Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[Maharincess]

On 11/17/2017 at 1:30 PM, Wiendish Fitch said:

I don't find John Barrowman the least bit attractive. It's the flat hair and purple lips...

This is how I feel about Chris Noth. I don't think he is attractive at. all. It's his thin red lips and big nose and I just think he's very unattractive. I've gotten so much shit over this opinion but I can't help how I feel. He's a big YUCK in my book. 

[ratgirlagogo]

51 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

Am I the only person of the right age who hasn't watched Friends?

No - although I'm not sure I'm of the "right age."  Well technically I did watch a couple of episodes and that was enough for me to know I didn't feel like watching any more.

I like A Christmas Story, the Charlie Brown Christmas and the Grinch.  I like Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol too, but my favorite is the Muppet Christmas Carol.  

[Chaos Theory]

I really enjoyed Scrooge (1970) which is the musical version of a Christmas Carol and is panned by alot of people including critics but I think it has some pretty catchy tunes including "Thank You Very Much" which I have seen used in commercials and "I Hate People."   Both are incredibly fun songs that work well with the story.  

Edited November 26, 2017 by Chaos Theory

[MargeGunderson]

4 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

I hate It's a Wonderful Life.

This piece from Salon identifies what always made me uncomfortable with the movie. It's not really happy.

[SmithW6079]

5 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

I hate It's a Wonderful Life.

 

12 minutes ago, MargeGunderson said:

This piece from Salon identifies what always made me uncomfortable with the movie. It's not really happy.

I, too, hate "It's a Wonderful Life," because it isn't, really, not for George Bailey. He never gets to live the life he wants. I find it a profoundly sad movie.

[theredhead77]

I hate all the holiday movies and TV show themes.  Not everyone has a family, not everyone has friends who remember they are alone and invites them to Friendsgiving or Friendsmas but that's not feel good TV.

[Wiendish Fitch]

51 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

 

I, too, hate "It's a Wonderful Life," because it isn't, really, not for George Bailey. He never gets to live the life he wants. I find it a profoundly sad movie.

It's tragic and devastatingly unfair that George never got to live the life he wanted. I hate movies about people stuck in boring, wretched small towns and unable to leave. Real life is too often like that, why would I want to watch it in a movie?

Hell, Pottersville at least looked like fun.

[HoboClayton]

I cannot stand the show 6 Feet Under anymore. I was 19 when it came out and watched it religiously. It spoke to me, it was my Charlotte Light and Dark. I have recently been doing a rewatch, and I'm in pain. I always heard the pretentious drivel arguments and brushed them off.. But, my God... I just can't. I want to throw all of them off a cliff.  I'll just stick to remembering it for what it was to me at the time. 

[kiddo82]

1 hour ago, Chaos Theory said:

I really enjoyed Scrooge (1970) which is the musical version of a Christmas Carol and is panned by alot of people including critics but I think it has some pretty catchy tunes including "Thank You Very Much" which I have seen used in commercials and "I Hate People."   Both are incredibly fun songs that work well with the story.  

The Thank You Very Much scene is also pretty fun (I love how subversive it is) and the song is very catchy.  I find myself singing it when called for. 

[Ohwell]

While we're on the topic of Christmas, I hate those smarmy Hallmark Christmas shows with the lame love stories and the D-list actors who can't act.  

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, MargeGunderson said:

This piece from Salon identifies what always made me uncomfortable with the movie. It's not really happy.

 

1 hour ago, SmithW6079 said:

 

I, too, hate "It's a Wonderful Life," because it isn't, really, not for George Bailey. He never gets to live the life he wants. I find it a profoundly sad movie.

I thought it was just me. I watched as a kid thought it was depressing. I watched as a teen and still thought it was depressing. But my family loves the movie. 

[Chaos Theory]

46 minutes ago, HoboClayton said:

I cannot stand the show 6 Feet Under anymore. I was 19 when it came out and watched it religiously. It spoke to me, it was my Charlotte Light and Dark. I have recently been doing a rewatch, and I'm in pain. I always heard the pretentious drivel arguments and brushed them off.. But, my God... I just can't. I want to throw all of them off a cliff.  I'll just stick to remembering it for what it was to me at the time. 

