2013 TV Thread: Winter, Spring, definitely Summer - pimp your new finds/threadless wonders here!

Will 1600 Penn get enough fans for a thread of its own? Will Following bring just Bacon to primetime or will it include a dose of ham?

Intrigued by the first episode of Continuum though it falls into a lot of low-budget sci-fi/procedural traps. I know it's not really 2013 but it's premiering in the US in 2013.

rachel nichols, sigh.

she was really good on 'the inside'.

SyFy's got a pretty decent lineup today of actual decent shows (Haven), entertaining light fare (Warehouse 13, Being Human) and shameless cleavage-fests (Lost Girl), i'll prob give Continuum a try.

First episode of Legit on FX was pretty fun. Good enough for me to watch a few more episodes.

I can't imagine 1600 Penn airs for much longer.

whoa, someone else who actually saw The Inside. high-five!

Those of you not watching Archer are missing out, and should rectify it immediately.

Anticipating The Americans on FX

3rd episode of 1600 Penn was genuinely funny IMO

was there ever a separate thread for 'scandal'? because i'm catching up on the first (half) season right now and that show is BANANAS

it sounds like that might be my kinda jam. i need to check it out

A girl I work with has basically sworn off watching tv altogether, but will still plant her butt and watch Scandal every week. I guess it's that good? I can only do so much soap, and I've already got Nashville and Revenge in my portfolio.

my twitter feed blows up every time Scandal is on. Kerry Washington is v v pretty but the first couple episodes didn't grab me so i never stuck with it.

it could always go south in season 2, but i think it's probably waaaay better than nashville. very fast plotting and lots of wtf.

Isn't this season 2? Maybe not. Time moves slowly in the tv universe.

it only had 7 episodes in the spring when it started, so i can understand thinking of it as still in its first season

Just based on the commercials, I kind of hate both the prez and his first lady. Is that what they're going for?

man you don't even wanna know about the first lady, just watch.

i caught the first season on netflix, just don't know where the second season will end up going yet.

omg you guys this show

I sorta spottily watched Scandal last season/earlier this season. I definitely found it more engaging than Nashville. And Kerry Washington is kinda riveting to watch in general (and, yeah, absolutely gorgeous).

I am enjoying the arrow show. it reminds me of the first season of veronica mars; earnest and hokey in the same measure, a genre exercise without much conviction. lead is good, but i think he is contractually obligated to take off his shirt and make me feel stupid and weakling. there are some incredibly bad actors on the show, but john barrowman is good so far, and it's nice to see colin salmon again.

whoa, how did i post from that account?

you don't think the first season of Veronica Mars had conviction? it seemed to have a pretty clear focus to me...

yeah that sounds 100% backwards to me - veronica mars had one of the best first seasons of any show ever! total confidence.

i liked the first season of VM a lot, but the detectivey part of it seemed p. put on.

the first few eps of scandal really turned me off. the dialogue felt forced like that snl sketch where everyone talks as though they're a character in some '40s hardboiled move through a 90s lens, but not endearing or self-aware about it. i'll give it another shot though.

<3 Kroll Show.

not looking to start shit, but i find kroll so horribly unfunny

his 'characters' are pretty awful. i'm ok with him when he's not wearing taped-on facial hair and speaking in an accent.

i find kroll so horribly unfunny

FORKS! I'VE FOUND YOU! I was beginning to think I was the only person who felt this way.

the degrassi parody was v painful

krolls characters are hilarious on comedy bang bang but i fear it may not translate well 2 tv idk theres still hope imo

I go back and forth on Kroll. I find him funny on the League when I watch it and sometimes enjoy him when he crops up as a guest star or on Comedy Bang-Bang or whatever. OTOH, in high-pitched drag or doing an accent too far afield from his actual ethnic background I'm sort of o_O

I love him on podcasts, hated his comedy special, hate The League, loved the first ep of Kroll Show.

Loved the Degrassi parody and the reality show deal.

*shrug*

I only like El Chupacabra for any length of time...I watched the first ep of Kroll show and didn't really find anything super funny. I was hoping for lots of lols :(

anyone watch The Following? thought it was ok. would feel better about its potential if the Hannibal knockoff wasn't played by a dimestore Gerard Butler.

I kinda want to see it but I dunno

odd thing to praise it for, but i was impressed with how grisly it was at points -- compared to cable these new network dramas tend to feel so defanged usually

ok i watched a bunch of season 2 scandal and i'm sold now. the clunky dialogue takes a backseat to total crazy soap opera stuff with elected officials -- way more fun than i remembered.

I saw The Following and was a little disappointed, but will give it a few more episodes.

WRT grislyness on network TV, I saw a Criminal Minds episode a month or so ago and was shocked at how graphic it was. It was the human marionette one, for those that watch. It was pretty much at a Dexter level of gore.

yeah i haven't watched a lot of procedurals the last few years so i may be way off on that. i just think about how timid something like The Mob Doctor seemed.

RIP Apt 23

Bummed. So bummed.

I have access to ITV and BBC players now (yay vpn) - is there anything new in British TV worth checking out?

Apparently UTOPIA is interesting but I haven't seen it.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/fox-pulls-ben-and-kate-basically-canceling-it,91502/

bummer. heard a radio interview w/ Dakota Johnson yesterday, she came off kind of distant while answering questions about the show and now maybe i feel like it's because she knew what was coming.

The Following is so fucking stupid

Really sad to see Ben and Kate go, hoping to see lots more of that cast in other stuff.

no doubt about that, IMO

going to watch the first episode of Real Husbands of Hollywood in the next few days, will report back

rip

watching now, this is actually pretty funny. Only good thing I ever learned about from First Look.

Ben And Kate cancelled.

Do No Harm premieres tonight. Based on the wretched ads, its completely ridiculous premise and the fact it's on NBC, I'm betting on one of the quickest cancellations ever. Like, maybe after the first commercial break.

Also, R.I.P. 30 Rock. ;_;

NO, NOT 30 ROCK!!!

Coming to this late, but:

compared to cable these new network dramas tend to feel so defanged usually

I caught a few minutes of that (canceled?) Dana Delany forensic doctor show a while back and watched her saw off the top of a corpse's head (that had...gasp! no brain!). Seriously made me a little queasy.

i love how nbc will have a failed high concept drama, cancel it after half a season, replace it with another failed high concept drama, cancel it after half a season, replace it with another failed high concept drama, cancel it after half a season...

They blew it with Journeyman. That show could still be on now, and they wouldn't have this problem.

