Topic: Rate the last TV show you've seen

[NWR_insanolord]

Breaking Bad Season 4. ∞/10

That's not nearly a high enough score.

[Halbred]

I can't figure out if I like "Two Broke Girls" or not. Always been a fan of Kat Dennings (GUESS WHY), and whole the show's premise is interesting, it just feels way too scripted. I suppose all first-season shows are like that, but...eh. It often feels like the characters are reading cue cards.

[broodwars]

In the spirit of Halloween and a bit of whimsy, I've started watching random old episodes of that old "SNICK" show Are You Afraid of the Dark?  When I was a kid, I loved this show but oddly I can only remember probably a handful of episodes from it.  Watching it now, though, is kind of...painful but not altogether bad.  The child acting in most of the episodes is pretty cheesy; the production values are pretty weak (even by 90s standards); and outside a couple of well-done twists the writing is pretty "Goosebumps" (i.e. it's kind of lame and predictable).  It's hard to bag on the show too much, though.  The show was meant to be a kid-friendly version of Tales From the Crypt, and for what it is it probably succeeds.  It's not a bad show overall, but man I wish these stories had more bite to them.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Finally finished X-Files yesterday. 8.5/10

It was all really good for the most part aside from Season 7 where you could tell Moulder was just dialing it in. The introduction of Agent Doggett really helped the show out as it needed a new skeptic since Scully was so deep into everything at that point that there was no longer any question in her mind that the X-Files were bogus and without Moulder, she wasn't holding my interest at all (although Gillian Anderson "Scully" became really attractive over the course of the series).

The biggest down points throughout the series though were the episodes that focused on Scully. Or should I say any episodes that didn't focus heavily on Moulder and in the later eps, Doggett.

I have to go back and rewatch all the movies now that I know all the back story for them. All 202 episodes of back story. I wonder if I will like the movies more the second time around?

[Morari]

You should have watched the first film (Fight the Future) in chronological order with the show. I believe it takes place right after Season 5.

I'd say that many of the later episodes fail strictly because they are so heavily tied into the overarching mythology of the series. Those were always boring episodes, right from the beginning. The move to focus almost exclusively on them did not make anything better. Outside of that, the series changes drastically in tone around season 6 or 7, where the bulk of the one-offs are much more humorous. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but the monotony grew weary pretty quick.

For me, I never much liked Doggett. Reyes was even worse. To be fair though, I don't think you could have necessarily come up with a better set of characters. By that point, the X-Files was Mulder and Scully... no one really could have replaced them. Even to that point, Mulder and Scully were wearing thin due to a lack of compelling episodes. For all of its faults, the mainline show still had a handful of gems right up to the end. I really can't stand much of Seasons 8 and 9 though.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I thought 7 was so bad that I almost gave up on the show.

I don't remember specifically everything wrong with it, but I remember it just seeming like Mulder wasn't into it and Scully couldn't carry it. Introducing Doggett (in s8 i think?) was a breath of fresh air for the show after Mulder left as it switched the formula back up to something much closer to the beginning of the show with a hard skeptic and a believer. Someone who had seen it with their own to eyes and someone who thought there had to be a reasonable explanation and anything else was crazy talk.
So I thought s8 & most of s9 were much better after sludging through s7. I admit that s9 had a few corny Scully Reyes eps (numerilogical episode with the musical), but over all I enjoyed it.

p.s. I was gonna watch the movies in time with the show, but Netflix didn't have them streaming, so I didn't bother.

[Morari]

Like I said, Season 7 was just goofy. Not bad, but the tone was way off from earlier seasons.

I appreciate the attempt they made at switching the roles up. It wasn't a bad idea to flip Scully's role, but I didn't think Doggett really ever provided a strong inverse. Heck, he comes off as plain old dumb in a lot of the episodes.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I didn't see it as dumb, just old fashioned and "it has to be this... because that's just crazy"

You gotta remember that he didn't want to be on the X-Files, but was put there as some sort of punishment to slow his crawl to the top or something. They were trying to discredit him as much as possible by making him sound as crazy as Mulder, so he would try hard to not accept that there was any such thing as "supernatural phenomenon" as he has been doing this job for 35+ years and never ran into any such **** as that before.

Once he realized that there was some sort of consipiracy going on and witnessed things with his own eyes, the series was practically over at that point, so his delayed acceptance of the things we already knew to be true just came off as ignorance on his part.

