Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[ihavenoidea]

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Me either. I just assumed she was not entirely sure they would show up. Though I could have missed something.

My Game of Thrones UO is that I am not a fan of Arya. I liked her in the books and I like Maisie Williams as well, so I am not sure why I am not wild about her in the television series. 

Another Game of Thrones UO is that Sansa has been one of my favorites characters since the start. 

Your me!  I agree with all of this, except I never read the books.

I have no idea why people are going on and on about Sansa not telling Jon, my first thought was that she didn't tell him was because it's freaking Littlefinger, everyone hates him and who knows if he would have really shown up or not.  Plus is was the ultimate element of surprise that won it for them with only Sansa knowing.

I think Sansa is more interesting because we've seen her go from annoying to root worthy, Arya's character was built in root worthy from the start, everyone loves the smart mouth lovable bad ass.  Another reason I enjoy Sansa more is that she's interacted with more people.  I feel like Arya wondered forever with just The Hound, and then was stuck with faceless guy and the waif the last two seasons.  I'm glad she's finally coming home.

Oh and my GoT unpopular opinion is that I don't care about The Hound, I was fine when he was 'dead'.

[Winter Rose]

Sansa's become one of my favorite characters this season. Wrt to Littlefinger, I don't think she even particularly wanted to turn to him but given the circumstances, she and Jon had recruited everyone they could and were still horribly outnumbered so I do think her actions were understandable.

I'm just becoming bored with Arya. In part, it's been her storyline but I also think her hotheadedness is getting old.

[Marsupial]

My UO is that I love the character Carmen on Devious Maids. I think she's gorgeous and funny and I like her silly little plotlines.

Running away and ducking behind a trash can now.

[SmithW6079]

I've tried,  especially because I like animation, but I just can't get into anime. I find the dialogue shrill and almost impossible to follow, and the drawing style gives me a headache. 

[ribboninthesky1]

2 hours ago, Marsupial said:

My UO is that I love the character Carmen on Devious Maids. I think she's gorgeous and funny and I like her silly little plotlines.

Running away and ducking behind a trash can now.

Don't run! I've always liked the character.  Who I could do without? Genevieve, Adrian, and Evelyn. Never found any of them interesting, and Genevieve is particularly annoying.  

[callie lee 29]

46 minutes ago, SmithW6079 said:

I've tried,  especially because I like animation, but I just can't get into anime. I find the dialogue shrill and almost impossible to follow, and the drawing style gives me a headache. 

Agree. For me it's all the animation, haven't even made it to the dialogue. I'm very old school animation, anime seems all Shari lines and distorted shapes.

[Marsupial]

ribbon, your UO is much braver than mine. EVERYBODY loves Adrian and Evelyn!!

[atomationage]

19 hours ago, Marsupial said:

I love the character Carmen on Devious Maids

The character of Carmen is not that interesting, but I think the actress does a terrific job with it, better than most of the rest of the cast. 

[zxy556575]

This may be one of those silent majority opinions, but I don't hate any networks. I don't believe Food Network sucks, HGTV has gone downhill, TLC and Bravo only air crap, USA has betrayed its core audience, Syfy ruins everything, etc. etc. The assertion is always that things "used to be" a lot better.

The network bashing can be a little over the top, is what I'm saying.

[caci]

My UO is that I don't fault the networks for putting on programming that brings in good ratings.  I hate, hate, hate that BBC America shows Star Trek TNG all the time.  However, someone must be watching it and the network is a business that needs good ratings.  I would love a law that says a network must show programming that fits their name, history shows on the History channel and such but that won't happen.  If certain shows don't bring in the ratings and revenue a channel needs to stay solvent, I can't really blame them for putting on ones that do.

[ganesh]

Actually, scifi has a record of canceling shows over a 10+ year period by essentially yanking the rug out from under them. Largely due to the 2-3 year cycle of turnover at the top. I'd say the reputation is fairly well earned. Whether that's continued or not, I don't know because I stopped watching the network after Eureka because I'd had enough. 

USA may not have betrayed its core audience, but there's also been a shift in the programming tone. 

