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JAN/FEB 2018 TV DISCUSSION


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While I loved Fringe, that wound up getting a very conclusive and definitive ending. I don't want anyone to ever go back to Fringe to ruin that.

By the way, there wasn't enough love for Fringe when it was on. For a sci-fi series on network TV, it went in some batshit crazy directions and even did stuff that you just wouldn't see. On a couple occasions, the bad guys win and when they win, it means the planet, and, umm, well, I won't spoiler the other part, are fucked. Usually you see the heroes pull through at the very last minute. Not always the case with Fringe.

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4 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I tapped out after maybe 3 episodes last season and decided to give it another shot.  So I was absolutely lost in addition to being a ridiculously dull episode.  When the fuck was X Files about muscle car chases? 

I think you were lost even if you watched last season.  As far as I can recall, nothing last season set up anything from last night.  It was like they didn't bother to shoot the episodes that set up Scully's medical problem, the Smoking Man stuff, none of it.  I felt like I must have missed the real season premiere.

I really felt like Scully suddenly having prophetic visions was probably going to be the low point of the episode.  It wasn't.  Though Scully suddenly becoming all "I'm having weird dreams while I'm unconscious from frequent seizures.  The most rational answer is that I can now see the future" was stupid and is contrary to the character.  Remember when Scully was a skeptic and believed in science.

 

11 minutes ago, CreativeControl said:

Is it misguided nostalgia that people keep going back to it and hate watching? I lasted three episodes of the last revival and I'm not falling for it again. Bring back Fringe instead!


I'm not sure why I watched last night.  Boredom?  Curiosity?  The show hasn't really aged well for me, so I'm only a casual viewer at this point.  I watched a couple eps last season, but didn't really get into it.  Pretty sure I'm done for this season, though (and Anderson says this is her last go-round).

Gillian Anderson needs to ask for the "Hannibal lighting".  Thought she looked pretty great a few years ago on Hannibal.  The red perm is not flattering 

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1 hour ago, Keep Calm, Akira Hokuto On said:

I watched a couple eps last season, but didn't really get into it.

I looked it up on IMDB.  I quit last season after the third episode, the too cute by half "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were Monster."  I realize the show was always about balancing mythology episodes with standalone eps of varying degrees of weirdness and humor, but when you come back strong with "holy shit the whole world is in danger" and have a shortened season, you really can't be doing episodes so goofy, self aware and overall radically different in tone.  When you have a 20-some episode season, you need a break from time to time.  Not so much when you only have six episodes.

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I don't know if anything in the new season of X-Files can touch the sheer awfulness of that episode last year where Mulder tried to enter the comatose terrorist's subconscious. It begins with a disturbingly realistic suicide bombing, the second act is Mulder tripping balls, hallucinating being in a country music video, and it ends with that goddam Lumineers song while Mulder contemplates the universe and speaks to God(?) 

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6 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

It's weird that you mentioned those shows in particular. Spin City was my very favorite sitcom for most of its run and I loved what I saw of Anything But Love. And Dear John was something that I only vaguely remembered, but ended up Googling two days ago after seeing Jere Burns on Max Headroom.

Weird which things disappear for which people.  During that particular time I was in my arrogant young intellectual period where I would never slum so much as to watch a standard sitcom ("THE ONLY THING WORTH WATCHING ON T.V. RIGHT NOW IS GET A LIFE, MAN, BECAUSE IT HATES THE MEDIUM ITS IN!!!! READ MY POETRY!!!!!!!"). It's the reason I missed the initial run of News Radio and also why I only get like half of Scott Aukerman's t.v. comedy references.

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re: West Wing

Quote

This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on

Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

Damnit, Leo. It just got super dusty in here.

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7 hours ago, Craig H said:

While I loved Fringe, that wound up getting a very conclusive and definitive ending. I don't want anyone to ever go back to Fringe to ruin that.

By the way, there wasn't enough love for Fringe when it was on. For a sci-fi series on network TV, it went in some batshit crazy directions and even did stuff that you just wouldn't see. On a couple occasions, the bad guys win and when they win, it means the planet, and, umm, well, I won't spoiler the other part, are fucked. Usually you see the heroes pull through at the very last minute. Not always the case with Fringe.

That last season of Fringe was shit and completely superflous. The rest of them rocked though.

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Mentioning "Dear Jon" makes me think of Jere Burns shortlived family sitcom from lie... 96? 97? I wanna say he was married ot Sela Ward in it and they had a blended family.

Watch NBC brings back a totally forgotten show like "Dear Sidney" but totally miscasts it

James

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2 hours ago, J.H. said:

Mentioning "Dear Jon" makes me think of Jere Burns shortlived family sitcom from lie... 96? 97? I wanna say he was married ot Sela Ward in it and they had a blended family.

The show was Something So Right.  Aired 1996-1997.  Mom was played by Mel Harris of "thirtysomething" fame, not Sela Ward.   Aired for one season on NBC (despite having a good time slot between Mad About You and Frasier), got canceled, revived by ABC for a short run the following year.

