Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[Hiyo]

Quote

I think that model is outdated.

That model started becoming outdated in the early 2000s, once HBO's shows started becoming super successful. The networks still haven't adapted.

[DoctorAtomic]

For sure. 

[andromeda331]

6 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I also don't watch a lot of sitcoms except for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Schitt's Creek, What We Do in the Shadows, and The Good Place.  These shows all have or had good writing and fully-realized characters.  Writing where they craft the plots around the characters instead of forcing the characters into a plot just to create an episode.  Characters who grow to become better versions of the season one version. It can be done, but it is rarely rewarded by the networks.  I hated The Big Bang Theory because the characters were paper-thin and never developed as the seasons went on.  But millions of people watched it and it soldiered on for far more seasons than was necessary.  I also don't think a sitcom needs 22 episodes a season.  All of the shows I listed above have 13 episode seasons.  Twenty-two episode seasons create more filler.  

That's one of the reasons Leverage is my favorite show. It ran for five seasons but all five characters grew each season. Parker growing the most. After a horrifying childhood she didn't understand emotions or anything. Watching her grow was really amazing to watch. I love watching characters grow. Which is probably why I end up being disappointed by so many shows. I love shows that create plots around the characters its always so much better then forcing them around a plot. Doing that the characters almost always end up acting out of character. Like Sophie who in the beginning says she never hurt anyone with her crimes but then in season three has the face the fact she doesn't know that when their helping a young girl who was forced to smuggle a statue into the US. Sophie realizes she doesn't know that kids weren't used to smuggle her art. Or in the pilot doing a terrible job as Lady MacBeth and in the finale doing a perfect job. By the end of the series she knew who she was. Plus it was fun and funny. And really fun watchin the team destroy the bad CEO and others. Each bad guy or woman was actually based on a real life person.

[DoctorAtomic]

You should watch Librarians if you like Leverage. 

[andromeda331]

6 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

You should watch Librarians if you like Leverage. 

I have. I love it too. Although not as much as Leverage where I loved all five characters. On the Librarians I loved Stone, Baird, and Jenkins. I didn't like Jones or Cassandra. Flynn's in a weird position where they always said they were going to merge him with the team but they never actually do. His constant coming and going got annoying. I know he couldn't be there in the first season because of his other show. But afterwards he didn't have that excuse anymore and was always coming and going. 

[proserpina65]

On 4/29/2020 at 8:42 AM, BlackberryJam said:

Brooklyn Nine Nine. Isn't that a running SNL skit that became a show?

I haven't seen many episodes but the ones I have seen were hysterically funny.

[proserpina65]

On 4/29/2020 at 9:07 AM, Blergh said:

Absolutely right about Friends- they lied and backstabbed so much they made I Love Lucy seem  as though the leading character was George Washington (and, of course, she was infinitely FUNNIER than that whole crew put together). But one reason I refuse to even watch SECONDS of it in reruns.

There are episodes of Friends I liked, and I'll confess to having a fondness for Chandler, but overall, I agree with your assessment of their "friendships".  But I hate I Love Lucy, and never found it funny at all.

On 4/29/2020 at 9:07 AM, Blergh said:

Gloria had started out as a sympathetic (albeit tempermental) Latina single mother who'd lucked out via marrying Jay and was dedicating herself to being the best wife to her new husband and best mother to her son but that got trashed for her to become a shrill, complaining, vindictive, greedy, backbiting person who turned out to be an unreformed criminal.

I didn't watch Modern Family so I can't judge the change in her character, but having watched Knights of Prosperity, I was deeply saddened to see Sofia Vergara reduced to playing a caricature of the feisty Latina because she was so good at playing the intelligent, strong woman her character in KOP was.

On 4/29/2020 at 10:42 AM, BlackberryJam said:

Do not watch Game of Thrones. Save yourself the pain of the shittiest show ending since Dexter. 

I didn't think it was shitty at all.  Maybe not everything in that last season worked as well as I wanted it to, but overall, it was pretty good, and occasionally it was fantastic (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms & The Long Night).  However, I fully respect anyone's right not to have liked it, and also to not want to watch the show at all because different strokes and all.  So I definitely don't go around insisting that friends who are not interested in GOT just have to watch it.