Hour-long dramas begun and cancelled on NBC since 2010: Awake, The Firm, Harry's Law, The Event, The Cape, Prime Suspect, Law & Order: LA, The Playboy Club, Prime Suspect, Chase, Outlaw, Persons Unknown, Undercovers

Meanwhile the three oldest hour-long dramas on NBC are SVU (since 99) then Parenthood (since 2010) and Grmm (since 2011). Everything else started in 2012

wtf was Persons Unknown? I don't even recognize that name.

BRING BACK THE CAPE

or even better, a Cape/Revolution crossover

Man, NBC some capricious motherfuckers. You'd almost think they have no idea what they're doing.

canceling Prime Suspect was super stupid

Agreed.

Ratings were atrocious though.

It's NBC. Replacing something that has low ratings with something that will get even lower ratings is how they roll.

Will now pitch a show to NBC called 'Capricious Motherfuckers". Concept to follow.

They should really give Homonym a try.

Anyone else watch The Americans pilot? I rather liked it, save for the obvious bouts of pilotitis.

Gonna watch it via ondemand this weekend. It look intersting.

wtf was Persons Unknown?

A summer schedule filler. It was sort of Lost-lite, using the horrible NBC house style. I watched an episode.

Oh right! I remember that now. A bunch of people in a dorm or hotel or something, right?

They were in what seemed like some sort of compound. It was a one-location shoot I think.

a semi-abandoned town iirc

the following is about 90% terrible. script is bad both in plotting and dialogue to a somewhat shocking extent.

The Following is awful but at least it's violent and weird. It has a bit of a so-bad-it's-good thing imo

i think thats the only thing that keeps me hanging on but idk if i will make it past ep 3 unless there is a radical improvement. i wanna avoid spoilers but off the top of my head there have already been somewhere around 5 major plot points that are either absurdly implausible or just str8 up impossible

There was a line in the first episode where he was like "he's obsessed with Romantic-era literature, like Edgar Allen Poe, Emerson, and Thoreau" and I'm like "well, I GUESS Poe is Romantic, but Emerson and Thoreau are definitely n..." and then a lady stabbed herself in the head with a spike.

It has a bit of a so-bad-it's-good thing imo

That's what made me watch '24' for however many seasons it was on.

I really enjoyed the first episode of The Following but everything that's been said about subsequent episodes is making me sad

There was a line in the first episode where he was like "he's obsessed with Romantic-era literature, like Edgar Allen Poe, Emerson, and Thoreau" and I'm like "well, I GUESS Poe is Romantic, but Emerson and Thoreau are definitely n..." and then a lady stabbed herself in the head with a spike.

haha oh man that totally makes me want to watch it! in terms of violent/weird, how does it compare to say, American Horror Story?

I haven't watched AHS but it's violent by network standards, not necessarily by cable standards.

Jeez guys if you want violence, watch Spartacus.

ah ok, i might check out the first episode anyway. AHS is pretty difficult to beat on the "so bad it's good" scale though.

i'm not into violence for the sake of it, just um i don't know... lols-y gore? haven't seen spartacus.

its nowhere near as violent or as weird as AHS

it is however painfully reliant on "surprises". endless parades of them, all ham-fisted. i am starting to realize that i really dont like this show very much actually and might not go back for ep 3, esp since they appear to already be turning to the dreaded multiple love triangle conceit

Just curious--because I actually managed to forget it was still on until checking NBC's schedule just now--but has anybody seen the new version of Whitney? Is the fact nobody talks about it actually working in their favor?

my sister watched some whitney eps this season and she claims it's much better than last season.

Life is too short to investigate

she has that weird talk show on E, I always see the beginning of it at the end of my dvr'd Soup episodes.

sheer secondhand embarrassment is my best description. yipes

i've said this elsewhere but i have a good friend whose husband is a lead character on whitney
i hear some stories

what kind of stories

if they're anything like the stories on whitney they suck

her weird talk show is way way way better than her sitcom, although it is virtually indistinguishable from Chelsea Lately

i hate chelsea lately with the fury of a thousand suns

to me it just sounds like schtinketed hoda + kathy lee but at night.

schtonkered that should be

drunk

Got a friend who's an associate producer on Chelsea and frequently appears on the panel. She says Chelsea is super nice and the workplace is so pro-woman it's like an oasis in the world of comedy. I'm not playing cap'n save-a-chelsea lately, but I definitely think her public persona and her private persona are different.

not gonna lie, I think Chelsea Lately is hilarious

like, I don't get ppl who like The Soup but hate Chelsea Lately

Same here.

Joel McHale vs Chelsea Handler

gee what could be the appeal idk
*thinks*

If that's our criteria now, I want every chat show on tv to be hosted by Alison Brie and Gillian Jacobs.

chelsea handler reminds me of my mum's washed up drunk friends after a night on the piss, she gives me the creeps & joel mchale looks nice in a suit & is not drunk-seeming

watching the pilot of The Americans now. Not sure if I have the patience for an hour of draamz right now, might switch to Archer. I liked the music in the beginning though! Now though we have flashbacks and faraway piano music.

TUSK!

I gave up on the Americans, watched Archer and the first ep of House of Cards (US). House of Cards is pleasing, and I'm looking forward to burning through the rest of it.

TV Line says Do No Harm premiered to the lowest rating ever (0.9) for an hour-long scripted drama on any of the big four networks. I suspected it would be received terribly, but worst ever? HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY.

TANK IT!

Some good shows have filled that time slot since ER went off the air: Southland, Prime Suspect, uh...probably at least one other. But some TERRIBLE shows have too. I didn't even watch Do No Harm, and I know it's the worst.

hope to see Grizz and Herzz in the falls chedule

I saw about 15 minutes of Do No Harm. It was terrible, but

a) Major lolz at dumb Sean from Rescue Me starring in a show! In Jekyll & Hyde meets ER!
b) Sad that once again, Alana de la Garza will be in a quickly cancelled NBC show, because she really needs to be on TV more often

Someone on the show's fb page just pointed out how clever the creators were in naming the character Jason Cole. All so he can be Dr. J. Cole (Dr. Jekyll). rmde

I was briefly intrigued by the conversation with his former fiancee at the end (which is all I tuned into) but once I started asking myself "why does this ostensibly intelligent alternate personality think that permanently scarring someone is how you win them over?" I engaged my eyeroll reflex and never looked back

dumb sean from rescue me is actually an acclaimed theater actor in nyc

Not after this show he isnt

we're patient with people who grab the brass ring out here really
i've seen him in a play and he was quite good. no real interest in watching this show though.

but... sean! seriously that role (well frankly much of that show) was pretty demeaning

1.5 eps into House of Cards and finding it a bit rote. Kind of like Ides of March, appropriately enough.

