Topic: Rate the last TV show you've seen

[NWR_insanolord]

I've been watching that with my roommates lately. It's their first time; I've seen up to the end of Season 4 but that was a while ago. We're buzzing through it, watching the first two seasons in about four or five nights, and loving it.

[broodwars]

I just finished the second (and last) season of Sports Night.  Overall, I hated this season.  Yeah, it's terrible.  What was a somewhat amusing comedy series about the wacky things that can happen in broadcast television got mired in romantic subplots that I just couldn't give a flying **** about, with characters I feel similarly about, and nothing else.  They even managed to ruin for most of the season the only good romance on the show, the one between Jeremy and Natalie.  There were a few good moments, though, that really felt like they could have been hilarious if the show had expanded the concept, such as the episode where they discover they have to do 2 hours of coverage on what turns out to be a 7 second long boxing match.  That's funny and interesting, so why weren't there more episodes about that rather than who in the office is ****ing who?

For as much as I hated about 1.5 seasons of this show, though, it did have a good ending.  It was built-up well, the characters had some resolution, and the way the story played out was a good note to end the series on.  I still don't recommend this series, though.  If you want to watch an Aaron Sorkin show, watch the one that was actually great: The West Wing.  Accept no substitutes, at least until we see how this upcoming HBO series of his turns out.

[Khushrenada]

Aww. I missed the Enterprise debate. That said, I'm still going to quickly add my thoughts to the matter.

I've always like Enterprise. Yes, there were a lot of things that could be grating. But I honestly like it better than any other series except TNG. Last year, I watched all the episodes again from beginning to end also and finally saw a couple I had missed when they aired way back when.

Anyways, I did enjoy the early exploration feel in the early first season. Like when Archer and crew finally step on a newly discovered M2 class planet and are taking pictures of the event. That's very true to life. The show really took off in the latter half of the second season only to get derailed by having the whole Xindi plot.

That said, I have mixed feelings on the Xindi plot. Some parts of it were really good and other parts were subpar or filler. I liked the whole sphere mystery and how badly the Enterprise got beaten down near the end and that Archer had to resolve a lot of the matter by negotiating.

The Temporal Cold War was a mess. It started out with much potential and I didn't mind the Suliban as villians but then it turned into such a lowstakes ending and so much of it was rendered irrelavent. You look back on the first two seasons, nothing featured about the Cold War had anything to do with how it ended. Though for that matter, things were also kept pretty vague a lot of the time on any plot details about it so it all ended up being a wash.

The fourth season definitely started to pick the pace back up to where season 2 had gotten but I was never a fan of the 3 part arcs. Some worked better than others. And then it didn't end well. The Orion women taking over the ship. The Xenophobe Moon plot was rushed and muddled and then they turn the finale into a sidepoint/footnote of a TNG episode and kill Trip just because. Somehow, that makes it more powerful I guess.

[broodwars]

The Xenophobe Moon plot was rushed and muddled and then they turn the finale into a sidepoint/footnote of a TNG episode and kill Trip just because. Somehow, that makes it more powerful I guess.

Hey, the First Rule about being an Enterprise fan is that we do not acknowledge the existence of that abomination of an episode that Shall Not Be Named, which served only to worship TNG and destroy everything Enterprise was.  The series ended decently with Terra Prime, and that is reality.   

[gbuell]

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome? Is that title a deliberate spoof/homage of "Spartacus: Blood and Sand"?

[Ceric]

I'm guessing Enterprise is on Netflix with the rest of them.  I'm wondering if its worth forcing myself through the first season.  I was super excited for Enterprise when it came out.  It sounded like exactly what I wanted in a new Star Trek.  Then it thoroughly offended me by the middle of the first season and I just stopped watching it.  Though I did watch the monster hunting series that aired after it.  That was fun.

[Morari]

It's worth watching. It's short enough that I'm sure you can grind through it. Stick it out through the Xindi arch and you'll be pleased by the end. It's still a more entertaining show than DS9 ever was.

[TJ Spyke]

DS9 is the best Trek series to me (especially seasons 4-7). The Xindi arc is something people seem to either love or hate.

If you like the Mirror Universe episodes from DS9 and TOS, you will want to make sure and watch the two part season 4 episodes "In a Mirror, Darkly". They are set entirely within the Mirror Universe (none in the regular one) and they even created a new intro just for these two (that focus on war and conquering rather than exploration).

[NWR_insanolord]

In a Mirror, Darkly is the answer to the question "How much fan service can you pack into one story while still being fun and enjoyable?".

