2011 winter/spring TV thread: mid-season replacements, returning favorites, etc.

really enjoyed the 2010 Fall TV Premieres: What's good and what's not so good? thread and thought it might be cool to start fresh with a new one to talk about all the new shows debuting in the next few weeks, some shows returning as mid-season replacements, and continue discussing stuff already talked about in the fall thread

only new show of the year I've seen so far is Shameless on Showtime, which is entertaining enough (William H. Macy having fun playing against type, Emmy Rossum in various states of undress), could go either way. the other new Showtime show Episodes looks like it might be decent too.

Is Shameless a US version of our Shameless? Poor people getting into outrageous scrapes?

I see that it is. The first two or three series of the original are great.

new network shows premiering in the next couple months:

America's Next Great Restaurant (NBC, ::shrugs::)
Bob's Burgers (FOX, another in a long line of unpromising attempts to flesh out their animated sitcom lineup)
Breaking In (FOX, Christian Slater's 3rd attempt at TV stardom in recent years)
The Cape (NBC, comic book nerd bait, doesn't look very good)
The Chicago Code (FOX, cop drama)
Happy Endings (ABC, sitcom that everyone will be disappointed to learn does not take place in a massage parlor)
Harry's Law (NBC, David E. Kelley legal zzzzzz)
Live To Dance (CBS, banking heavy on how much people miss Paula Abdul pissing her pants on live TV)
Mixed Signals (FOX, adapted from popular Israeli sitcom)
Mr. Sunshine (ABC, Matt Leblanc's latest foray into doomed post-Friends projects)
Off The Map (ABC, medical drama set in South Africa)
Perfect Couples (NBC, Olivia Munn sitcom)

yall should be watching 'men of a certain age', it started its second season recently. especially if you like the part of ray romano's schtick where life is an unending sequence of affronts to (especially male) human dignity and frustrations of even the least ambitious hopes for satisfaction.

pysched for the return of pretty little liars

i was about to bring up Men Of A Certain Age! really good show, strong start to this season.

nice plot development at thoreau chevrolet—the garage workers and the thing with his dad.

Not looking forward to Bob's Burgers cutting into American Dad. Like usual American Dad probably won't be back until March.

pardon my bile, because I've been kind of wound up by talking to a couple people IRL recently who defended American Dad, but oh boohoo McFarlane will only have 60 minutes of TV every week for a while instead of 90! American Dad is the fucking worst. and I'll at least give Bob's Burgers a chance because of all the Home Movies people involved.

Breaking In (FOX, Christian Slater's 3rd attempt at TV stardom in recent years

makes about as much sense as the stephen dorff revival. well, slater was pretty funny in curb i guess.

I'm looking forward to the The Chicago Code and that's about it.

lol after posting that i actually had a dream in which Christian Slater, dismayed by a 3rd TV series cancellation, committed or at least attempted suicide. i'm weirdly rooting for him, though, My Own Worst Enemy was kind of admirably bad and The Forgotten had potential and someone i know had a guest role on it.

Mildred Pierce (HBO: minseries starring Kate Winslet; Todd Haynes)
Game of Thrones (HBO)
Enlightened (HBO: Laura Dern; Mike White)
Shameless (Showtime: William H Macy)
Episodes (Showtime: Matt LeBlanc)
Lights Out (FX) (premieres Tuesday)
The Killing (AMC)
Life Coach (AMC: Cheri Oteri; a comedy with miniepisodes)
Portlandia (IFC)
The Onion News Network (IFC)
Eagleheart (Adult Swim: Chris Elliott)
Mongo Wrestling Alliance (Adult Swim)

ooh chris elliott

Game of Thrones, psyched

Game of Thrones, psyched

Double psyched, lol

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/live-feed/complete-midseason-tv-calendar-series-69735

Jon Benjamin can make virtually anything entertaining; most of these animated sitcoms start off a little rocky (just like Home Movies) so I'll give it a few weeks. I gave Sit Down, Shut Up at least a few episodes before giving up on it. A bit weird that they got two men to voice two of the female roles on it, though, makes it feel a bit gimmicky already.

I love American Dad, btw - looks like they're pushing it back to 7:30 on Sundays in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the link poly (and starting the thread, some dude). Yay for Archer coming back at the end of this month, too..

I liked Bob's Burgers.

The Cape is ridiculous, but I am entertained! Terrible script.

Thought bobs burgers was 100% awesome

yeah Bob's Burgers pilot was good. kind of gave me pangs of missing Home Movies but i feel like it could become its own thing (although the animation really is butt-ugly).

The first episode of Lights Out was very good. It hits all the beats you'd expect from a drama about a boxer, but well executed.

Meant to watch Lights Out, but forgot. I really liked Bob's Burgers (and wouldn't miss American Dad one bit if it never came back).

The Chicago Code (fka Ridealong) is promising because it from Terriers showrunner Shawn Ryan. If it's even half as good as Terriers was, it will be the best show on broadcast tv.

Shawn Ryan's track record is pretty spotty imo

Oh wait, Wikipedia says he's actually the creator of The Chicago Code too. His last creation? The Shield.

Tim Minear (co-showrunner on Terriers) is running The Chicago Code with Ryan, too. A good omen.

good to know...tbh i'm pretty tired of cop dramas as a genre so i probably wouldn't have known to check for it if you hadn't pointed that out

don't say that kind of thing out loud

the public needs us to watch cop dramas, who else is gonna do it

i'm sure the army of Law & Order nuts who haven't managed to grow weary yet won't anytime soon

the latest attractive-doctors-having-sex show Off The Map is starting right now and i don't know if i have the energy to change the channel

i had the energy to change it

"objectifying the great humanist of our times" blah.

yeah i found my strength soon after when i realized Tosh.0 was on

Tosh.0

HATE that dude

Tim Minear (co-showrunner on Terriers) is running The Chicago Code with Ryan, too. A good omen.

I'd always rather have a good show that lasts one season than a bad show that lasts six seasons

also Tosh is hilarious fuiud

after Firefly, The Inside, Drive, and Terriers I'm starting to tire a bit of this old song and dance. at least Dollhouse got two seasons, i guess

Drive! I loved that piece of Nathan Fillion trash!

fmbid

huh?

xp hahah Yes! Castle just couldn't do it for me the way Drive could.

I liked Bob's Burgers tonight. Kristen Schal in particular is doing a great job as the youngest daughter.

the Lights Out pilot is really on-the-nose (much more telegraphed than I'm used to from cable dramas - esp like Terriers or Mad Men or Breaking Bad) but entertaining and I could see it shaping into something at least as fun as Dexter if not any deeper

Yeah given who's involved - and the great cast - it definitely has a lot of promise, just felt bogged down in too much first-episode exposition.

the lead has a lot of - idk if the word is charisma - but is really compelling to watch even when his dialogue is subpar

plus he definitely looks like he's hat the shit kicked out of him a few times.

*had

yeah, a lot of character in that face

q to someone who knows more about boxing than me: is it realistic that a boxer would retire and come back again five years later?

Foreman and Tyson both came back after a long time away. Don't know about five years though.

Jim Braddock did it (as dramatized in Cinderella Man) but that was a different era.

man The Cape is an object lesson that new shows should not go for the 2 hour pilot unless they're really sure they know what they're doing or how to fill out that time

it's taking The Event's slot anyway so i might pick it up, i hear it's even more hilariously awful!

Fairly Legal looks kinda lame, but damn I still love Sarah Shahi from Life so I'll probably give it a shot

yes, i predict that i will be remarkably tolerant of however boring that show ends up being

thought Fairly Legal had the most hilarious name ever until i saw that its original working title was 'Facing Kate' and thought well yeah that's a major improvement. seems like it's got some potential based on the pilot, or will at the very least be worth watching for the insanely gorgeous lead actress.

Perfect Couples seems like it might be OK? I like that NBC seems to be so keen on David Walton that they put him in a new show even before 100 Questions was inevitably canceled. dude was hysterical in Fired Up and i'd love to see him get a proper TV vehicle, although i'm not sure Perfect Couples is it.

I kinda liked Perfect Couples. Olivia Munn is irritating but they seem to have cast her in a role that makes sense for her. Everyone else on the show is fine. Certainly the 5th best show on NBC on Thursday, but watchable.

i haven't seen this week's outsourced (it turns out 3 full hours of tv in a row is a little exhausting) but i heard that it was a big step up and some great bollywood numbers

Mr Veg was watching it when I got home from work, he liked it a lot. I just can't get into it myself, every time I try to watch it I end up >:(

i'm gonna check it out. nbc has been doing something right with sitcoms -- maybe they can turn outsourced into something good too.

Report back... we'll send a rescue team if it comes to that

:)

now if only they could get some ratings...

I watched Outsourced last night. It has at least progressed from offensive and unfunny to mildly offensive and occasionally funny.

so it's heading in the right direction

"So you're saying there's a chance.."

imo Outsourced isn't worth saving or improving. they did it badly from the start and the sooner it ends the better.

no one told me that Sterling Archer is playing Bob in Bob's Burgers!

i like that his performance in it is so much more subdued

Bob's Burgers is my new favorite show. I love it.

Shameless is pretty darn good, and i really liked Lights Out. Episodes was horrible

I'm really enjoying Lights Out too, except I keep hoping for some kind of narrative subversion. Atm it's basically Dexter level enjoyable tho, which, it turns out, is enjoyable enough for me.

Yeah I'm waiting for it to step up and equal their other recent live-action dramas, but it'll do in a pinch.

I'm not watching The Cape, but Rowan Kaiser's writeups at The Onion AV Club are killing me! http://www.avclub.com/articles/scales,50470/

ha - funny you should mention that, the first one half-convinced me to start watching the show. i'm going to go back and read the write-ups as I watch more episodes.

i cant heap enough praise on shameless.

plus rossum nude...a lot.

maybe it is worth a look

Episodes is growing on me, i'm not the biggest fan of these kinds of escalating farcical comedies of manners but Leblanc is great in it and i feel like it's going in this direction where it's just getting funnier as it goes on

the first one was soooo unfunny, but it does seem like it's gradually picked up.

Lights Out was really great tonight.

i was getting close to giving that show a chance when i found out the main character's name is Lights

if it helps sway you the most recent episode was great and 'lights' is just his nickname

I know it's pretty crazy to imagine that a boxer might have a corny nickname.

the king from the caucus mountains

caucasus*

ha i just mean...i reflexively hate TV shows that are a pun on a character's name, and it never would've occurred to me that Lights Out fit in that category since it makes perfect sense as the name of a show about a boxer, so that just caught me off-guard and triggered my kneejerk reflex.

happy to find out that the rival colleague on 'fairly legal' is…

http://images1.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Ted-Angry-Claudia-how-i-met-your-mother-1059406_500_376.jpg

ted mosby????

virginia williams!

the good wife got mentioned on the fall tv thread; it's my favorite show right now. kind of soapy and also kind of a mess, but always interesting: smart about gender, smart about race (that it's about race at all is a pleasant surprise), archie panjabi is so pretty, josh charles says improbably romantic things which is exactly how he should be cast, jason street!!!, alan cumming is amazing as chris noth's campaign manager, actors from The Wire show up occasionally. the writing can be spotty but can be really sharp.

