seamusk

No kidding. I yelled at the tv: "They ended it there!?" One of my favorite shows for sure. I saw it was on hulu but recently subscribed to MHz Choice and watched it there. I had never heard of it but it's the perfect service for me. Anyhow, another great season. Though crushing loss of a main character. Ugh.

I loved that!

That's disappointing. I haven't watched the pilot yet but will be watching it tonight.

Seems like a good time to move the pilot posts to the pilot thread that is there now. I haven't watched the pilot. I watched the movie last night to re-orient myself. I forgot just how great it is. I know the tv show will make lots of changes to the universe (some for budget reasons and some because it takes place a little later in time), but i'm generally ok with that. Different mediums and budgets require different approaches. Still, I hope this is good. Either way i've got the dvr set up for it.

That closing scene was awesome. Couldn't take my eyes away. I'm pretty sure this last bit is a spoiler. This episode ended with the confrontation with Barlow, not with any of the follow up to it. Having already dropped one spoiler, then you drop a second without tagging it?

yowzer! That's exciting. ETA. It's pretty interesting how they have been positioning these releases. They seem to coincide with network slow downs. Makes sense.

Poor communities, regardless of ethnicity, have always had high crime rates. There certainly have been differences over time. And the growth of the drug industry and accessibility to guns has changed things a lot too. Keep in mind that there are various levels of poverty. There is working poor. There is non-working poor. Also, the high-rise projects are well documented to be particularly problematic. They are rarely built anymore for that reason.

Maybe her smart ass should have listened to her mother, but the reality is that not everyone is skilled at picking a partner. And i'm not supportive of the notion that it was somehow Billie's fault because she was attracted to the wrong man. Sounds like blaming the victim to me. And there are lots of ways that could have gone wrong after they met. In fact, that's a big part of the story. While he was certainly into trouble when they met, the prison system in America is not what it should be when it comes to rehabilitation. It's true that that is the point of judicial appointments, rather than elections. However, as someone who has followed and studied law to some degree, it takes courage to act as this judge did. As much as there was surely pressure to force integration, it takes a lot of courage to make the right decision when an entire town is railing against you. Judges are not always figures of strength and objectivity. It's poverty. Long before there were projects full of African Americans in the 1960s, there were slums full of Irish Americans in the 1860s. And many of the symptoms are the same.

Yes, but many people grow up poor and with good character and still become drug dealers. The fact that some are able to overcome it, doesn't mean they all can or will and it doesn't mean they have bad character. Life is more complex than that. But definitely. The loss of factory jobs was brutal. ETA. What I'm basically saying is that the show presented him as a decent person (and it does have that bias of focusing on good people in the projects mostly). And unless you assume all drug dealers everywhere have bad character, there isn't a reason to assume he has bad character because he is a drug dealer. Possibly it's an unknown at worst I think (based on what was shown).

I figured this is what you meant. I disagree it says much about his character. Being young and poor, your options are limited. The show seemed to portray him as a fairly decent fellow despite his profession. But I get why his character might be in question. I'm very thankful that I didn't grow up poor. Being fortunate has it's benefits.

I hear you, re: the limited profile of the black characters on the show. The show is the story of the political battle for low income housing distribution in Yonkers. Which I think is interesting because it involves very little of the black community. The people calling the shots are largely white, except for the NAACP and their lawyers. And so, to get a glimpse into who is affected in a different way, we get small glimpses of the public housing itself. And that has to be shoe-horned in a bit. It could be portrayed more in depth. We certainly saw that on the Wire. But I also sort of get why it hasn't been thus far. Overall I find it interesting enough as it is, but I do agree it could have been done more in depth. Though I wonder if more time on those stories would lead to more complaints about how little direct influence they have on the dramatic political battle. On that note, it was really nice I thought to see the NAACP lead that march in this episode. It was overdue in the story, but I suspect that was the point, that it was overdue in the political struggle itself. The black community was largely absent from the political struggle, while at the same time initiating it in a way with the litigation (though really the racism that created the segregated housing situation was the ultimate cause).

Yes it did. Yes it peaked at two episodes and then dropped. Then it picked up additional viewers as the season developed. I'm not sure why people want to spin this as a bad thing. Most shows that are heavily promoted premier to higher numbers then where they settle. There is nothing new about that.