 

[proserpina65]

20 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Dinklage only deserved an Emmy once. It would have been Coster-Waldau’s in S3.

THAT I will agree with.  It was a travesty that NCW wasn't even nominated for season 3.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

11 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I also don't think a sitcom needs 22 episodes a season.  All of the shows I listed above have 13 episode seasons.  Twenty-two episode seasons create more filler.  

I don't know I think it depends. All the FOX seasons of Brooklyn 99 were 20+ episodes of hilariousness. Meanwhile I am currently watching season 7 of Homeland and even with 13 episodes there is a fair amount of useless filler. Same with Good Girls season 3. It just depends on the writing team. 

My unpopular opinion is similar to this one though. It's that I think that the anthology nature of the show Fargo might have finally ruined standard cop dramas for me. I like the idea how season 1 was basically the story of Officer Molly Solverson and the one huge, career making case she had to deal with. Having her deal with another giant case the next year would have been ridiculous so they told a different story. Meanwhile I think back to when I used to watch CSI or Bones and it would be the same cops hunting a new Jack the Ripper or Zodiac level serial killer every year and no one would ever find that weird. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Kel Varnsen

[Irlandesa]

Potentially unpopular but I think having to fill 22 episodes can actually be a good thing for episodic television, especially dramas.

With 22, writers know they need to have more than just their one major story in order to fill 22 episodes.  They also tend to see the need to craft a beginning, middle and end within one episode instead of just seeing that hour as part of the whole (more on this below).

I know it's hard to write that much but I think it helps writers not overthink things.

3 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Meanwhile I am currently watching season 7 of Homeland and even with 13 episodes there is a fair amount of useless filler. Same with Good Girls season 3.

Yep.  And I'd say that about 90% of Netflix dramas. There's the pressure for ongoing series to do between 8-10 episodes focused on essentially one main story---the now-cliche "we're not doing a TV show, we're doing a ten hour movie" BS.

The reality is, that movie gets pretty damn boring between episodes 3-6 with things picking back up again for 7 and 8.  For that reason, I find the 42-45 minute long episodes from a 22 episode season from a network drama usually much easier to binge than eight 60 minute episodes* offered by streamers (mostly a Netflix issue at this point).

*99.9% of 50+ episodes are too damn long.  One good thing about commercials and needing to fit into a time slot is creators need to brutally edit.

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Irlandesa

[kiddo82]

I don't have a problem with filler.  Not everything has to be serialized.  Some of my favorite episodes in general could be considered filler.   In fact, I am much more likely to revisit those types of episodes than go back and do a whole arc or season.  And I find a lot of binge worthy shows don't always hold up for me.  I'll get really into the mystery but once it's done it's done and I move on.  But just give me an entertaining time with characters I like hanging out with and chances are I'll keep coming back and coming back.

[Annber03]

9 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

But just give me an entertaining time with characters I like hanging out with and chances are I'll keep coming back and coming back.

This.

I don't know why people think it even has to be one or the other in the first place. You can have a mix of serialized and "filler" episodes in a show. Not every series needs a huge overarching story spread across the entirety of the series, either-some work better having mini arcs spread out across part of a season (or a whole season, if need be), broken up by occasional downtime filler episodes here and there that allow us to focus on other aspects of the characters and little side stories and whatnot, too. 

And yes, whether a show has a longer season or a shorter one depends on the type of series it is and the type of story it needs to tell and whatnot, too. Again, there can be room for both. 

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't think it's either/or serialized/filler (episodic). You can strike the balance. 

Like a 'current' show like Lucifer I think has done that. It's episodic, but serialized too. There's not necessarily filler because it's about police, so investigating a case that doesn't have anything to do with Lucifer getting back to hell/storming heaven isn't filler. 

I tend to think of filler like, 'this has nothing to do with the show at all.' Why is the fourth level character the main plot? It can be an easy trap if you don't have the right show or the right cast because you just don't have the material to work with. 

I can't think of a filler episode of XFiles because the entire premise of the show was investigating weird ass shit. Is 'Home' filler? No. It's creepy af and now you're all thinking about it. 