I think alot of shows work that way which is why I am not all that interested in rewatching Buffy.   I was in my early twenties when it came on so I still remembered high school but was far enough removed from the pain of it so I could enjoy a storyline about high school being painful.   I still consider it one of my favorite shows ever.  However I think if I watched it now that I am in my forties I may not feel the same way about it.   Shows set in high school tend to be exceptionally hit and miss with me and that is in large part probably due  to the fact that high school was a long time ago for me so whatever memories I have of it are probably nostalgia in itself.  

 

6 minutes ago, Ohwell said:

While we're on the topic of Christmas, I hate those smarmy Hallmark Christmas shows with the lame love stories and the D-list actors who can't act.  

My mother loves them I much prefer Lifetime movies.   Even the Christmas movies have a bit more Lifetime sinister to them which I appriate. 

[Kel Varnsen]

10 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

Another UO:  I hate parades.  I hate them in person, I hate them on tv.  I do find the Rose parade floats quite impressive and beautiful, so I keep it on tv as background noise and glance up on occasion to see a float or two, but for the most part?  Boring.  I've even seen it live twice and I wasn't enjoying myself after a while.  Don't even get me started on Macy's with those ugly balloons. 

I never really watched parades on tv before, but my wife watched the Macy's parade as a kid. Since it was a tradition for her, we showed the kids this year. Watching on tv was so painful. Especially the copy that the hosts had to read for each baloon, it was just so bad.

[roamyn]

19 hours ago, Haleth said:

Holiday UO (which I probably posted last year too):  The classic Rudolf cartoon is the worst.  Santa says Christmas has to be cancelled because there will be no presents.  What a horrible message for children!  No, Santa, Christmas =/= presents.  You could learn a lesson from the Grinch.

R U kidding me?  That's my favorite.  I collect Rudolph items.

What abt The Year W/O a Santa Claus?  Santa just completely cancels Christmas because he's depressed?

[Katy M]

On ‎11‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 8:06 AM, Haleth said:

Holiday UO (which I probably posted last year too):  The classic Rudolf cartoon is the worst.  Santa says Christmas has to be cancelled because there will be no presents.  What a horrible message for children!  No, Santa, Christmas =/= presents.  You could learn a lesson from the Grinch.

Well, that is the popular opinion.  It's all about the gifts gifts gifts.  I do like that the elf wants to follow his own path in life, though.  And, that just because Rudolph is different doesn't mean he has nothing to offer.

[ganesh]

The xmas episodes of Futurama are the best. Only Zoidberg gets a gift!

[Chaos Theory]

When it comes to spoilers I think it is rude to post them on sites like Netflix which review site is horrible to begin with and works more as a place to go to see if a show is worth watching.  So putting a major spoiler the day after a season drops is down right rude.  

However for news and entertainment sites as long as long as they don’t put the spoilers in the main tag, link or header I always thought the morning after a show airs live it’s no longer a spoiler.  It’s not their fault you didn’t watch the show when it aired.  

[ganesh]

They did a video on spoiler policy when Galactica was still airing that hold up. 

I don't think it's fair to say that you're out if you didn't watch the show when it aired. People can't stay up late and record it, or there's 50 shows on the same time on a Sunday night, so you have to choose which one. 

I mean, ok, don't click on the articles, because then that's on you, but it's hard to avoid a headline: Let's talk about THAT major death last night on Game of Thrones. Come on. Just say, 'let's talk about last night's exciting episode!' If you watched it, then you know. If not, then you're excited to watch it. 

[Haleth]

On November 26, 2017 at 1:09 AM, GaT said:

How do you feel about "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol"

Magoo was surprisingly one of the best versions  

On November 26, 2017 at 3:26 PM, ganesh said:

You know Scrooge would have left the car radio on if he had a car. 

Ha!  This made me laugh.  A lot.  

On November 26, 2017 at 3:59 PM, ratgirlagogo said:

I like Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol too, but my favorite is the Muppet Christmas Carol

Ok, the Muppets version is my other favorite. 