I'm pretty sure The Good Wife is the only CBS show I still watch. I gave up on og CSI earlier this season when that killer was roaming around all contortiony in a latex bodysuit—a bridge too far. (Though I did hear there was a Grissom cameo in the most recent episode, so I may watch it online.)

it's depressing to think that CSI is still going, i probably saw every single episode of the first few years. i mean jesus 11th season is entering ER-style "wow you still exist? why?" territory.

against my better judgement watched Harry's Law, which occasionally manages a nice scene or performance but is just so fluffy i can't believe it's a real network show and not on USA or something. finally watched the Lights Out pilot and liked it more than i expected to.

I do like Kathy Bates, but yeah...Harry's Law is like some Hallmark Channel stuff. I only watched it for the first time tonight, and didn't realize Nate Corddry was on it, though. AND one of my favorite character actors Christopher McDonald (this guy's always a treat).

haha CM hamming it up has definitely been a highlight so far.

Harry's Law is really missing that wanton sleaziness that Boston Legal had to balance out the sentimentality

yeah it's merely sassy; multiple gags in the pilot in which Harry stops or is stopped just short of saying "shit." CM brings it a little of the much needed sleaze, though, if the show keeps going he should definitely become a regular.

yeah, i totally agree, i hope CM stays on

horseshoe endorsement of good wife makes me think I should check it out

so glad justified is coming back

Also I don't know if its my diminished expectations or what but the office has been pretty good the past few episodes

yeah i've heard a decent # of trustworthy endorsements of The Good Wife at this point, although i don't feel like i'll ever drop into it until it goes into syndication.

yes plz watch the good wife one of these days and let me know if i'm crazy. the thing i want to praise about it is that it's ambitious, even if the execution sometimes leaves something to be desired. there was a one-off episode this season that revolved around a rape case that was really kind of amazing: stuff i've never seen done that well on TV. but then another time there was an episode that tried to do a similar stand-alone thing with an anti-death-penalty theme but it was a little ham-fisted and derivative.

a complaint about the good wife, though: people are always saying "phone" instead of "call." like in the death penalty episode, within five minutes three different characters were calling each other and they kept saying things like, "okay i'll phone the judge" like that usage of phone happened 25 times in those 5 minutes so it was super-noticeable. who says "phone"?

btw i feel like nancy franklin likes the good wife :/

Tbh Julianna Margulies is a stone fox so

ive heard really good things about the 'good wife' incl from my mom who loves it but theres a weirdly high barrier to entry for me

nooooooo the Franklin kiss of death

i mean none of you know my mom so you dont realize what a strong recommendation that is but i think shes watched like 4 tv shows ever on the reg so

julianna margulies is v v beautiful though i wish she wore her hair curly even though i think they have her straighten it as a character thing--she's v buttoned-up

she's always wearing pantsuits

for a while i had a problem with the super-deadpan way margulies plays her character, especially considering the way she acted on ER, like i thought maybe she's just a duchovny and can't actually act, but i've come around on her performance and now think it's just very subtle.

ive heard really good things about the 'good wife' incl from my mom who loves it but theres a weirdly high barrier to entry for me

― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7z192I-mQM (Lamp), Sunday, February 6, 2011 10:52 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my sister was trying to get me to watch it for months before i succumbed. i think the barrier for me was that it seemed too lifetime-y or something (/sexist) and tbh it is kind of lifetime-y but, like, if lifetime actually made a series where they did everything right.

i'm kind of interested in The Good Wife, but I'm sorta lumping it in with Men of a Certain Age where I'm sure it's a pretty good show from the bits I've seen and heard, but I'm just too lazy at the moment to bother

anyone watch chicago code?

i wanted to see it but totally spaced on it being on last night and just watched Mon Oncle Charlie and Mike & Molly instead

kinda liking Mr. Sunshine but not getting too attached since it co-stars Andrea Anders who, as Johnny Fever has noted, is a showkiller: Modern Family: Ed O'Neil Got Swole

Fairly Legal is kinda...really good? showed up for the eye candy tbh but the writing is solid and there's kind of a nice chemistry with the whole cast.

Friday Night Lights coming back to terrestrial tv 4/15/2011.

The Good Wife is really good when you get past the CBS conventions.

^^^ thread-worthy idea btw

when i think of 'cbs conventions' the first thing i think of is a sort of old-peoply staid avoidance of prurience, whatever sex-murderer/depraved-malfeasance plotline is driving the episode, but one thing i like about 'the good wife' is that the focus on lawyers and politics and scandal makes it natural to center on a character one of whose hallmarks is her discretion (something that other very-lawyerly lawyer shows do, like… 'murder one', which did it a lot, but the question about alicia's relationship with her husband in the wake of the scandal adds another dimension of discretion to navigate).

incidentally, that's one of the things that 'the mentalist' is good at too, and it nicely complements the lead's habit of manipulating people (which is embarrassing, calling for discretion, and which leads to all kinds of breaches in discretion, usually when jane announces them to the assembled spectators).

Justified premiere was great, Chicago Code episode 2 was great. Lights Out is sort of settling in but lots of highs so far. Eagleheart wasn't bad. Archer is awesome. Traffic Light episode 2 was not bad.

Caught an episode of Fairly Legal after the some dude's post and thought it was solid. Too much stuff to watch, argh.

Traffic Light episode 2 was not bad.

Yeah, this show may have some promise...unlike Perfect Couples, which is sharkbait by now surely. It was 20 minutes into the episode before I realized the guy with the beard was Roy from The Office.

i refuse to believe that fairly legal is good

is there something about sarah shahi that you refuse to believe in??

It's not the sort of thing you can't miss but it's enjoyable enough.

total goodfellas vibe on the 'chicago code' voiceovers

oh man this show is gonna be so dope

great piece about alan sepinwall + tv ep reviews: http://www.slate.com/id/2284834/

pretty good stuff

Justified premiere was a little rushed at first but Margo Martindale was amazing. V. keen to see what's going on with those characters, as well as Ava and the doubtlessly-awesome guests.

i could see Mr. Sunshine turning into something consistently not-terrible, and in its better moments it kinda reminded me of Better Off Ted
Off the Map is exactly like Children's Hospital, but serious

Just started on Chicago Code...liking it. Lotsa faces too, pyscho Trombley from Gen Kill, cute farmboy Luke from Friday Night Lights...and the main balllbreaker cop is a good lead, so far so good. Snappy dialog too

chicago code looks good so far--not quite southland (and def not wire/shield) but could go places

love the main polish cop. what a face, man. chick from l-word is hot but chicago accent not so much.

haha jennifer beals is 'chick from l word'?

I know I'm old when Jennifer Beals becomes the "chick from l-word" and not the "chick from flashdance".

*rolls eyes*

i just thought she was main dude's ex-wife from 'lie to me'.

How does Chicago Code play for Wire snobs?

Chicago Code is more like Homicide than The Wire, but I've been watching Homicide a lot lately and thinking about how much more i like it than newer shows like CC and Southland

Homicide was great, but came along too soon to really be appreciated en masse.

I'm waiting for Alcatraz. I'm not a J.J. Abrams fan but the cast lineup looks entertaining. I have my doubts that it will make it through in a Summer run so it will probably be pushed back.

A minor bummer that Traffic Light already appears to be in danger.

Harry's Law is really missing that wanton sleaziness that Boston Legal had to balance out the sentimentality

I have a giant chip on my shoulder when it comes to Boston Legal. That being that I never cared for the character they gave John Larroquette. Being a fan of his, I start to get rather picky about the roles he plays and Carl Sack was just incredibly lame and underwhelming compared to the roles DEK gave him in the past. I stopped watching after the third or fourth ep of S4 when I knew he was just going to be the pasted on romantic plot device.

Homicide was great, but came along too soon to really be appreciated en masse.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, February 19, 2011 9:53 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

not sure what relevance that has to this conversation, especially considering that the Chicago Code and Southland aren't exactly ratings juggernauts

Well, yeah, but it's why shows like Southland and Chicago Code (and arguably The Shield and The Wire) exist.

How does Chicago Code play for Wire snobs?

i think it's probably most usual now for complexly plotted tv shows to focus on one social circle / world and manage multiple plots either with the device of the protagonists being closely linked (teams of partners on a cop show, like southland or the shield) or the device of their having b-plots (like recurring personal life plots that tend to thread episode-to-episode character development). it's hard to say yet but i really doubt chicago code is going to carry major plots that play out within different worlds onscreen—say in the councilman's circle or in the irish mob or somewhere we haven't seen yet. so in that respect maybe chicago code would disappoint someone stuck on the wire—i think the multi-plot structure of the wire was a major feature that helped make it what it was in other ways.

but it does look like the writing on chicago code might end up being relatively complex, for a major network production. i imagine it will go kind of like the shield: lots of recurring players outside the main set, but they don't really become the focal points of plots centering around them. (like, i dunno, anthony anderson's character on the shield: did he ever have anything to do that didn't have to do with mackey? major parts of episodes where the screen time was about problems within his organization and their lives?)

love the main polish cop. what a face, man. chick from l-word is hot but chicago accent not so much.

― max, Saturday, February 19, 2011 5:59 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

That is weird because I'm pretty sure Jennifer Beals is from Chicago.

she is; i read a reviewer who put her disappeared accent down to her YALE EDUCATION.

few things

1) im sure beals accent is real or authentic its just that chicago accents are ugly and dumb

2) this isnt as good as the wire or homicide, much closer in feel to something like homicide tho its got a lot of the kind of rip-roating action of something like the shield (tho so far not at all 'ethically murky' or whatever). but the thing is homicide & the wire are top-10 all-time cop shows so. sometimes i think you basically get 2 great cop shows a decade, in the 90s you had homicide and nypd blue, in the 2000s you had the wire and the shield, i dunno what itll be in 2010s but my guess is that itll be on cable and not abc

Dialogue definitely is a lot tighter and smarter than usual "cop shows"...there is a little Wire /Homicide flavor in that regard, or at least it makes comparisons easier. Beals is good, but she is a little wooden, hopefully that eases up over the next few eps.

max, i think ethical murk is going to be worked from the other direction, as the church scene with the nun suggested: 'the dangers of moral rigidity'.

i thought it was pretty sweet that the cops' routine phrase for catching people breaking the law, 'get him dirty', was straight up ambiguous between proper police action and everybody-does-it chicago-style corruption.

