let's talk about tv shows itt

is homeland going to make me a defensive crazy muslim girl or do i need to give in or should i just watch band of brothers again?

i think i just answered my own question, actually. lieutenant winters!!!

i recommend just watching how high tbh

or dreamgirls! DREAMGIRLS

my sister is watching/conflicted about Homeland and she says claire danes is a really good actor! can this be true?

lol I was VERY OPINIONATED at points in that Dreamgirls thread

Jesus Dan

you were great! i love that thread.

the acting in homeland is terrific all around, patinkin, obv lt. winters, but yes claire is great! she is kind of playing a grown-up angela chase, sort of

but yeah its sorta islamophobic. it doesnt really engage too much w/ religion or terrorism though, its more about secrets and trust and stuff

i think you could probably watch it without getting too angry muslim girl, its definitely not 24

let me put it this way, watch it

okay! i am sending my crazy muslim girl therapy bills to you fyi.

I keep meaning to watch homeland, the premise intrigues me

its the kind of show thats probably a lot more fun to watch all in a row than once a week because of all the ~~mysteries~~

& i have the sense it is going in an ~~intriguing direction~~ w/r/t its relationship w/ islam in the next couple episodes due to a [SPOILER] that just happened

and cmon yall, claire danes, damian lewis and mandy patinkin? i mean how could you NOT

i feel like there's a weird timebomb in watching homeland & waiting until you feel morally dubious doing so. it's weird seeing it getting written up for being more 'thoughtful' re: terrorism etc, bc yeah it seems to mainly avoid it. i could probably go for more contrarian white-terrorist plotmoves, though, they're always sensible

the funniest thing about it so far is the super half-hearted attempt at using jazz as some kind of 'interesting personality characteristic', as noted by like the presence of some jazz posters in cd's apartment

yeah i keep waiting for them to "explain" the jazz thing but basically theres just one line an episode that telegraphs CLAIRE DANES LOVES JAZZ and then its never further explained. like i thought her dad was maybe a jazz musician or something?

idk it sorta strikes me as one of those prized-character-idiosyncracies born of a tv writer, who stubbornly clings to it & refuses to have it written out as an irrelevance. it's kinda like that spike lee film about a bunch of jazzbos whose passion is made evident by the big blown up framed a love supreme sleeve in their apartment & by their casual whistling of a refrain from a love supreme while moving between scenes. maybe there will be a jazz terrorism plot later in the season *fingers crossed*

the credits to this show are v good, too

oh my god they are soooooooooooo horrible they are just UNBELIEVABLY horrible

no they're good, they have the CLAIRE DANES IN A MAZE bits which aren't so hot but mainly they convey the fractious & dystopian assemblage that is today's multimedia culture, bravo

oh my god no schlump. no.

bill clinton
lonesome bugle
upside down obama
frantic claire danes dialogue excerpt
~showtime~

they are the worst credits in the history of ever

idk it sorta strikes me as one of those prized-character-idiosyncracies born of a tv writer, who stubbornly clings to it & refuses to have it written out as an irrelevance.

this totally explains Maria Bello's hat on Prime Suspect

the NY Times declared yesterday that the sitcom has stopped evolving, so y'all can quit them.

NYT otm, and very late with the news

sitcoms have evolved into police procedurals and gangster series

I want to like each of the last three comments

At least Homeland's opening seq isn't as bad as Rubicon's.

god help me i am still really enjoying american horror story

lol u got caught up

signed, someone caught up on Grimm ;_;

if there has ever been a show on tv that is just str8 shock/filth candy, it is american horror story

AHS is basically just about a bunch of perverted ghosts, right

I have like 3 or 4 boardwalks in the backlog, might save them for my train ride on Friday

last 2 boardwalks have been v good fyi

i really like enlightened also, tho feel like im the only person watching it

tbh I was only half-watching boardwalk empire (most of my time was being directed towards torturing specific ppl in ILX fb chat with damn you autocorrect links) but every time I looked up it seemed like you could rename that show "White People Go Ham"

boardwalk hampire

Enlightened is p interesting since it teeters from a boring dramedy with a more pretentious Greys Anatomy voice over about life, friendship, emotions, blahblah to something actually really astute and ambitious at the same time.