As far as life being unfair to George Bailey, who's to say he wasn't better off in the small town with a loving family?  I think that was the point-- he realized his dreams would not have been as fulfilling as the life he ended up living. 

[ganesh]

I think part of the point was that we've got this seemingly misleading narrative in the USA about 'small town life' and how that's the apparent American Ideal. There's plenty of people for where that's true, but there's certainly others who think anything but is wrong. 

[Katy M]

My unpopular opinion.  Wait, I need to duck behind a barricade to say this.  I HATE the movie It's a Wonderful Life.

[HunterHunted]

My unpopular opinion is that based on the types of posts and conversations they provoke, reality TV can be and in some cases surpass a fair amount of award-bait prestige TV. I just rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of the Man in the High Castle. Julianna and Joe are some of the most frustratingly poorly fleshed out protagonists on TV. Furthermore, poor characterization is passed off as inscrutability. However, TV critics wrote about why that show was worth watching when last season of Real Housewives of Atlanta was absolutely worth viewing because of the exploration into Phaedra Parks' manipulative hypocrisy and sociopathy.*

In most halfway decent reality shows, the show can really explore all of the facets of the cast's personality. If you want to understand many parts of the human condition, watch reality shows (not the Kardashians because that show is highly produced). Reality TV is won in the casting. If you cast people who are too _____(anything)____ to try to keep things from the cameras, you'll always have something really watchable. 

My list of worst TV mothers includes Cersei Lannister, Livia Soprano, Nancy Botwin, Gemma Teller, Mama Joyce of Real Housewives of Atlanta, Kim Biermann of Real Housewives Atlanta and Don't be Tardy, and Lauri Peterson and Lynn Curtin of Real Housewives of Orange County. I feel like the reality TV characters are equally as deserving of exploration as a Cersei or Livia. The most unpleasant thing about reality TV is that they are real people screwing up other people's real lives.

So I guess my issue is that reality TV is viewed like a meaningless trifle when it can be just as deep, insightful, and worth watching as scripted TV.

*Phaedra was also playing into the really messed up cultural opinions about a woman who is sexually empowered and bisexual to paint a former friend as a depraved criminal. We've been talking about Harvey Weinstein, consent, and sexual dynamics when Real Housewives prompted similar discussions a year ago.

[Wings]

31 minutes ago, Katy M said:

My unpopular opinion.  Wait, I need to duck behind a barricade to say this.  I HATE the movie It's a Wonderful Life.

I have never seen it!  And I plan to keep it that way.  

[DittyDotDot]

37 minutes ago, Katy M said:

My unpopular opinion.  Wait, I need to duck behind a barricade to say this.  I HATE the movie It's a Wonderful Life.

I rarely use the word "hate" for anything--I always say it's too strong a word--but I definitely don't like It's a Wonderful Life and "hate" might actually fit the bill.

I enjoy The Grinch and Charlie Brown enough, but find most Christmas movies annoying. I keep seeing the commercials for the live A Christmas Story on FOX and they keep saying it's the most beloved Christmas movie ever. My immediate thought is that I'm not sure that's a complement. I mean, the top of a pile of crap is still crap, right? ;)

[selkie]

On 11/26/2017 at 2:03 PM, Chaos Theory said:

 

Am I the only person of the right age who hasn't watched Friends?  Then again I can probably count on one hand (well two hand really) the number of comedies I have truly enjoyed.   Friends just seemed so stupid to me back then.  So did Seinfeld.  The only reason I even bothered with HIMYM was because of Alyson Hannigan and my Buffy Love.  

Between too many extracurriculars in college and a couple years working swing shift after graduation, I have large gaps in my 90s tv watching because it pretty much had to have enough to hook me that it was worth the fuss of programming the VCR. So easier to say what I watched than what I didn't watch- my 90s watch list was pretty much E.R, Highlander, Forever Knight, Buffy, and Babylon 5. So no Friends or anything like that. We did watch Seinfeld for the first time last year because it was on the streamers and it's nice to have a half hour comedy before bed, but IMO, it doesn't hold up well. I understand it was groundbreaking at the time, but so many other shows have come along and done what Seinfeld has done and done it better, including the first few seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

[Wings]

39 minutes ago, DittyDotDot said:

I rarely use the word "hate" for anything--I always say it's too strong a word--but I definitely don't like It's a Wonderful Life and "hate" might actually fit the bill.