(oh and i thought it was an abc show too! feels like one—but it's on fox.)

oh, haha! i imagine that ethical murk will emerge, yes--"the chicago code" seems like a title that lends itself to "outside the law" types of storylines

other shows i have seen

mr. sunshine -- could get pretty good, im willing to wait. its funny--perry is kind of the weak link here, hes still doing the whole nervous overreaction chandler schtick which feels very 90s (or at least laugh-track) compared with the more deadpan nuttiness of janney and black dude and girl from better of ted, which feels more 00s and single-camera. this could maybe be projection tho--its only been 2 episodes.

mad love -- trying really hard for a himym vibe and is maybe 1/4 as charming, though i think i like jason biggs more than the guy who plays ted. sub-jack black comic relief freind just murders the vibe, especially when he is bombing on judy greer who is way funnier (and also way hotter). this could maybe get better if the jack black guy dies.

traffic lights -- actually enjoyed this! dont much care for the guy who moved in with his girlfriend (and she is not even a character, yet, and it makes all of their scenes boring), but roy and his wife have great chemistry and she is really funny. theres way too much "men are like this women are like that humor," but theyre carrying it pretty well.

ub-jack black comic relief freind just murders the vibe

ah that's a shame to hear. i totally could see that, as he couldn't save the horrible Sons of Tucson, but i'll love that guy forever for his role on Reaper and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

yeah Tyler Labine grated on me a lot and seemed too Jack Black-ish at first in Reaper but now i like him

so far in mad love he just feels like hes coming from a completely different sitcom universe than the other 3 characters. but i think theres potential; it might eventually get to be watchable

imo Judy Greer is the disappointing one in that show, i love her in general but her character kinda crosses the line from sassy to just a mean-spirited drag

it feels like they give all the good lines to jack black, which makes the conversations between the two of them not nearly as funny and snappy cause hes just bombing on her

but ive only seen the pilot. ill watch the next couple episodes, see what happens. i have an inordinate affection for jason biggs. i want him to succeed. no matter the cost.

yeah Biggs is ok i guess, tbh i have the least goodwill for him out of the 4 people on that show

Toby Huss was on Bob's Burger's tonight! love that guy.

btw after i sang its praises on this thread last week's episode of the good wife was remarkably bad.

Watching Chi Code right now, really bothered that Jennifer Beals didn't take her hat off during the opening hearing.

Also hope they cool it with the voiceover.

i like it! when's the last time you saw a show with recurring multi-character voiceover?

Glee

lol

Episodes finished up for the season already. Hope it comes back

Tyler Labine grated on me a lot and seemed too Jack Black-ish at first in Reaper but now i like him

Oh man, that show. The leads were all so annoying and unlikeable but it had a great supporting/guest cast.

Like, that show should have starred Ken Marino and the hot Winklevoss.

Amy Sedaris is killing it on Raising Hope.

this guest on traffic light is also the girlfriend of the college kid in cougar town. she is v cute

at least i think that was Collette Wolfe on the show tonite

haha yeah it was her, i had a lengthy conversation w/ a friend i was talking to while TL is on (he's obsessed with Cougar Town). she was very cute in Observe and Report!

q:

how come people on tv/in movies always reveal dollar amounts for bids/offers/payouts/etc by passing over a piece of paper? do people actually do that in real life, or is it just a screen convention?

American Dad was just renewed for two more seasons, which spells doom for Bob's Burgers. DAMMIT

I do not understand the appeal of American Dad, and the ratings for it aren't even good. I guess it's to keep McFarlane happy.

whats bobs burgers like?

smothered in awesome sauce

Episodes turned out pretty good in the end, not ground breaking, pretty cliched but I laughed; especially at Matt LeBlanc and Steven Mangan's final fight scene.

Chicago Code seems to be the Pinky and Perky version of The Wire.

I like American Dad -- I think it's the best of the three Macfarlane shows! -- but Bob's Burgers has gotten better and better every week.

I don't know why it's bad news for Bob's Burgers. Won't they just keep American Dad in the 7:30 spot?

q:

how come people on tv/in movies always reveal dollar amounts for bids/offers/payouts/etc by passing over a piece of paper? do people actually do that in real life, or is it just a screen convention?

― j., Wednesday, February 23, 2011 12:54 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah i've noticed this trope too...i guess maybe they want to just convey what the characters think of the amount -- that it's too low or too high or just right or whatever -- without inviting the viewer to bring their own perspective on what's a lot of money or not a lot depending on who they are or how much inflation there's been since the rerun they're watching was originally aired, etc.

it seems like there's kind of a general unspoken rule in TV about money, like you rarely hear exactly how much a character makes for a living or how much they paid for something, unless it's a comically high or low number or a specific number that figures into the plot. and again i have this weird inkling that it has something to do with not wanting to throw the viewer off or make them compare their own experiences like "that's not a good deal for that kind of car!" or "they're supposed to be poor? i make less than them!"

OK the eye candy quotient on The Chicago Code is kind of ridiculous.

I know right? :D

Tiny bit of discussion about this in the Community thread, but here's the teaser spot for Happy Endings...which doesn't look at all vile, and may actually be pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvZ8BcgWnUo

looks really vile to me!

looks like exactly the kind of vile i will watch and enjoy

Yeah, that sums up my own position.

max, i think ethical murk is going to be worked from the other direction, as the church scene with the nun suggested: 'the dangers of moral rigidity'.

i thought it was pretty sweet that the cops' routine phrase for catching people breaking the law, 'get him dirty', was straight up ambiguous between proper police action and everybody-does-it chicago-style corruption.

So far, the ethical murk stuff is just talk, though, window-dressing, because almost everything really lines up pretty neatly. Not that I'd demand it from a cop show, tbh, just that CC relies a lot on cliche atm.

Will keep watching for the hotties though.

weird how Eliza Coupe and Casey Wilson are just barely recognizable in that preview

So far, the ethical murk stuff is just talk, though, window-dressing, because almost everything really lines up pretty neatly. Not that I'd demand it from a cop show, tbh, just that CC relies a lot on cliche atm.

fourth episode was boring. : /

i blame myself because i missed the pilot, but i've watched every episode of Chicago Code since the first and just can't get into it the slightest bit

is this Samaire Armstrong as the ex-girlfriend in tonight's ep of Better With You? I had a huge crush on her when she was in the OC.

yep that was her, good eye, i couldn't figure out where i knew her from

fourth ep of chicago code sucked--the show is def getting worse instead of better which is a bummer cause the cast is great. also its not unthinkable but--a black inner-city politician being lauded by his community for carrying a gun? pssshhhh

it may be likely that every flaw that can be found in the show is meant to be answered with the title.

'hey, well, that's THE CHICAGO CODE'

It's definitely not like a great show or anything but I am still enjoying Lights Out.

I thought the third ep of ChiCode was its best, am watching #4 now.

BILL AYERRRRRRRRRRRRRRS!

it's weird how both 'the good wife' and 'chicago code' are so keen on not just ripping from the headlines but incorporating current-events-history into their story worlds.

lol never trust a hippie.

kenneth from 30 rock is one of the transvestites!

(on bob's burgers)

it's weird how both 'the good wife' and 'chicago code' are so keen on not just ripping from the headlines but incorporating current-events-history into their story worlds.

― j., Friday, March 4, 2011 12:42 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's getting really annoying on the good wife

Shows have been doing that forever, though? E.g. Law & Order, David E. Kelley's lawyer shows, etc.?

Ugh, will CBS ever stop:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1703874/

Poor Janeane must need to pad her retirement fund.

Did Whitaker EGOT? Is this one of his perks?

it's getting really annoying on the good wife

i like it, i don't think it's like l+o or whatever. it's more like on buffy where the pop-cultural stuff and their attitude toward it makes it seem like they're part of the world. only here it's, like, actual stuff from the world that makes it seem like they are. not just isolated bits of story, but the apparatus of the world. like, uh, lou dobbs. and the twitter.

It's cute when L&O does it, because it's transparent and corny. They'll base characters or things on current events, but do so in the most preposterous ways...like calling a site "Facespace" or creating a character who's based on, like, Bernie Madoff but then pile on some murders.

The Good Wife just pulls in real world things.

lol "this isn't Evnaston."

hey, they let schillinger out and he's visiting his family on raising hope

this episode is so great! JK Simmons AND Paul F Tompkins! i love this show!

it's getting really annoying on the good wife

i like it, i don't think it's like l+o or whatever. it's more like on buffy where the pop-cultural stuff and their attitude toward it makes it seem like they're part of the world. only here it's, like, actual stuff from the world that makes it seem like they are. not just isolated bits of story, but the apparatus of the world. like, uh, lou dobbs. and the twitter.

― j., Monday, March 7, 2011 12:58 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i should have clarified that i like it when they refer to the current state of chicago politics, or barack obama, or whatever. the slander case against the company that made the social network-like movie was a little too much for me.

also i think about that jaymc + nabisco ocd tv worlds colliding with the real world thread a lot when watching the good wife #toomuchtimeonilx

the fictional doubling of the facebook case made it all that much weirder, i think, because that's exactly the kind of thing law and order would do. it grates up against all the real-worldish stuff like that episode last year where they threatened to subpoena someone inside the obama administration.

whenever law and order did a RIPPED FROM HEADLINES story it always kind of gave me the impression of being out of 'made up' stories to tell.

'chicago code' was better this week. i liked the… sister-in-law?… 's desperation at jennifer beals: 'you CAN help us, you just won't!'. still not that much going on, though.

I usually found that ripped-from-the-headlines L&O stuff pretty fun, especially throwing a few extraneous murders and subsequent cover-ups. The only times it got a little weird was when they race to get the headline episodes in, like the whole Adrienne Shelly thing, which was like 2 or 3 months from murder to airdate.

Yeah Chicago Code was pretty good...kind of like where they're going with informer-boy too, putting a bit of meat on that bone finally. Also that weird dharma initiative dude from Lost!

i didnt watch this episode yet but i hate the kid playing the informer

i don't really fuck with L&O but i would happily watch a compilation of all the ridiculous ripped-from-the-headlines episodes that have, like, Chevy Chase saying "sugar tits"

Huh! I hated this latest Chicago Code, too neatly moralistic and the undercover really bores. Also they got a lot of stupid little details about the Chinese wrong, like they had one dude speaking Cantonese to another dude who replied in Mandarin.

will watch http://www.avclub.com/articles/hbo-developing-1980s-soviet-spy-drama%2C53115/

i for two welcome our netflix overlords: http://www.avclub.com/articles/it-begins-netflix-branches-out-into-original-progr,53217/

At least they don't have to worry about time slots and Nielsen ratings.

a house of cards remake!!

netflix as the new-ish model for subscription tv would be terrific imo--big library of streaming movies + a few premium shows. theyve got room, too; i'd pay two or three times as much as im paying now for just a slightly bigger/more up-to-date streaming selection and i bet a lot of other people would too

Workaholics on Comedy Central was pretty funny. Can't tell how much of that was due to Chris Parnell, though.

yeah i enjoyed that sneak peek of Workaholics, too. and i don't think it was just Parnell, since the other CC sitcom he starred in last year, Big Lake, was pretty spotty.

i'm curious how Netflix is going to 'run' their original programming -- like, a new episode available for streaming every week, and then DVDs available for rental months later or at the same time? because i'd love to be able to devour a whole season of a new show on Netflix DVDs the way i do with old shows.