I tend to favor shorter seasons because I like watching a lot of different shows, and this just offers more opportunity.

 

4 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

You can have a mix of serialized and "filler" episodes in a show.

jinx

[kiddo82]

I think you have to define Home as filler though because it doesn't advance the overreaching plot of the show.  It's not a conspiracy episode and is therefore not integral to the story of the series.  All of the best X Files episodes, in my opinion, fit this category anyway.  I always thought Buffy was great at mixing both arc heavy episodes (Surpise/Innocence/Passion/Becoming) with episodes like Bewtiched Bothered and Bewildered and Killed by Death.  Sometimes the pacing of your plot heavy episodes with your less archy episodes is just as important as anything else.  

[BlackberryJam]

15 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

 

I can't think of a filler episode of XFiles because the entire premise of the show was investigating weird ass shit. Is 'Home' filler? No. It's creepy af and now you're all thinking about it. 

Nooooooooooooo!

[DoctorAtomic]

It's horrifying. That's the only reason I mentioned it. However, one can argue what the X Files truly about. 

5 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

All of the best X Files episodes, in my opinion, fit this category anyway.

Hence my point. 

[sistermagpie]

7 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

I think you have to define Home as filler though because it doesn't advance the overreaching plot of the show.  It's not a conspiracy episode and is therefore not integral to the story of the series.  All of the best X Files episodes, in my opinion, fit this category anyway.

But they're not filler, they're MOTW (monster of the week). They're episodic rather than serialized and the show started out as episodic to begin with. I mean, by that measure every episode of something like Bones is filler because there's no overall plot.

I assumed that filler episodes was supposed to refer to things that practically weren't the show at all, like hidden pilot episodes where the whole show's dedicated to people with a tenuous connection to somebody we know because they're obviously considering them for their own pilot. Or an ep where the leads are gone--like if the whole episode is Skinner doing a case because Mulder and Scully are out of town. (Did they ever do that?)

[kiddo82]

4 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

But they're not filler, they're MOTW (monster of the week). They're episodic rather than serialized and the show started out as episodic to begin with. I mean, by that measure every episode of something like Bones is filler because there's no overall plot.

Which is my point.  Filler is often defined, and then dismissed, as something that doesn't fit a larger narrative.  Just because something doesn't have a higher purpose than to simply be a good stand alone hour of television doesn't mean it's not worth anyone's time.  One of the arguments is that 22 episodes creates more filler.  What does that really matter if the "filler" is entertaining?

Edited May 1, 2020 by kiddo82

[DoctorAtomic]

8 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Or an ep where the leads are gone--like if the whole episode is Skinner doing a case because Mulder and Scully are out of town. (Did they ever do that?)

I think he was actually featured a couple of times. 

I'll give you X Files filler - when they did the 'author' with the funny name and the movie with Garry Shandling and Tea Lioni. 

I think I'm in love with Associate Producer Skinner. 

 

[anna0852]

53 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

This.

I don't know why people think it even has to be one or the other in the first place. You can have a mix of serialized and "filler" episodes in a show. Not every series needs a huge overarching story spread across the entirety of the series, either-some work better having mini arcs spread out across part of a season (or a whole season, if need be), broken up by occasional downtime filler episodes here and there that allow us to focus on other aspects of the characters and little side stories and whatnot, too. 

And yes, whether a show has a longer season or a shorter one depends on the type of series it is and the type of story it needs to tell and whatnot, too. Again, there can be room for both. 

I think you just described why I like The Big Bang Theory and Brooklyn Nine Nine so much.

[Ohiopirate02]

9 hours ago, kiddo82 said:

Which is my point.  Filler is often defined, and then dismissed, as something that doesn't fit a larger narrative.  Just because something doesn't have a higher purpose than to simply be a good stand alone hour of television doesn't mean it's not worth anyone's time.  One of the arguments is that 22 episodes creates more filler.  What does that really matter if the "filler" is entertaining?

The crux of this issue for me is am I entertained by the filler and are the showrunners doing their job on the central narrative.  For example, This Is Us throws in seemingly random characters and gives them backstory while underwriting one of their leads.  The filler stands out as filler when this happens.  I am also not entertained.  Or the final season of How I Met Your Mother.  Of course that was done because the writers wanted the audience to like the mother but not more than Robin based on their final endgame.  