I enjoy The Grinch and Charlie Brown enough, but find most Christmas movies annoying. I keep seeing the commercials for the live A Christmas Story on FOX and they keep saying it's the most beloved Christmas movie ever. My immediate thought is that I'm not sure that's a complement. I mean, the top of a pile of crap is still crap, right? ;)

HA!   I love you.  

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, DittyDotDot said:

I rarely use the word "hate" for anything--I always say it's too strong a word--but I definitely don't like It's a Wonderful Life and "hate" might actually fit the bill.

I enjoy The Grinch and Charlie Brown enough, but find most Christmas movies annoying. I keep seeing the commercials for the live A Christmas Story on FOX and they keep saying it's the most beloved Christmas movie ever. My immediate thought is that I'm not sure that's a complement. I mean, the top of a pile of crap is still crap, right? ;)

I like a lot of Christmas movies, but A Christmas Story is not one of them.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, DittyDotDot said:

I enjoy The Grinch and Charlie Brown enough, but find most Christmas movies annoying. I keep seeing the commercials for the live A Christmas Story on FOX and they keep saying it's the most beloved Christmas movie ever. My immediate thought is that I'm not sure that's a complement. I mean, the top of a pile of crap is still crap, right? ;)

So I need to admit something shameful.  I would gripe and complain about A Christmas Story being played 24/7.  But I voluntarily watched this over and over again on VHS when I was a kid. And it wasn't out of some love of schlock. I had bad taste in movies.  My taste in television was better (maybe) given the rate at which they would get cancelled and turn into cult classics.

At some point, I may need to unload about the number of times I watched "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" with Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, and Shannen Doherty.  Heck... Here's the trailer.  Its just so 80s.  It still makes me smile.

1 hour ago, selkie said:

We did watch Seinfeld for the first time last year because it was on the streamers and it's nice to have a half hour comedy before bed, but IMO, it doesn't hold up well. I understand it was groundbreaking at the time, but so many other shows have come along and done what Seinfeld has done and done it better, including the first few seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I refuse to accept that Seinfeld was groundbreaking.

His comedy routine was basically the same thing Andy Rooney did at the end of every 60 minutes.  I used to get extremely annoyed at Seinfeld at the end of 60 minutes.  For some reason this only bugged me during 60 minutes and not during Seinfeld.

Edited November 28, 2017 by ParadoxLost

[Jaded]

9 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

At some point, I may need to unload about the number of times I watch "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" with Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, and Shannen Doherty.  Heck... Here's the trailer.  Its just so 80s.  It still makes me smile.

 

I like that movie too. I've only seen it a couple of times as of yet. I'd watch it if I saw it on TV though.

[bilgistic]

1 hour ago, DittyDotDot said:

I keep seeing the commercials for the live A Christmas Story on FOX and they keep saying it's the most beloved Christmas movie ever. My immediate thought is that I'm not sure that's a complement. I mean, the top of a pile of crap is still crap, right? ;)

Over Thanksgiving, we discussed that none of us has ever seen the movie in its entirety despite it being on TV on a loop every year. We know about certain scenes/motifs--the tongue on the flag(?)pole, the leg lamp, the BB gun--but that's it. None of us have the desire to sit through the whole thing.

[festivus]

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

My unpopular opinion.  Wait, I need to duck behind a barricade to say this.  I HATE the movie It's a Wonderful Life.

I think I shared this opinion last year. If I didn't, I wanted to. Hate that movie.

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, bilgistic said:

Over Thanksgiving, we discussed that none of us has ever seen the movie in its entirety despite it being on TV on a loop every year. We know about certain scenes/motifs--the tongue on the flag(?)pole, the leg lamp, the BB gun--but that's it. None of us have the desire to sit through the whole thing.

I don't know that I'd recommend it, but FOX is doing a live version of A Christmas Story (mash up of the movie and the stage/musical adaptation) some time in December.

[bilgistic]

Hard pass.