I imagine they'll do an episode a week. Worked quite well with Party Down.

well, Party Down was primarily beholden to the broadcast schedule of the cable network that actually produced it -- House of Cards isn't tethered to anything like that, so i'm wondering if they'll stick to the episode-a-week rate just out of respect to TV tradition. also cool that they committed to 2 seasons right off the bat to i guess give the experiment breathing room.

the new A&E show Breakout Kings is pretty dope so far, feels kind of breezy and light for a show about murderous criminals but they pull it off well with a solid cast/writing

id think they'd stick to episod-a-week just to goose subscriber rates. and i sort of ownder if theyll even put it out on dvd at all--i mean i guess i assume they will, not real reason not to, but theyre looking to get out of the dvd mailorder business entirely

I read an article someplace that said they'd be more likely to release episodes in blocks because of the tendency of subscribers (i.e. nerds) to consume multiple installments at once. The article could've been speculating out of thin air, though.

Anyway, the production company would own the rights to DVDs, as well as other rights -- Netflix is just going to have the ability to distribute the first run episodes.

In other news, I stopped watchign The Chicago Code.

yeah i stopped watching chicago code too. i didnt watch southland at all when it was on in jan + feb so i have been watching that--loads better.

southland was only okay this season, i thought! it's a good thing regina king is so rad.

is the chicago code shit? an old friend of mine from HS was a PA or some shit on that show

im only a few episodes in to season 3 of southland, but i have been feeling it! i am a huge sucker for cop shows though, its a testament to how dumb chicago code is that i wont even watch it when im bored

i am also a huge sucker for cop shows tbh, and the southland season finale is v good, but i ended up thinking they stretched a lot of material for too long in anticipation of the finale

mm well i will let you know how i feel when the end rolls around. i am sad that SPOILER ALERT got SPOILER ALERTED!

i know, that was crazy!!!

in a way, i think that became the problem after that episode, the show didn't know how to recover from such a shocking development in the middle of the season

also the writing seemed dumber this season

yeah thats probably true, but compared to chicago code this is like the wire: los angeles unit

i think i liked southland better before justified came into being. probably unfair, but

i never even cared about cop shows pre-the wire; now i keep trying to make the magic happen again ;_;

yeah i feel you on justified? but southland is the only good trad cop show on tv right now (assuming it comes back for a fourth season?), so im willing settle for it. justified is way better but its whatever the word is? different.

i never even cared about cop shows pre-the wire; now i keep trying to make the magic happen again ;_;

― horseshoe, Sunday, March 20, 2011 7:29 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

AH SEE THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM YOU DONT EVEN LIKE COP SHOWS YOU JUST LIKE THE WIRE AND TIMOTHY OLYPHANT

it's like you really get me, max

but i do like cop shows! and the proof is that sometimes when the good wife is a rerun i will watch detroit 187 which is TERRIBLE

southland also scratches a post-ER "smart-for-network-show set-in-high-stress-workplace ensemble drama" itch for me. probably because its a john wells joint.

yeah totally. and it's pretty and tacos and LA.

people CARING about their JOBS on tv is like catnip to me. all the regina king storylines are so hokey in a certain way, like, regina king goes above and beyond in the line of duty yet again and they still always get me.

show still hasnt touched the high point at the end of season 1 where shes in the house with the shotgun

shes the best

don't really watch that show, but i have to agree with you guys

I don't care what you all say, still enjoying Chicago Code and who cares if it's because the boys are all super cute

my ranking of new shows of 2011 so far is like:

Shameless > Eagleheart > Fairly Legal > Onion News Network > Breakout Kings > Bob's Burgers > Being Human > Episodes > Workaholics > Mr. Sunshine > Lights Out > Portlandia > Onion SportsDome > Perfect Couples > Chicago Code > Retired At 35 > An Idiot Abroad > Traffic Light

parks > *

argh that's not new is it, nm

Mr Sunshine feels like it's almost watchable...the Alison Janney stuff is pretty damn priceless. But there's something horribly forced about it mostly

Everyone who likes competition-based reality programs should be watching Top Shot, a reality show about who is the best at guns. Suffice to say that people who are good with guns are weird.

oh i forgot about reality shows, Face Off on SyFy is kinda cool, that's somewhere in the middle

My vote:

Bob's Burgers > Lights Out > Eagleheart > Traffic Light > The Chicago Code > Portlandia > Onion SportsDome > Fairly Legal > Episodes > Perfect Couples

Sell me on Bob's Burgers.

tonight's episode was full of paintings of animal anuses. was probably my favorite episode to date.

Is Southland the one with the Ryan Phillippe-looking rookie cop? And another rookie female cop who was all, "Don't make me shoot you on my first day"?

No, that was Rookie Blue iirc

Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal as the kids on Bob's Burgers are just blowing me away every week. The whole voice cast is great, actually.

The mom is the BEST

Actually the whole family is the best, what am I saying.

Sell me on Bob's Burgers.

"Milk, milk, lemonade, around the corner...ART is made."

has anyone been watching detroit 1-8-7? i checked out after the pilot or second one or so cuz it seemed soooo tired but the recent episode with the NEMESIS makes it at least seem watchable. though it seems kind of like an arc-story episode that might be an exception to the usual ones.

it doesn't seem all that deep but it's at least a little bit slow, there seem to be relationships between the people, cops yakking in the office—kind of like if someone saw 'homicide' and decided to become a tv writer but just didn't have that much to say.

i was deeply disinterested in Detroit 1-8-7 when i tried to watch the first couple episodes, but i could see it being something worth dropping in on every now and again. really i could watch it for Natalie Martinez if for no other reason.

she is v pretty. lol i basically watch it for christopher moltisanti when i do tbh.

the writing is really bad. the shots of detroit are pretty. the relationships between the characters kind of work, in part because i think the acting is better than the writing. and it seems like it's trying to be about detroit and its ills and its history in an earnest way. they need to hire some decent writers.

yes what is with TV these days, it seems like there are so many shows with terrific actors and abominable writing

chicago code for example--delroy lindo! the polish dude with the face! even the bland cubs fan cop is pretty good. and the writing is just blech

yeah delroy lindo was unbelievable on the one episode of chicago code that i caught

love that dude!

that was always my thing about weeds too, great cast and just awful writing and plotting

there have been a LOT of shows in the past 10-15 years that were super-heavy on expert-knowledge/professional-talk dialogue, i bet that really tends to sap the creative imaginations of the greater pool of writers. what are you supposed to have people say when you can't have them repeat ballistics data or fake some criminal procedure law?

but detroit 187 scripts aren't even like that. they're like:

detective 1: what should we do?
detective 2: let's go to where the body is!

hahahaha, yeah, i'm just saying, take that away and that's what you get now.

oh yes i see. yeah, that would account for detroit 187

the Lights Out pilot is really on-the-nose (much more telegraphed than I'm used to from cable dramas - esp like Terriers or Mad Men or Breaking Bad) but entertaining and I could see it shaping into something at least as fun as Dexter if not any deeper

― Mordy, Sunday, January 16, 2011 9:58 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the lead has a lot of - idk if the word is charisma - but is really compelling to watch even when his dialogue is subpar

― Mordy, Sunday, January 16, 2011 10:10 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark

this guy looks like a buff Jimmy Hoffa and it's all i can think about whenever i see him in something

so southland got renewed, and perfect couples is getting booted in favor of "the paul reiser show." i didn't like perfect couples, but i gotta say i'm not sure what to expect out of something called "the paul reiser show."

oh i see there was a description of the show posted in another thread. however it sounds real boring so my hesitance remains.

yes what is with TV these days, it seems like there are so many shows with terrific actors and abominable writing

― max, Monday, March 21, 2011 11:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i agree but i also feel like this is an acceptable problem -- a show w/ a good cast & premise but weak writing can always hire new writers and gradually find its voice, if a show doesn't have the right actors or has a stupid premise, no amount of great writing will fix it.

so southland got renewed

I need to catch up with this. Heard the 3rd season finale was excellent.

this traffic light show I stumbled upon last night was funny. i'm sure it will be cancelled.

i think its kinda funny but its going to need at least a season to come into itself. plus it relies realllllly heavily on played-out "men are like THIS women are like THAT" gags.

pablo schreiber and gbenga akinnagbe on the good wife at the same time!

i like the plotline with the daughter 'subversively' discovering christianity via youtube videos and wierding out her mom, it's truly disturbing.

grace: 'do you think jesus was black?'

gbenga akinnagbe: '… uh… yeah!'

and bodie too!

Season 1 will be the only season of Lights Out. Canceled.

This week's episode was pretty good. David Morse!

Too bad Donal was already cast in something else, or they could bring back Terriers.

On Outsourced:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lizardi-outsourced-20110321-22,0,885246.story

Too bad Donal was already cast in something else, or they could bring back Terriers.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, March 24, 2011 4:22 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

oh don't even joke about that. i'm still just holding my breath in hopes that Terriers gets released on DVD.

Lights Out is growing on me, but it almost feels like a mini-series already, i don't know where they would've taken it with a 2nd season if they had the chance.

Outsourced is a better show now than when it started, but that's barely an accomplishment considering how atrocious the pilot was. I won't miss it at all.

I'm there with you 110% on the dvd hopes, some dude.

pablo schreiber and gbenga akinnagbe on the good wife at the same time!

i like the plotline with the daughter 'subversively' discovering christianity via youtube videos and wierding out her mom, it's truly disturbing.

― j., Thursday, March 24, 2011 2:11 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

grace: 'do you think jesus was black?'

gbenga akinnagbe: '… uh… yeah!'

― j., Thursday, March 24, 2011 2:13 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and bodie too!

― j., Thursday, March 24, 2011 2:16 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this episode was so good. everything about it. omg.

nick sobotka looks so skinny though! i am worried about him.

chris partlow lookin fine

grace is such a creepy amazing character

Schreiber doesn't look especially skinny on Lights Out

okay. his face looked drawn on the good wife. maybe he was just dehydrated

I saw Nicky Sobotka in a trailer for a Josh Radnoor directed joint, and he was almost unrecognizable, super skinny, way more than normal. Kinda bummed me out bc he was pretty handsome in the Wire, even Lights Out.

i think he's just aging.

everything with kalinda has been kind of confusing since blake showed up, but it seemed like this episode brought things around. that shot of her at the end was pretty amazing. ACTING

everything with kalinda has been kind of confusing since blake showed up, but it seemed like this episode brought things around. that shot of her at the end was pretty amazing. ACTING

― j., Thursday, March 24, 2011 11:02 PM (17 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm otm otm

i am *very invested* in kalinda as a character and i was getting pissed at how they seemed to have no coherent idea of who she even was anymore this season and at archie panjabi having nothing to do but act like a glazed-over sexbot all the time, but i think this episode recovered things for me.

