Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

2014 RANDOM TV THOUGHTS


RIPPA

Recommended Posts

Anybody watch Veep?  Pretty excited by this week's episode.  Selina hanging out with Ben, Mike's wedding with the no-phone rule, and, especially, Jonah getting fired!  Jonah's parting words, while everyone laughed at him: "I walk out of here with my head held high and my nuts hanging low, on your mother's chin" was awesome.  Also, I loved the new guy (Sam Richardson) and hope he somehow becomes a fulltime member of the cast.

 

Also caught the premier of 'Sillicon Valley'.  It was okay, not amazing.  T.J. Miller is easily the highlight so far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VEEP is awesome, but I can see where if you have zero interest and/or knowledge of D.C. politics, a good deal of the jokes may go right over your head. Jonah better not be gone, he's probably the best character on the show.

Sillicon Valley was eh. I get what they were going for. Might turn out good, but I feel as if all they're trying to say is "SOCIAL MEDIAZ IPOs DANGER DANGER WIL ROBINSON~~"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel like FSW has a Ron Perlman news alert set up, but just in case, this might be of special interest to him: A new, insane-sounding pilot for Amazon.

The second series, "Hand of God," is from Marc Forster, who directed last year's "World War Z" with Brad Pitt. Ron Perlman leads the cast as Judge Pernell Harris. The series also features Dana Delany, Garret Dillahunt, Andre Royo, Alona Tal, Julian Morris, Elizabeth McLaughlin, and Emayatzy Corinealdi. Amazon describes the series as centering "on the powerful Judge Harris, a hard-living, law-bending married man with a high-end call girl on the side, who suffers a mental breakdown, and goes on a vigilante quest to find the rapist who tore his family apart. With no real evidence to go on, Pernell begins to rely on 'visions' and 'messages' he believes are being sent by God through Pernell's ventilator-bound son."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

VEEP is awesome, but I can see where if you have zero interest and/or knowledge of D.C. politics, a good deal of the jokes may go right over your head. Jonah better not be gone, he's probably the best character on the show.

 

From what I've read he's not leaving the show, so...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.deadline.com/2014/04/paramount-tv-unveils-first-development-slate-that-includes-series-takes-on-narc-truman-show-firms-up-executive-team/#more-712092

 

Paramount are working on television version of The Truman Show. Love the movie, and I always thought that would be an interesting concept for a TV show. I can see it being a bit like Under the Dome, minus all the sci-fi stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I just watched the first season of American Horror Story. It started out very cool. It was very fresh and I already knew that each season was a completely different story so going into a horror story knowing that there are essentially "no rules" on who lives or dies was very entertaining. I enjoyed it all the way up until the two part Halloween episode. After that I kind of felt like it went down hill. Some of the things I didn't care for was Tate. Just in general. He can't give Nora the baby because its Violet's family but he had no problems raping Violets mother in the first place. Also Tate wanted a family that had a baby in the house so that he could give it to Nora. Well he killed the gay couple because they weren't going to be together to adopt a baby. Although  why kill them and not just let them you know leave so that another couple could come in seems strange. On top of that though when Violet's family moves in they were banging pretty consistently so why did Tate rape her in the first place? 

 

Beyond all of that. The medium says that if a ghost gets a living being pregnant than that baby would be the anti christ. They said it was "rare" but steaks are rare. This is something that had obviously never been done in the history of mankind. They don't ever follow up with what made Tate's ghost swimmers so effective that they were able to get the job done. 

 

I think the thing I didn't care for most was that they never even attempted to explain what it was about this house that made it so evil. Why is it that the ghosts in this house don't get to move on? With the title of the season being Murder House they never really explain anything about what makes this house so evil. The first part of the series was awesome but then things kind of fell apart when I felt like the explanations where either weak or non existent. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AHS season one started out as a good haunted house story and devolved into what someone (maybe from here?) call a mean spirited soap opera that happened to feature ghosts.

 

Season 2 is a lot better, but the alien gimmick they tried to shoehorn into it just didn't fit.  It's still the most solid of the bunch.

