television

[Larry Flyntz]

I was kind of disappointed that House left the nuthouse at the end of the first episode.  I was hoping that the story would develop over the first half of the season or something.  There was so much potential there, and while I don't think they squandered it per se (I thought the episode was very good), I think they could have done a lot more with it.

I just really liked the nuthouse idea because it would break up the "House formula" which has gotten a bit old after five or six seasons or whatever.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

I watched Castle for the first time since its been on last night, at least until I fell asleep. It seems pretty good! Then again, I could watch Nathan Fillion cutting his toenails and think it is pretty good, so you know. Overall, it seems like a pretty standard murder who-done-it show ala Law and Order, and I didn't really see how Nathan Fillion's character being a writer came into play a whole lot, but maybe that was just the one episode. I'm just glad he seems to have a steady job again.

[Pube Truth]

yeah that first episode didn't really do much for the dynamic there...the episodes from last season did a pretty good job of explaining that. oh and ps mmmm....Nathan Fillion.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

oh and ps mmmm....Nathan Fillion.

Yeah exactly. Like I said, cutting his toenails. I don't even care.

[Pube Truth]

yish. I too would watch him cut his toenails. it would be great tv. I imagine he would do it with a good amount of pizazz....where pizazz means sexy awesomeness.

[oatmeal fetish....]

The new episode of Always Sunny is one of the best I've ever seen imho

http://itsalwayssunnyepisodes.com/2009/09/24/season-5-episode-2-the-gang-hits-the-road/#more-427

[Larry Flyntz]

The new episode of Always Sunny is one of the best I've ever seen imho

http://itsalwayssunnyepisodes.com/2009/09/24/season-5-episode-2-the-gang-hits-the-road/#more-427

Agreed.  Any disappointment I had in Episode 1 quickly disappeared after watching this one.

[Larry Flyntz]

bored to death continues to be pretty good though!

I caught the first episode, and I didn't really like it.  I've never really been convinced that whats-his-name is as much of a genius as everybody thinks.

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

I watched Community on Demand with Benjamin the other night and we both loved it. That shit was hilarious. I will have to make an effort to keep up with it, I think.

How is Parks and Recreations? It seems like an Office wannabe, if you ask me, but I haven't watched it yet. I don't really care of Amy Poheler though, unless she's alongside Tina Fey.

[Pube Truth]

i watched one episode of parks and recreation...and I just couldn't even stand it. it just pissed me off. I am decidedly against amy poehler being alive unless she's ....being alive next to Tina Fey.

[Infinite Jerkgrinders]

i watched one episode of parks and recreation...and I just couldn't even stand it. it just pissed me off. I am decidedly against amy poehler being alive unless she's ....being alive next to Tina Fey.

Seconded. I prefer 'Community' Better

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

The show is exactly the same as it was on Bravo! Except that for some reason Michael Kors and Nina Garcia have been absent a lot this season. But the challenges are pretty good...they had a really fun one last week where the designers had to create a character based on a genre and design something for that character. There was a lot of neat stuff that came out of that one. Whatever, I still love it. The outfits are great.

Although I do agree with you on The Office. Whatched it last night and uh...Jim as "co-manager"? Pam preggers? Wtf? It seems to me like they are really stretching that out farther than it should have gone. Which is FUNNY because I seem to remember having this argument with Ethan YEARS prior, comparing the American Office to the original (and still better, imho) English Office. The English series only ran for like, two seasons, and "Jim and Pam" (can't remember their names) never really got together, which I always thought was much better. I mean, once you eliminate that dynamic, the whole "Will they or won't they!" you lose so much of what makes two characters interesting. I'm sorry but Jim and Pam are just NOT as cute now that they are all "We're happy and in love!" Although Pam still is pretty cute on her own.

Community still pwns tho. 

[Famous Hogbert]

Has anyone watched FX's Sons of Anarchy? I've caught two episodes from the 2nd season and its got me interested.

[Pube Truth]

Community still pwns tho. 

Convinced it's the best comedy on TV. Has anyone seen The Good Wife? I can't tell if I like it because it's actually good or because I like all the actors...

Also, I never really liked House, but I just caught the episode where he's in a psych ward late last night and couldn't even believe how well done it was. Also, Franka Potente...yay.

[WWW.SETH.COM]

Another comedy I've been surprised to enjoy has been ABC's Modern Family. It is kind of Office-y, but it's still pretty good.