Shameless, Showtime's latest addition to their original programming lineup, scored stellar ratings for it's season one finale. According to reports, 1.16 million viewers tuned in Sunday night, making it the most watched episode of a freshman show on a network since 2001

What is Shameless?

It's a remake of a UK show about a family of lovable working-class scamps led by a dissolute patriarch played in the American version by William H. Macy. Original was set in Manchester, new one is Chicago. Lots of drugs, nudity etc. The English show was really good for a couple of seasons before settling into a pattern of rapidly diminishing returns. I've only seen a couple of episodes of the new version and while slightly toned down, it seems to hew pretty closely to the tone of the original. The cast is a lot more attractive though natch.

My blog is the fourth hit for chicago code is a shitty the wire! So proud.

archie panjabi having nothing to do but act like a glazed-over sexbot all the time

i am not entirely unwilling to be reconciled to this if the writers completely lose their way

Did anyone else watch Chaos last friday night on CBS? It's promising for a pilot. Great cast too. Equal parts spy stuff/gags & jokes.

yeah i liked Chaos too, definitely got some potential.

the new Starz show Camelot is neither as trashy as Spartacus as well made as a show about this stuff could/should be, but it's kind of entertaining so far. Eva Green is super hot and Claire Forlani's kind of a depressing plastic surgery casualty.

eva green is kind of supernaturally pretty

especially when she shows her boobs to a magical talking wind or something at the end of the 2nd episode

well that will make most people seem prettier

Apparently Chaos had the lowest rated premiere of any scripted show on CBS this season. Not a good sign.

yeah that means it's only doing as well as a successful NBC show or something

watching The Borgias premiere right now, it's okay i guess

archie panjabi having nothing to do but act like a glazed-over sexbot all the time

i am not entirely unwilling to be reconciled to this if the writers completely lose their way

― j., Wednesday, April 6, 2011 12:17 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha she is one of the prettiest ever but it's such a waste! she's been so good the last few episodes.

Bob's Burgers was renewed, yay!

YES!

It's a good time to be in the H. Jon Benjamin business - he's got another series on the way!

Justified is nearing Breaking Bad levels of greatness right now.

The Borgia - clearly they spent all their money on Jeremy Irons and pope hats because there can't have been anything left for a decent script or anything more than planks of wood for the rest of the cast.

I'm hoping Bravo's Work of Art comes back. Last I heard, they were doing auditions last September, but no dates announced yet afaik.

lol Ed, now I'm only going to think "Jeremy Irons and pope hats" when I hear about Borgias show

Bob's Burgers was renewed, yay!

Justified is nearing Breaking Bad levels of greatness right now.

good wife needs to stop dangling america ferrera and then snatching her away. if she becomes a cast member i will truly believe that i made this show up in my head.

also, hugo chavez is a courtney love stan! i feel you, hugo!

I guess there's not a new ep next week, or else they would've shown a teaser clip at the end. Frustrating!

I love how they referenced Law & Order w/o actually mentioning the show's name.

that 'your opinion' gag with the hon. ana gasteyer still fucking cracks me up.

So, Happy Endings then...

Hard to gauge it since I feel like most of the pilot was given away in that trailer that was on youtube, but I still think it has potential. They're gonna have to tone down that one dude's LOL I'M THE TOKEN GAY jokes, though. It was bordering on Will & Grace territory whereas everyone else's dialogue seemed real(ish).

re: Good Wife, if I find that South Asian actress to be soooooper hot, will I like this show?

Also, I sense that there was boob talk in this thread recently.

if I find that South Asian actress to be soooooper hot, will I like this show?

If a cumulative 5-10 minutes of screen time in just about every episode is incentive enough, then yes. Also, she makes her presence count nearly every time (i.e. she is a badass).

has anyone talked about the killing yet? i watched the first 3 episodes and it's great.

If a cumulative 5-10 minutes of screen time in just about every episode is incentive enough, then yes. Also, she makes her presence count nearly every time (i.e. she is a badass).

SOLD.

has anyone talked about the killing yet? i watched the first 3 episodes and it's great.

― Mordy, Thursday, April 14, 2011 7:43 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i havent watched the AMC one but i obtained the OG danish one and it is soooooooo good

like guys

SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

The only version I could find wasn't in english :/

subtitles I mean

you can usually find subtitle files "on the internet" if you look around. they end in .srt and VLC can play them.

but theres at least one reasonably well-seeded torrent of the entire series w/ hard-coded subtitles on the pirate bay, IVE BEEN TOLD

Well, Reiser has engaged the Curb Your Enthusiasm comparisons head on by having Larry David on to tell him he should do his own version of Curb Your Enthusiasm. If not necessarily funny, it's at least ballsy.

i think this show could be really funny if every week reiser is in a new show and it's terrible, like a network larry sanders kinda thing

one of these friends is the reporter from lights out!

okay it was predictable but the delivery of "did you glue your ass to my car?" was golden

Happy Endings was pretty good imo. although there's a huge watchability gap between the hot/funny chicks and the zzz dudes in the cast.

Outsourced > Paul Reiser Show

Outsourced delivered genuine lols tonight.

wow the paul reiser show is really not good

also this guy that looks exactly like daniel peal is kinda freaking me out

Missed this bit of Terriers news from a couple months ago: http://hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/a-terriers-dvd-update-from-shawn-ryan

When "Terriers" was heading towards the finish line of its first, only, brilliant, abysmally-rated season, Fienberg and I kept trying to console ourselves and the private eye drama's other fans with the notion that the series had a clear beginning, middle and end and would live forever beautifully on DVD.

However, there hasn't been much news on the DVD front since FX announced the cancellation, John Landgraf spoke, I interviewed Ted Griffin, etc. And given that the DVD market has shrunk enough in recent years that not everything gets released anymore, I began to worry. So I checked in with "Terriers" executive producer Shawn Ryan, who's been busy with the launch of FOX's "The Chicago Code," and he had some potentially good news to share.

He said Fox Home Video had financial concerns about producing a "Terriers" DVD, since a low-rated series suggested potential low sales, there won't be a second season on FX on which they could piggyback their marketing(*), etc.

(*) As Landgraf helped explain to me a while back, that's the reason DVD sets are released so close to the new season of a show: the home video divisions don't usually have big marketing budgets, so if they time the release to the TV premiere of the next season, the network winds up doing a lot of the promotion for them.

But, Shawn continued, "after some pressing, Fox Home Video is in talks with a major, major company to do an exclusive 'Terriers' DVD release. We'd do commentaries for the eps and extras as well. Unclear right now whether it would be standard DVD, Blu-Ray or both. This deal isn't finalized yet so I don't want to say more than that, but things are looking more promising than they were a month ago for a release."

He added that the show will also be available on Netflix streaming and iTunes, giving fans of the show multiple platforms on which to access it, proselytize to their friends, etc.

I'll keep you posted when I know more, but I feel much better now about this than I did a few weeks ago.

Not going to the Game of Thrones thread(s), but as someone who's never read the books, should I try to get in on the miniseries?

YES

i think i had mentioned that Terriers DVD update when i first saw it a few weeks ago...the fact that there's been zero other word on the matter since Feb makes me kinda nervous though.

Not going to the Game of Thrones thread(s), but as someone who's never read the books, should I try to get in on the miniseries?

― Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Saturday, April 16, 2011 6:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

The thread for the series is spoiler-free I believe.

i tried reading the book a couple years ago but i hated the writing and never got more than 40 pages in. that said, reviews for the show have been stellar so far and i'm really excited for it.

stellar? NYT and slate both hated it

Both those reviewers seemed to have chips on their shoulders

and the Slate review is basically unreadable

Yeah, I was reading something someplace that compared it favorably to a D&D The Wire (possibly on Wired.com?).

From the NYT review:

While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first.

In other words, I don't think Ginia Bellafante is predisposed to this sort of fare.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ilana-teitelbaum/game-of-thrones-hbo_b_850014.html

We can continue here: HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds?

Alan Sepinwall gave it a great review: http://hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/review-hbos-game-of-thrones-an-epic-mature-well-crafted-fantasy-series

oh, i'll crosspost that to new thread

Paul Reiser show canceled. HARSH

What? Already? Ouch

oof

"Up next: Stay tuned for Paul Reiser in --- wait, nevermind"

Is that not normal there?

As far as I could tell, Reiser was perfectly happy being a nobody anymore and I get the feeling his agent or even NBC itself talked him into doing this show. He's probably relieved.

last night's Archer finale was great. It is the funniest show on TV now IMO. (Though I have recently caught up on Parks and Rec, which is definitely on a streak right now.)

xpost Canceling shows super-normal, just not usually so quickly

I have never seen any network push a show like NBC is pushing The Voice. Every commercial break. Every outro. They even bumped Leno back last night so they could show a long-form preview. They've been plastering their own airwaves with it.

Obviously, it has a good chance of being a failure.

Does anyone else love Eagleheart as much as I do?

I never know when anything is scheduled on Adult Swim.

xpost Canceling shows super-normal, just not usually so quickly

― VegemiteGrrl, Saturday, 23 April 2011 09:26 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Oh good, because that's routinely how things work here now and it's nice to see that the US isn't going that way (apart from this obv).

xpost Johnny otm re the Voice. The promos during Community ate up half the freaking screen!

also NBC is in the pits ratings-wise and they've let a lot of shows stay on the air for a while based on little more than good reviews, so them squashing a show after 2 episodes in this day and age is super exceptional.

I mean they let Perfect Couples go on for what, 2 months??

And Reiser's pilot episode hasn't even aired yet! According to the AV Club, the episodes were inexplicably being run out of order, with the pilot airing fourth...with characters and settings that don't appear in any other episode.

Apparently, it dipped below a 1.0 last night...which is low for cable and almost unheard of for a broadcast network show. When that happens, instant cancellation.

(Just watched it on Hulu, btw. Rollins was really the only redeeming part of it, and even he had to play stupid.)

see, i'll watch Mad About You anytime it's on, I like Reiser's sense of humor and ear for dialogue, so i had no problem w/ the show. but it definitely felt out of place with the current regime of NBC comedy.

The show may have gotten sharper with time, but it was in such a deep hole from the start that it had so far to go. Most of the supporting cast was dudsville and it didn't seem like Reiser had any motivation to carry the show by himself.

I read an article (on Salon, I think) a few weeks before it debuted about how NBC wanted it to fail, hence it only getting aired once their other midseason replacement show failed. They apparently want the younger demographic, and Reiser can't give it to them. If it were a ratings success, they'd feel obliged to step into CBS territory, which is not something they want (both for ratings and image).

Just caught up on Happy Endings and it's already really tight just 4 episodes in, with Wayans Jr. being the standout performer so far (even though his character's been really inconsequential). Don't love it yet, but I could get there.

