Anyone Watching A Good Tv Show?

[villa4europe]

i think you have to understand the sopranos was one of the 1st though, its the origin of american "HBO" dramas for a lot of people

 

in my mind its the reference point for judging all other tv dramas, it would be interesting to know how many of these shows that are "better" would exist if it wasnt for the sopranos success

 

its an incredibly important tv show, still i can remember channel 4 putting the last ever epsiode on at something like 12.45am  they kept on pushing the last episodes further and further back on the schedule, dont think they appreciated what they had

[CVByrne]

I've got to say, Conor, you're the first person I've ever encountered who rates BSG so highly.

I've met plenty who like it, but none who rate it as much as you do.

Lots of people didn't invest as much thought into it. Lots of people watched it but more in passing interest.

I have always said if you put the effort in to the show you get the rewards. What I loved about it was it's dealing of Bush Era America especially during the Iraq war and dealing with issues nobody else would dare.

I can't say more without spoiling it. But the Guardian wrote a piece on how the Wire was the best show ever made and it had to be watched. One year later they had an article rescinding that accolade and placing it on BSG.

So many shows are introverted in their own world. BSG dealt with so many current issues and never will there be as good tv as the new Caprica part of the first half of season 3.

Also the show is beyond bleak, all the characters are flawed and unsavoury. The writing and acting is utterly superb and Giaus Baltar is best character in tv history.

[Stevo985]

Stevo I'm jealous that you've got BSG, Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire to experience still. 3 of my absolute favourite shows. Hours and hours of entertainment await you.

I'm not sure I'll get round to Boardwalk anytime soon. I had started on Season 2 of that but lost interest. So that's probably bottom of the list.

 

The other 2 will definitely get watched though. And soon.

[CVByrne]

I agree the influence of the Sopranos cannot be underestimated. It's influence on all the current shows we love is irrefutable.

[CVByrne]

BSG was the first tv show to have one overreaching story arc and it was impenetrable if not watched from the beginning. Lots of people tried to start watching during its run. Syfy even forced the writers to create one off episodes, create a "happy" episode all which were pointless (the former) or were definitely depressingly bleak (the latter).

They had no care for making a show that had happy moments and happy endings. It's never ending in its tone. Everyone is a drunk, what else would you do if humanity was wiped out. The doctor is a chain smoker etc..

What a show.

[hogso]

Is it a remake of the original series or what? I mean, i can remember the ending for that from when they ran it on BBC2 in the 90s, is it the same as the new series?

Edited July 31, 2013 by hogso

[Zatman]

What are people's opinions on the greatest British shows??

Only fools and horses for me by miles and miles. The office was pretty amazing as well. As was fawlty towers.

Not keen on British dramas. The acting is usually woeful.

 

Sherlock 

[CVByrne]

Is it a remake of the original series or what? I mean, i can remember the ending for that from when they ran it on BBC2 in the 90s, is it the same as the new series?

Are you talking about BSG?

The original series has as much in common with the new series as the 1960s camp batman has to do with the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy.

Edited July 31, 2013 by CVByrne

[BOF]

Ah, so they're identical and not worth watching

[CVByrne]

Nail. Head.

That's Nail in the head of Brian Btw

[AVFC_Hitz]

'THE **** IS BSG!!!!!!!!?

[CVByrne]

Battlestar Galatica

[BOF]

Battlestar Galactica.  I agree, the S is slightly confusing.

[coda]

BSG is similar. First series is setting the scene. I can't think of anything of interest that happens in the first series really.

 

Wat? I'm all for long-term planning for a telly programme but the first series must be at least 10 hours. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

BSG was a great show, but doesn't even get in my top 5

Ridiculous to call it the best of all time IMO

Not even a contest. It's different league entirely to all other shows I watched. The Guardian one year on from calling the Wire the best show ever backtracked and placed that on BSG.

I read the article. They didn't, they posed the question.

I've not got round to it yet but it would have to be pretty **** amazing to better The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking bad. Even GOT. Despite that guardian article I'm sincerely not a sci-fi fan, so I will find the "world" difficult to connect with, unlike those other shows.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Battlestar Galatica is a lot more interested in what it is that makes us human than anything else.
 

There is also a lot more critique of the Bush era politics than I thought there would be. I mean, they have episodes centred around abortion and torture for example.

 

Anyway I've reached the end of Season 2 (oh my!). I kind of hate everyone.

Edited July 31, 2013 by CarewsEyebrowDesigner

[CVByrne]

CED wait till the first half of season 3. Remember what time this aired. During the dirty part of the Iraq occupation, after the country was conquered.

Best tv I've ever seen that first half of season 3.

[CVByrne]

Oh and I agree every character is horrible and easily hated. Thought I admire Baltars selfish self preservation, as horrible a person as he is.

[leviramsey]

I've never even heard of Freaks & Geeks. Is that because it wasn't available over here or is it because I'm a hermit?

I'd never watched it until now, myself. I basically figured that, being a show about nerdy high school kids set 20 years before it aired, any good reviews were just due to nostalgia from the critics (many of whom would have been nerdy high school kids at roughly the time period of the show's setting). Plus, I just wasn't interested in "teen" shows.

But watching the pilot on youtube, I can say that it's really **** good, and I can see why it's one of the few TV shows I can think of where the entirety of its scripts have been collected into book form.

The Judd Apatow juggernaut—surely the most understated, genial media movement ever to deserve the title—began with the one-season-and-out teen drama Freaks And Geeks, produced by Apatow and created by Paul Feig. Following the varied outcasts of an early-’80s suburban Detroit high school, Freaks And Geeks features Linda Cardellini as a geek (a “mathlete,” to be precise) who migrates to the stoner crowd, and John Francis Daley as her nerdy younger brother, simultaneously worried about his sister’s future and fighting his own adolescent battles. The show not only captured in 18 scant episodes the miasma of heady freedom and sickening chaos that defines the high-school years, it also provided breakout roles for Sam Levine, Martin Starr, James Franco, Busy Phillips, Jason Segel, and Seth Rogen. NBC didn’t necessarily know what to do with this critically acclaimed ratings disaster, but rarely has a canceled show's brilliance been so immediately evident. Before the final three aired episodes were burned off in the summer of 2000, the cast and crew received a scholarly fête at The Museum Of The Moving Image; then Apatow went on to the almost-as-good sitcom Undeclared, and a huge movie career.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb2H8xsv0u4

There's a certain similarity to the other two recent cult youth series that NBC has more recently done (Friday Night Lights and Community); it may well be out of regret for pulling the plug on F&G that NBC stayed with FNL and Community for as long as it did....

[Meath_Villan]

I liked freaks and geeks