Christina Applegate has quit Up All Night in the latest hilarious tragedy to befall NBC.

lol it'd be amazing if they really did try to recast her role with Lisa Kudrow or something. i feel like it's been decades since a network flailed this much at trying to retool a show instead of just canceling it and moving on.

omg this is amazing

Good for her!

bizarro

My curiosity about seeing what the show would be like as a multi-cam/studio audience sitcom has never outweighed my disdain for how badly it was ruined in between seasons. I hope they never shoot or air any more episodes.

You can just quit?

Yeah, I assumed she would have a contract.

I really liked the first season, so it is kind of sad to see what an utter trainwreck it has turned into. Otoh it is kind of funny.

Will Arnett is tv poison at this point, right?

yeah, but thankfully they don't seem to learn that

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/08/do-no-harm-canceled-nbc_n_2649224.html

two episodes!

That was one more episode than I thought would air, but a result I can live with.

hah, was just going to post that. that was fast!

if you're playing along at home, this seems to be being updated
http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/ending-cancelled-tv-shows-2012-2013-24110/

things cancelled as of this year that i didn't know about:
dirty jobs, attack of the show, jersey shore, merlin, young justice (aw! i liked that one)

I knew about Attack, didn't know about Being Human

I guess that Mike guy ran out of dirty jobs to do?

Or he's not dirt cheap any more.

Yeah, he's been spoiled by all that paper towel and blue jeans money.

Oh, and Ford autos.

He gets around.

I love Mike Rowe. I'm not ashamed to say it.

Ok, Scandal now is officially the craziest show I've seen on network TV. They just keep turning the dial up.

yeah that naked conversation scene was something.

the storytelling is getting pretty out of control, though. maybe it always was, but i watched the first big chunk all at once and didn't have to think about the episode-by-episode. they're off balance without some time to set up meet-the-client scenes, etc.

the hilarious thing is how that scene was the least crazy thing in the entire episode almost. i don't even think daytime soaps have this level of insane plotting. it's almost, the same stuff, but now the people doing it are the president and supreme court justices.

olivia pope sure is a boring character when she's frozen helpless and hiding under her blankets.

overwhelmed w/ difficult feelingz

Awesome. Andre Braugher and Chelsea Peretti just joined Mike Schur's new show. I would love for this show to be Braugher's unqualified post-Homicide success.

cannot believe my favorite show on tv is a shonda rhimes show

The Americans continues to be really good.

looking forward to marathoning that in a bit

The Americans pilot was like 'this is a fine first episode, but i have no idea if it's going to get really interesting or really boring from here'

Want to watch The Americans, will have to hop on board late (though we're just 2 eps deep so far, right?)

3

I ditched the first ep of the Americans when [ spoilers ] there was a rape scene in the first 20 minutes [ /spoilers ]

not like i need a reason to watch a basic+ cable spy show, but i've been watching FELICITY lately so now i will watch anything keri russell's in, she's great

re braugher: i finally tried to watch HACK. oh, man. it's like a time capsule from another era.

I don't know if y'all are keeping up with all of this Up All Night news (now possibly a multicam sitcom starring only a pregnant Maya Rudolph), but it's a fascinating look into the inept flailing currently taking place at NBC. I hope someone writes a book.

the Up All Night saga is currently one of the most entertaining things in my life

i'm starting to think NBC really does need Jack Donaghy around just to say the words "shut it down"

part of me likes that NBC is flailing and trying, rather than just creating another bad sitcom and shit-canning it after three episodes; at least there's some people trying over there, even if they are failing

There's an interview with Stacey Oristano at TVLine and I love how she ends it with this subtle burn:

While the Bunheads cast awaits word on Season 2, Oristano has a pitch for a Friday Night Light spin-off: “It’s a multi-cam, and it’s called The Riggins! It’s me and Billy and we live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, but we have 10 kids. I want to do that show on NBC,” she jokes. “It’s weird – nobody’s biting on my idea.”

haha <3

i'm starting to think NBC really does need Jack Donaghy around just to say the words "shut it down"

Me, I just wonder if NBC would have been better off with Kenneth running the network.

http://www.deadline.com/2013/02/pilot-season-2013-analysis-networks-increase-volume-after-lack-of-new-series/

You know things are bad at NBC if they're considering renewing Community.

i don't know about the other writers but ganz split for modern family. can't imagine donald glover's hoping it comes back. gillian jacobs changed her hair color which probably means nothing or is tied to a role but in the tiny twisted sad part of my brain that thinks 'i follow this person on twitter = i in any fashion "know" them' that signaled 'moving on'. new season's not as bad so far as some are saying but it's definitely diminished and off enough that anyone who doubted harmon's exit would matter or if we didn't know we wouldn't know or this is typical season four blues is fooling themselves.

It has been mostly sad to me, but not terrible. The ratings it gets are pretty low so NBC even considering giving it another season is a mark of how bad things are for them.

network comedies seem almost an endangered species anyway - it's not like abc or fox have had much success lately either. modern family doesn't seem to do any show that follows it any favors (though i haven't heard anything bad rumoured about suburgatory, and it is a much better fit for that slot than happy endings or don't trust the b were). the only network shows i watch i feel confident will still be on this fall are scandal (#1), parks and rec, modern family, suburgatory, new girl, and bob's burgers. maybe i'll watch a himym if several ppl say it was a good one. only two of those shows are big enough successes i feel confident they're still on the air in two years.

I've been wanting to watch Scandal because I've heard how bonkers/great it is, but I feel like I'd have to watch a lot of episodes to catch up. Basically I'm too lazy to watch televised drama anymore.

i really love suburgatory. this scene was so funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyzN3NNOMxw

it's a really really easy watch, the first season (only a few episodes, it started midseason) is on netflix. starts out fairly procedural w/ big arc getting the b plot but this season has focused more on the big arc w/ the self contained scandal of the week occasionally even tying into the big picture (veronica mars had the same progression)(this show is nowhere near as actually good as veronica mars). west wing meets david kelly minus the pompousness of both? though the president is the cliched 'good republican' - doesn't hate gays, isn't crazy pro-life, basically republican in the milquetoast 'um, school choice and lower taxes?' way. there are also so many corny touches that i've grown to love so much - the 'let's get to work' montages set to stevie wonder/isley bros/etc, the weird mugshot thing they do (w/ corresponding 'girls on film' sound effects) any time a new character's name is said and they do the quick exposition on them. the cheap thrill that revenge could deliver every episode or two (usually in the final five minutes) scandal delivers on a slow week by the first commercial break. plus kerry washington is crazy gorgeous.

yeah somehow ryan and dalia have gone from funny one note characters to my fave and most consistently surprising characters on the shows (while still being the same characters). loved that ryan 'got' the art film and tessa didn't. love when dalia goes on an extended burn, like her revenge plan for tessa last season or her reaction to her mother's blowtox last week.

so OTM, plus I'd add Lisa to that list

https://twitter.com/carlychaikin/status/18814067573526528

well lisa wasn't a surprise to me cuz that girl was clearly one of the better things about weeds

dalia in the other school was all time.

yeah i loved the doppelgangers, esp tessa's

http://www.cbs.com/shows/golden_boy/premiere/

this was pretty good. looks promising.