I don't know. That's pretty typical for heavily hyped shows to have a bunch of people check out the first episode or two, then have a bit of a drop off, then pick up some additional viewers later on based on word of mouth or whatever.

Maybe you are thinking of Twin Peaks? I didn't realize Prison Break was coming back. I enjoyed that but was ready for it to be done when it ended.

I really liked it. It was very Wire-esque actually. I think the show is quite wonky in a way, but not in a way that is hard to keep up with. And I like the context of the show showing me the people we are talking about on all sides of a contentious issue. I also found the crowd yelling scenes unnerving but I think that's appropriate to the content. I mean, i've been in lots of protest situations and they can be unnerving and difficult. I thought they really got across how much so which will set things up for whatever is next. I can see why this is a limited run series, and probably to stay that way. Once they tell the story of the housing battle, the content for a next series would be more difficult. In any case, i'm enjoying this in bunches. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

I was sick today so I binge watched the last like 8 episodes and finished it. I really liked it. I felt it wasn't heavy fair per se, and I do agree that it wasn't ground breaking. But I think it was in some ways at least bold in that it didn't resort to ridiculous hacking memes or make Bosch into a magician. I am not a book reader, but this show was much more about straight up detective work than others. And i'm sure the vets from the Wire made me notice it, but it had a light touch of the politics and the city that was heavy in the Wire. The closing shot was very Wire-esque actually and I liked that touch. Anyhow, I liked the show and I liked Brasher's red hair. :)

This show is basically 24. Particularly the last few episodes. But can I tell you how much more enjoyable it is without the cult theme? I think it was the Joe aspect maybe, but that got old. Which is unfortunate because as an idea I think it was good. But the writers are going for 24, the cult show, and totally missed the potential for any aspect of realism from the get go.

Just got to this episode. I tend to like serial crime shows. And though this show has a serious case of 24-ism (villains are ridiculously unrealistically super villains), I like Kevin Bacon and binging this is helping me deal with some health issues. But what is with making him go sociopathic? I mean, fine, make him troubled. But since when is he a sociopath?

Just finished Fringe. Overall it was definitely more good than bad and I really liked it. Though i'm a bit shocked by the season 2 love. I think, in terms of half seasons, the first half of season 2 is the worst. Or maybe it's the middle part. But it was totally randomly bad to me. The show got really good in the second half of season 1 and then they rigged it to go back to the monster of the week after the first episode or so of season two. So my frustration with that might have contributed. Anyhow, I really loved the show. I initially hated the season 5 twist but grew to love it by the end. It just came on a bit suddenly to me though I guess that's the idea.

oh very cool. final season? wow, i'll maybe re-watch the earlier seasons then and get my head properly wrapped around the time anomalies.

Yes, realism wise they would have issues with the ownership and everyone being in one spot.

I thought it seemed very scattered for a while but it did wrap nicely to set up the season. I miss Woody but am glad to have a female lead this season.

That's interesting. I know that he is definitely a bit patronizing towards the therapist in how he controls her life when she hasn't asked for his intervention. Really, the one thing I found creepy was how he snooped into everyone's lives. It's sort of explained as him being a sort of urban hermit/introvert but it's still extremely inappropriate, no matter his intentions. That's definitely a very paternal attitude that he thinks he has a right to snoop on others and fix their lives for them. So I agree that that is quite misogynistic. Edited to fix typo.

First off, agreed - credits don't work. I enjoyed them in the first episode, but then they were the action highlight in the pilot. But here I was just wanting them to end as soon as they started. Plus, once i saw the stock photos and got the gist I never needed to see that again. This episode was better than the pilot. I'm happy to see the high profile roles for glbt. I enjoy the sci-fi element. Glad to see our friend from Lost once again. And love the conflicted but duty bound cop. Onward and upward...

I think this post jumped the shark. How do we know there aren't other motives involved? Did you read the books? I agree that human nature means people would be willing to volunteer. But with the season just over half complete, and the overall review having just happened, and still not knowing everything we need to know about character motivations, we don't know that the author doesn't address this very question.