Alias, Being Human, Friday Night Lights, Fringe, Teen Wolf, The Walking Dead
GOOD CHOICES. I enjoy all of them to a certain degree but FNL is a forever favorite. As is Being Human if we're talking the UK version.
I warn in advance, TWD is not good to the ladies. I still love almost all of them, but the show treats them poorly on a regular basis and the writing for some of them is very inconsistent.
I do watch and like the US version but since I saw the UK version first, the US version doesn't quite cut it for me. The UK version is a bit darker, especially in series 2-4.
A MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR OUR DEARLY DEPARTED SISTERS LIZ AND JENNA.
AMEN!
Your endorsement might actually make me take the time to watch Scandal, especially because the Twitter activity of the actors directly relates to my ~research. That sounded pretty pretentious, didn't it?
I'm also contemplating Sons of Anarchy, but I've heard some spoilers about the finale that make me hesitant.
Alias and Six Feet Under are also on my list (even though J.J. Abrams and Alan Ball have both pissed me off on occasion, at least they aren't Ryan Murphy), and I'm curious as to what you'll think about Friday Night Lights and Teen Wolf. One is pure brilliance (and I watched the finale recently just for a good cry), and the other is pure fun (and lots of female-gazey shirtless guys).
Your endorsement might actually make me take the time to watch Scandal, especially because the Twitter activity of the actors directly relates to my ~research. That sounded pretty pretentious, didn't it?
WATCH SCANDAL WATCH IT WATCH IT! The first part of this post is intended to be a spoiler-free preview.
Alias is fun but begins on a dark note and keeps this undercurrent. I love it more now than before and I think you'll really love the characters. I have a particular heart of hearts but now i just appreciate it more! So definitely asap!
I liked RTD more too but on first watch Moffat wasn't as bad as I thought...oh he was bad lol but a few things were okay. Ish. But yeah it wasn't the same series after showrunner change.
House of Cards is awesome and I think it is an underdiscovered gem. Lol but true. The power struggle between him and Claire was somethingelse.
Another well first season of show you may like is Heroes but I always get kind of chargrinned in the later series. Uh. Even dropped off myself. But the first season is gold and the characters that come later are good too even if the storylines are weird.
House of Cards! I mean, I know it wasn't actually tailor-made for me, but like....political cynicism, black humor, pragmatic life partnerships between power players, toying with structure through the breaking of the fourth wall, and a deliciously campy villain protagonist? <33
I mainlined Heroes a looooong time ago! I remember enjoying it but not being tempted to rewatch or get fannish about it.
I considered doing the meme, but, like, I think I haven't actually watched much TV this year. Which is weird, because no job, no real...anything. What was I doing all year?
Well, I actually did watch a few complete series runs, actually -- Breaking Bad, The Wire, in particular. Whew. And I guess I watched Orphan Black! Ooh, and Arrested Development season four!
I feel like I'm becoming more curmudgeony about tv though. Especially, I've discovered, comedies. I started a certain largely beloved modern situation comedy and was watching it and then I stopped and realized I just did not. care. if I ever picked it up again.
Of course there was my big TNG rewatch and the time it took to write about it. Alas, I'm afraid you wouldn't like it -- I feel kind of like the things it does well are not things I've ever really seen you talk about, and the things it does badly might drive you crazy. You might like DS9 though -- and I might rewatch that next year. More political, more about culture.
Breaking Bad, The Wire, in particular. Whew. And I guess I watched Orphan Black! Ooh, and Arrested Development season four!
GOOD CHOICES THOUGH
I feel like I'm becoming more curmudgeony about tv though. Especially, I've discovered, comedies. I started a certain largely beloved modern situation comedy and was watching it and then I stopped and realized I just did not. care. if I ever picked it up again.
lol, well if that show's name rhymes with "Now I Pet Your Udder," that's probably less curmudgeonliness and more "ugh this show is gross, and not because of the udder thing."