I honestly don't call character development filler.  I also know that the overall narrative needs to pump the brakes during a season.  The pauses are necessary for the story to be effective.  Good writers use these pauses to peel back another layer of the characters.  

[VanillaBear85]

I didn't really enjoy the recent season of B99. It was mostly unfunny and predictable IMO. There were some funny moments and lines, but as a whole I didn't care for the season. 

[DearEvette]

9 hours ago, kiddo82 said:

Which is my point.  Filler is often defined, and then dismissed, as something that doesn't fit a larger narrative.  Just because something doesn't have a higher purpose than to simply be a good stand alone hour of television doesn't mean it's not worth anyone's time.  One of the arguments is that 22 episodes creates more filler.  What does that really matter if the "filler" is entertaining?

Agreed.  But I think the issue is situational.

So you've created a serialized season where in the first few episodes you have introduced the overall mystery/problem/question and start advancing the plot.  You've done it so well, that you've really hooked your viewers.  They are asking questions, advancing theories, and discussing possible ramifications.   You are dribbling new clues each episode and maybe introduced a new pivotal character and developed a continuing character in a new and interesting way that serves this plot.  Everyone is invested in this plot and how it affects the characters and the show universe.

But then several episodes later you create an episode that has nothing to do with your central plot.  It isn't moving your mystery, it isn't giving a new clue.  It is a stone cold detour.

Depending on the content of the episode it could be a fun, interesting or fascinating way to pump the breaks and release a bit of the tension that has been building.  If it is done well or advances some much needed character development then I think people are receptive to something like this. 

But if it is draggy or focuses on a lesser character or is an obvious experimental episode that seems to come out of nowhere, it will be frustrating.  Especially if this "filler' episode airs one week after a really exciting, pivotal episode that had a cliffhanger or promised rewards.

Sadly, I believe the latter is more true in many cases than the former, hence the complaints of 'filler."

[DoctorAtomic]

Fundamentally, this is about the showrunner(s) 'knowing what show they have'. It might not be the show they thought they were making. I don't expect them to lay out everything for the entire show run from the go, but there needs to be something in place to provide framework for the narrative. 

I wouldn't necessarily call the Sopranos serialized, but they laid out where they wanted to go, season to season. 

[Zella]

I thought The Good Wife--through season 5--was a great blend of serialized and episodic since the cases of the week themselves were often quite interesting on their own and the episodes sometimes focused on them more than the overarching arc about Alicia and her life, though I found that storyline interesting too. It's one of the only network dramas in recent years that I think knew how to do this without a 22-ish episode season feeling padded to me.

Once it found its groove, Person of Interest was the same way. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Zella

[andromeda331]

13 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Agreed.  But I think the issue is situational.

So you've created a serialized season where in the first few episodes you have introduced the overall mystery/problem/question and start advancing the plot.  You've done it so well, that you've really hooked your viewers.  They are asking questions, advancing theories, and discussing possible ramifications.   You are dribbling new clues each episode and maybe introduced a new pivotal character and developed a continuing character in a new and interesting way that serves this plot.  Everyone is invested in this plot and how it affects the characters and the show universe.

But then several episodes later you create an episode that has nothing to do with your central plot.  It isn't moving your mystery, it isn't giving a new clue.  It is a stone cold detour.

Depending on the content of the episode it could be a fun, interesting or fascinating way to pump the breaks and release a bit of the tension that has been building.  If it is done well or advances some much needed character development then I think people are receptive to something like this. 

But if it is draggy or focuses on a lesser character or is an obvious experimental episode that seems to come out of nowhere, it will be frustrating.  Especially if this "filler' episode airs one week after a really exciting, pivotal episode that had a cliffhanger or promised rewards.

Sadly, I believe the latter is more true in many cases than the former, hence the complaints of 'filler."

