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MARCH 2015 TV THREAD


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I am trying to think of all the shows I have watched the first episode or two and then just haven't found the time to keep watching

Arrow and Parks & Rec are definitely the two more recent ones.

 

I still need to finish the last season of Warehouse 13 and... oh shit... I still never finished Eureka

 

I blame Microsoft

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I have two seasons of Parks and Rec. sitting on my DVR that I put off watching because, I don't know I hate myself and didn't want to enjoy life...maybe I was just in the mood for darker stuff...how stupid.

 

But I randomly started in on them yesterday and instantly remembered that I left watching in the middle of the greatest hot streak of great comedy writing of all time.  It was the episode where they absorbed Eagleton and while we were watching the scenes where the grubby sketchy Pawnee people and the super tailored-suit outraged Eagleton people were dividing the room my wife suddenly says "It's like a crossover episode where the people from THE GOOD WIFE got conquered by the people from BARNEY MILLER."

 

Great line, babe!!!!

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What about shows you try to watch and just give up?  My latest was Orphan Black.  The main character was just unlikable and it was just not well-executed.  I watched 2-3 episodes and just pegged it as a good idea in search of a better show.

 

Probably Gotham most recently. I have a feeling Empire will be next, but it keeps drawing me back somehow. I don't know it it was here or somewhere else where someone said it was "Black Dynasty", but it is reaching levels of "So bad it's good" unlike The Slap which is "So bad it's awful".

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Finished watching The Fall on Netflix. Great show, and Gillian Anderson is electric. Any other details might spoil it, but if you like crime shows, its well worth your time. . . .

Good to hear. It's in my queue...
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I LOVED 'The Last Man on Earth' but I'm a pretty massive Will Forte and Chris Miller/Phil Lord fan.

 

I am trying to think of all the shows I have watched the first episode or two and then just haven't found the time to keep watching

 

With the end of 'Parks and Rec', I was discussing the differences between the way myself and my mother watch TV shows, when compared to my sister and her husband.  If my sister and/or her husband start watching a show, they stick with it right until the end, regardless of whether or not they're still enjoying it.  My mother and myself, however, set unrealistically high standards for a show based on its first few episodes and tune out as soon as it becomes overly cliched, not up to par.

 

A partial list of the shows I've given up on in recent years

 

-Modern Family (I think the first season is amazing and when you watch featurettes and the like, it becomes clear that the majority of the season was compiled of stories from the creators and writers own family history, the bigger the show become the zanier the action became and the less believable any of the characters became.  To me (And I'm trying hard to write this properly without saying something I'm trying not to say at all), Mitchell and Cameron were really interesting characters.  Being gay was just who they were, it never felt scripted, they were just real people who were interesting and funny.  But then they became GAY!~! where it was just like someone watched a Gay Pride parade on TV and decided that's how homosexual people must act all the time, and the sublety and nuance to their characters was gone.  Also, it's just not that funny.)

-The Office (I will go to bat for the first 4, maybe 5 seasons of this show, but it just lost its way so badly.  The biggest problem seems to be that they could never decide if Michael Scott was supposed to be a monster, or sympathetic.  Like, they would try to make you feel bad for Michael, then have him do/say something so monstrous that you couldn't like him, then try to make him sympathetic again.  Also Pam and Jim were just awful once they got engaged.)

-Parks and Rec (I'm probably the only person in the world who preferred the show prior to the introduction of Rob Lowe/Adam Scott, but there we are.  I was never invested in Leslie as a character, found myself waiting until her scenes were over most of the time which is when I thought "You don't like the main character, why are you still turning in?")

-Homeland (Man, I was all-in on that first season and reasonably on board with the second, but there was one scene where a commando unit burst in and shot a bunch of cops and federal agents and I thought "Nope...no, that's too far.  That's too far-fetched for me to keep tuning in"  and I haven't been back.  What's funny was I looked into why most other people tuned out and it was because of the Brody Family and I thought that was crazy, but then I actually thought Dana's character was totally interesting)

-Archer (The Archer Vice season turned me off, not because of the concept, but because I found it was just a series of recurring catch-phrases and it didn't surprise me anymore.  I may go back once the newest season hits Netflix).