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, bilgistic said:

Over Thanksgiving, we discussed that none of us has ever seen the movie in its entirety despite it being on TV on a loop every year. We know about certain scenes/motifs--the tongue on the flag(?)pole, the leg lamp, the BB gun--but that's it. None of us have the desire to sit through the whole thing.

Same here - I've absorbed a couple of things via pop culture osmosis, but I've never seen it.  I've either disliked or never had any interest in watching pretty much all the Christmas specials/movies that infest TV every year, though.

[ganesh]

To be fair to Seinfeld, and I only watched a little, the groundbreaking part was that the dialogue wasn't the typical sitcom, setup punchline payoff. The network insisted on the laugh track because the execs didn't think the audience would know what the jokes actually were. 

There was a really good article after the series ended about from a TV standpoint what were actual departures from the landscape at the time. 

I would expect most shows to have since it better since, but they are still the first. 

[Snipsa]

My UO is that ER was and remains to this day the best medical show ever put on TV.

 

They actually featured cases that are common and frequently diagnosed them correctly from the start (here's looking at you HOUSE).  The acting was usually superb and personal drama kept to a minimum (except for the Carby and any "Abby in general" drama).

 

 

It still holds up extremely well and I'll put in my dvds of that show quite often as background entertainment while doing other things...

 

Grey's, HOUSE, Night Shift etc are just nowhere in the same realm for me...

Edited November 28, 2017 by Snipsa

[janie jones]

From what I've observed, people who saw A Christmas Story as kids tend to be the ones who like it, and people who didn't see it until they were adults tend to be the ones who dislike it.  So for those of you who haven't seen it, I don't recommend it.

[ratgirlagogo]

As for A Christmas Story my Unpopular Opinion which I've expressed elsewhere on this site is that it's depressing that a genius like Jean Shepherd is at this point known almost entirely for this movie and nothing else.  His real metier was radio storytelling and having listened to hundreds and hundreds of hours of it I can say that folks like Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray and Eric Bogosian only WISH they could do what he did.

Five years ago the Paley Center did a tribute to Shepherd where Jerry Seinfeld (and others) talked about how much Shepherd had influenced him ( part of a transcription by Eugene Bergmann, a fan and biographer of Shepherd, from his website https://shepquest.wordpress.com/:

Quote

Bill Carter:                I did know you were a fan, but I didn’t know that you said something like you learned everything that you knew about comedy from Jean Shepherd.  Do you remember making that quote somewhere? 

Jerry Seinfeld:         Yes, I have said that and I still say that.  I mean, I don’t know about if it’s possible to know everything, but I think what struck me about him—I first discovered reading him in car magazines [Car and Driver, 61 columns and several articles from 1971-1976], and then I found some of his shows and the movies, but there was that great wonderment, and he saw the exciting cataclysmic drama in the ordinary.  And that was really  the way  my mind had always been set up and I didn’t know it until I kind of saw him and I thought, “Yes, that is exactly the way I see things as well.”  So it really excited me to watch him work, and I saw just a way for myself to think and perform and do everything that I do.

I mean, [it’s] actually quite easy if you look back at my standup, my TV series, and everything that I’ve done, that it is all about the dramatizing of the ordinary.  People like to call it a “show about nothing.”  That was, of course, the idea—that, let’s take the smallest possible thing and make it as big as we can.  And you can see in that series of clips—you see is that he had a similar gift.

B. C.   Shepherd said that “the reality of what we really are is sometime found in the small snips way down at the bottom of things.”  And that does seem also to describe some of your comedy….

J. S.   Yeah, we did that endlessly in the TV series.  It wasn’t funny to us unless it was essentially a trivial event—that we could explode into a cataclysm.

But, thinking about him today, obviously, coming over here, there’s this bit I’ve been doing in my stand-up act recently about Pop-Tarts, and I’ve been doing it for a little while now, and I talk about what breakfast was before the Pop-Tart.  That it was just—we had shredded wheat—and—it’s just that the world was so primitive.  We were just chimps playing with sticks in the dirt, and then the thing came—this Pop-Tart came to us, seemingly from some advanced, alien civilization, for some reason based in Battle Creek, Michigan.  And I talk about the pack—it was some silver lining that clearly had to have been from NASA that had evolved in this.  This was just too far advanced, you know, to have just not have been from the highest levels of—

And I’m thinking of all the—as I’m talking about it now, and you can hear—even in this little thing, it’s all him!  This so is the way he would look at something like that….