[Morari]

It wasn't so much his disbelief of what was going on that made him seem dumb. I don't expect someone to immediately buy into an alien conspiracy. That said, it has been years since I've really watched any of those later episodes. I wouldn't be able to accurately point out any specific instances of Doggett's personality to back up my opinion.

[broodwars]

I haven't really settled into a show I'm in the mood to watch lately, so I've just been watching a little of a bunch of shows (mostly anime).  So some quick impressions:

The Walking Dead (s2 ep. 2) - I'm very quickly getting to the point where I want to see half this cast suffer horrible, agonizing deaths.  Despite the appearance of seemingly likeable characters in this episode, the sheer amount of angst and whining from much of the cast is getting really annoying.  And this show really needs to start picking up the pace, because this show is getting really hard to watch.  It's still not a bad show...yet.

Fire Emblem (anime OVA) - Yes, this is a show that actually existed.  It was made in 1996, and looks like it was made in 1986.  ADV's English dub also sounds like it hails from that era, and if you remember their dubs from that era that's mostly not a good thing (especially with the horrendous lip-synching.  The animation's about average for mid-90s anime, but the show's surprisingly not that bad.  It's pretty standard-issue fantasy, with Prince Marth (or "Mars" as this show calls him) trying to start a revolution to retake his kingdom and it feels pretty true to the games.

The main problem with this show? It's only two episodes long, so the show literally begins just as it gets going and doesn't even attempt to resolve its story.  It just stops.  Yeah, why'd you even bother, Nintendo?

X-Men (anime) - Completely pointless so far (with only the pilot having aired).  There is literally NOTHING this show does that hasn't been done before and done better in either comic or animated form.  Of course it looks like the show's going to take place completely in Japan with a new Japanese schoolgirl mutant as the McGuffin, because apparently that's all the Japanese writers know how to do after pretty much using this same plot in the Iron Man and Wolverine anime series.  Not a bad show, but so far it doesn't look like it has a reason to exist.  At least Steven J. Blum is playing Wolverine again after the character was horribly miscast in his own anime.

Monster (anime) -  I just started watching this show, and as it is 74 episodes long and I'm only 3 episodes in I have a long way to go.  Right now, I could go either way on this series.  The art and animation are pretty poor by Madhouse standards (man, I've had reason to say that a lot lately), but the dub is pretty decent and the story has potential. 

The story is about a young surgeon in 1980s Germany who sacrifices his career to save a young boy dying from a gunshot wound...who then grows up to become a serial killer.  Yeah, this show's looking to be a rather dark character study, and it's certainly intriguing.  I just wish the show would pick up the pace a bit, because it moves incredibly slowly.

And hey, Thundercats is back with an episode focusing on everyone's favorite Ewok clones from the original series: the Ro-Bear Berbils.      The hilarious thing about the episode is the moral of the story: Wily-Kit and Wily-Kat getting high on Candy Fruit to make themselves so buzzed that they can dance around attacking enemies.  See kids?  When you're in trouble, just get high!   

[ThePerm]

Yeah Walking Dead Season 2, its got one more episode to pick up before I just start DVR-ing it so i can watch it in a spree. ****, when I was reading the Volumes, I thought about how each Volume would fit perfectly into a season of TV. Now there's filler, and its like wtf is the point? The show is expensive enough as it is to make, no need to add filler. The show will be taken off before the plot gets anywhere. This "character driven" angle idea their tossing around doesn't bode well. Lost did the same thing and ultimately failed miserably at the end because the plot eventually sucked. Breaking Bad is like watching a movie, though I think there was a stale episode here and there it ultimately payed off in spades. So, we can hope.  I've read 13 volumes, and it takes me about 1- 2 hours to read a volume. So it is possible to make these shows faster paced. The rate at which were going, we'll never get to volume 3.

[Plugabugz]

I'm trying to watch the pilot episode of Terra Nova. I'm about 20 minutes in and i'm bored.

You know how Lost or SGU or even Fringe established its universe in the opening episode? This isn't really doing that. I'm going to stop soon. What is this series ABOUT?

[Ceric]

I'm trying to watch the pilot episode of Terra Nova. I'm about 20 minutes in and i'm bored.

You know how Lost or SGU or even Fringe established its universe in the opening episode? This isn't really doing that. I'm going to stop soon. What is this series ABOUT?

Making Halbred Mad.  That is its whole purpose in existance.