This week's The Americans was all about Ronald Reagan getting shot and the subsequent Alexander Haig "coup". I really like this dumb show.

Any one else catch the premiere of Cult on the CW network, a show about a TV show featuring a cult that may have real-world implications? I liked it enough to keep watching, hope I remember to.

It was apparently inspired by nutso Farscape fans. :)

ABC Wed night comedies continue to be solidly entertaining with The Middle emerging as the leader

Community is doing an Inspector Spacetime convention episode tonight and just thinking about it is making me die a little inside.

Community really loses its focus when the stories aren't tied to the school or a class IMO, aside from instances where the cast chemistry overcomes the displacement like Troy's birthday outing

I saw a clip on The Daily Show and even Jon Stewart was like ... afterwards

At least the 10 o'clock gun show will make me feel a little bit better.

A tattooed balm for a soul traumatized by bad comedy.

I'm just going to assume that this is an hour of today's hottest celebrities flexing their biceps

Elementary, my dear DJP.

Chronically shirtless consulting detectives are my guilty pleasure.

ok dalia's send in the clowns was fantastic.

it's also great how they just throw in the jewish thing on occasion.

Read This: The plan to save Up All Night almost involved a magical portal only the baby could see

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall at NBC right now.

More people watched NCIS at 8 last night than watched American Idol + NBC+Fox+CW+ABC *combined.*

you guys, why are we being deprived of the epic meltdown that will be whatever shape they attempt to beat Up All Night into

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/arts/television/fall-tv-pilot-season-is-in-full-swing.html?hpw&_r=0

good!

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/03/06/arts/06PILOTSjp1/06PILOTSjp1-articleInline.jpg

MOM (CBS) Allison Janney plays Anna Faris’s mother — both ends of that equation sound pretty enticing. Chuck Lorre is the writer of this comedy, which could be good (“The Big Bang Theory”) or bad (“Two and a Half Men”).

but... chuck lorre : (

sad, cuz i like both those ladies

Magical baby portals? Melissa Etheridge? Oh NBC.

smdh at a universe where Big Bang Theory is "good"

So... syh at this universe?

well yeah

it's in a hot dense state iirc

ok so the last whitney was a Very Special Episode where her sister comes out as transgender and decides to undergo surgery. I'm actually sort of impressed.

i am amazed anyone on here is still watching whitney

Does that mean they are going to recast her sister or is the person playing her now going to do drag or is that actress transitioning in real life?

Also why the fuck am I asking this about Whitney

whitney somehow went from being excruciating in the first season to settling into a decent groove. like never aiming high, but not really falling flat either.

they just sort of parachuted in the sister out of nowhere (not a series regular) so i don't think this is something that's going to be around every episode. pretty clumsy plotting (the show consistently has clumsy plotting). its somehow still cool for a network sitcom to deal with this.

Was out sick today and caught up on the first two episodes of The Americans like I'd been meaning to do for weeks. Officially hooked now. Will probably burn through the rest of the backlog asap and catch up on this week's episode this weekend.

man 'the following' has to be the stupidest show i've watched in years

im gonna give this thing a try when it starts - http://www.sundancechannel.com/top-of-the-lake/

altho the preview thing slightly worried me w/ how many times "novelistic" was used, like they were trying 2 really force that description rather than it exising

I'm chuffed for it. Jane Campion. Heard good things. And Elisabeth Moss doing a New England accent, apparently.

new zealand

Whoops

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/03/nielsen-family-is-dead/

not sure why that article has editorial shots of Alison Brie but whatever

Never needs a reason

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

good wife getting a little maury with the paternity test.

really really enjoying the americans now that i started

Same here. And now there's a two week break. :(

well i'm only just now on week three so i'm in a good place

did i say good wife? meant scandal.

(of all the mistakes to make)

huh, i couldn't remember what that could possibly have been, chalked it up to yet another forgettable good wife trial-of-the-week

scandal is still kind of disoriented i think

i mean after they built to the last few big reveals mid-season, how are you possibly going to follow that up. so its a bit more procedural again for the moment, i guess.

if we're going to follow some procedures then she can't be talking on the phone with president mcsexy every three days or so and staring off into space and biting her lip, that's just not good business practices

um you seem to be forgetting something - when your lover is the president every inch of you is a scandal

http://www.theonion.com/articles/stars-of-canceled-show-terrified-fans-will-raise-m,31811/

new vikings show in history is really fun, at least the first two episodes

i mean, its bad, but in *just the right way*

house of cards is... not so good. thinks it is much smarter than it is. giving up after second ep.

watch the original series instead

yeah, i think i will

@JoshMalina 13m
For 150 bucks I'll come to your #Scandal-obsessed toddler's birthday party and eat cereal and Chinese food in character.

v. affordable

as outlandish as all the storylines on scandal are, somehow the huck ones manage to be the most absurd.

but even here its fascinating how much of the writing is about duty and obligation, pandering to desires to be wanted, necessary. i like how much the writing tries, how much it wants to be loved.

*this* is the "scandal" thread?

i haven't watched this week's episode, but i kind of hate huck. "he likes torturing people, but he's the one who's *really* tortured! emotionally!" and then the combination of that with him being this hacker savant. i don't think guillermo diaz has smiled once on the show.

i think all of us watching it feel too dumb to create a real thread?

the whole vision of the u.s. government and secret agencies and torture feels so obviously cartoonishly wrong on some level that it makes all the otherwise more believable stuff about political crisis management, etc. seem equally outlandish. but i also have this voice in my head saying "does not the falseness of scandal's depiction allow it to speak more freely the truth about black-ops renditions?" "are the inventions that it makes about what does occur not the necessary answer to the inventions we have been told about what does _not_ occur?" and soforth.

its actually not hard to make those sorts of arguments about this show -- it just lays all its cards out there, sees no virtue in opaqueness as 'art', but instead there's this populist romantic vision that theatricality is in big speeches and grand gestures, and simultaneously this is taking place in a world/moral landscape sufficiently corrupt that its the fact of the action being celebrated, and not its 'truth'. which is actually pretty scary, now that i think about it. like if only white people were running around in a show with this ethic i'd be worried that it had a tinge of fascismo. it probably does anyway, except to the extent that all the characters are terrible shitty people in various ways, so its somewhat hard to valorize any of their choices at all, and the romance is all just these physical gestures of desire and lust, like the president is some wounded-duck roark figure.

its really the sort of show that seems ripe for some serious critical articles. dunno if anyone's actually done so though?