Happy Endings is really great so far, last night's was one of my favorites. Nice Paul Scheer cameo.

totally disagree about Wayans, he's probably the 2nd weakest link in the whole cast after straight white dude, although he has good comedic chemistry with Eliza Coupe

Gotten through the first 8 episodes of The Good Wife -- the stories are really dense! And Archie Panjabi is srsly phwoar! And what accent is she supposed to be using!?

She sound English-via-Canada-via-Ivy League to me.

Robert King, the Good Wife writer is my mother in-law's second cousin or something. All of her cousins are huge fans of the show, they get mad at me for not watching, lol. And I guess he was flying his Mom out to NY for filming, puts her up in a fancy hotel and got her a driver, the cousins & my mother in law all very impressed. It's super-cute.

It's quite good, you should watch! All sorts of eye candy, btw, but competent writing and tries to avoid cliches and stuff which is admirable. Also, the kids tend to watch ANTM on the show a lot == awesome in my book.

Also, ALAN CUMMING.

yeah alan cumming is amazing on that show

I watched the first ep and was disappointed it was a lawyer/courtroomy thing & lost interest bc too many other shows... but I do love me some Josh Charles.
And WTF...holy shit Alan Cummimg really? Okay, it is definitely clear that I must revist.

i can't really vouch for the first season because i didn't see much of it, but second season is great imo.

I will vouch for season 1! Anxiously awaiting the next disc to arrive via Netflix.

Say, Madame Veg, since you have the connect, can you heheh put me in touch with Archie Panjabi?

Lol I'll see what I can do :)

I'd been seeing Alan Cumming on previews for some CBS show and always thought it was for Criminal Minds or some such, tbh.

btw there's one scene so far that's like CBS's answer to Omar on the witness stand and is nearly every bit as awesome.

I know this isn't appropriate for this thread, but until there's a consensus on having its own thread or we start the Fall version of this one, I'll put it here.

First teaser for AMC's Hell on Wheels.

Oh man @ last night's The Good Wife! The romantidrama is my least favorite part of the show for real, but now it's turning more into drama than romance which is definitely the right path to go down.

Justified finale tonight wheeeeeee

Apparently the ratings for The Voice were UP in its second week, which is something that almost never happens.

yeah i think it's WAY better than this season of Idol but it obviously has an uphill battle ahead of it in terms of building its own audience, good to hear that

I was looking forward to watching The Chicago Code when it was announced, but never got around to it, and now it's been cancelled.

I didn't watch it either, but I've heard very conflicting reports on quality.

...................................................

The Voice...are they really going to stretch out the battle rounds this long? Just four performances per week? That could kill momentum pretty fast imo.

The Good Wife is really good when you get past the CBS conventions.

I've been catching up w/ this - it's really good. I fully endorse it. It's sort of like if 'Damages' had been a network show, only without the crap flashforwards and ludicrous plot twists.

I was looking forward to watching The Chicago Code when it was announced, but never got around to it, and now it's been cancelled.

!?!

what, too expensive?

so long cute boys...so long Jennifer Beals...

(gets on 10 speed bike, rides through steelworks)

"First, when there's nothing....but a slow glowing dream"

As of now, Fox has axed The Chicago Code, Traffic Light, Breaking In, Human Target and Lie to Me.

NBC's renewed Harry's Law and canceled Law & Order LA.

uuuughhh Harry's Law is the worst shit ever

really wanted to like 'Chicago Code' 'cause the showrunners helped bring us 'Terriers', but it didn't do much for me.

Harry's Law isn't THE worst shit ever because THE worst shit ever wouldn't star Kathy Bates. (but she really is the only selling point of Harry's Law...even Nate Corddry is a dud on that show)

aw man, i liked 'lie to me'. and they added monique curnen last season too!

'harry's law' is a turd, i can't believe more people are watching it than 'LO LA'. which actually seems to have been good since they killed off skeet ulrich and made whatsisname a detective.

Lie to Me getting cancelled is no surprise because House is no longer the coolest thing to imitate.

tbf I only saw the pilot, but it was highly cringeworthy. LCD-oriented TV for over-35s.

(xx-post)

no, it continued to be bad. and i watched SEVERAL of them.

I've seen a few episodes too. Some bright spots (occasionally), but I wouldn't miss it if it were gone. As for L&O:LA, good riddance. Sucked with Skeet, sucked after Skeet. Still can't believe that they canceled original L&O, which was having a renaissance at the time, so they could concentrate on the L&O version of CSI:Miami.

yeah that's a continuing bummer, can't believe that didn't get a proper sendoff.

CBS hasn't made any announcements yet, but can we throw a party when S#@t My Dad Says gets canceled?

weird that after all these years we don't have a Chuck thread.

I gave up on Chuck this year but it somehow got renewed. Perhaps we should have a thread to discuss the sad, desperate state that NBC is clearly in.

The Voice is apparently a huge hit for them. And afaic they have the best sitcoms on television atm even if the ratings aren't great.

i watched chuck some once. it seemed dumb.

I'm still watching Chuck but I don't even know why anymore.

It definitely has a weird, devoted fanbase. Just glad that they're getting enough shows to wrap up the series next year so I won't have to read a bunch of bellyaching on the webz.

yeah imo once a show gets to limp along for 3+ years fans lose the right to bitch about cancellation

They need to make a spin off show of Morgan and Casey

Can I just say how surprised I am by how not terrible Happy Endings is? Also Elisha Cuthbert. Very cute.

Chuck is one of those shows where my reaction to just the ads is so violently negative that i've never watched it for so much as a minute

yeah Happy Endings is nice

also the chick from scrubs: the college years!

more like upChuck amirite

I've got three eps of Happy Endings sitting on my desktop that I haven't caught up on yet, so I don't feel like I can watch it on air right now. Hopefully I'll be all squared away soon and can pick it up on tv again next week. (I like the five eps that I've seen.)

it's a very trad sitcom with episodic plots and no overarching storyline, so it doesn't really matter what order you watch them in fwiw

it's not great. it's just the best-acted most tightly-written of that whole slew that includes Better With You, Traffic Light, the other one

the other one had olivia munn in it

they're all generally kinda weak, though, especially in the season that brought us Raising Hope and Bob's Burgers

post-coupling/friends young urban sitcoms definitely not pushing the envelope

Mad Love too! yeah, there was a very unfortunate glut of "three couples or two couples and a single guy" HIMYM type shows this season.

i was slightly sad to hear of Traffic Light's cancellation, because they did manage one great episode (the "bonebag" one) out of an otherwise undignified run.

chatty urbanite "shows about nothing" should be a luxury of the few who have the casts/writing to pull it off, not the default of anyone who can't be bothered to think of an interesting premise or setting for their sitcom

re: the nine lives of chloe king.

NO.

i'm sure this is uncontroversial here but I was looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must_See_TV#NBC_Thursday-night_lineup_history and this year's Thursday night lineup is probably their best since 1993!

i didn't truly realize how much shitty television NBC has aired Thursday night until I look at that list. check out the group of winners they tried to shovel out in 96-97 season.

i enjoy seeing ads for ABC Family's increasingly ridiculous original programming while i'm watching my Boy Meets World reruns

having 6 comedy slots instead of 4 definitely makes Thursday stronger overall, although i don't know if anyone in their right mind is really into more than 3 or 4 of them

off-topic q: has anyone ever been able to explain why 2+1/2men was the most popular show in America last show? btw, apparently Hugh Grant might be joining the cast

chuck is a pretty stupid show, writing-wise, but all of the actors are really endearing and it's p. funny and it's the rare show to have improved after getting the will-they/won't-they couple together imo

last season* xp

are you asking for an explanation of Two And A Half Men's popularity over the past 8 years or specifically why its popularity endured over the last year?

the former. but something that explains it better than, 'americans like dumb television'

Re: 96-97 season

I'd still take Naked Truth and Fired Up over most of the other crap they trotted out - they replaced those with Veronica's Closet, for god sakes!

For Two and a Half Men - I don't know, there's something about that horrible unimaginative blandness of Chuck Lorre sitcoms that just sucks people in. I'm even guilty of this - there was one summer where I could only get a couple channels with a clear reception from my apartment, and couldn't stop watching Dharma and Greg, fully aware of how terrible it is/was

But for my money Two and a Half Men is actually nastier and even less funny, yet vastly more successful, so I don't totally understand it

esp since the protagonist (charlie sheen's apparently semi-fictionalized persona) is such a horrible, unethical, disgusting person. i'd think middle america would've been totally turned off.

my (admittedly generous) go-to comparison for Two and a Half Men is Married With Children -- it's broad and mean and often outright gross, but at its best there's a solid cast and a lot of sharp one-liners flying in every direction. Dharma & Greg is straight up horrible, though.

Married with Children is classic tho, and I think comes from a real source of angst and anger. 2+1/2 men tho is unsympathetic on every level (unless i guess you sympathize with the dad).

in what Happy Days fantasy is America still only enjoying sitcoms about wholesome admirable people? not to say Two And A Half Men is a Seinfeld-level study in bad behavior but its appeal is not unique.

fair enough, tho i think Seinfeld appealed to a primarily different audience than the one enjoying this

some dude, is there a particular episode you'd single out as the best?

obviously these shows have different audiences, but i think the image that It's Always Sunny fans have of Two And A Half Men is some narcissism of minor difference shit tbh

what whooooaaa no way.

any one of the main characters on Sunny is far more charismatic and appealing than anyone on Two and a Half Men, even including their horribleness

dunno episodes by name, but the show probably peaked around season 3 when the supporting cast got really strong (Ryan Stiles, Jane Lynch, Melanie Lynskey, etc.). not a big fan of Sheen or Cryer so the show kind of lives or dies based on what recurring characters show up in a given episode.

2 + half men has never had a moment like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3kUK9Dq1n0

^ one of my 5 favorite tv scenes of all time!

