The TV thread

Watched the first to episodes of 'Deadwood.'
OK, not great.

On current TV, 'Man Seeking Woman' is very uneven. There have been some funny moments, particularly in the premier, but it misses more than it hits.

 

Deadwood is one of my top 3 favorite shows of all time. I have nothing in common with people who don't like that show. Then again, I'm not sure I've ever met someone who hasn't liked it. Stick with it, Buck.

 

I get where you're coming from Buck. I liked Deadwood but by no means would I classify it as a 'great show' like I would with something like The Sopranos and The Wire.

I heard all the praise here and other places so I binged watched the entire series over a two week span last year. As I said, I thought it was OK but I kept waiting for it to make the jump to 'great' status and it never got there for me. What stood out to me was the overuse of vulgar language every other word in the show. I don't know if that was a true reflection of how everyone spoke like back in the Old West or was it just David Milch overreacting to the flexibility 'premium cable channels' have in their use of 'salty' language versus the years he spent on network TV dealing with network censors. I'm no prude and I can go there with the best of them in my use of 4-letter words when necessary. However, I'm not a teenager or in my twenties that I fell the use of constant vulgarity is necessary. So maybe that's the turn off that makes me think Deadwood isn't a great show.

I'd even go as far to say Timothy Olyphant gives a much, much better performance in Justified than he ever did in Deadwood. Heck, I'd recommend people watch Justified before Deadwood as the interactions between Olyphant's character (U.S. Marshall Raylon Givens) and Walton Goggins' character (Boyd Crowder) is much better than any of the interactions between Olyphant & Ian McShane on Deadwood. But then again, that's my opinion, just like I don't see all the 'greatness' of The Americans. Good show? Yes. But it's far from being the 'best show on TV' in my mind.

On a different note, anyone else watching Fortitude? It's new series shown on Pivot TV in the U.S. and Sky Atlantic in the U.K. Pivot TV is available on DirecTV, Dish Network, FIOS, AT&T U-verse and various other systems. Fortitude stars Stanley Tucci as an American who is a Metro London DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) assigned to investigate a murder of a British citizen in the Arctic. The first three episodes are kind of slow moving but I'm hoping it picks up as there are 9 more episodes to go. [WATCH] ‘Fortitude’ Review: Pivot’s Arctic Thriller Needs To Warm Up Says Dominic Patten | Deadline

Pivot TV has the first episode available for free view on their website at: Watch Fortitude on Pivot TV | TakePart

Another show I'd recommend is a French criminal drama called Engrenages. BBC Four is showing their 5th season under the name Spiral with English subtitles right now. The first 4 seasons were available for awhile in the U.S. on Netflix. I expect Netflix might add them again as the 5th season will end on British TV in about a week.

Spiral (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I'm finally getting around to watching Empire. I was half-expecting it to bomb majorly. Usually the more Fox hypes a show, the bigger the bomb.

It's one hell of an entertaining show.

 

I live out in the foothills and the orange groves, and our property is not wired. So we only use Netflix stream for traveling and entertainment emergencies, else ways we'd run through our data limit in the first week of every month.
We get the DVDs for home viewing, and these c#cksuckers only put two episodes on each disc.
I don't cotton to that.

 

Watching "The Slap" right now and thinking that kid needed to be slapped and more.

Not sure you can build a whole series around the slap -- although the babysitter love triangle is interesting, too.

 

That was tough to watch. I didn't find any of the characters to be likable or sympathetic or even interesting. I like the concept for the show and that's one hell of a cast, but I don't know how long I'll last with this one.

 

Anybody still watching Gotham? I watch it and find it entertaining even though I know it's not actually what I'd call good. I read a review somewhere recently that said with young Joker apparently showing up next week it's officially become the Batman version of Muppet Babies, which I thought about summed it up.

 

I can understand parents being upset if, say, an uncle slapped their kid, but these parents acted as though the guy punched and then body-slammed their precious little future serial killer. And leading up to the slap, these parents had ignored the kid pulling flowers out of the flower bed, swinging a wooden baseball bat at his cousins and kicking the uncle in the shin. And the future serial killer is still breast-feeding at whatever age 10?

Thomas Sadoski was likable as Don on The Newsroom, but he sure is unlikable as the future serial killer's dad.

 

Anyone watching The Jinx on HBO? Fascinating and disturbing stuff.

 

I watch it, but I joked that the show was going to be about the ineptitude of the Gotham City Police Department until Batman shows up to start bailing them out.

 

I like the atmosphere of Gotham more than anything. The stories aren't so compelling, but it's still an interesting place to hang out for an hour.