I'd really like to start watching it. I actually quite enjoyed Grey's Anatomy for several seasons, though I never found it to be anything other than occasionally well-executed soap opera. I sort of thought this would be the same but maybe not.

Rectify on Sundance Channel is easily my favorite new non-miniseries show of the year. Feels like no one else is watching it though.

I'm gonna catch up soon. Heard good things.

ok well guillermo diaz did smile this week.

astrid!!!

torn between disliking the president or his wife more.

oh here you go: Shonda Rhimes and Kerry Washington are mired in a political tv show SCANDAL

Enjoying – if that’s the right word – the Hannibal series. Moody and stylish, occasionally grisly; it’s quite David Fincher-esque, and it’s more like Se7en: the Series than a TV Silence of the Lambs. And Mads Mikkelsen is effectively creepy as the title character (though not currently the show’s main character). Surprisingly good, anyway.

Also: Orphan Black - twisty-turny thing about a woman who discovers she's one of many clones. I'm now three episodes in, and it's okay, will prob stick with it.

Defiance, SyFy's sci-fi western. The acting and dialogue is a bit daytime-soapy, but it's alright if you like this sort of thing.

I tried watching the first episode of Defiance because the concept sounded promising, but it was just so poorly thought out and executed. And yeah, the acting and dialogue was pretty bad too.

Defiance, like a lot of hourlong shows these days, did a 2 hour pilot that by the time it was over had totally sapped me of any desire to watch another minute. pilots should leave 'em wanting more!

Re: Defiance, once I saw the interview where the male lead was talking about the tie-in video game and saying how you played the game would affect the show's plot, I figured I had enough information to skip this show

game kinda sucks

I had no idea about the game, that's pretty cheesy.

Also: Orphan Black - twisty-turny thing about a woman who discovers she's one of many clones. I'm now three episodes in, and it's okay, will prob stick with it.

I'm only one episode in. Catching up when time permits. I like it so far, and it's good to know that it's already been given a second season.

I'm all caught up with Orphan Black now. HOLY SHIT.

I can't imagine 1600 Penn airs for much longer.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, January 19, 2013 12:16 AM (3 months ago)

I think all its episodes actually aired? That's crazy to me, but at least the nightmare is over. Cancelled!

crazy day for TV news! Whitney, Up All Night, and Guys With Kids also canceled

lol @ Up All Night

Probably the finest self-destruction of a tv series I can recall.

i never saw an episode of the multi-cam version. did they go through with it?

No, Christina Applegate quit before those even got off the ground.

on continuum does rachel nichols shoot the fugitives back into the future with an electronic door-lock keychain??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Trax

Go On has been cancelled sorry Matthew Perry

I didn't like it as much as Mr. Sunshine, and I only kind of liked Mr. Sunshine.

I kept meaning to check out Go On and kept forgetting. I liked Mr Sunshine

Goon had some moments here and there were it was really hilarious, but they were fleeting

They really should have marketed the show as GOON.

otm

i mainly wanted to see it for Brett Gelman who I love

GoOn was a good show, sorry to see it go.

GAWN

I guess it won't Go On.

Also, Chicago Fire is getting a spinoff, because Dick Wolf.

I keep hoping that Dick Wolf is married to a woman named Pussy Lion

I want it to be the Air Wolf spinoff

This is my favorite quote from the comments of the Go On cancellation story on TV Line:

“NBC HAS LOST HIS MIND!!!”

Hahaha

lol

Smash canceled just now. Add that to The New Normal, Go On, Whitney, and a ton of other NBC shit I didn't watch...what's left besides Hannibal? And will that survive? It appears NBC is going into the fall with about 80% freshman content. Jack Donaghy tanked it!

pretty amazing that Community lived to see another day

(✿◠‿◠) i guess we're not in the darkest timeline! (◡‿◡✿)

'mr sunshine' was funnier, but meaner. lots of dopey awkwardness-comedy on 'go on'. both shows' premises were too limited.

what is the 'chicago fire' spinoff going to be about? arson investigators? arsonists? burn unit nurses? fire code inspectors??

i was wondering on the law & order thread a few weeks ago about tv shows doing 9/11 material -

that cbs midseason replacement (which got cancelled) 'golden boy' set its last episode around a 9/11 flashback that went pretty all-in: chi mcbride watching the second plane hit, seeing the explosion in a window reflection, people running the streets with ashes raining down, then the collapse - all as incidental to a case one of the characters was investigating that morning.

Gave a peek to two of the NBC fall series trailers.

Michael J. Fox's show looks like it might be okay. The Blacklist looks stupid, even though I love Spader.

I thought Blacklist looked cool

It looks like a lot of other ideas crammed into one series (rookie profiler, criminal mastermind making the FBI work for him, et al). Spader might still win me over, though. I'll watch it.

I have been having a few sneaky peeks at Wentworth which I purely downloaded for my missus. It is a Prisoner Cell Block H reboot, if you need to ask you probably don't need to know.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BK-NzExCYAAcz5k.png:large

Crazy ratings chart fun

lol at the office

for a show as dead as The Office had been getting, 26% drop is actually better than i would've expected post-Carell

but hey, Bob's Burgers went up! nice.

Well, The Office drop is just from last year, so it isn't from Carell to post-Carell.

how the hell have Mike & Molly and 2 Broke Girls survived cancellation

same reason community did? i imagine spinning wheels or dice games or a dartboard being involved

Well, M&M isn't coming back until midseason next time.

lol I didn't even see Two and a Half Men on there, it's down so low

poor Happy Endings ;_; it's realy sad, it ended

TV Line said a couple days ago that no news might be good news on the Happy Endings front, as Sony and USA are still silently negotiating. If no deal is done, though, DW Jr. will likely return to The New Girl.

it will be weird/interesting for that show to have two black men it can kind of ignore/push off to the side

I'm still semi-sad that they didn't try to force Maya Rudolph to continue Up All Night by herself

like, maybe Reagan and Chris died, leaving Eva and Scott to raise Amy; oh, and also because of the pressures of fame and Hollywood they all drop everything and move to Montana, where Eva buys a pet buffalo

!

You should've called NBC with this concept a few months ago.

2nd season don't trust the b was great. so depressing.

wonder why supernatural went up so much

Supernatural fans are insane, possibly only outmania-ed by Doctor Who fans

but i don't get why it went _up_ -- did they get more insane over the summer or did they just get sick of last season and then get excited again

I've never watched Supernatural, but I always think of it as whatever Eric Brady from Days of Our Lives is doing now that he's no longer in Salem (same actor).