(don't ask what the other 4 might be, because I just said that to make the Pepe Silvia scene sound really important!)

that show has a more absurdist bent but seriously saying Two And A Half Men's appeal is mystifying because of "horrible, unethical, disgusting" characters and stanning for It's Always Sunny is kinda goofy

if you guys really want me to make offensive claims about the alt-sitcom canon i can explain how Evelyn on Two And A Half Men is pretty much the exact same character as Lucille on Arrested Development

i do find that comparison interesting and i think the big difference for me is that the It's Always Sunny show universe seems to understand how disgusting its main cast is and so their repulsive behavior is experienced as repulsive. in two and a half men it seems aestheticized such that you're supposed to get some kind of empathetic pleasure out of watching these ppl be dicks to each other. they're for sure both nihilistic but i feel like It's Always Sunny gives you more space from the characters which, btw, isn't necessarily a virtue and maybe in twenty years i'll look back at Two and a Half Men and think, 'wow, what a damning comment on america in 2010.' but i think that's the problem i have w/ it today. (and i've seen a bunch of episodes too, they run in syndication a lot. some things i do like about it: very colorful. lots of attractive guest stars. charlie sheen's charisma. his character's brother's commitment to some of the physical comedy bits. that really cute woman who plays charlie's stalker.)

another example of this distinction i think. when i watch Lucille the joke always seems to be on her (think about her gross winking for example). when you watch Evelyn i feel like the show is asking you to think, "wow, what a badass snarky bitch."

yeah the tone and overall effect vary; i'm just saying it amuses me how 2 characters so similar in so many ways exist in shows that debuted around the same time and are different in almost every other way.

tbf snarky old drunk biddy is a staple sitcom character type

here's to the ladies who lunch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf52APstI0A

tbf snarky old drunk biddy is a staple sitcom character type

― Nhex, Wednesday, May 11, 2011 11:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah but the writing and performances of those 2 in particular are much closer than just shared archetype

clip from making of so not what i wanted but whatever love sondheim

FOX cancels Traffic Light and Chicago Code. Bummer. I was really getting into both of those.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/nbc-to-order-three-new-prime-time-dramas/

NBC continued to move toward a sweeping overhaul of its prime-time schedule Thursday night as it sent word to three more prospective series that they will receive orders to go into production.

The shows were all dramas with unusual premises. One is “Playboy,” an hour that owes something to the influence of ‘Mad Men” in its 1960’s period setting. The drama follows the lives of workers – and patrons – at a Playboy club in Chicago during the heyday of those clubs.

Another drama is “Grimm,” which is a police show that includes science-fiction elements. A detective sees strange alternate faces on some suspects he pursues and soon learns he is a “grimm,” someone who can spot villains with alternate, beast-like characteristics.

The third drama is “Awake,” another police show with a fantasy undertone. A police offices suffers an accident with his wife and son and thereafter lives in two realities — one where his wife has died, and the other where his son has died.

I can save them some time. "Awake" is going to be terrible.

It seems to be generally regarded as the best pilot script of the season. They said the same thing about his Lone Star though, and that didn't make it past 2 episodes.

Playboy will probably be terrible though.

At least there are reports that NBC passed on Wonder Woman. That had colossal flop written all over it (even with David E. Kelley behind it and Adrienne Palicki in the featured role).

when are one of these networks going to revive Star Trek already?

even with because it had David E. Kelley behind it

xpost

haha, probs right.

Is there a Two and a Half Men thread? Because it looks to be Kutcher.

Won't watch it, but I like that casting.

Better With You and Outsourced cancelled.

Happy Endings renewed. Hearing good things about it and though the bits I've seen haven't convinced me (it's a little try hard, maybe) I'll give it a proper go.

great news about Outsourced. maybe now a cable network can try a show about that culture/subject matter that doesn't suck?

Bummed that Mr. Sunshine was canceled...but it had to happen with Andrea Anders in the cast.

Matthew Perry returning to rehab doesnt help either :/ Mr Sunshine had some good moments

Dude is so talented and I think of all the Friends alum he had the best shot at post-Friends success (esp was great in Sorkin-ventures). Instead Phoebe Buffay is in Hotel for Dogs and Monica is making Scream4.

Yeah, Perry is one I'll always have time for. And otm re Sorkin..as frustrating as Studio 60 was, Perry was good, and his West Wing turn was cool too.

It must be hard, because he has such a specific niche, he cant just slot into handsome-funny guy. He's got the jaded misanthrope cornered, but you need a good writer to pull it off.

yeah he's the kind of guy who will probably have to bum around for another decade of post-Friends drudgery before someone figures out how to use him really well in an ensemble and people remember why they liked him

plus the alcohol/pills and rehab, I feel for the guy

if Lizzy Caplan dumps him too i will like weep real tears of sympathy for dude

he's banging lizzy caplan? sympthathy... withdrawn

who is lizzy caplan

mean girls and then party down

jason stackhouse's girlfriend in season 1

oh her! i like her! she has moxie :D

Outsourced cancelled.

http://www.hooptywagon.com/img/macros/doubletake.gif

http://i.imgur.com/fVHiv.gif

there it is

both gifs = a+

New NBC shows: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/nbc-bets-on-talent-shows-and-scripted-series/

Thought about polling them, but I don't care enough. Grimm + The Playoff Club look interesting enough that I'll first day check them out. They're running the Whitney Cummings sitcom at the end of the night on Thursday so I can turn off the TV after the Office (or if that has a downward quality spiral, after Parks + Rec).

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/05/watch_clips_from_the_new_nbc_d.html

I'm excited for Up All Night and The Playboy Club. Smash could be interesting... Whitney could be good as well, I like her standup.

gonna go out on a limb here and say none of these will be good

maybe the prime suspect remake. i like maria bello

That's Mad Love, Shit My day Says, and The Defenders gone.

Shit My Dad Says*

Disappointed that they went with Grimm over that magic cops show by Ron Moore with three BSG alums...

Wow, no 30 Rock until January. I know why it has to be that way, but that's a show I've never had to wait for and I don't like the way that makes me feel. :/

They're up for renewal the end of next season, so we'll see how that shakes out... I'm guessing it'll replace the 9:30 "Whitney" slot.

Baldwin's leaving for sure. Tina Fey might want to. I think six seasons of 30 Rock seems about right anyway, so I hope it doesn't get renewed.

Also, I'm kinda sorta rooting for Whitney Cummings, but I have no idea how she'll anchor her own show without it turning into the just-canceled Paul Reiser Show. Hopefully her ensemble is A+.

we talked about this on the 30 Rock thread but imo nothing's "for sure," Baldwin's been half-heartedly talking about leaving since season 1. i'd love it to keep going and would be fine with it ending after 6 years, but i can't really fathom 30R without Jack.

afaik Whitney is just an old fashioned based-on-the-star's-standup-with-them-playing-a-character-with-the-same-first-name sitcom, not Reiser showbiz meta.

Baldwin's chirped about it before, but he's going out of his way this time to make sure everyone's listening. Whether Tina leaves or not is just speculation on his/our part, but I can't imagine she wants to do this for forever either.

I'd be fine with a spin-off series of just the writers' room, though.

no spinoffs, no cast changes, all or nothing imo -- Lutz and Toofer could carry a few 2-minute 'webisodes' or something, not a series

and The Defenders gone

aw man, what the fuck is wrong with people. this was at least entertaining junk.

reading tv-show-idea-blurbs always makes me think i should give up and just read 'finnegans wake' forever.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/business/media/16networks.html

So now I'm all up to date on Happy Endings and it's turned into a really great show! Yay for renewal.

NBC trailers are up here: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/16/nbc-new-show-trailers-videos-from-todays-upfront-meetings/92800/

Jonathan from 30 Rock is on the Whitney Cummings show.

I couldn't even make it through the whole Playboy Club trailer. On paper, it seemed like a cheap Mad Men knock off. On video, it's even worse and more obvious.

Awake could actually be cool - same guy who wrote Lone Star + Laura Allen from Terriers means I'll at least check out the pilot. Reminds me more of Life on Mars (UK, never saw the remake) than Inception.

<3 Amber Heard but The Playboy Club does indeed look awful.

The fact that Inception was a pretty sizeable hit makes me feel good about Awake's chances on tv, but then I remember that tv audiences are typically dumber.

The failings of both Deja Vu and Journeyman (especially this!!) really make me skeptical the show will survive. Then again, how long did that US remake of Life of Mars go on for?

Oops, not Deja Vu, I meant Daybreak.

Life on Mars didn't get a second season.

high concept shows do well on TV quite often (especially supernatural procedurals, for some horrible reason). that said, the whole premise of Awake makes me kind of rmde.

i'm digging even deeper into niche of super-sentimental sci-fi/mystery/fantasy/alternate reality and/or time travel series

the whole premise of Awake Grimm makes me kind of rmde.

both of them, really

i miss Jeff Goldblum: Ghost Cop

I'm prone to love brain twisty scenarios like Awake as long as they don't dip into the melodramatic or crawl up their own asses with mythology. Hopefully this show will do neither of those.

i dunno i'll give them the benefit of the doubt and watch it but i'm having a hard time imagining that plot as being anything but continuously dreary and maudlin

that Jeff Goldblum show was good

I never watched it. Was he really a ghost?

No, he was just a guy with some mental problems who talked to manifestations of dead people. Not ghosts, he dreamed them up bc he had problems of his own...I thought it was a cool twist on all the "seeing dead people" shows

yeah i just wanted to call it something stupid like Jeff Goldblum: Ghost Cop, but i liked it too. would like to see Goldblum get a good steady TV gig, i guess he didn't last long on Criminal Intent either.

you'd think it'd be child's play to write a great vehicle for jeff goldblum

seriously! maybe he shoulda gotten Sheen's gig.

RIP Hellcats. Now bring on the new Aly & AJ album!

All of ABC's trailers collected here: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/17/abcs-new-show-trailers-charlies-angels-pan-am-missing-the-river-and-more/93081/

Apartment 23 looks great. The only others I've watched so far are Charlie's Angels (looks dumb), Good Christian Bitches/Belles (probably dumb, but might be fun anyway), and Pan Am (stomps all over The Playboy Club).

ha I was about to post a link to that (here's a link that isn't blocked outside the US: http://www.tvsquad.com/2011/05/17/sneak-previews-the-new-abc-shows/)

Last Man Standing and Work It look absolutely dreadful. Pan Am could be great and Suburgatory has potential.

oh and the NBC slate available worldwide here: http://www.tvsquad.com/2011/05/15/sneak-previews-new-nbc-shows-playboy-club-awake-smash/

i'm going to have fun pronouncing "suburgatory" for the next few months.

Suburbs + Purgatory = Suburgatory

Pretty easy, really.

lotta action in this last 'chicago code', too bad it took so much buildup.

Hmm...The Good Wife moves to Sunday nights in the fall, meaning I'll never be able to watch it live if the football season actually starts. I like the move anyway, though, because there's less pressure for it to score big ratings that night of the week.

lol Rules of Engagement airing original eps on SATURDAY NIGHT.

CBS peeks/trailers: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/18/cbs-new-series-trailer-videos-for-two-broke-girls-person-of-interest-and-more/93234/

I haven't watched them all, but Person of Interest looks good (also, MICHAEL EMERSON!) and the sitcom with Kat Dennings (already forgot its name) looks lousy.

i get the MEANING of "suburgatory," it's just fun/funny to pronounce

Weird discontinuity with Happy Endings last night, as eps 10 & 11 were obviously intended to be eps 2 & 3.

yeah they definitely seemed oddly focused on the pilot's premise compared to most of the other recently aired episodes.

