The TV Discussion Thread

[number8]

How watchable? Like... doesn't make you want to kill yourself watachable or like actually worth watching watchable?

Doesn't make you want to kill watchable. For about 6 episodes. The story just doesn't work in a TV format. Having them stay in one place, go to school, getting chased by a different Terminator every couple of episodes... It makes no sense. Even though the episodes are kind of cool and suspenseful, it's just... well, it's retarded.

[Qrazy]

Doesn't make you want to kill watchable. For about 6 episodes. The story just doesn't work in a TV format. Having them stay in one place, go to school, getting chased by a different Terminator every couple of episodes... It makes no sense. Even though the episodes are kind of cool and suspenseful, it's just... well, it's retarded.

Sounds about right.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Lain is fantastic.

[[ETM]]

Having them stay in one place, go to school, getting chased by a different Terminator every couple of episodes... It makes no sense.

Well, within the story frame they've created, it's not that bad, especially considering it's all based on huge time travel paradoxes. [

Show Spoiler

As far as I remember, they are not chased by different Terminators, but just one. The others are on their own tasks and have no idea who, or where, they are. It's the whole "Skynet is preparing the war in the past before it even started" aspect they've introduced that I find the most intriguing.

]

Also, Summer Glau is hot.

[Sycophant]

Allow me to reiterate Qrazy's recommendation of Kemonozume. It's strange and twisted and sometime seems to lack a clear vision (the director for each episode had a lot of control over how that episode went and that in turn affected the continuing outcome of the series), but it's got gorgeous animation, a bizarrely effective romance/horror, antiquity-vs.-modernity spin. I've actually been meaning to watch it again.

[[ETM]]

Dear lord... the latest Steven Moffat-penned episode of Doctor Who is incredible. When that man takes over the show in Season 5, the universe will implode.

[Qrazy]

Allow me to reiterate Qrazy's recommendation of Kemonozume. It's strange and twisted and sometime seems to lack a clear vision (the director for each episode had a lot of control over how that episode went and that in turn affected the continuing outcome of the series), but it's got gorgeous animation, a bizarrely effective romance/horror, antiquity-vs.-modernity spin. I've actually been meaning to watch it again.

If you haven't had a chance yet you should check out the new series he's doing Kaiba. The animation style definitely isn't for everyone, but it's unique and beautiful in it's own way and there's tons of good stuff to be found in it.

[Sycophant]

If you haven't had a chance yet you should check out the new series he's doing Kaiba. The animation style definitely isn't for everyone, but it's unique and beautiful in it's own way and there's tons of good stuff to be found in it.

Thanks for pointing me to it. I just actually watched the first three episodes and I'm kind of in love. Already, it's proven itself possessing of the qualities I'm coming to expect from Yuasa: beauty, inventiveness, a wild sense of comedy, humanity, and absolute devastation. Crap. I'm gonna catch up before it's done being fansubbed.

[Qrazy]

Thanks for pointing me to it. I just actually watched the first three episodes and I'm kind of in love. Already, it's proven itself possessing of the qualities I'm coming to expect from Yuasa: beauty, inventiveness, a wild sense of comedy, humanity, and absolute devastation. Crap. I'm gonna catch up before it's done being fansubbed.

Unfortunately there only seems to be six episodes subbed/released online... let me know if you run into the seventh floating around... I think that ep is released in Japan already, not sure... series is supposed to finish near the end of the summer I believe.

[Sycophant]

Word is that seven's aired and is out there as a raw, but no one's fansubbed it yet. The series will be complete at 12 episodes. If I find the new one, I'll pass it on.

[Sycophant]

I don't know that this is going to get to the level that we'll need a Kaiba discussion thread, and I don't know if anyone else besides Qrazy is watching it (if that's true, it needs to change, people), but apparently the next time an episode will air in Japan will be June 12th, thanks to tennis broadcasts. Which means we probably have about three or more weeks before the next episode gets subbed. I'm going to get desperate, I'm sure, as it's kind of consumed me. I'll be watching eps. 1 through 7 at least once more in the interim, and episode 3 a few more times than that. Episode 3 is one of the most emotionally devastating things I've seen in a while.

I hope some other people give this a shot. It's positively beautiful and is fast on its way to my favorite anime series.

I've been watching them on http://www.crunchyroll.com/ which streams unlicensed anime (and some live-action dramas, apparently) with subtitles. If you don't want to deal with downloading them and can put up with occasionally chunky video sources, it's where I'll probably be spending all my free TV-watching time from here till, y'know, eternity.

PS: It even has Mind Game up in its entirety, for those who've been waiting to see it, even if it's not in pristine quality.

[Spinal]

Why do I keep getting sucked back into Weeds? The resolution of the second season cliffhanger was ultra-lame. What a cheat. I can't stand half the characters, although thankfully at least one of them has not returned. Just about any scene with Kevin Nealon or Elizabeth Perkins is guaranteed to be awful. And yet I continue to watch. Let me go, Mary Louise. You don't know what you are doing to me.