 

Season 3 was the biggest disappointment as it had an amazing cast (Kathy Bates is probably my favorite actress) but went even further downhill quickly.  I checked out around episode 5 but at that point it had basically turned into Mean Girls with witches.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Every AHS season has had basically the exact same problem: the writers are capable of building a creepy world, but not capable of actually advancing a plot in a way that makes everything stay interesting. Really, the best thing about all three seasons has been the opening credits.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Season 2 of AHS honestly felt like them throwing everything against the wall and seeing what would stick (Zombies! Satan! Aliens! Nazis!).

 

I think my biggest issue with it is that it's just not scary anymore. Even the first season had some genuinely unsettling moments. Now it's just a gory soap opera. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats what I've gathered is that season 2 is the "best" and even that people have complaints about. That certainly sums up season 1. They built up a really awesome world for the first half of the episodes and then it just got uninteresting and even stupid at times. I'm sure my wife will check out the next two seasons because she's a fan of anything witch related no matter how stupid so I'll be absorbing it through osmosis but if I want to watch a below average horror tv show I'll just tune into the Walking Dead. Still though its been a few years since I saw Friday Night Lights and that mom is still hot. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny that this is brought up now. My fiancee just finished watching the first season last night. I watched the first season when it originally aired and dug it, but agree with the complaints about it. It gets a little too silly and there are tons of plot holes, but it's still a fun show to watch. It's not cerebral at all. It builds up the atmosphere really well and if you don't really sit and think about it too much and try to figure out the logic behind a bunch of ghosts living in a house, it's fun. But when you start trying to dissect it, it completely falls apart. It's a great candy filler show, but has no real substance.

 

I remember watching the first two or three episodes of the 2nd season when they originally aired before falling out of it, so I'm interested in going through that fresh now with her.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually watched Two and a Half Men last night and while it was pretty dreadful, Walden(Kutcher) did get off one good line when he was talking to Charlie's urn after dealing with some in-house hi-jinx:

 

"Oh Charlie, you must've been smoking crack to wanna leave this place."

 

I eagerly await Sheens' response to this. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't start watching AHS until middle of last year. One of the things that had put me off was all the negative that I had read. After watching all 3 seasons, there is much that agree with on the negative side, but this show is one of the few that I still take the time to try and keep up with.

I absolutely HATE cop/laywer/medical/reality/sit-com shows. All the good ones were made 20 years ago, yes I'm that type.

Being a big fan of horror/exploitation/sci-fi makes me really get into the spirit of AHS, as it has been said before, they do throw a bit of everything against the wall to see what works.

If there were less capable actors on the show it would probably succumb to WB syndrome.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My favorite badly tied up AHS loose end was when the Nazi doctor shot the zombies in a short, forgettable scene because he needed them out the way. They'd spent several episodes building up that something big was going to happen with the zombies and then the guy just shoots them like it's no big deal and we never hear about them again.

 

The written on this show has never been one of its strong points.

 

I think partly why Lange is so good is because she knows full well how ridiculous it all is, and just plays up the campiness as much as she can.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Edwin

Anyone else watching Veep on HBO? The third season premiered on Sunday and I thought it was a fun ep. per usual.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyone else watching Veep on HBO? The third season premiered on Sunday and I thought it was a fun ep. per usual.

 

There is literally no show that comes as close to making feel good about the world than VEEP.  That is probably a problematic place to be.  But it is what it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In today's "wow, i feel old" moment,

Former VJ Karen Duffy is 51.

 

It's cool Tabitha Soren is still only mid 40s.  Prime of life, right? 

Which, God, was she in high school or something back when Kurt Loder was creeping on her?

 

..and wikipedia says she's married to the guy who wrote MONEYBALL.

 

Weird.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Loder is 72.  I find that hard to believe.  He looked ancient back when I was watching MTV in the 80's (early 90's?).  From my recollection, he could have passed for late 50's/60 back in 1990.  No wonder they say "live fast, die young".  If you live the rock n' roll lifestyle, you look like the crypt keeper when you get old. 

 

Still not good, but....  Kurt Loder = Jerry Lawler, basically.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...