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Post by caucasoididiot on Feb 27, 2010 14:26:40 GMT -5
I wonder if there is something we find funny today that will make people cringe 20 years from now? Oh, I'd put money on it. That's just the way things go. I've been checking out the old Emma Peel era Avengers on Hulu. I don't think I'd seen them since '67 but I'm surprised how much comes back to me. It's interesting how the British can often make scripts nearly as silly as anything on Gilligan's Island work. I think it's that they somehow managed to keep a straight face while the silly US comedies of that era couldn't resist smirking. There is an expiration notice up, but there were a bunch of those last month and yet nothing went away.
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Post by Shep on Mar 9, 2010 9:09:19 GMT -5
Before I left the States I picked up the "Best of" and "First Season" dvd releases of "The Larry Sanders Show."
Such a great series! Jeffrey Tambor's "Hey Now" Hank Kingsley and Rip Torn's Artie are two of my favorite tv characters ever.
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Post by Mod City on Mar 9, 2010 12:10:10 GMT -5
Before I left the States I picked up the "Best of" and "First Season" dvd releases of "The Larry Sanders Show." Such a great series! Jeffrey Tambor's "Hey Now" Hank Kingsley and Rip Torn's Artie are two of my favorite tv characters ever. I wish that whole series were on DVD. I wonder what the hold up is?
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Post by inlovewithcrow on Mar 18, 2010 15:57:48 GMT -5
non-tv owner, here. I only see TV as DVDS years later when the library gets them, and I tend to pick BBC series over American. However, that said, I grabbed The Lost Room because I so like Krause and I really liked it. Not enough that I'm willing to have a TV and wade through the 99% of crap to get to the 1% like this, but I did like it. Twilight-Zone-y, but original. I'd never seen anything exactly like it, and I was riveted the whole time, despite the logical inconsistencies they didn't edit out.
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Post by Krissette on Mar 30, 2010 1:10:56 GMT -5
Watching stand-up comedy with my friend tonight. So far watched Eddie Murphy, Christopher Titus, and now Craig Ferguson.
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Post by inlovewithcrow on Mar 31, 2010 17:38:22 GMT -5
Firefly. Oddly enough, though I had both TV and internet when this first aired, I never heard of it. Only doing a search through my library’s database for “Complete Series” (I was actually hoping for BBC series as a result) did I happen upon this, and Alan Tudyk’s name sold me on getting it over to my branch of the urban library I use.
I was surprised how much I liked this. Oh, to be sure, the gun battles and explosions wore on me pretty quickly. Along with car chases, I’ve seen literally tens of thousands in the mass media during my life, and yet I’ve never seen one in real life, so they seem false to life to me, not to mention derivative and repetitive and painfully boring over a lifetime. And the title was quite stupid as a bit of marketing; however could someone guess it’s s-f without reading the small print? And the actors are way too pretty—I prefer at least a few less model-perfect actors. But these are minor quibbles while three things were strong in this series.
One, it’s some of the best real s-f I’ve ever seen in the mass media. Forget the silliness of FTL travel (I’m willing to, in order to have s-f tales at all), and much else of the extrapolation was well done. The device of a bilingual population was smart, and though I’d put my money on Spanish and Chinese for a real-life future right now, of course English is still necessary for a show broadcast here, so English and Chinese were fine enough choices. How would religion, hardwired into some human brains apparently, and politics and language and the communal ethos evolve in this circumstance, after the end of the earth and colonization of our galactic neighborhood? I can’t say, but Whedon’s guesses were actually thoughtful and logical, which I can’t really say about any other TV s-f I’ve seen. World-building is something most s-f novelists take great care with, often spending a year on it before drafting a novel over the following six months, but usually in TV s-f you get the sense that they invented their world in a single boozy afternoon, meetings punctuated often with the sentence, “what the hell, yeah, whatever, that’ll work okay.” Here, however, I was relieved to find time and thought put into the society through which the heroes move.
Two, the device of a “western set in space” was rather clever. For those who moan that there are no new frontiers, and allege that people need frontiers, space is an answer, and here that solution is dramatized, with all the cinematic language of the westerns kept intact. My favorite such moment—probably a common favorite—was in a saloon brawl when the hero gets tossed out through a force field/holographic window. Neat effect, and a fun joke on the referent.