[Spinal]

... aaaaaand Mary Louise rips off her dress before jumping into the pool in her black underwear, thus guaranteeing that I will be held captive for at least another 6 episodes. :sad:

[Thirdmango]

I got the first season of Weeds but besides my attraction to Mary Louise which is fine because I still have some West Wing to watch, I can't really get into the show. I've been through I think six episodes but still having a tough time getting through it.

[Thirdmango]

I'm quite curious about Swingtown which premiers tonight on CBS, of course I have no tv, so hopefully I can watch it online tomorrow.

[Thirdmango]

If you haven't had a chance yet you should check out the new series he's doing Kaiba. The animation style definitely isn't for everyone, but it's unique and beautiful in it's own way and there's tons of good stuff to be found in it.

Downloading now.

[Ezee E]

Season 3 just came out on DVD.

And DSNT didn't notify me of this.

Gah.

And Spinal. You are so wrong about Nealon.

Justin Kirk is the highlight though.

[Spinal]

Oh, he's the worst.

Strike that. The chubby lesbian daughter is the worst.

Kirk is good though. I like him and the guy who plays Conrad.

[Sxottlan]

The St. Augustine Lighthouse episode of Ghost Hunters is probably one of the best hours of television I have seen in recent years. You have the structure, which lends itself to creepiness by its very nature what with the spiraling staircases, seeming isolation and how the crew regularly has to look up.

The "performances," if you want to call them that, by the TAPS team felt incredibly genuine. The shock and awe of their encounter with the apparent sheer amount of paranormal activity was highly infectious, made all the more haunting by the echoing of their voices off the tower's interior (the best shot: Brian looking up and asking, "Can you hear me?" as the question reverberates off the walls). The most shocking moment, when Brian believes that whatever they're chasing up the tower decides to start coming back down towards them and the reaction from Dustin is priceless.

The episode also reveals a few of the flaws of the show in general, like how the creepy background music can get in the way of hearing alleged voices and knocking (a ghostly trait of Most Haunted is that is suddenly and unfortunately finding its way into this show). There's a moment when Jason says to just stay quiet and listen. The show's producers amazingly decide to drop out the music as well and it's a startling contrast.

Another little flaw, they make big deals out of certain equipment, such as the humorous bit where Brian has to keep climbing the tower to adjust a recorder. You'd think the recorder would come back into play later in the episode since there was so much alleged audio going on. However, it's never mentioned again. You'd also think that with all the ghostly talking, they'd have pulled out their digital recorders to get EVPs. That is also not done.

Conversely, the new episode that aired last night makes me wonder just how much of the show is BS. All of it? Some of it? The way the show is presented with a more scientific bent makes me hope that it's all genuine, but then there are these apparent lapses in logic. Perhaps it's in the editing, but editing couldn't explain how the team didn't know the Moss Beach Distillery in California had pre-installed special effects to create ghostly happenings. The building was featured on one of the many creepy travel programs routinely aired on the Travel Channel. Perhaps they don't have the time to watch all those programs (which is a possibility) or else the producers of the show decided to go with it and it was just a total breakdown in communication. It can happen. Even if they can claim that, it's still a bit embarrassing.

However, it is interesting that they still decided to air the segment anyway. Perhaps there was simply no way to escape looking like fools in this particular investigation. If so, then I do give them some credit. Jason and Grant appeared on Conan O'Brien years ago and said people have tried to trick them in the past. I just never thought they'd actually air one of those instances. The response from the guy from the restaurant (a chef, not even the owner) still reeked of bull when asked why he didn't tell them about the special effects. Foolish of the team or no, his response revealed their was blame to go around.

I'm not one to blame the team's supposed researcher, considering she was brought on most likely because she's a pretty young girl (suspiciously with acting credits on IMDB despite Jason's claim that she's an old friend of the team). More likely that falls to a group of off-camera researchers from the production company who field calls and set up investigations.

[Mara]

Just tore through the entire series of Wonderfalls in a few days. I thought it was charming and fun. I liked it better than Dead Like Me, which was sort of fun but got old fast, but I didn't like it quite as well as Pushing Daisies.

[number8]

Swingtown was... interesting. It's not very often a network show would have no dramatic hook or plot twists on its pilot like that. They just set up characters and the world and progressed very slowly. It almost felt like a censored Showtime series.

[Raiders]

Just tore through the entire series of Wonderfalls in a few days. I thought it was charming and fun. I liked it better than Dead Like Me, which was sort of fun but got old fast, but I didn't like it quite as well as Pushing Daisies.

I love all three. Bryan Fuller's a TV genius.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Swingtown was... interesting. It's not very often a network show would have no dramatic hook or plot twists on its pilot like that. They just set up characters and the world and progressed very slowly. It almost felt like a censored Showtime series.

Isn't that pretty much what it is? I thought I read somewhere that it was originally developed for Showtime or one of those channels but was axed, and CBS picked it up and reworked it a bit for primetime.

[[ETM]]

Isn't that pretty much what it is? I thought I read somewhere that it was originally developed for Showtime or one of those channels but was axed, and CBS picked it up and reworked it a bit for primetime.

HBO passed on it.

[Ezee E]

I watched the very first four episodes of The Larry Sanders Show. Looks it once it gets rolling, it'll be great stuff, but right now, it's about as funny as a poor man's Seinfeld.