EVERY member on that plane. This isn't Oliver Twist, the character list is long enough.

Also, I'm with Haemish, it's becoming harder to accept that 75% of the people on the damn plane has a criminal past or connection.

[tazelbain]

>Also, I'm with Haemish, it's becoming harder to accept that 75% of the people on the damn plane has a criminal past or connection.
But people being magically cured when they come to the island is not hard to accept?

[Paelos]

>Also, I'm with Haemish, it's becoming harder to accept that 75% of the people on the damn plane has a criminal past or connection.
But people being magically cured when they come to the island is not hard to accept?

No, that's crap as well, but it's two characters. I can suspend a little disbelief over two people when it's written well. Making the entire plane into a randomly assigned Con-Air? There are just better vehicles for that kind of assumption. It's piss-poor characterization.

[HaemishM]

>Also, I'm with Haemish, it's becoming harder to accept that 75% of the people on the damn plane has a criminal past or connection.
But people being magically cured when they come to the island is not hard to accept?

That part I don't have a problem with, it's part of the suspension of disbelief that I normally achieve on a sci-fi/adventure show. But really, there's just so many goddamn crooked fuckers all on this same flight from Australia. Making them really tangenital characters for a season and a half before focusing a whole episode on them in which you kill them? It just screams "We have HOW MANY more episodes to write for this season? SHIT SHIT SHIT!"

I still love the show, and I thought it was a good episode by itself. I just think in the whole fabric of the show it was a bit wasted.

[Merusk]

>Also, I'm with Haemish, it's becoming harder to accept that 75% of the people on the damn plane has a criminal past or connection.
But people being magically cured when they come to the island is not hard to accept?

No, that's crap as well, but it's two characters. I can suspend a little disbelief over two people when it's written well. Making the entire plane into a randomly assigned Con-Air? There are just better vehicles for that kind of assumption. It's piss-poor characterization.

It's not 75% of the people, though.  The flight carried 361 people, there were 71 survivors (49 in the front, 22 in the tail.)   That's 20%.  Then the Others took the "Good" people, leaving only the fucked-up and the criminals who are our "heroes."  Therefore, some bit less than 20% of the flight are criminals...

[Nevermore]

The most infuriating part of Lost is how none of the crash survivors bother to ask any of the Others how they know so much about people they've never met before.  I could understand why they wouldn't have told Sawyer or Kate (had they bothered to ask), since they were never in a position to force any answers.  But Jack sure was.  So was Locke.  All the time Ben was smugly telling Locke all the things he knew about Locke's background while Locke had a gun on him, did Locke ever ask "How do you know all that?"  Of course not.

In completely unrelated news, The Shield is back this Tuesday.