-Bob's Burgers (I haven't given up on this yet...but I'm very, very close.  I loved the first season, but I feel the show is at its best when its about something reasonably small-scale and Bob-centered, with the kids turning up to make life hard for him.  I must be in the minority, though, because since the early going, there has been an increased focus on wackier plots and making the kids the main characters with Bob largely in the background.  I'm also totally over the singing.)

-Louis (I don't even have a reason for this one.  I own the first season and have only watched half of it, and I enjoyed it.  It's just not ever what I'm looking for when I go to the DVD rack)

-Breaking Bad (This is mainly out of laziness/heaviness.  I got a little ways into the first season and was enjoying it, but it was so heavy, without any real levity that I found it rather arduous to get back to.  Judging by 'Better Call Saul' (Which I am currently watching, despite not watching BB), they get a better handle on mixing up intensity with other things, so I'll likely get back to it, maybe after I finish BCS.)

-Boardwalk Empire (I never found this very interesting, in all honesty.  I was all in on the first episode, then after 4 or 5, I just found it wasn't really holding my interest.  I never went back).

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I loved Weeds at first, but it just went to crap after about season 3 or so.  I kept trying to stick with it, but once they moved into that other city and Nancy got involved with the Mexican politician guy it got even worse.  Around season 5 I just gave up.

 

For a whole season or two, some friends and I would get together every Monday night to watch 24.  After the season following the movie it just started to bore me.  I can't explain why exactly, but just remember loosing my enthusiasm part way through that season.  A few weeks ago I binge watched that new season and it was decent, but not enough to get me back into it.

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Yea loved Last Man on Earth too.

 

I was kind of sad that 

they didn't at least spend a few episodes with him exploring the world and dealing with it on his on.

 

But by the end of the two episodes I was happy where it ended up so I don't really mind now.

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Yea loved Last Man on Earth too.

 

I was kind of sad that 

they didn't at least spend a few episodes with him exploring the world and dealing with it on his on.

 

But by the end of the two episodes I was happy where it ended up so I don't really mind now.

 

Me, too. But ...

 

... had they drawn out the "alone" factor, they probably would have lost a large portion of the audience over those few episodes. I'm also not sure it would have been labeled a "comedy" with the lone soul left on earth trying to deal with eternal loneliness. I mean, they only covered it for about 20 minutes and I felt pretty horrible for the guy at times.

 

and ... 

 

Holy hell is Kristen Schaal absolutely perfect for the female character. For the first minute he met the female at the campsite, I was pretty disappointed when I thought it wouldn't be her.

 

This show is awesome. I'd definitely recommend it. 

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Ryan Phillppe was king sized in Secrets & Lies.

 

How To Get Away With Murder got really really weird at the ending.  Cliffhanger left me sad.

 

RIP Rebecca Sutter.  Yeah, you were trifling and a pusher, but you were no murderer and you and Wes made a cute, if fucked up, couple.

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How To Get Away With Murder went apeshit insane in that last episode.  

 

It went from "ok, this is totally plausible" to "holy shit everyone on this show is nuts".

 

I've always kind of imagined that Rebecca Sutter was an alternate world Rosie Larsen and it gives me a perverse pleasure that she pretty much suffered the same fate anyway.

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How To Get Away With Murder went apeshit insane in that last episode.  

 

It went from "ok, this is totally plausible" to "holy shit everyone on this show is nuts".

 

I've always kind of imagined that Rebecca Sutter was an alternate world Rosie Larsen and it gives me a perverse pleasure that she pretty much suffered the same fate anyway.

At the very beginning of the episode when they began with flashbacks it was obvious that

they were going to unveil that the murderer of Lila Stangard was neither Sam or Rebecca.

Though I thought

the murderer was going to end up being Bonnie, not Frank.

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For some unknown reason I decided to start watching Entourage from where I left off. It's been several years since I watched this show.

Oh my god, this show is so friggin' bad. The acting is so awful. I know Ari Gold is supposed to be the ultimately charming a-hole... but charming isn't the word I'd use.

I think the worst character out of everyone is E. What a little turd.