And the other thing that I got from him, which is a very, very big thing—for me, and a very important thing is—like talking about beer.  Now, most people—certainly most people in the comedic arts—what comedians like to do, is they see something and they want to make fun of it or they want the audience to have fun with the subject.  Well, what they do is they will talk about what’s wrong with it and why it’s stupid.  And he did the exact opposite in so many cases.  And it’s kind of what I’m doing with this Pop-Tart thing.

It’s a very difficult trajectory in comedy is to say, “Isn’t this thing wonderful”—you’re mocking it.  You’re celebrating it.  Which is—it’s much more difficult. So that was another big, big thing that I got from him, is that you—now the reason I do it with the Pop-Tart, or the reason I wanted to  talk about it, was because I knew I didn’t have to manufacture my appreciation of it.

 

Edited November 28, 2017 by ratgirlagogo

[Haleth]

2 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

As for A Christmas Story my Unpopular Opinion which I've expressed elsewhere on this site is that it's depressing that a genius like Jean Shepherd is at this point known almost entirely for this movie and nothing else.  His real metier was radio storytelling and having listened to hundreds and hundreds of hours of it I can say that folks like Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray and Eric Bogosian only WISH they could do what he did.

I don't dislike the movie because I also have fond memories of listening to Jean Shepard on the radio every night.  Every year he would retell the stories that made up the movie and every year they were hilarious.  (The 4th of July story is also really funny.)

 

13 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

My unpopular opinion is that based on the types of posts and conversations they provoke, reality TV can be and in some cases surpass a fair amount of award-bait prestige TV. I just rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of the Man in the High Castle. Julianna and Joe are some of the most frustratingly poorly fleshed out protagonists on TV. Furthermore, poor characterization is passed off as inscrutability. However, TV critics wrote about why that show was worth watching when last season of Real Housewives of Atlanta was absolutely worth viewing because of the exploration into Phaedra Parks' manipulative hypocrisy and sociopathy.*

I agree about Joe and Julianna, but the real reason to watch TMITHC is the bad guys.  Rufus Sewell's Smith and the actor who plays Kido are riveting.  And Tagomi.  Those characters are a lot more interesting than the protagonists.

[festivus]

6 hours ago, janie jones said:

From what I've observed, people who saw A Christmas Story as kids tend to be the ones who like it, and people who didn't see it until they were adults tend to be the ones who dislike it.  So for those of you who haven't seen it, I don't recommend it.

I didn't see it until I was around 40 and I love it. It probably helps that my dad was about the same age as Ralphie in 1939 and he got a Red Ryder B.B. gun for Christmas that year. Plus, Darren McGavin is brilliant. So my UO is that I love that movie, it's my 2nd favorite after Christmas Vacation. I think that counts as an UO around here.

[ABay]

The first time I saw ACS, I was in my 20s and didn't much care for it. I wasn't paying attention. When I did, I realized it is in fact  my kind of humor and I watch it--once--at Christmas. In addition to fra-gee-lay, I particularly like the soliloquy on soap and the OTT soap blindness bit. It also took me multiple viewings before I caught the joke of the Chinese restaurant sign.

The rest of my Top Xmas media: The Bishop's Wife; A Chritmas Carol (Sim version only, thanks); Love, Actually (shut up); the animated Grinch; and Battle of the Nutcrackers on Ovation. I can only handle Charlie Brown and Rudolph once every few years.

Edited November 28, 2017 by ABay

[vibeology]

8 hours ago, Snipsa said:

My UO is that ER was and remains to this day the best medical show ever put on TV.

They actually featured cases that are common and frequently diagnosed them correctly from the start (here's looking at you HOUSE).  The acting was usually superb and personal drama kept to a minimum (except for the Carby and any "Abby in general" drama).

It still holds up extremely well and I'll put in my dvds of that show quite often as background entertainment while doing other things...