And yes, I did watch Days for several years in the mid-to-late 90s.

but i don't get why it went _up_ -- did they get more insane over the summer or did they just get sick of last season and then get excited again

the showrunner revealed at Comic-Con that he had plotted out the show to the end of season 10 and sent the fans into a tizzy of drumming up viewership so they could see the show through to that ending point IIRC

i get the feeling Supernatural is one of those weird sleeper NCIS-type shows that grew in audience over the past few years as cable reruns/netflix/etc. made it more popular, it is a show that will just not die

wait what? i thought the show was supposed to end like two seasons ago

Speaking of shows that WILL die, does anyone want to watch that Anne Heche thing tonight?

god no

Supernatural fans are insane, possibly only outmania-ed by Doctor Who fans

Uh no, Supernatural fans are much worse than even Doctor Who fans. Just search Supernatural on Fandom Wank.

I only said that because this year was the first year Doctor Who was able to wrest the Fan Favorite cover of TV Guide away from Supernatural

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/arts/television/ray-donovan-graceland-and-32-other-summer-tv-shows.html?src=dayp

never seen 'longmire', is it ok?

i remember someone here describing it as a low-key version of Justified, which was kind of true. it's ok.

the less that happens on television shows the more i like them.

I noticed Longmire has Katee 'Starbuck' Sackhoff in it, might check it out as something to spend a bit of time with till the next series of Justified.

yeah, she's great, as always

yes that was my thinking (besides the obvious, people runnin around solvin crimes shootin ppl)

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/netflix-bbc-set-start-dates-for-gillian-anderson-series-the-fall-video/

gillian anderson and archie panjabi, in a crime thriller on nextflix soon!

thats on bbc at the moment, its p good so far

Gillian is excellent in The Fall and speaks perfect brit, decent series so far.

she sort of is a brit

I didn't realise she had been living in London, it shows.

Orphan Black finished up S1 tonight. WHAT A FUCKIN SHOW. Now I have to wait a year for it to come back.

has anyone watched Defiance? I watched the pilot, it's....hmmm...okay sort of maybe idk but kinda bad

It looked bad from the commercial.

it starts out like bargain basement whedon/firefly, with a bit of non-muppet farscape, and I mostly feel kinda ambivalent but they added an interesting wrinkle to the end of the pilot that piqued my interest

i tend to give sci-fi a longer leash, since it's nice when you have a good scifi show on yr dvr

So try orphan black then

Is the message I'm getting here

I will try that too!

Yes! Same actress has played at least 8 different and distinct characters on the show, many of them regularly and sharing scenes with one or more of her clones and you rarely realize when it's happening that it's all the same person. She's fucking amazing.

defiance is so bad.

the opening of the third episode of Family Tree finally got to me. That shit was great.

Did anyone follow Rectify? I've read/heard good things, and I think I'm gonna try to watch that soon.

How bad is Magic City? I like the idea of a 50's crime series, but this does look terrible.

Rectify is fantastic. Aden Young is something else.

Magic City was not bad, if a little flat, but i fell off keeping up with it a little before the end of the first season and probably won't get back on.

I need to see rectify. I've had a crush on Aden Young since forever

Rectify IS great. I watched all six episodes in a single go last weekend. Loved it.

I watched the first episode of Rectify and wasn't impressed but it was on the back of a shitty day from hell and I was in a terrible mood. I keep reading positive reports so it must be worth another try. Thanks for that dude, doesn't sound worthy of my time. It is a shame because because it would be nice to see some Ellroy type action on the the TV.

Rectify peaks around eps 4 and 5. It's been renewed for a 2nd season of 10 episodes next year.

How bad is Magic City? I like the idea of a 50's crime series, but this does look terrible.

― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Sunday, June 16, 2013 1:44 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's watchable. im sorta hesitantly looking fwd to new ones

I am really liking Rectify. Also Aden Young is fiiiiiiiine

and miss farrell!

otm!

That Adelaide Spencer girl, the wife of the stepbrother, man up close her face & smile remind me of a young Sally Field. She's v lovely

She reminds me an awful lot of Michelle Williams.

definitely

Spookily so.

that encounter with the hairdresser was p sweet

ORPHAN BLACK. dodgy accents and all. SO GOOD.

"vick's a dick"

I spent most of Saturday watching Orphan Black. It's the best thing I've seen in ages.

Anybody have opinions about this Crossing Lines thing with FICHTNER!! and Donald Sutherland?

I know the first thing people usually talk about when they talk about Orphan Black is the greatness of Tatiana Maslany, but it amazes me the way she makes each character she plays on the show totally a separate person that might as well be another actor altogether. And then the time she played Alison pretending to be Sarah? And NAILED IT? Fuck, I don't even know how you do that.

Love that show. Love it!

she is fucking unreal

still haven't seen the final two episodes of the season

It's also incredibly novel to see Canadians playing Brits.

okay okay fiiiiiiiine I'll check it out jeez

Do or don't.

But seriously, do.

eh someday, someday. i'm surprised because the commercials made it look kind of doofy

yeah I was kinda giving it the side-eye, i'll admit

It IS kind of doofy! But also completely awesome! I'm totally biased though. Uncanny shit like this is just sooo in my wheelhouse

Yet you willingly watched Defiance.

d'okay

xp

hmph. if you had devoted your Friday nights to Farscape you would understand the eternal 'living in deluded hope that one day maybe there'll be another awesome new sci-fi series' and when you see extras in face-paint you think ooh maybe this one will be good

;_;

BUT I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO UNDERSTAND *sob*

i did not watch Farscape, but i feel your pain

i need some kind of 12-step program

step 1. babylon 5

*side-eye*

dude, please

I watched Farscape and I knew better than to watch Defiance

Star Treks and Babylon 5s and Farscapes and whathaveyou have never seemed the least bit interesting to me, but I did like Stargate SG-1 a great deal.

Did you not know Defiance was running concurrently with a videogame when you started watching it?

no

:/

haha okay now I understand a little better

hey, at least it had Julie Benz going for it

that's more credit than I'll give for most of these shows

she *seemed* like a v good reason to watch

all I can say is Lexx taught me a very valuable lesson about approaching SF television with an incredibly skeptical eye

but Lexx always looked bad from getgo!

yes it did

I still tried to watch it

never again

Only one ep left of Orphan Black for me to watch :(

The only thing that lets this show down sometimes is the casting. The guy who plays Beth's police partner is a one-note cliche. Every time he's on screen it feels like a video-game cut scene. The guy who plays Paul is terrible, straight from the JAG school of simmering glances and husky whisperings. SPEAK UP, SON. SPEAK THE FUCK UP.

Everybody else is pretty great though. MAX HEADROOM! Good god the man can act!

the time she played Alison pretending to be Sarah? And NAILED IT?