Good to know about TNG, I might give that one a pass, at least for now. According to almost everything I've heard, DS9 is relevant to my interests, though, so that's encouraging.
lol, well if that show's name rhymes with "Now I Pet Your Udder," that's probably less curmudgeonliness and more "ugh this show is gross, and not because of the udder thing."
Well, it's not, though, yes, I can agree that HIMYM show is/gets gross.
Yeah, I mean, I love TNG too much for words, but I kind of...have no idea how it holds up if you didn't grow up with it. Rosemary really liked it, which is cool. But its character development is more fragmented, with some characters getting no apparent development, its political stories are more sort of large-scale cold war era mutually assured destruction stuff than any systems smaller than an entire society, and there's a lot of SF tech stories that either have no clear metaphorical meaning/relationship to anything else or a thin one I might have made up.
Have you ever done a post on Castle? I never got into it, then I caught it in syndication. Unfortunately I came in somewhere in the middle of the run where an (apparently) new boss was basically telling Beckett that SHE was the trained police officer who should be solving the case. Castle was going to Los Vegas and managed to solve the case of the week from there, which made me uneasy. Then I caught the episodes where they brought back Alexis's mother, who was a ditz and pretty self centered. Then I saw a couple of episodes where Castle's mother was a ditz and completely self centered and I came to the conclusion that the female characters weren't being handled a way that I like and I moved on. I mean if I'm flipping channels and it's there, I have no issue watching, but I just don't feel committed. Did I just catch weird episodes or is/did the show become awfully men are better than women? I saw a few of the earlier episodes and Beckett seems fine, but then the other episodes made me fee meh
( ... )
I did a post on an episode of Castle a while back, but to be fair that problem with that episode wasn't particularly representative. Oh, and a broader meta-post that incorporated a lot of Castle.The thing with Castle is...it starts out with IMO a really promising set of gender inversions? Specifically with Beckett being more reserved, less comfortable with intimacy, ~haunted by her past, &c, and with Castle being basically her Manic Pixie Dream Boy. And that neat dynamic lasted actually a lot longer than you'd expect it to? But since then there's been this really uncomfortable pattern of her getting pissy at him over women he dated before they met, or using her position as a cop to grill him over why he didn't report to her immediately after returning from vacation, or withholding something or other and expecting him to do the emotional work of guessing and hopping to her feelings all the time while always being an open book about his own
( ... )
Thanks for the pointers on Castle. I think I will definitely look for early seasons and not worry about catching later ones as much. I did feel a little bad when you said Lie To Me was your only uncanceled crime show that wasn't letting you down because they then went and canceled it.
Have you been keeping up with Major Crimes? I am very happy with the way they are handling the Rusty storyline. It has hit notes that most shows don't even consider, so I have been impressed with that.
I did feel a little bad when you said Lie To Me was your only uncanceled crime show that wasn't letting you down because they then went and canceled it.
I know! Fortunately since then we've gotten Major Crimes, Rizzoli and Isles, and Perception, so on balance it's tough to be too upset.
And yeah, I am really impressed with how thoughtful Major Crimes is being about Rusty. It's in keeping with how the show is so committed to decentralizing perpetrators, in a lot of ways? Because obviously the whole L&O/CSI/whatever "we're going to throw the book at this asshole!!" is still centralizing the victimizer. MC shows how and why plea agreements are often the most humane way to deal with violent crimes from the perspective of a lot of people affected, and it's taking very seriously what it's doing to Rusty that this isn't an option in his case.
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GOOD CHOICES. I enjoy all of them to a certain degree but FNL is a forever favorite. As is Being Human if we're talking the UK version.
I warn in advance, TWD is not good to the ladies. I still love almost all of them, but the show treats them poorly on a regular basis and the writing for some of them is very inconsistent.
Reply
Reply
Reply
AMEN!
Your endorsement might actually make me take the time to watch Scandal, especially because the Twitter activity of the actors directly relates to my ~research. That sounded pretty pretentious, didn't it?
I'm also contemplating Sons of Anarchy, but I've heard some spoilers about the finale that make me hesitant.