Exactly. Its very frustrating to be watching a show that's going somewhere or has a big reveal. Then the next episode is a filler. When done right it can be good or even just fine. But most of the time it just seems out of the blue or why are we focusing on this when all the episodes up to this point was going somewhere.  And with a lot of shows the first two or three of the season are all about the new mystery or clue or whatever the arc is. Then you get several episodes that don't deal with the mystery/arc or even mention it. Its basically dropped and completely forgotten about until either the mid season final or until the last few episodes of the season. Now the fillers wouldn't be so bad if they were mixed in more with the arc. Sure it makes sense something might come up or they won't be spending every episode figuring out the mystery or chasing the new bad guy. But several episodes in a row? 

[Llywela]

I think the biggest problem 22-episode seasons have isn't 'filler' (a term I've always disliked, it always comes across so derogatory), the problem is pacing. And pacing is a really difficult thing to get right when you have one ongoing story arc which has to be stretched out over an entire 22-episode season. There's nothing wrong with MOTW episodes or character developing episodes, I often enjoy them more than arc-heavy episodes, but the placement of them is critical if there is also a major ongoing story arc. Drop a lightweight, comedic MOTW episode immediately after a big, emotional arc-based twist, and not only will your viewers get whiplash from the abrupt tonal shift, but you run the risk of killing all the momentum you were building in the ongoing arc. Yet a lot of shows do that because the arc just doesn't have enough story to stretch over the remaining episodes in the season so they need something to fill the gap.

I've always liked the way Agents of SHIELD handles season arcs. There is never one single storyline being stretched thin across 22 episodes, instead there are multiple smaller story arcs within each season, overlapping and interwoven, so that as the first a-plot comes to a head mid-season, the groundwork has already been laid for the story to switch tracks into a new a-plot to carry forward. The plotting and storytelling feels much tighter and more cohesive as a result, and you get multiple dramatic climaxes within a season instead of just the one Big Battle at the end.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Llywela

[proserpina65]

On ‎04‎/‎30‎/‎2020 at 11:14 PM, Annber03 said:

You can have a mix of serialized and "filler" episodes in a show.

I think it depends on how you define filler.  Is it character-driven episodes which are self-contained and entertaining? (No, imo.)  Or is it episodes where the characters just go around in circles doing the same thing over and over?  I like the former but hate the later.

And, as Llywela points out, often the issue is more one of pacing.

On ‎04‎/‎30‎/‎2020 at 11:27 PM, kiddo82 said:

I think you have to define Home as filler though because it doesn't advance the overreaching plot of the show.  It's not a conspiracy episode and is therefore not integral to the story of the series.  All of the best X Files episodes, in my opinion, fit this category anyway.  I always thought Buffy was great at mixing both arc heavy episodes (Surpise/Innocence/Passion/Becoming) with episodes like Bewtiched Bothered and Bewildered and Killed by Death.  Sometimes the pacing of your plot heavy episodes with your less archy episodes is just as important as anything else.  

I don't define filler that way.  The MOTW episodes of X-Files were part of the narrative from the beginning.  Now, the episode that was all about the Lone Gunmen - that was filler, imo.

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by proserpina65

[DoctorAtomic]

Wasn't that like their 'finale' since the show got canceled?

[proserpina65]

12 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Wasn't that like their 'finale' since the show got canceled?

Do you mean the X Files?

[Hiyo]

One of the worst examples of filler I ever was saw was in season 2 of Lost. We get the build up with the Others culminating with them confronting our protagonists (and showing our protagonists how many laps they are behind them), with Jack deciding our protagonists need to get their act together to "build an army" (or was it train? Anyway...) to take on the Others...then the next episode, we get a really, really, really bad filler about Charlie and his addictions. Nothing from the previous episodes was advanced, and we wasted time on a subplot nobody was asking for. Ugh.

That was also when I began to fall out of love with that show.

[Ohiopirate02]

15 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

One of the worst examples of filler I ever was saw was in season 2 of Lost. We get the build up with the Others culminating with them confronting our protagonists (and showing our protagonists how many laps they are behind them), with Jack deciding our protagonists need to get their act together to "build an army" (or was it train? Anyway...) to take on the Others...then the next episode, we get a really, really, really bad filler about Charlie and his addictions. Nothing from the previous episodes was advanced, and we wasted time on a subplot nobody was asking for. Ugh.