So good.

I love the moment when you realize that 1) the murder victim 2) the murderer and 3) the detective investigating the case.... are all clones of each other.

I actually like Art, but yes, Paul is very boring. Jordan Gavaris is great as Felix, though.

I really REALLY like Angela, Art's new partner

Do we not have a dedicated OB thread yet? We should.

It hasn't aired yet but the first ep of Ray Donovan has leaked and it is very good. Liev Schreiber plays a murky leg-breaking hollywood fixer type character and Jon Voight is his just released dad who leers at a breast-feeding lady on a plane. It also has Elliott Gould in there, some good actors on board. Looks like a good series from the first ep.

Everyone seems to love that pilot and I just don't get it. At all.

Whodunit is a very entertaining dumb summer reality show.

Any interest in Under the Dome? Saw the first ep and will probably give it a chance.

im kinda into this (ray donovan). its v over the top & *packed* w/ plot

was just about to post exact same thing - the story is interesting but the acting is so far pretty goddamn terrible. xp

Everyone seems to love that pilot and I just don't get it. At all.

It did suffer from trying to do too much, but there is a decent ensemble in there and I reckon it could be a good one.

Any interest in Under the Dome? Saw the first ep and will probably give it a chance.

It really must irk Stephen King that The Simpons Movie beat him to it, probably while he was still arseing with his novel.

like chuck klosterman/bill simmons are def like *flexing fingers* to bang out 20k words on this ray donovan pilot

"some very powerful people are gonna come after me now very powerful people da vinci code type shit"

Not just The Simpsons, I saw the German movie The Wall just a week ago. Similar scenario on a much more personnal scale.

"It really must irk Stephen King that The Simpons Movie beat him to it, probably while he was still arseing with his novel."

I wonder if that's why in every interview* I've seen with him about it he states he's been working on the story for 17 years (or something like that).

* NB: one or two.

pilot for Under the Dome was kind of fun - definitely got Stand-esque vibes from it

I hope Jeff Fahey didn't die at the end of ep 1 (exploding pacemaker), because he is ace.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9424087/on-set-show-ray-donovan

good line:
Ray Donovan has USA Network bones — not at all a bad thing — but is weighed down by HBO ambition

http://www.deadline.com/2013/05/netflix-bbc-set-start-dates-for-gillian-anderson-series-the-fall-video/

gillian anderson and archie panjabi, in a crime thriller on nextflix soon!

anderson looks soooo perfect in this, my years of adolescent x-files fandom are really paying dividends now

she was awesome and gorgeous in Hannibal

i think you shld watch this quality bbc crime drama, vg

I love The Fall but the Beeb need to realise a lot of their audience have been HBOised and have become accustomed to the season finale. Splitting it into two mini-seasons shows a lack of faith on their part.

The new Luther got off to a cracking start.

srs nightmare material near the end there

Anyone watching 'The Bridge' on FX?

Really, really good imo. First episode off to a ripping start. I was afraid the Aspberger's thing would be a bit on the nose but it seems to be handled ok -- and I seriously love the dude playing the Juarez cop Ruiz. He's so old and grizzled and beaten down, he reminds me a lot of Tommy Lee Jones' character in No Country For Old Men.

xp re: The Fall

I like to think that when the show reappears in 2014, real time will have elapsed. It will be over a year later, and events may or may not have taken place in the interim.

The Bridge is a remake of Broen, right? I only watched a few episodes, but that was okay. Can't say I'm interested in an Americanised version.

Huh, I didn't know it was a remake!

It was originally set on the border of Sweden and Denmark I think? It's the US and Mexico in the FX version. The upcoming UK version will be England and France.

australian version will be Australia / NZ, taking place mainly on the water

tbh border of US + Mexico is much more interesting to me than border of Sweden + Denmark

vikings vs vikings FITE

Israel and Lebanon would be a good one.

It was uptight, by-the-book Swede vs slobbish, band-the-rules Dane, iirc. A lot of the Swedes are like THIS, Danes are like THAT jokes got lost in translation, really.
xp

xp have u seen the flick beaufort?

Haven't, but I'll look into it.

i need to tivo bridge like now

Anyone watching 'The Bridge' on FX?

Really, really good imo. First episode off to a ripping start. I was afraid the Aspberger's thing would be a bit on the nose but it seems to be handled ok -- and I seriously love the dude playing the Juarez cop Ruiz. He's so old and grizzled and beaten down, he reminds me a lot of Tommy Lee Jones' character in No Country For Old Men.

I'm in on this show. Loved the first episode and hope the vague eeriness maintains. I've been to El Paso a couple times and it does feel like the whole city is lit with dust and sodium vapor street lamps.

Actor playing the cop was on Weeds for several seasons. He's better here.

ok what matthew lillard??

yup

he's not bad for a change

this thread is for americans i guess but the french show "revenants" (being shown on the bbc w/ english subs) is remarkable (if you can get yr hands on it)

Les Revenants/The Returned is magnificent.

I'm also watching Top of the Lake, but it's a slog so far.

Top of the Lake is worth seeing out, not that I am saying it is perfect. Whatever you you say about it, you can't accuse Campion of complacency.

Dedicated thread for Revenants/Returned fans: The Returned (French supernatural drama on Channel 4)

is that the smarter, frencher walking dead zombie show i've heard about?

Yes.

The Lying Game was canceled, but Bunheads still hasn't been. They could've announced the fate of Bunheads at the same time, obvs. Pretty sure ABCF is just fucking with me, personally, at this point.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/hey-abc-family-just-renew-bunheads-already,100223/

Wow, that's great!

Finished Top of the Lake. The last episode in particular seemed like it was about 3 hours of tv crammed into 1 hour. I guess I liked it overall, but never even came close to loving it.

^ france in a nutshell imo. there's this weird twinning of over-the-top sentimentality and cold brutality at the heart of pretty much every great french cultural endeavor

say didn't you marry a french lady, what about that cultural endeavor, hey hey

what does france have to do with top of the lake

I think Tracer was conflating Top of the Lake with Les Revenants/The Returned. No biggie.

its a big deal to me

the bridge is very promising but the aspergers/autistic lady is not acting the part well imo

ah whoops

xpost really? maybe i'm just biased because she was in Inglourious Basterds and I kinda dig her

i dunno, it seems really hamhanded and not especially nuanced to me. She was fine in Basterds. This seems out of her depth? Maybe I'll be proven wrong. I hope so.

She reminds me of Claire Danes in Homeland.

It's a pilot, people. She's got plenty of time to improve.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/sports-could-save-the-tv-business-or-destroy-it/277808/

Let's talk about a channel that many non-sports fans might consider utterly critical to the bundle: AMC.