It makes me sad that ER doesn't seem to be streaming anywhere. That's one of those shows I'd love to go back and watch again but I cannot afford to buy it.

[doodlebug]

1 hour ago, vibeology said:

It makes me sad that ER doesn't seem to be streaming anywhere. That's one of those shows I'd love to go back and watch again but I cannot afford to buy it.

If you've got cable, Pop TV shows 3 episodes every weekday.

[ganesh]

3 hours ago, Haleth said:

16 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

My unpopular opinion is that based on the types of posts and conversations they provoke, reality TV can be and in some cases surpass a fair amount of award-bait prestige TV. I just rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of the Man in the High Castle. Julianna and Joe are some of the most frustratingly poorly fleshed out protagonists on TV. Furthermore, poor characterization is passed off as inscrutability. However, TV critics wrote about why that show was worth watching when last season of Real Housewives of Atlanta was absolutely worth viewing because of the exploration into Phaedra Parks' manipulative hypocrisy and sociopathy.*

I agree about Joe and Julianna, but the real reason to watch TMITHC is the bad guys.  Rufus Sewell's Smith and the actor who plays Kido are riveting.  And Tagomi.  Those characters are a lot more interesting than the protagonists.

I would suggest that Sewell and Tagomi were much more main characters in S2 than the others.

[Moose135]

5 hours ago, ABay said:

The Bishop's Wife; A Christmas Carol (Sim version only, thanks)

Yes on both counts!

[proserpina65]

21 hours ago, Haleth said:

As far as life being unfair to George Bailey, who's to say he wasn't better off in the small town with a loving family?  I think that was the point-- he realized his dreams would not have been as fulfilling as the life he ended up living. 

Oh no, that's never been what I got from that, more like "sorry, George, give up all your dreams for the benefit of other people, never mind what might actually make you happy".  There were very few points in that movie where George seemed happy at all, and those were the points where he almost made it out.  Screw Bedford Falls.

15 hours ago, ganesh said:

To be fair to Seinfeld, and I only watched a little, the groundbreaking part was that the dialogue wasn't the typical sitcom, setup punchline payoff. The network insisted on the laugh track because the execs didn't think the audience would know what the jokes actually were. 

There was a really good article after the series ended about from a TV standpoint what were actual departures from the landscape at the time. 

I would expect most shows to have since it better since, but they are still the first. 

Since I thought the jokes weren't funny in the episodes I saw, the network might've had a point.

[Katy M]

29 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

Oh no, that's never been what I got from that, more like "sorry, George, give up all your dreams for the benefit of other people, never mind what might actually make you happy".  There were very few points in that movie where George seemed happy at all, and those were the points where he almost made it out.  Screw Bedford Falls.

 

I thought he seemed happy enough during his life.  He married the girl he wanted to.  He was respected around town. Blah blah blah.  I just thought he was being a big crybaby with the angel having to show him how his life wasn't so bad.

[CoderLady]

I'll admit now that as a child -- a damn child, ferchristsakes -- I wanted George to choke the ever-loving shit out of the sniveling old asshole who lost everyone's money, but the jerk got off totally unfazed. It ruined the movie for me so I didn't get warm fuzzies from it and I've never been able to watch it again my entire life. Even thinking about it raises my blood pressure.

Whew. Confession really is a damn good thing. Thank y'all.

[TattleTeeny]

8 hours ago, festivus said:

I didn't see it until I was around 40 and I love it. It probably helps that my dad was about the same age as Ralphie in 1939 and he got a Red Ryder B.B. gun for Christmas that year. Plus, Darren McGavin is brilliant. So my UO is that I love that movie, it's my 2nd favorite after Christmas Vacation. I think that counts as an UO around here.

You're not alone; I love this movie so much. 

I hate Charlie Brown though. Always have.

[janie jones]

9 hours ago, festivus said:

I didn't see it until I was around 40 and I love it. It probably helps that my dad was about the same age as Ralphie in 1939 and he got a Red Ryder B.B. gun for Christmas that year. Plus, Darren McGavin is brilliant. So my UO is that I love that movie, it's my 2nd favorite after Christmas Vacation. I think that counts as an UO around here.

That's why I said "tend to be." :)