Things aren't nearly as bad/good as people make them out to me, but sometimes, there is some evidence to support. 

Though I tend to think networks are running on a business model that's decades obsolete. 

[ganesh]

I guess it's unpopular to actually watch an episode of your show, and not go and ask TPTBs to tell you what you just watched.

[ChromaKelly]

I don't know where to put this, figured here is as good as anywhere.
The world needs to come together and decide on a spoiler policy for the release-the-entire-season-at-once shows. I really don't think a week is long enough. I watch those shows usually one episode an evening, in between the other regular weekly shows I watch ,so it might take me a few weeks to watch the whole thing. I understand the world does not revolve around me, but I feel a couple weeks of at least warning people and/or not making it painfully obvious with thinkpieces posted everywhere on social media and key actors appearing on the talk show circuit would be courteous.
To be honest, I'm not a fan of the all-at-once method anyway. Discussing TV shows is part of my enjoyment, and it's hard to do when a show is released like that.

[izabella]

On 6/30/2016 at 9:17 PM, ganesh said:

I guess it's unpopular to actually watch an episode of your show, and not go and ask TPTBs to tell you what you just watched.

I really dislike this trend of TPTB explaining their shows.  I'm annoyed that they, apparently, can't make their shows self-explanatory and have to fill in with additional commentary.  If I'm supposed to know from the show that someone is actually dead, then I shouldn't need a showrunner to tell me afterwards and what he was thinking as he lay dying.  It should be in the show writing, not TPTB having to clarify it later because it was unclear.

I blame it on Lost because that's the first time in my experience that the show runners were front and center with so much exposition about things that shouldn't be so unclear if they really are telling a cohesive story.  Which, it turns out, they weren't.

[ganesh]

I'm confident in my abilities to infer or logically deduce what's going on and what the characters are thinking. TPTBs should expect viewers to carefully pay attention to the show, so I expect you are going to put together a good show. If you're going on twitter to 'clarify' then you did a poor job. 

What bothers me is when episode discussions include 'things from twitter.' What I think is at least as bad if not worse is when viewers go on twitter to ask TPTBs to tell them what they just watched. I watched the show too! You can ask me and we can talk about the episode together! Because then you're saying,"I don't know why TPTB said that, this is what I saw from that scene." And you're talking about them and not the show. Typically, if asked, the mods will tell everyone to move twitter to the media thread. 

[SmithW6079]

On 6/13/2016 at 9:53 PM, kiddo82 said:

I love American Ninja Warrior but all the human interest stories are starting to get to me.  Don't get me wrong, it's great that these folks one are competing for their daughters or their grandfathers or their rescue dogs.  And they do seem like really great people who deserve the attention.  It's just...after the umpteenth time...it all kind of blends together.  It's not the athletes' fault but memo to the producers, when everything tugs at the heartstrings, nothing does.  I like an interesting back story as much as the next person, but I'm more interested in seeing amazing athletes do amazing things.  

Normally, I would agree, and in previous years, I've fast-forwarded and muted the stories, but this year, I don't mind them as much as I used to. 

[zxy556575]

10 hours ago, izabella said:

I really dislike this trend of TPTB explaining their shows.  I'm annoyed that they, apparently, can't make their shows self-explanatory and have to fill in with additional commentary

A corollary to this is making additional content available online. I'm sure many viewers enjoy it or else networks wouldn't put so much effort and money into it, but all the bonus clips, behind-the-scenes interviews, games, contests, interactive maps, last chance kitchens, bloopers, etc. make me cross (especially when they get discussed online as if they were part of the show).

It's just more of the same -- creators not being able to tell an adequate story in the time given. I should not be expected to rummage around some network's slow, buggy and tracker-laden site in order to figure out what's going on.

[Rick Kitchen]

What's even worse is when you have to go online to see additional content that's supposed to carry forward the story.  Heroes did that a lot.

[ganesh]

I just don't have the time. I certainly don't mind interviews or bts stuff, if I'm clicking around or happen to see it in my FB feed, but if online content has to be part of the show, well, there's a lot of shows out there now, and I'm going to move on. 

