TV Shows Thread

[morsdraconis]

Jesus christ. So much to reply to, but here goes!

it's not...some people are just impatient...bunch of viewers knocked the Killing for that reason.

And those viewers were idiots for knocking The Killing and are even dumber for knocking Homeland for it. Most of the vitriol toward the Killing is, unlike British and other European television shows, US television usually tries to milk the hell out of a property, especially if it's popular, thus, the hate toward The Killing because it's based off a Norwegian television show (same basic premise and type of cast from what I understand) but it was all wrapped up in one season and was good to go, unlike The Killing which squeezed two amazing seasons out of the case and looks to be going for a season 3 based on another case (no real information to back this up, just basing it on how US television executives work most of the time).

Homeland was incredible. Definitely one of my favorite shows, and if season 2 runs at the same time as Dexter again, that will give me reason enough to subscribe to Showtime for a couple of months.

Homeland is AMAZING. I'm TOTALLY blown away by how good it is. I can't wait for it to come back. I'm anxiously awaiting it's return.

I've been wanting to check out Homeland for a while. Damn not having HBO and Showtime. Miss out on all the good shows and have to hope they show up on Netflix or something or get a chance to preview them before putting the money down for the Blu-ray or DVD sets.

That's why pirating stuff is good. I just don't care anymore. I don't have the time to keep track of when the hell this shit comes on TV anymore and I definitely don't have the cash to spend on getting HBO and Showtime to watch these shows, thus, I pirate the hell out of them.

That said, there are ways to watch these shows streaming online (like, this website). Not sure if it has everything you're looking for, but it certainly does a pretty good job covering most things that I would watch if I wasn't just straight up pirating them.

Spoiler: show

Falling Skies is too close to safe, network, fluff...at least it was in Season 1. Like I said in a previous post, I like the larger story, but I'm not pleased with all of the forced "touching", yet unbelievable moments that they try to feed us...much like network television does with nearly all of their dramas.

Another thing that bothered me was the idea that there would be any "civilians" left in this society, and the forced conflict between civilians and militarty (in Season 1). Season 2 has done a much better job of making most of these people useful, but the 2nd Mass started out with ~300 people and they only had a couple dozen people that were actually fighting or contributing. The rest of them were just bitching about not being treated well, and causing problems. There were several times in season 1 where a 30 or 40 something year old man was complaining about the fighters. WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A GUN? If you're not fighting, cooking, repairing stuff, etc., then you're just a waste of space, and you're not vital to the survival of the human race.

I think that my main issue is that I'm just too cynical for anything that looks like it's using a template from network television

Good thoughts, IBI

Spoiler: show

though I think, in the event of such a catastrophic event, it would take people time to adjust to the "we're all fighters, now" mentality. I actually thought that was more realistic than the common portrayal. A lot of people would pick up a gun ... but not everyone.

Thanks.

Spoiler: show

That's true. I really don't know what the timeline looks like. I know that there was an initial attack, then a second attack. I think that the second attack is what got everyone in the situation that they're in now, but I don't know how far apart they were, or how long it took for the 2nd mass to come together after the second attack. There were some comics on the TNT website, prior to season 1, that gave some of the backstory, but I only made it through 9 or 10 issues before I stopped checking for updates. Maybe there just weren't enough guns to go around. It just pissed me off that they had all these young kids fighting, but you'd have an able bodied man just sitting on the sideline.

I guess it could be similar to the remake of Battlestar Galactica (one of my all-time favorite shows), where they had all these civilians, and limited resources. They eventually trained some fighter pilots and other soldiers, but that show had a ton of issues between the civilians and the military.

True. I really dislike how little of the backstory they've fleshed out.

Spoiler: show

For example, both Season 1 and Season 2 opened with a kid talking about where he was when the aliens came. Why the hell haven't we seen that day? I was expecting it at some point in Season 1, for goodness sake.

And any comparison to BSG is a good frakkin' one to me

Spoiler: show

Ah, ok. I agree. There are definitely some problems and it definitely seems like a safe network show, but, unfortunately, that's TNT programming for you. Pretty much everything on TNT and safe television. That said, it's probably one of the best science fiction based television shows on TV at the moment and I have to support it in hopes that something else better will come along all the while hoping that the writers have grown a set and actually do something ballsy with the show this season, otherwise, I'll probably give up at the end of this season.

Awesome! I'm all-in after 2 episodes. It's an incredibly smart show and everyone talks so fast so you have to stay on top of the dialogue or get lost in the hysteria.

True of any Aaron Sorkin show. If not for closed captioning, I would never have kept up with half of The West Wing.

Spoiler: show

It's one of the things I have a problem with in The Newsroom. It makes sense for the characters in The West Wing to talk fast and be able to talk themselves out of situations; they do it for a living. The characters in The Newsroom shouldn't be able to do it as well as they do. Everything is so fast paced it feels like there isn't time to breathe sometimes. I get part of it is portraying how it can be in a newsroom sometimes, but it's all hyper-real to the point that it feels forced sometimes.

That said, after episode 2, I'm enjoying the hell out of the show still, but I hear that episode 4 is a real stinker but, we'll see.


Speaking of The West Wing, I started watching it after The Newsroom just completely blew me away and, needless to say, I have a new 7 season show to watch now and it's blowing me away just as The Newsroom did.