But yeah. Even though I hardly get a laugh out of it, I'm liking all the eps so far save the kayaking trip one.

yah the v.o. & its self-help speak is kinda brutal 2 take. i would bet they thought they needed something light, redeeming to counterbalance the rest of the day-to-day disappointment stuff, which is what they capture p well

did anyone see that latest Mitch Albom TV-movie muckfest? Martin Landau as a dying rabbi?

based on the ratings, I'd wager 'no'.

Boardwalk development at the end of the last ep was brutal, but mostly gutting because I thought that character had a lot of promise.

Yea, the day-to-day struggles are the best part of it, like when she wants to volunteer at the homeless shelter but can't because it didn't pay enough. It's impressive how poignant that was even though you knew from the very start she was going to fail.

so I'm watching fringe – I'm on the season 3 episode where SPOILER AND SHIT – belly possesses olivia or whatever. and i realize that i'm ... beginning to lose interest in the show. does it ever return to its goodness, and is season 4 worth investigating?

did anyone see that latest Mitch Albom TV-movie muckfest? Martin Landau as a dying rabbi?

Oh! I met the producer of that when we dined next to each other in Buenos Aires. He bitched about having to be in Detroit for three months.

Nice guy, though.

according to the twitter someone beloved is coming back to parks & rec for an episode! i won't say who becuz idk spoilers but i'm super-stoked.

so I'm watching fringe – I'm on the season 3 episode where SPOILER AND SHIT – belly possesses olivia or whatever. and i realize that i'm ... beginning to lose interest in the show. does it ever return to its goodness, and is season 4 worth investigating?

― remy bean in exile, Monday, November 28, 2011 5:33 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

its picked up since that bit for sure, managed to change stuff up in the new season without fucking too much w/ the formula. get the feeling therell be some mid-spring doldrums the way there basically always are w/ sci-fi shows

haha leee you saw the same one i did. we loled a lot.

I went cold turkey and skipped everything this year, even shows I was watching before (Dexter, SoA, P&R, Community, etc. etc.). Watched a little bit of Homeland, but was put off by the b-plots and found my attention wandering (I loved Rubicon FWIW). Watched an episode of The Good Wife and it seemed rather good.

Is there anything I'm missing? I'm at the point now where I'm just ignoring the weekly air dates and just watching the entire season all at once. Planning on doing this with Breaking Bad when the final season airs.

BTW, seconding (thirding) "You're Getting Old / Ass Burgers" as the best episode of anything I've seen on television all year.

man i wish they hadn't killed rubicon :(

The cancellation of Rubicon and Terriers was actually the precipitate of why I just gave up all series this year. (did catch up on a lot of movies though)

Rubicon was by no means great but i do wish it would've gotten a 2nd season over Walking Dead or The Killing

They killed off the boring Miranda Richardson character so there was nowhere to go but up!

Sveral Homeland eps were written by Rubicon's second showrunner, Henry Bromell (who also produces). There are some clear similarities, esp. in the back half of the season.

*several

haha you could seriously delete pretty much the entire Miranda Richardson arc from Rubicon and the show would lose next to nothing in terms of plot or entertainment value -- i actually already forgot about that whole part of the show until you mentioned it just now

i am finally watching Firefly
thx netflix :)

I really, really was let down by Firefly. Like, nerds, really?

i don't really get whedon, like i guess he's supposed to be good with dialogue and characterization but the patter is so forgettable and bland and the characters are 'logable' in the most transparent ways possible

haha um 'lovable'

not so good w/ the dialogue, much better w/ the characterization. also at one point in time, good at creating characters (partic in Buffy) unlike any other character on tv. i think firefly was more exciting bc of the genre exercise (western + scifi) than bc of the characters. tho some of the characters (reynolds, zoe, jayne) were versions of western tropes + so were interesting along that line. i thought dollhouse was a total waste of time.