Recently I've been thinking about Aaron Sorkin, the writer/creator of The West Wing and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. I think I may have mooned over Sorkin's work already in this thread, so I'll keep this commentary to a solitary aspect of Sorkin's writing. Sorkin tends to make his characters writers and usually brilliant, neurotic and talented writers. Often, they seem to be a kind of avatar for Sorkin's own issues.

What I think really makes this level of self-insertion enjoyable is the way the writer-leads all obsess over their work. One of the characters on Studio 60 has a constant refrain: "I'm eating it!" The writer is played excellently by Matthew Perry (who would have thought he could do neurosis?). One of Perry's monologues is about how he writes for himself and other people, who he wants to like him because of his writing. The speechwriters on the West Wing, the glib pretty-boy savant Sam Seaborn and the brooding combative curmudgeon Toby Ziegler, often struggle with the wording of their speeches. I suppose this is a pretty narrow thing to talk about but it is the way these three characters epically wrestle with the English language that makes them human. Neither the Matthew Perry character, Matt Albie, or Seaborn and Ziegler, are especially impressive physically and it is only in the expression of their mental gifts that they can find admiration from other human beings. There's not much more I wanted to talk about. I just wanted to talk about some great television.

[Pube Truth]

Sorkin is a fantastic writer.


annnd I've been meaning to check out Modern Family. I keep seeing commercials for it when I go to the movies.

Also, have I mentioned that I am newly obsessed with The Big Bang Theory? Hilarious.

[WWW.SETH.COM]

The Big Bang Theory? I don't know, I haven't seen anything on that show to make it stand out against the other comedies on TV at the moment. I've seen five or six episodes and I found it to be kind of traditional, kind of like most of the jokes had been done before even if the punchlines were original to the show itself. I saw the premier this season and I think maybe 1/4 of the jokes were about the inherent homoeroticism of huddling together for warmth when the heat went out at an Artic research station. I get why that's kind of funny, but there's only so much mileage you can get from that kind of joke before it becomes filler.

I think that The Big Bang Theory suffers from several hampering factors. The first is that the level of canned laughter does not match the level of amusement the jokes elicit. When this is a problem I think it really turns me off from a show in general. CBS has 6 comedies on right now and unlike the other networks, all of these comedies have a laugh-track.

The other problem I have with The Big Bang Theory is that the premise sort of pushes the comedy into a box and keeps it there. There's a lot of room to branch out, but the episodes I've seen break down into this:

1. Indian Nerd is afraid of girls
2. Hot Girl makes a pop-culture reference the nerds don't understand
3. Tall Nerd has a weird habit
4. Jewish Nerd makes a joke about women which is supposedly funny because he is no good with women
5. Cute Nerd is embarrassed about nerditry in front of Hot Girl
6. Hot Girl does not understand nerd-talk/nerd-references

Even when another female character is involved in the plot the show seems unwilling to remove itself from this basic formula of events. The Big Bang Theory isn't a bad show, it's just not operating at its full potential. If it could move beyond the basic idea of Nerds-Interacting-With-Society/Hot Girl concept, I think it could be a lot better.

[Larry Flyntz]

I think I would enjoy The Big Bang Theory a lot more if not for the laugh track.  For a show that seems to pride itself on quirkiness, you would think they would abandon the stupid laugh track.  Although, the show probably isn't marketed to nerds/quirky people anyway - it's marketed to normal folks who want to laugh at nerds.  If it was a show about nerds that was meant to appeal to nerds, the laugh track would undoubtedly be gone.

[WWW.SETH.COM]

Yeah, it definitely has a "laugh at the funny freaks" vibe to it

[Pube Truth]

yeah, it does have that vibe. I haven't watched any of the new episodes, I have just been watching the first and second seasons. When you get down to it though all 1/2 hour sitcoms are predictable, laugh-track or not. No matter the characters, the situations and storylines all end up being fairly similar across shows. I started watching the show on recommendation of my father, who is a bona-fide nerd. He assures me that all of the physics and math shown on the show is actually accurate. I have to take his word for it, because what do I know from physics...but I can't help but think that if they take the trouble to making that stuff accurate and real, that the point of the show isn't to point and laugh at the freaks, even if some people want to see it that way. The other point is, I have a feeling that there are plenty of people who would laugh at it for that reason, who would not be able to keep up with the language used on the show. Despite the predictable and low-brow nature of many of the gags, they're still often discussing these things at a vocabulary level that goes beyond the grasp of the average american...which to me might have necessitated the laugh-track to begin with.

So all in all who cares if it's predictable, who cares if there's a laugh track? You know what other great TV show had a laugh track? SAVED BY THE BELL. I rest my case.