 

8 hours ago, odessasteps said:

X-Files feels like a show so of its time that making new ones outside of that zeitgeistis a bad thing.

That's how I feel about the Will and Grace reboot.  My wife enjoys it.  I sit down to watch and drift away 10 minutes later.  The setup and jokes really could have been lifted from the first run.  Virtually nothing has changed, aside from everyone looking older.  I haven't watched enough to say if it's funny or not, or find out if I'd enjoy it.  Something about the 'time capsule' quality of the show puts me off.

I was never a megafan of Seinfield or Friends, but, fwiw, Friends has aged a lot better for me.  

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15 hours ago, Craig H said:

While I loved Fringe, that wound up getting a very conclusive and definitive ending. I don't want anyone to ever go back to Fringe to ruin that.

By the way, there wasn't enough love for Fringe when it was on. For a sci-fi series on network TV, it went in some batshit crazy directions and even did stuff that you just wouldn't see. On a couple occasions, the bad guys win and when they win, it means the planet, and, umm, well, I won't spoiler the other part, are fucked. Usually you see the heroes pull through at the very last minute. Not always the case with Fringe.

Yeah I guess you're right, I just wish people looked on it with the reverence they do the X-Files as it was twice the show (and I'm saying that as someone who was OBSESSED with X-Files at 11 years old when Season 1 and 2 happened) but I guess the X-Files captured the zeitgeist and was lightning in a bottle so it has a special place.

If anything the X-Files should have learned how to do a season from Fringe - with these shorter series, rather than do cold/shit mythology episodes and throwaway MOW episodes when they don't have the luxury of a 24 episode season, every mystery they investigated should've been interconnected to some big-bad or event that was season-wide. But... if anything the team behind X-Files have proved to be utterly tone deaf

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I never watched Will & Grace during its original run, nor I do watch it now, but I keep seeing bits and pieces of it because NBC seems to be the default channel in my house and last night, for instance, it was on when I turned on the TV.  I could be wrong, but the impression I get is turns homosexuality into a punchline more often than not, like "oh look at those wacky fags!" which doesn't work in 2017. 

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On 1/3/2018 at 9:05 PM, Matt D said:

We got a kick out of it but really have no use for Noah Wyle. The show is so much better when he's not around. It's interesting that John Rogers is just a consulting producer this season. That makes me feel confident that we might actually get that Lin Manuel Miranda Name of the Wind show after all.

The story seems to be transitioning him to supporting cast so you may get your wish.

I would love them to adopt the Legends of Tomorrow mentality and freshen up the cast once a season. Maybe just introducing new regular supporting characters and widening the hero pool may help... I mean, the Darrington Dare episode was bitchin.'

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I had the groanworthy moment of my wife asking who Charlotte Flair was last night as we finally caught the Psych movie, which wouldn't have been all that bad if it wasn't followed by her immediately locking the figure-eight on Corbin Bernsen for no particular reason.

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Just now, Matt D said:

I had the groanworthy moment of my wife asking who Charlotte Flair was last night as we finally caught the Psych movie, which wouldn't have been all that bad if it wasn't followed by her immediately locking the figure-eight on Corbin Bernsen for no particular reason.

Why did your wife do that to Corbin.?

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Yesterday,  I thought I wasn't going to laugh as hard at anything as I had at the new Chappelle specials for a long time. And then I tuned into the GG right in time for Kirk Douglas. I laughed so hard I woke up the neighbors.  Watching all these motherfuckers pretending to understand what this melted candle  of old flesh was trying to say and laughing at it had me fucking in tears. 

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so does the West Wing just have a ton of special guest appearances and cameos by future TV and movie stars or what? I’ve counted two or three people from Modern Family and Agent Coulson, and I’m sure there are others but I’m blanking right now. Also, I just figured out where I’ve seen Donna the secretary before: the Leftovers!

I bet a lot of early to mid 2000s TV is like this, though. People that went on to do really recognizable work appearing in small roles on big (at the time) TV shows.

EDIT: I know we have a thread for that sort of thing, but we all need to talk about West Wing more because it’s becoming one of my favorite shows ever and I’m only on S3. I liked the S3 premiere (that’s the terrorist threat one, right?) more than the S2 finale.

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2 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Yesterday,  I thought I wasn't going to laugh as hard at anything as I had at the new Chappelle specials for a long time. And then I tuned into the GG right in time for Kirk Douglas. I laughed so hard I woke up the neighbors.  Watching all these motherfuckers pretending to understand what this melted candle  of old flesh was trying to say and laughing at it had me fucking in tears. 

I don't find it particularly funny, the fact he's still alive is rather astonishing. He looks way older than 101. Christopher Plummer looked particularly sad seeing him up there as he's looking at his future if he lived that long. I have an uncle who can't speak due to severe motor skill impairment and brain damage, but can be understood by family members, so I'm used to that sort of interaction. CZJ may have understood whatever he was trying to say.

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