That was also when I began to fall out of love with that show.

For me, season 3 of Lost is where the filler got too much with the extended flashbacks of Jack's tattoos and Nicki and Paulo's sudden appearance.  Talk about textbook filler right there.

[Hiyo]

True, but by then I already had become disillusioned by the show where stuff like Jack's tattoos and whatnot was becoming par for the course. That episode with Charlie was like a punch to the face, and a good example of filler just really messing up the rhythm of long term plotting.

[DoctorAtomic]

33 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

Do you mean the X Files?

No, the Lone Gunmen spinoff got canceled before they got a chance to wrap it up, so they used one of the next season episodes of the X Files as the finale. The Lone Gunmen appeared in XF season 1 and were frequently on the show, so I'd give TPTB a pass at wanting to give them a proper send off. 

Lost is Exhibit A through Q why if you're going to do a show like that, you better damn well establish a bible and storyboard it out, if loosely at the least. I had to crack up at how everyone trying to find 'meaning' in everything on the show, and us X Files vets are like, 'ok sure. It all ties together. Yeah magnets.'

To be fair, when they actually reduced the season order decided on an end date, the plotting was tighter because they got their shit together. 

Maybe the show shouldn't have been what it was because 'The Constant' was filler and probably the best episode of the series. 

Edited May 4, 2020 by DoctorAtomic

[Ohiopirate02]

32 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Lost is Exhibit A through Q why if you're going to do a show like that, you better damn well establish a bible and storyboard it out, if loosely at the least. I had to crack up at how everyone trying to find 'meaning' in everything on the show, and us X Files vets are like, 'ok sure. It all ties together. Yeah magnets.'

To be fair, when they actually reduced the season order decided on an end date, the plotting was tighter because they got their shit together. 

Maybe the show shouldn't have been what it was because 'The Constant' was filler and probably the best episode of the series. 

It's been awhile since I've seen Lost, was The Constant filler?  I loved everything about Desmond and Penny.  Now Jack and Kate together was as enjoyable as watching paint dry, and so was Kate and Sawyer.  

[proserpina65]

47 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

No, the Lone Gunmen spinoff got canceled before they got a chance to wrap it up, so they used one of the next season episodes of the X Files as the finale. The Lone Gunmen appeared in XF season 1 and were frequently on the show, so I'd give TPTB a pass at wanting to give them a proper send off. 

Lost is Exhibit A through Q why if you're going to do a show like that, you better damn well establish a bible and storyboard it out, if loosely at the least. I had to crack up at how everyone trying to find 'meaning' in everything on the show, and us X Files vets are like, 'ok sure. It all ties together. Yeah magnets.'

To be fair, when they actually reduced the season order decided on an end date, the plotting was tighter because they got their shit together. 

Maybe the show shouldn't have been what it was because 'The Constant' was filler and probably the best episode of the series. 

Thanks for the clarification.  I never watched the Lone Gunmen show so I wasn't aware of that.

I don't know if I'd consider The Constant a filler, but I agree it was the best of the series.  (Although Through The Looking Glass comes close.)  Now, Across The Sea, on the other hand, was so much filler that you could've cut the whole episode and lost absolutely nothing from the series - and it was an episode that purported to offer explanations.

Edited May 4, 2020 by proserpina65

[DoctorAtomic]

3 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

I never watched the Lone Gunmen show so I wasn't aware of that

First episode of the series was about a plane being hijacked to fly into the World Trade Center, months before 9/11. 

[Bastet]

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

I don't define filler that way.  The MOTW episodes of X-Files were part of the narrative from the beginning.  Now, the episode that was all about the Lone Gunmen - that was filler, imo.

Like a Miss DiPesto episode of Moonlighting.  I agree.

[roamyn]

On 4/30/2020 at 11:17 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't think it's either/or serialized/filler (episodic). You can strike the balance. 

Like a 'current' show like Lucifer I think has done that. It's episodic, but serialized too. There's not necessarily filler because it's about police, so investigating a case that doesn't have anything to do with Lucifer getting back to hell/storming heaven isn't filler. 