[Ceric]

It's worth watching. It's short enough that I'm sure you can grind through it. Stick it out through the Xindi arch and you'll be pleased by the end. It's still a more entertaining show than DS9 ever was.

Blasphemy   I like DS9 Until the Dominion Wars.

[broodwars]

As I've been playing Skyrim, I've started watching Season 3 of The 4400, and honestly I'm really not enjoying this season.  The writing has been very unsatisfying, especially with the way the start of Season 3 writes Lily (a generally likeable character) out of the show and makes Isabelle an even more annoying character (which I hadn't thought possible).  And the way that Maya has been dealt with feels particularly unsatisfying, as it feels like 2 years of stories with her have just been rendered completely pointless.

And seriously, **** the people from "the Future" and their "Great Calamity".  Future civilizations like this are why people in the past are often so reluctant to help time travelers in movies and TV shows.  They're just complete and total pricks (how appropriate that they seem to be led by the Borg Queen herself), and every bad thing that happens on this show is pretty much their fault.  It really is Enterprise's Temporal Cold War all over again.

[NWR_insanolord]

I just finished up the finale of Cheers. I think I've talked about the show before in this thread, but it really is one of the best examples of the sitcom genre that has ever been produced. Not many shows that last for 11 seasons can be said to have been great the whole way through, but Cheers managed it by reinventing itself a couple times along the way. Shelley Long leaving when she did may have been the best thing that could have happened to the show, as it forced them to switch up the formula. The Sam and Dianne mechanic, a cliche that was invented by and named after this show, could not have lasted 11 years, but by forcing the change they prolonged the life of the show by turning it into something very different, but just as good.

Any fan of TV comedy should watch this show. It's remarkable how well it holds up almost 30 years after it started, and is full of laugh out loud moments from the pilot right up until the end.

[oohhboy]

Community: Modern Warfare. Best episode EVER. Until the next one.

[Plugabugz]

Sherlock - A Scandal in Belgravia. Steven Moffat is on rip-roaring form here. The pace and speed is blistering but everything, everything is on point. Writing, acting, editing, directing. All of it.

It's just that good. Highly recommended.

[GK]

Been hooked on a British series airing on Hulu called Misfits lately. Just saw Two from season 2 last night. Another good ep, the ending has an unexpected twist, & apparently party drugs make super powers work in reverse.

The show is something like Heroes only the main cast are a group of degenerates serving a community service sentence. While there are serious moments, you'll find yourself laughing a lot especially whenever Nathan is in the scene. No matter what's going on, he seems to always find a way joke around.

[BlackNMild2k1]

That was my favorite show for a moment.

At first Nathan was an annoying little bugger, but then he quickly grew to be my favorite person on the show. I actually just finished the 3rd season a few days ago. Looong wait till season 4.

[Plugabugz]

Misfits is what Heroes could have became if it didn't try to be a big sprawling show IMO.

[Morari]

Sherlock - A Scandal in Belgravia. Steven Moffat is on rip-roaring form here. The pace and speed is blistering but everything, everything is on point. Writing, acting, editing, directing. All of it.

It's just that good. Highly recommended.

Agreed. It's probably the best yet. I'm still not sold on the guy they have playing Moriarty, though.

[broodwars]

Sherlock - A Scandal in Belgravia. Steven Moffat is on rip-roaring form here. The pace and speed is blistering but everything, everything is on point. Writing, acting, editing, directing. All of it.

It's just that good. Highly recommended.

Agreed. It's probably the best yet. I'm still not sold on the guy they have playing Moriarty, though.

Nor am I.  I just started watching the show a couple of days ago, and now I'm caught up to last week's episode.  I really don't like this show's Moriarty, who comes off less as a meglomaniacal kingpin of crime and more of a Joker impersonator by way of the Dark Knight.

Overall, I like the show and I think it largely makes the right updates to make the source material relevant to a modern audience (though I still really like Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes).  Really, my only two big issues with the series are that the 2 hour stories can really drag around the 1 hour mark, and I wish the show didn't reference the original stories as much as it does.  It was particularly absurd in the Season 1 finale, where at least 3 old Sherlock Holmes stories were thrown together in a blender.  I could also do without the gay jokes, especially with this series making it very much clear that Holmes and Watson are not.  It's not blown ridiculously over-the-top like the Guy Richie movies do, but I still have to groan as a Sherlock, Holmes fan every time they go to that well.