You might think that AMC makes money from all the people who watch "Mad Men" or "The Walking Dead." The opposite is true. AMC makes money from all the people who don't watch "Mad Men" or "The Walking Dead."

Here's what I mean. Only 2.5 million people watch the typical "Mad Men" episode. Eleven million watch the zombies. The other 80+ million households who have, but don't watch, AMC still have to pay between $3 and $3.50 each year to the network out of their cable bill. They don't have a choice.

Much more than advertising, it is these mandatory fees that explain exactly how AMC makes money. Reading from the company's 10-K annual report: "Affiliation fees [i.e.: a little more than $3 from each pay-TV household each year] represents the largest component" of AMC's revenue.

"Mad Men" and "The Walking Dead" might still be produced in an a la carte world. But maybe not. We only know that today, these sensational shows exist because the vast majority of the country that doesn't care who Don Draper is still pays for his suits.

That's the AMC Tax.

Second episode of The Bridge encouraging. Also, Lyle Lovett!

In other news, the Emmys still suck.

I'm surprised to say that The Bridge has actually gotten worse? I don't care about any of the characters and as of episode four, they're starting to leap in and out of established character with frightening regularity. And now some FBI agent is beating a missing girl so they cut his head off and turned that in along with cell phone video of him with the girl? Ahma try one more episode but the acting is VERY hit or miss and the story is needlessly complicated and dopey.

I gave up on The Bridge too.

File with The Killing, which was never much cop but at least took a couple of seasons to become as uniformly terrible as The Bridge did by the 2nd ep. I have not watched the original Bridge yet, so can't compare. Kruger's performance of a woman with autism is one dimensional and panders to male fantasies about sexy young women with autism wanting to sleep with ugly old plain men, because they have no inhibitions and an animal sex drive, yeah sure. Her performance is bad and seriously fucking counter-productive. Stopped watching it weeks ago and I do watch some garbage.

original bridge is freakin great

Wish I had watched The Killing this season tbh. Meant to be very good.

Interesting to see the changes in The Bridge between the pilot and what they're shoving out the door now - what started off as a moody and rather effective border procedural is now a TexMex Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. If Kruger was a better actor, she might save the rotten lines she's given but episodes 3 & 4 power-dived straight into the ground. I'm out.

Yeah, the actress may not have been able to save this show but she sure ain't helping.

ok i just hit the part in OITNB where the two mustache guys talk about their mustaches LOL

wow way to go The Bridge in teasing us with some notion of having broader thematic issues and resonance and then swapping that out for some straight se7en revenge fantasy

Yeah, seriously disappointing.

I'm one or two eps behind but yeah, this show has pulled the rug out from under me

Intrigued by the first episode of Continuum though it falls into a lot of low-budget sci-fi/procedural traps. I know it's not really 2013 but it's premiering in the US in 2013.

― Gukbe, Friday, January 18, 2013 7:24 PM (11 months ago)

man i could look at rachel nichols all day

and this has cancerman from x-files and that chick from andromeda in it too!

she's the only reason I've thought about watching that show tbh

still haven't seen it though

damn you rachel nichols

it's decent so far, got a lot of ideas to play with.

but really… sigh…

what is the 'chicago fire' spinoff going to be about? arson investigators? arsonists? burn unit nurses? fire code inspectors??

― j., Saturday, May 11, 2013 2:32 AM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

apparently it is… cops. blurb is bound to be a tease

District 21 of the Chicago Police Department is made up of two distinctly different groups: The uniformed cops who patrol the beat and deal with street crimes, and the intelligence unit, the team that combats the city's major offenses, such as organized crime, drug trafficking and high-profile murders.

this seems like a ploy by dick wolf to get me to watch his boring firefighter show, since there's crossover

and there's gonna be an SVU crossover! i love that connected-worlds shit.

wait what? what shows are talking about?

second broad city ep also very funny

lol this isn't the right thread

do we have a winter 2014 thread?

nhex i talking about chicago fire, chicago p.d.

sadly despite a bit of post-shield in the premise (it's like he's running a strike force, except it's AFTER he got jammed up, and now he's back on the force because IA are trying to run him to root out corruption, only it turns out he is the one seemingly calling the shots) and a seemingly nice attention to stationhouse milieu it seems like chicago p.d. is yet another attempt by nbc to get by on the bare minimum. the two-ep premiere already had a give-me-back-my-son kidnapping and a dead cop, and even though it's set in chicago and they often say 'chicago' every single out-of-stationhouse scene appears to be set in a vacant warehouse wasteland, and the unit is so white (sorry, jon seda) that the main black roles seem to be for the drug gangs that the lead visits regularly to pump for information. (bunny colvin puts in appearances now and then but he's at the commander level, so not much cause to be in and out all the time, not even for the traditional 'black lieutenant' sop to diversity casting.) elias koteas and robin weigert are around but will probably be wasted. and jon seda's wife wants him to bring his hooker informant home for dinner because she is jealous. fine writing, dudes.

robin weigert, she pops up in random stuff, always happy to see her.
that all sounds awful, dick wolf cannot do the "standard" cop/lawyer show drama well, ever

it's sad, you could see some potential, signs of freshness (he's only the producer anyway, got some old hands in there but probably not everyone), but the cast is just too small and the writing too thin. like, they conclude the kidnapping with a bus sting, and the sexy young woman officer is confronting the perp who is holding jon seda's son, and the cops do a move that jostles the bus so the son is thrown to safety and the perp is off balance while sexy young woman officer is holding on to something, WHICH GIVES JON SEDA AN OPPORTUNITY TO ENTER THE BUS AS THE LAST MOMENT AND SHOOT THE MAN WHO HAD HIS SON. cmon.

there were some moments of detail that could have built something nicer but then they just rushed too fast to beats that they landed on like elephants. time to rush into the cell and strongarm the suspect, etc.

ugh i think like 30% or more of this is gonna be OUTSIDE FAMILY ISSUES to complement main dude's declaration at the end of the premiere that his squad is a family.

'cops are like a family' has got to be the #1 fast track to a cop show with tired storytelling

i miss nyc-22

Broad City is my jam.

Anyone watch Chozen? I liked the first episode more than I thought I would.

i was just looking for this thread to say broad city is good

i will not buy a sodastream full price i will not do it

ilana glazer looks & has similar manerisms 2 eric andre imo

i watched a few chozen and im not into it

chozen is kinda meh. broad city is dope and i have a crush on both of them

man...

ilana glazer looks & has similar manerisms 2 eric andre imo

I totally noticed this too!

do we have a winter 2014 thread?

We don't, but this one is more current.

2013 Fall TV Thread: Previews, Evaluations, Ridicule and Mourning