I tend to think of filler like, 'this has nothing to do with the show at all.' Why is the fourth level character the main plot? It can be an easy trap if you don't have the right show or the right cast because you just don't have the material to work with. 

I can't think of a filler episode of XFiles because the entire premise of the show was investigating weird ass shit. Is 'Home' filler? No. It's creepy af and now you're all thinking about it. 

I tend to favor shorter seasons because I like watching a lot of different shows, and this just offers more opportunity.

 

jinx

Lucifer’s case files always pertain to something he’s going through- usually the anthology parts of the story.  The only one I can think of that doesn’t is s4.3, where the case file actually drives the main story.

[DoctorAtomic]

That's because he makes everything about him.

[Avabelle]

On 5/1/2020 at 2:45 PM, VanillaBear85 said:

I didn't really enjoy the recent season of B99. It was mostly unfunny and predictable IMO. There were some funny moments and lines, but as a whole I didn't care for the season. 

I loved the episode Trying because I thought it was honest depiction of a couple struggling to get pregnant but I agree that it hasn’t been great. I think it’s just gone on too long at this stage. I also really miss Gina.

[DrSpaceman73]

On ‎5‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 6:15 PM, Avabelle said:

I loved the episode Trying because I thought it was honest depiction of a couple struggling to get pregnant but I agree that it hasn’t been great. I think it’s just gone on too long at this stage. I also really miss Gina.

It may be an honest depiction but the "trying to get pregnant" story has been done so many times on TV it is beyond cliché.  I didn't feel like they had any fresh take on it. 

The show in general has been kind of played out by now.  I still watch and enjoy it, but it has its limits on how much farther it can go on. 

[bmoore4026]

I...don't like The Sopranos.  Just the overall bleakness and edgyness gets to me and really affects my mental health in ways I just don't like.  In fact, lots of HBO dramas give me that feeling.

[andromeda331]

47 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

I...don't like The Sopranos.  Just the overall bleakness and edgyness gets to me and really affects my mental health in ways I just don't like.  In fact, lots of HBO dramas give me that feeling.

I thought I'd like it. I watched the first season and that was enough. I never had any interest in watching any more episodes. 

[Danny Franks]

1 hour ago, bmoore4026 said:

I...don't like The Sopranos.  Just the overall bleakness and edgyness gets to me and really affects my mental health in ways I just don't like.  In fact, lots of HBO dramas give me that feeling.

Yeah, I watched about ten episodes and it just didn't really capture me. There wasn't anyone in it who was likeable or sympathetic, there wasn't anything hopeful or cheerful at all.

Same goes for a whole bunch of shows that I haven't any interest in watching. You can have very worthy, very serious television and it can be great, but if it's a chore to watch then I don't see why I owe it to any show.

[Hiyo]

Quote

You can have very worthy, very serious television and it can be great, but if it's a chore to watch then I don't see why I owe it to any show.

I feel that regarding both Breaking Bad and The Wire. I recognize they are both top quality shows and deserve whatever accolades they received, but neither of them really grabbed me enough to watch them all the way through (or even beyond a season or 2).

[Haleth]

3 hours ago, Hiyo said:

I feel that regarding both Breaking Bad and The Wire. I recognize they are both top quality shows and deserve whatever accolades they received, but neither of them really grabbed me enough to watch them all the way through (or even beyond a season or 2).

Same.  My husband just did a binge of the Sopranos and is now watching Mad Men.  I tried.  None of them piqued my interest.

[BlackberryJam]

The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men. Shows about white dudes in mid-life crisis. I just said No. 

[Ohiopirate02]

While I find Don Draper of Mad Men to be an intriguing enigma, it truly is an ensemble show with great characters in supporting roles.  The female characters in particular are great to watch as they figure out how to navigate the patriarchal world they live in.  Peggy's journey throughout the seven seasons is amazing and so is Joan's.  And Betty is my tragic queen.  I am rewatching this now, and my unpopular opinion is that I love Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis in all her petty glory.  She was right to kick Don to the curb after finding out about him.  Don manipulated her for years and did not deserve her.  

[Ohwell]

I recently binge watched all seasons of The Wire and while I liked a few of the characters (Bunk, Bubbles and Lester), I thought the show was downright depressing and not that great.