I've also been watching the occasional episode of the 1991 animated TV series The Adventures of Tintin, somewhat in preparation for eventually seeing the recent animated film.  It's good old-fashioned adventure storytelling that reminds me a lot of Jonny Quest (or perhaps I should say that Jonny Quest reminds me a lot of Tintin considering the Tintin novels came first).  The animation is really spotty and the video quality of this restored series varies wildly, but the character designs are nice and memorable in their simplicity.  Sadly, the show seems to have a nasty case of Twin Peaks syndrome in its soundtrack, where the show only uses the same one song the entire episode.

[nickmitch]

The Napoleon Dynamite cartoon premiered today. It was almost as terrible as the movie.

[Morari]

Sherlock - A Scandal in Belgravia. Steven Moffat is on rip-roaring form here. The pace and speed is blistering but everything, everything is on point. Writing, acting, editing, directing. All of it.

It's just that good. Highly recommended.

Agreed. It's probably the best yet. I'm still not sold on the guy they have playing Moriarty, though.

Nor am I.  I just started watching the show a couple of days ago, and now I'm caught up to last week's episode.  I really don't like this show's Moriarty, who comes off less as a meglomaniacal kingpin of crime and more of a Joker impersonator by way of the Dark Knight.

I can see that. I think he just seems, well, whiny more than anything. I wonder if this has been the general reaction, as they seem to have moved off of the topic of Moriarty quite quickly after building up to him the way they did. I'd rather he be an unseen force in the background anyway. I just hope that the series finale (years from now?) takes the 7% Solution route.

I just watched through the first season of American Horror Story. I was interested to see how an anthology show would play out with season-long stories. I hope that the next season fairs better. While I was initially intrigued by this season's plot, it quickly became convoluted in a menagerie of minor characters and their seemingly pointless histories. The ending played out just as you would have expected from episode six onward, filling just about every haunted house trope you can imagine. No real payoff. Still, the acting and production values were generally good... so I'm interested to see what they'll do with a completely new tale next season.

[Stogi]

Legend of Galatic Hereos

10/10

I could write a thesis 20 pages long about this show and its depth and wonderful insight into human motives, passion, and consequences, but I will spare you what would amount to be an incredibly interesting paper and simply recommend this show.

Though the animation is simply decent and there are several times where you'll notice the same b-roll, the real strength is the story which is a Game of Thrones-like Space Opera. Characters are fleshed out to such a degree that ambitions predict motives, motives predict actions, and actions predict plot. Some may want peace, others wealth and others power; rarely are there one-sided characters. Best of all, the narrative doesn't force an agenda or message on you. There isn't an antagonist and protagonist, a right or wrong; there is only the telling of the story. When axe battles (yes axe battles) full of blood and badass-ery are slightly less entertaining then a conversation between two Admirals, you know through and through that you are watching something special.

Though it may start slow and very anime-ish, I can't think of an episode that could be labeled as filler. A couple points during the 110 episodes it focuses on past history, usually told in a documentary watched by a character, but even those episodes are incredibly entertaining and round societies with a wealth of depth.

This show will not be for everyone due to its meticulous pace and sub-par animation, but to those who are looking for a series that takes care of its characters, setting, and story with pointillism quality, this should not be missed.

Lastly, there was several times as I was watching where I said to myself "This could be an amazing trilogy." I even felt compelled to write a script loosely based on it. I'm sure many of you who watch it will feel the same way.

 

P.s. there are some genuinely funny moments usually by Commander Poplan who would be perfectedly played by Ryan Reynolds talking to his celebit friend about women or age or by the overall strangeness of anime from time to time.

[broodwars]

I've heard a lot of great things about Legend of Galactic Heroes (it sounds a lot like what Crest/Banner of the Stars was trying to do), but as it's very likely to never be picked up by a western distribution company I'll probably never see it.  Watching a show undubbed with subtitles is a real turn-off for me, especially as dubs have improved so much over the last 15 years or so.  I'll check it out if Funimation or Sentai ever feels brave enough to pick up the license.

[Stogi]

Im usually not a fan of dub but it could have been used here because of how quickly and concisely they speak (odd for Japanese but they use a lot of metaphors). I'm a quick reader and even I had to rewind sometimes in order to recieve all the information. The voice acting is really good however. I wasn't shock to find out that there were over a hundred voice actors. That's nearly one for every character.

I wouldn't ignore it since this is such a wonderful show (I refuse to say anime as it is deserving to be judged outside of that category). It takes a bit to get into but it soon becomes addicting.

I would also recommend to those that want to watch it to go to YouTube and search "logh" instead of downloading from torrents.  It has all the episodes (usually split into three parts) and the subs used on YouTube are much better.

[TJ Spyke]

The Napoleon Dynamite cartoon premiered today. It was almost as terrible as the movie.

The movie was not bad, so saying the show is as good as the movie is a good thing.