Three, the human relationships were done well. The unspoken but requited attraction between the captain and the call girl works well, and the tender relationship between the doctor and his tortured/insane sister is always poignant and affecting. We know that there are layers to most of the characters, mysteries that will (as the show got canceled) never be revealed but that serve to make the characters seem complex and interesting.
When they try for humor, it’s actually funny (as opposed to wince-inducingly bad, as the humor is so often in Star Trek and elsewhere). When they try for sexy, they achieve sexy. When they want touching, they get touching. They do what they set out to do. Good stuff.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Mar 31, 2010 20:41:34 GMT -5
Before I left the States I picked up the "Best of" and "First Season" dvd releases of "The Larry Sanders Show." Such a great series! Jeffrey Tambor's "Hey Now" Hank Kingsley and Rip Torn's Artie are two of my favorite tv characters ever. Isn't Garry Shandling great? I wish they would release The Gary Shandling Show. I liked it a whole lot better then Seinfeld. I'm just starting my first run through the Get Smart complete series box set. I'm amazed at how funny it was right from the very start. There seems to be no growing pains. It's like they hit their stride before they started the series, and that's a rarity. The only other show I can think of, that seemed to have no growing pains, was Green Acres.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Apr 10, 2010 2:24:54 GMT -5
CSI This old show has gotten pretty creaky of late. But this week we got a GREAT great episode. Man I enjoyed it like the days of old. It's all probably leading up a season finale and if the remainder of the season can maintain this kind of smarts and intensity, It will once again be 'must see' for me!
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Post by angilasman on Apr 12, 2010 7:50:57 GMT -5
Watched two old Doctor Whos I got for my birthday this weekend.
Doctor Who and the Silurians
The Third Doctor encounters a race of intelligent prehistoric reptiles who've been in suspended animation for some millions of years and now want to take the Earth back. About four episodes worth of story stretched out to seven episodes.
Doctor Who: The Sea Devils
Sequel story from a few seasons later. The Doctor finds a base of aquatic versions of the reptiles and basically the plot from Silurians is re-hashed, but this time it's exciting and well paced and the monsters are better and The Master is on hand to match wits with The Doctor!
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Post by Justin T on Apr 12, 2010 21:38:40 GMT -5
24: I love this show, but I hate it when they kill characters off like they did tonight.
Oh the plus side, Chole being in charge is cool and Logan coming back is good.
I haven't been this upset at a character death on 24 since Palmer, Michelle and Edgar died in Season 5. Renee was awesome, really REALLY pissed off that she's gone.
Glad they gave her the silent clock at least, She deserved it.
The only upside to this is Jack is going to kill everyone involved in this, he's going to be on the warpath.
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Post by PimPamPet on Apr 13, 2010 7:13:49 GMT -5
A bunch of classic Night Gallery and Ray Bradbury Theater episodes.
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Post by pups4ever on Apr 15, 2010 20:04:22 GMT -5
South Park: 200
Holy freakin' crap! This episode was insane. If you like the show, go to southparkstudios.com now and watch it. They bring together several characters and plots that they haven't done in a long time. It still felt very original and made me laugh. Unlike some shows that just randomly show things, they connected all these things in a very funny way. I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending was surprising, to say the least.
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Post by Shep on Apr 22, 2010 7:24:51 GMT -5
"The Starlost: The Beginning." Two eps of a 70s Canadian sci-fi show stitched together to make a film. Interesting concept (sort of Logan's Run meets Space:1999), but ultimately a pretty poor show (creator Harlan Ellison has his named removed) with terrible effects.
Would have made great MST3K fodder.
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Post by ilmatto on Apr 24, 2010 6:36:38 GMT -5
Columbo episode "Dagger of the Mind" (1972) with Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman. I enjoyed watching Honor Blackman working the scenes; she's got class.
The dopey "Columbo runs around taking photos of everything in London" scenes were tiring, but I was surprised when the dignified English butler started blackmailing the couple and ended up getting himself suicided and set up as the murderer of the principal guest star.
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Post by solgroupie on May 3, 2010 13:11:36 GMT -5
i don't know how long this will be up, but did anyone else see the opening of the simpsons last night? i am so out of the loop i have no idea who this kesha chick is, but it's her song tik tok they use. it's a trip, and i love it when the simpsons do something different like this.
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