[Halbred]

I'm trying to watch the pilot episode of Terra Nova. I'm about 20 minutes in and i'm bored.

You know how Lost or SGU or even Fringe established its universe in the opening episode? This isn't really doing that. I'm going to stop soon. What is this series ABOUT?

Making Halbred mad.  That is its whole purpose in existance.

Indeed. It makes me want to punch a small child. More than usual.

[Ceric]

I'm trying to watch the pilot episode of Terra Nova. I'm about 20 minutes in and i'm bored.

You know how Lost or SGU or even Fringe established its universe in the opening episode? This isn't really doing that. I'm going to stop soon. What is this series ABOUT?

Making Halbred mad.  That is its whole purpose in existance.

Indeed. It makes me want to punch a small child. More than usual.

You watched another episode didn't you?

[Plugabugz]

That's the thing... i didn't even SEE a dinosaur (i must have been less than 5 minutes away) and i was bored.

You know the series is off to a bad start creatively when it has to info-dump its premise on you by TEXT in the opening scene.

[Ceric]

I tend to like series that jump your right into the middle of it when everything is established.  Then just sort of gives you the premise and like as it going with maybe an origin episode later.  Thats one of the things I hate about the new Spider-man movie coming.  They are going to do the Origin again.  For goodness sakes if its Spider-man, Batman, or Superman people in mainstream culture know what the origin is or can ask the person next to them.  Just skip it and get into it.   Like the most recent Ninja Turtle movie did and there origin is more obscure

[BlackNMild2k1]

The latest episode of Pan Am

Christina Ricci was all kinds of FINE in this episode.

normally she has to be careful how she wears her hair because of her big ass forehead, and her looking too skinny can throw her whole look off, but in this episode she could do no wrong. She was absolutely perfect.

[Plugabugz]

I tend to like series that jump your right into the middle of it when everything is established.  Then just sort of gives you the premise and like as it going with maybe an origin episode later.  Thats one of the things I hate about the new Spider-man movie coming.  They are going to do the Origin again.  For goodness sakes if its Spider-man, Batman, or Superman people in mainstream culture know what the origin is or can ask the person next to them.  Just skip it and get into it.   Like the most recent Ninja Turtle movie did and there origin is more obscure

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with getting into the series with its premise established. SGU did that (by assuming continuity from SGA and SG1) and Lost did it in its later seasons by developing the backstory over the 50 years prior to the pilot. What Terra Nova did was just barf the issue out in 90 seconds of text (THE WORLD IS DYING AND OUR HOPE IS GOING BACK IN TIME). It just suggested a lack of grace and a scripting problem if they had to do that.

[Halbred]

@Ceric: I did not. I have not since the 2nd episode, and I have not looked back. I've considered it, then my wife reminds me that I'd just end up angry.

@BlackNMild2K1: Remember when Ricci actually had some meat on her bones? That kid was Top Ten material, I'm not even kidding. Then she gutted herself for "Black Snake Moan" and never bothered to eat again.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I do remember, and to be honest, there was a trashy sexiness about her in BSM, but she has hit a perfect balance in this last episode that didn't quite seem to pull together in previous episodes.

I should post some screen caps.... maybe later.

[King of Twitch]

Tonight's Last Man Standing was a giant step above recent episodes. In this one, Mike encouraged one daughter to go to college, made the other one not turn in a plagiarized homework paper, and got the youngest one to play in the company baseball game as the pitcher. 5 American apple pies out of 5.

[TJ Spyke]

Terra Nova is one of the best new shows IMO, and off to a great start. Lost was mentioned earlier, but I HATED the first 6 episodes of that (was so bored that I just stopped watching). The first episode was especially good.

[oohhboy]

Holy hell, I just saw the infamous episode of Top Gear goes to America. It was funny through out, but WTF America, ****, you guys have issues. I know it's TV and they were taking the Mickey out of you at every opportunity, but America had to be the worse country they had visited up to that point. Mind you I haven't seen the Iraq episode which I hear could be worse.

Top Gear, as always, in Top Gear.

[broodwars]

Terra Nova is one of the best new shows IMO, and off to a great start.

I have to respectfully disagree.  I had issues with the pilot but generally found it enjoyable, but I haven't been able to force myself to watch any of the episodes after it to completion.  It's just so uninteresting and by-the-numbers genre show.  And that's 45 minutes of my life every week I can put towards a show, movie, or game I actually enjoy.