i haven't actually watched much Buffy, episodes here and there, which i liked, and no other whedon series really
i like Firefly though because of the cowboy western stuff + space! mostly and because there are a lot of non-lame women characters. it's no Farscape, however.

i don't really get whedon

me either

firefly and dollhouse are awesome, dr horrible is near perfect, buffy makes no sense to me and is kinda crap imo.

yeah dollhouse started not so great but warmed up p nicely

lol dollhouse is awesome and buffy is crap

i genuinely cannot understand how someone would think like this

its like saying illmatic is rub but nastradamus now that is the best hiphop record ever made

watched 10 episodes of homeland yesterday, showtime finally made a good tv show, im sure thats been covered, did not read thread

ill check back in when im done guys!

Whedon does quiet inspirational humanism really well, esp. in Firefly.

buffy rules. i've never finished another whedon series except dr. horrible.

there's a whedon-written episode of roseanne that i love to death

I think Buffy is academically good but I have almost no emotional attachment to the series aside from a couple of key series moments (Buffy's mom, Dark Willow). I have always enjoyed watching the show but never enough to make a point of trying to see it.

Firefly OTOH was just awesome, esp. once I saw it in the correct order.

Whedon is pretty great at picking actors but overall I like the Firefly cast more than the Buffy cast.

I never got past the opening of Dollhouse; great premise tho.

Dr Horrible pwns, obv

Since the sandbox doesn't have a P&R thread, this goes in here:

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx241ppdm61qm1br0o1_500.jpg

lol and I just now watched the Twilight Zone where Anne Blyth plays a movie star that never ages and is probably Cleopatra.

I'm iffy about Dr. Horrible, the ending wasn't very funny.

aw now i wish i hadn't finished watching firefly earlier today bc it would be the perfect thing to watch before going to bed tonight
the final ep is v good imo

Blimey, Sherlock was a bit good.

Or, as you you could say, Not Shit Sherlock.

did the new one air already??

Aye, 2010 tonight. Loosely based on A Scandal In Bohemia.

this is the 4th ep right?

Yes. Next Sunday has the one based on Hound of the Baskervilles.

looks like - max, i think? - was right:

Deadwood had sympathetic characters who threw the word "nigger" around, on the theory that we'd understand that people in that time and place might have done it without intending an insult. Everyone who uses that word on Hell On Wheels does intend an insult, which is fine, except that the show goes out of its way to lump Bohannon in with the insulted. It insists on the superior dignity of those on the bottom of society, then works extra hard to shoehorn its quick-drawing hero in there, on the theory that there's nobody more long-suffering and sinned against than a good-looking white Southern man who can kick the ass of anybody who looks at him cross-eyed. It's not bad enough that American politics have been rendered infantile and idiotic by the trend among the privileged and well-off to feel unaccountably sorry for themselves; now even our Westerns can't keep their hands off the crying towels. This goddamn show should be called H-E-Double-Hockey Sticks On Wheels.

i was just thinking about that old ilx how i met your mother thread and how i may have said some mean things about it and now it's probably my favorite show on tv.

also tv related, i really hate how this season they have turned walking dead on amc into lost...missing characters appearing in visions, people not divulging key plot points to each other, sweeping camera pans w meaningful musical score that take up 4 minutes of what should be tense zombie apocalypse, really obvious "twists" that take way too long in the revealing, etc

also tv related, i really hate how this season they have turned walking dead on amc into lost...missing characters appearing in visions, people not divulging key plot points to each other, sweeping camera pans w meaningful musical score that take up 4 minutes of what should be tense zombie apocalypse, really obvious "twists" that take way too long in the revealing, etc

also tv related, i really hate how this season they have turned walking dead on amc into lost...missing characters appearing in visions, people not divulging key plot points to each other, sweeping camera pans w meaningful musical score that take up 4 minutes of what should be tense zombie apocalypse, really obvious "twists" that take way too long in the revealing, etc

oops!

i feel bad for nathan fillion, i just love him but it seems outside of joss whedon ventures he can't catch a break.

i am not much of a TV guy, but SEVERANCE is honestly pretty grebt imo

it’s so good. I think about it at least once a week even though it’s been over for a few weeks.