Well, the fact that whatshisface has already been living with gaywhatshisface for several weeks, but just moved into his apartment last night tipped me off.

whatshisface was on Life On A Stick and Flash Forward. narrowly avoiding showkiller status with the renewal of Happy Endings!

ohhh FlashForward, that's where he was from

Damn -- concerning the hopes for ethical murk on The Chicago Code (more like The Chicago Lolled aren't I correct?), The Good Wife seriously brings the moral gray areas.

so... 2011 summer TV thread anyone?

or since it's so few shows should we just disperse to respective threads (Louie (Louis C.K.'s show on FX) for me) and reconvene for the fall?

new shows this summer:
Wilfred, Jon Benjamin Has A Van, Franklin & Bash, Alphas, Falling Skies, Necessary Roughness, X Factor, The Hot Zone, Same Name, Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition, Platinum Hit, Love In The Wild, The World According To Paris, Teen Wolf, Switched At Birth, The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Happily Divorced, 101 Ways To Leave A Game Show, Expedition Impossible, Commercial Kings, Young Broke & Beautiful, Take The Money And Run, Whisker Wars, The Lying Game, Million Dollar Decorators, The Glee Project, Rocco's Dinner Party, Bachelor Pad, America's Karaoke Challenge

shows returning with new episodes this summer:
Louie, Curb Your Enthusiasm, True Blood, Rescue Me, Childrens Hospital, Rizzoli & Isles, Entourage, Men Of A Certain Age, The Closer, White Collar, Covert Affairs, Master Chef, HawthoRNe, Rookie Blue, Leverage, The Marriage Ref, Hell's Kitchen, So You Think You Can Dance, Memphis Beat, Wipeout

i dunno, not a terribly promising slate aside from the stuff that already has dedicated threads, a summer TV thread could still be fun though

Teen Wolf!

i know. apparently it's an MTV series.

Oh yeah, I'll be here too Ken Marino Reprises His Role from WHAS? Children's Hospital is LULz

I guess Rocco's Dinner Party is not the sequel to Rocco's Modern Life?

oh Mordy and your abjectly horrible thread titles :)

It's hard to be clever when you're getting in on the ground floor!

(nb i don't really know what i just meant there)

yeah i don't even know what the Ken Marino thing means, are they even similar characters at all?

i guess i thought so when i first started watching it?

Damages is back this summer too. but only on directTV, or rather, PirateBay.

Louie, Wilfred, Childrens' Hospital, Job Benjamin Has a Van, Curb Your Enthusiasm

All the TV I'll be checking out this summer it seems, though I ehar good things about White Collar.

*hear

wait, doesn't Breaking Bad start in July?

thank god for netflix streaming and hulu, because there is some absolute shit on in the summer besides Curb.

White Collar is good fun, I enjoy it.

I'll give Falling Skies a chance.

the guy from ER!

He will always be The Librarian to me.

the gormless terrible guy from ER!

xp lol

Didnt he die & come back a bajillion times (or twice)? Cute tho

Damages is back this summer too. but only on directTV, or rather, PirateBay.

― akm, Thursday, May 26, 2011 1:11 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can we hash this out? this is a fourth season by the same creators, but no rose byrne or glenn close, right? i have been so confused by the status of Damages for months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damages_%28TV_series%29#Season_four

Glenn Close will return as Patty Hewes and Rose Byrne as Ellen Parsons.

so until we hear differently, assume they are back

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

SO EXCITED YOU GUYS

i wish there was some way tim olyphant could be raylan givens and wes krulik simultaneously.

oh yeah forgot about Damages and Breaking Bad. although i guess i'll see Damages on TV in like 2 years after i catch up on s3.

ugh I hate post-s1 damages

like, way to pile on great actors and let them putter around uselessly

s2 also really strong imho, tho not as good as s1. s3 i got about halfway through but i thought that for a very compelling conceit (hey, let's do Shakespearean legal psychodrama about the Madoff family) the execution was often meh. and they piled on totally uninteresting stuff (i really did not care about the son/father's girlfriend and it went on and on and on) to fill out the season.

yeah s2 totally defied my fear that it was a one season wonder

you should finish s3 Mordy - i really liked the end of it, but i didn't really have so many problems with it either. thought it was much better than season 2, overall, especially Campbell Scott and Martin Short

Close friend has a recurring role in one of the whitney cummings projects so im rooting for it even tho it loks like shit.

Her own show looks okay, but who knows if it will catch on. The one with Kat Dennings looks like shit, which means America will probably love it.

it has Kat Dennings in it, which means I will watch it whether or not it's shit

Just caught up on last week's Happy Endings. Good close to the half-season, I guess.

Wikipedia says there's actually a 13th episode that won't air because it tested poorly, but that the weird out-of-order way ABC aired the episodes will be rectified on a dvd release where they will appear in order.

I rarely get a real lol from Happy Endings, but it's got a comfortable, funny hum to it.

Some thoughts on my tv night last night:

Platinum Hit: Some people said this was gonna be trash but I enjoyed it a lot. How can you not enjoy watching people create terrible songs?

Franklin & Bash: Do yourself a favor and watch the first 10 minutes of this and then do yourself another favor and never watch this show again. But it is delightfully weird. Breckin Meyer is AWFUL in it.

Teen Wolf, first 8 minutes: Recasting Teen Wolf as a Twilight-esque sexy teen thing is sort of brilliant. Also, wonderfully terrible special effects.

Real World, season finale: Mike-Mike was in rare form. I'm gonna miss that freak.

F&B is the one starring Zack Morris?

Yup!

God it looks so bad. "Hi do u like roofies? We r hot young lawyers."

Kumail Nanjiani is in it, which was a big surprise to me. Also Malcolm McDowell.

u guys might enjoy Describe a TV Show to Someone Who Doesn't Know It (And Lie)

Breckin Meyer is AWFUL in it.

^utterly shocked by this.

my god anyone catch Love Bites last night. COMPLETE SHIT.

it was almost amusing...?

In January 2010, NBC announced Love Bites as one of many pilots on its early development slate.[2] Becki Newton was cast in late February,[3] followed quickly by Jordana Spiro.[4] Marc Buckland was confirmed to be directing the pilot in early March.[5] In May 2010, NBC announced it had green-lit the series.[1] The series was scheduled to air on Thursday nights in the 10–11 pm slot starting in the fall of 2010.[6] On May 17, 2010, Greg Grunberg announced via Twitter that he will be joining the cast.[7] Krysten Ritter guest starred in the pilot episode as Cassie.

A number of changes eventually prevented the series from going into production as planned. On June 24, 2010, Jordana Spiro left the series due to her role on My Boys, for which she had a contract that bound her to continue on that program. The premise of the show had to change when Becki Newton announced her pregnancy as her character is supposed to be a virgin. Before changes could be made, showrunner Cindy Chupack departed for personal reasons. As a result of these changes, NBC announced that Love Bites would be moved to midseason 2010-11, and moved The Apprentice up from midseason to fall 2010 to take the former's timeslot.[8][9]

On December 9, 2010, Deadline.com reported that NBC had cut back the episode order from 13 to 9 episodes.[10] This would be followed by Spiro, Newton and Grunberg landing pilots elsewhere.[11][12][13]

lol after lol after lol

nope. i was also piss drunk so that could have had something to do with it. anything with Greg Grunberg in it immediately turns me off. and buying him as a tattoo artist was hard to take.

I saw it, looks like a "Love American Style" for the 2010s. Except about 1/10 as good.

I was lolling at the behind-the-scenes production disaster moreso than the show itself, which tried very hard to verge on funny but didn't even make it to Perfect Couples level of chuckling

it felt more like a He's Just Not Into You/Valentine's Day overstuffed ensemble romcom, especially since they're apparently selling it as an 'anthology' series focusing on different people from one episode to the next. those kinds of things always trade more on a pleasant air of levity than actual laughs so i wouldn't even compare it to a bad sitcom. i watch lots of terrible romcoms though so i didn't mind it terribly.

it seems like the "different people" angle is being oversold; it's a bunch of vignettes about the same group of loosely-connected ppl

I thought Jennifer Love-Hewitt was really good at playing herself, lol

well afaict none of the actors are in more than a couple episodes besides Grunberg -- but yeah the anthology thing seems to be in part to make up for the fact that almost every actor involved has already jumped ship to another project

so grunberg the star eh? he take take his smoothaise and shove it.

re: Platinum Hit, did anyone else see the "dance anthem" episode?

"Paint This Club With Amazing" lolololololololol

haha yes, my wife and i were laughing our asses off at that. also one of the other groups had a song called "My Ridiculous"!

I still don't understand why "My Ridiculous" dude didn't say to the two bossy girls "I won the challenge because of the low vocal, so we are keeping the low vocal"

I rarely get a real lol from Happy Endings, but it's got a comfortable, funny hum to it.

yeah its not actually funnie but its enjoyable to watch

Falling Skies might actually be good?

i'm going to watch it either way, so hopefully it is

faves over the past few months are regular show and workaholics

yeah Workaholics has been pretty funny, should check out Regular Show, Cartoon Network's non-Adult Swim shows are so often good and slept on

anyone else watching The Glades on A&E? decent cop show, although sometimes I swear they have some of the worst dialogue ever ("she means nothing to me" "well clearly she DID")

I accidentally caught Workaholics last week and was shocked at how hilarious it was

btw "Paint This Club (With Amazing)" finally made it to Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6P9O_deVsE

DJP any thoughts on who you think the winner will be?

I have no clue! I only saw the one episode (and obv laughed my ass off).

Right now I'm only confident in saying the villain is going to be 2nd or 3rd place. I'm kind of pulling for the dude who works for Jordin Sparks but I think his inherent tackiness is going to do him in.

Yeah the villain dude is gonna go far for sure.

god i hate that guy

so Jon Benjamin Has A Van is a wash, oh well

it probably would've been asking too much for him to have three awesome shows on at the same time

workaholics LOOKS terrible and then it's amazingly good, go figure.
feels like a british import in a lot of ways.
the ICP episode was the one that put it over the top for me and then the to-catch-a-beiber-predator ep cemented it as MUST SEE TV

I thought JBHaV was funny. It's not appointment television at all but I'm not changing the channel if it's on.

do we have a summer one of these yet? if we did, i'd ask;

Should I start watching Falling Skies? concept that interests me but on a channel (TNT) not really known for their stellar original dramas.

tho I guess Men of a Certain Age has been getting some positive hype?

People dig on Men of A Certain Age. Reviews of Falling Skies range from "surprisingly really good" to "meh". It's only an 8 episode mini-series, so I'm gonna give it a go.

I'm very skeptical of Noah Wyle's (sp?) range as an actor. I enjoyed him on ER but he didn't really show any new tricks in those Librarian made for TV movies.

Will rep for Men of a Certain Age. Good writing, very genuine. It's not a guffaw-fest.

yeah i like Men Of A Certain Age

Falling Skies pilot bored me to tears

yeah, men of a certain age is good all around. i only wish i was pathetically middle aged so that i could really really identify with it.

i'm pathetically young and find that the show is very relatable in ways that are often not at all age-based