Alias and Six Feet Under are also on my list (even though J.J. Abrams and Alan Ball have both pissed me off on occasion, at least they aren't Ryan Murphy), and I'm curious as to what you'll think about Friday Night Lights and Teen Wolf. One is pure brilliance (and I watched the finale recently just for a good cry), and the other is pure fun (and lots of female-gazey shirtless guys).
Reply
WATCH SCANDAL WATCH IT WATCH IT! The first part of this post is intended to be a spoiler-free preview.
Reply
xD I do not kid you. I think you will know which character I stanned Lolz.;) like instantly ;);)
Have you considered Dr. Who?
What did you think about House of Cards?
Reply
I liked RTD's Who and briefly returned for Day of the Doctor but....bleh.
I liked House of Cards a lot!
Reply
Alias is fun but begins on a dark note and keeps this undercurrent. I love it more now than before and I think you'll really love the characters. I have a particular heart of hearts but now i just appreciate it more! So definitely asap!
I liked RTD more too but on first watch Moffat wasn't as bad as I thought...oh he was bad lol but a few things were okay. Ish. But yeah it wasn't the same series after showrunner change.
House of Cards is awesome and I think it is an underdiscovered gem. Lol but true. The power struggle between him and Claire was somethingelse.
Another well first season of show you may like is Heroes but I always get kind of chargrinned in the later series. Uh. Even dropped off myself. But the first season is gold and the characters that come later are good too even if the storylines are weird.
Reply
I mainlined Heroes a looooong time ago! I remember enjoying it but not being tempted to rewatch or get fannish about it.
Reply
Well, I actually did watch a few complete series runs, actually -- Breaking Bad, The Wire, in particular. Whew. And I guess I watched Orphan Black! Ooh, and Arrested Development season four!
I feel like I'm becoming more curmudgeony about tv though. Especially, I've discovered, comedies. I started a certain largely beloved modern situation comedy and was watching it and then I stopped and realized I just did not. care. if I ever picked it up again.
Of course there was my big TNG rewatch and the time it took to write about it. Alas, I'm afraid you wouldn't like it -- I feel kind of like the things it does well are not things I've ever really seen you talk about, and the things it does badly might drive you crazy. You might like DS9 though -- and I might rewatch that next year. More political, more about culture.
Reply
GOOD CHOICES THOUGH
I feel like I'm becoming more curmudgeony about tv though. Especially, I've discovered, comedies. I started a certain largely beloved modern situation comedy and was watching it and then I stopped and realized I just did not. care. if I ever picked it up again.
lol, well if that show's name rhymes with "Now I Pet Your Udder," that's probably less curmudgeonliness and more "ugh this show is gross, and not because of the udder thing."
Good to know about TNG, I might give that one a pass, at least for now. According to almost everything I've heard, DS9 is relevant to my interests, though, so that's encouraging.
Reply
Well, it's not, though, yes, I can agree that HIMYM show is/gets gross.
Yeah, I mean, I love TNG too much for words, but I kind of...have no idea how it holds up if you didn't grow up with it. Rosemary really liked it, which is cool. But its character development is more fragmented, with some characters getting no apparent development, its political stories are more sort of large-scale cold war era mutually assured destruction stuff than any systems smaller than an entire society, and there's a lot of SF tech stories that either have no clear metaphorical meaning/relationship to anything else or a thin one I might have made up.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Have you been keeping up with Major Crimes? I am very happy with the way they are handling the Rusty storyline. It has hit notes that most shows don't even consider, so I have been impressed with that.
Reply
I know! Fortunately since then we've gotten Major Crimes, Rizzoli and Isles, and Perception, so on balance it's tough to be too upset.
And yeah, I am really impressed with how thoughtful Major Crimes is being about Rusty. It's in keeping with how the show is so committed to decentralizing perpetrators, in a lot of ways? Because obviously the whole L&O/CSI/whatever "we're going to throw the book at this asshole!!" is still centralizing the victimizer. MC shows how and why plea agreements are often the most humane way to deal with violent crimes from the perspective of a lot of people affected, and it's taking very seriously what it's doing to Rusty that this isn't an option in his case.
Reply
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