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The weird thing about Lila's murder is:

 

We're still no closer to the culprit.  Sam calls in a favor and Frank shows up to handle business, but we still don't know who Sam was on the phone with.  He never mentions the person by name. 

 

For all we know it could've been Bonnie and Bonnie sent Frank out to get the job done.

 

Rebecca's murder has me stumped.  The Keating Five have the most obvious motive, but we kinda know de facto that none of them were probably involved.   Too obvious..

 

Bonnie has no real motive for killing Rebecca.  If anything, she would probably love it if Wes and Co were implicated in Sam's death because that would get justice for Sam..

 

Laurel revealing that she had Michaela's ring the entire time was fucking gigantic.

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I couldn't get into Secrets and Lies last night.  I'll probably come back to it because of the casting, but it seems like I've seen this show three times lately.  Mostly because I kinda have (Broadchurch, Gracepoint, the Australian min-series of the same name the US version is based on).

 

Also - and I won't give it away for anyone that cares - but the ending of the Australian version is sad and depressing and screwy and really hits you as a parent.  I wouldn't mind if they changed the identity of the murderer, even though the original resolution makes a lot of sense.

 

Kaydee Strickland looked unrecognizable last night.  I had to check the cast list to be sure she was really on the show.  My wife was a fan of Private Practice and we've seen her in a fair number of guest shots & movies, and neither of us recognized her.  Plastic surgery.  She didn't look terrible.  Just different.  Still attractive, but in a more generic way, if that makes any sense.

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Last Man On Earth is such a great, wonderfully bizarre show. I'm not even 20 minutes into the first episode and already love it.

I finished both episodes. I really can't remember a show that looked like this or had a tone like this. They really do a wonderful job of making this world feel so big and overwhelming and lonely.

It is so singularly unique and interesting and funny. They made what felt like a perfect set of debut episodes with only one or two characters on the screen. What an insanely hard thing to pull off.

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For some unknown reason I decided to start watching Entourage from where I left off. It's been several years since I watched this show.

Oh my god, this show is so friggin' bad. The acting is so awful. I know Ari Gold is supposed to be the ultimately charming a-hole... but charming isn't the word I'd use.

I think the worst character out of everyone is E. What a little turd.

Everything after the middle of season 5 is teeth grinding annoying for me and im sure that even if I went back and watched seasons 1- 5 again I would have a different opinion of the show as a whole.

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Ryan Phillppe was king sized in Secrets & Lies.

How To Get Away With Murder got really really weird at the ending. Cliffhanger left me sad.

RIP Rebecca Sutter. Yeah, you were trifling and a pusher, but you were no murderer and you and Wes made a cute, if fucked up, couple.

I'd have thought you would bypass the show about a murdered kid.

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I've been binge re-watching this one so here's a review...

Southland - Lemme get it out of the way immediately: Best cop show of all-time. There, I said it. Yeah, better than Hill Street Blues. This is the show The Shield wishes it had been. Gritty, realistic, flawed people. The story focuses on a core group of patrol officers and detectives with Regina King (as Lydia Adams) being the star detective and the always-awesome Michael Cudlitz (as John Cooper) the veteran training officer and Ben Mackenzie (as Ben Sherman) his hotshot protege. We see the growth in Sherman from a rookie going through a ridiculously difficult early career to a comfortable (but not perfect) veteran spreading his wings and challenging his superiors. We see Cooper as he struggles with pain and addiction. And all of it comes off as realistic. There's nothing cartoonish or exaggerated here. If there's a flaw, it's that there's a bit too much gunplay and death. What's here is realistic, it's just a bit too frequent.

Unfortunately, Southland struggled to find an audience during its original run. NBC moved it around, stuck it in terrible timeslots and generally tried to bury it during its 7-episode first season. They ordered a second season, then canceled the show after 6 episodes had been filmed. TNT picked it up, aired the second season, then ordered three more seasons of 10 episodes each before canceling the show after season 5. THAT cancellation resulted in one of the all-time most frustrating cliffhangers ever. The net result of the cancellations and bouncing around in the early seasons is that there's one or two storylines that get dropped without explanation. That's unfortunate.

Bottom line: This is a really, really great show that deserves a much-larger audience than it ever got. 10/10.

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