[TattleTeeny]

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TLC and Bravo only air crap

I'm not saying I think what they do air is "crap" (I mean, maybe it is, but it often entertains me!) but I do recall that these both of these channels used to offer a lot more educational, documentary-style stuff. 

[Hanahope]

I must have been the one person on earth who wasn't glued to  "Must See TV" in the 80s and 90s.  I was in college, then grad school, doing stuff with my 20 something friends and playing computer games instead of watching TV all the time.  I caught an episode of Cheers and Friends now and again and found both to be pretty stupid. I don't even recognize any of the shows listed in the 'gap fillers' for those shows.  I only recall watching Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Buffy during that time.

[TaraS1]

On 7/1/2016 at 11:12 AM, ChromaKelly said:

I don't know where to put this, figured here is as good as anywhere.
The world needs to come together and decide on a spoiler policy for the release-the-entire-season-at-once shows. I really don't think a week is long enough. I watch those shows usually one episode an evening, in between the other regular weekly shows I watch ,so it might take me a few weeks to watch the whole thing. I understand the world does not revolve around me, but I feel a couple weeks of at least warning people and/or not making it painfully obvious with thinkpieces posted everywhere on social media and key actors appearing on the talk show circuit would be courteous.
To be honest, I'm not a fan of the all-at-once method anyway. Discussing TV shows is part of my enjoyment, and it's hard to do when a show is released like that.

I mentioned this in the OITNB thread a couple weeks ago, but S4 dropped at midnight/3am/whatever and literally at 11am, TV Guide's app had already given away a major spoiler, complete with a photo of the person involved and a headline that made it obvious what the spoiler was.  They couldn't use a photo of the whole cast with some vague headline and put the spoiler inside the article?  Stupid TV Guide.

Edited July 5, 2016 by TaraS1
Because OINTB is not a show. OITNB is.

[Chaos Theory]

1 hour ago, TaraS1 said:

I mentioned this in the OITNB thread a couple weeks ago, but S4 dropped at midnight/3am/whatever and literally at 11am, TV Guide's app had already given away a major spoiler, complete with a photo of the person involved and a headline that made it obvious what the spoiler was.  They couldn't use a photo of the whole cast with some vague headline and put the spoiler inside the article?  Stupid TV Guide.

The only major complaint I have with Netflix is their "review section" which is a joke.  I made the mistake of looking at it before I checked out season 4 and this was the day after it dropped and almost every other post was a major spoiler.  

I am by no means a spoilerphobe and I think some peoples hatred of spoilers borders on unrealistic and impossible in today's world but when it comes to binge shows that drop a dozen episodes in a day it isn't too much to ask to hold major spoilers for a couple of days simply out of respect.

[Sandman87]

10 hours ago, Hanahope said:

I must have been the one person on earth who wasn't glued to  "Must See TV" in the 80s and 90s.  I was in college, then grad school, doing stuff with my 20 something friends and playing computer games instead of watching TV all the time.  I caught an episode of Cheers and Friends now and again and found both to be pretty stupid. I don't even recognize any of the shows listed in the 'gap fillers' for those shows.  I only recall watching Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Buffy during that time.

Heh. I went through a time in the late '90s where I didn't watch any TV for three years. Oh, how did I ever live without Dharma and Greg, Cow & Chicken, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, or the Fantasy Island revival? :)

[Marsupial]

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I really dislike this trend of TPTB explaining their shows

I really, really hate this. It's lazy, insulting and IMO strips the creators of any pretense to minimal competence, let alone to any "artistic vision" they claim. Matthew Weiner is the WORST offender, every damn episode of Mad Men and The Sopranos that left audiences going "wtf?" were always followed by Weiner's paternalistic and insufferable explanations to the dunderheaded masses about what they "really" saw or, worse yet, "should have seen" if only they had  Weiner's special artistic insight and intellectual prowess.

I no longer watch "Game of Thrones" but those writers/producers were the same. I recall many controversial scenes and episodes being explained away in the same manner.

It's like the person who cheats on their spouse saying, "You didn't really see that." Who am I gonna believe?.

Now, I certainly appreciate hearing the views of creators about their subjects. I enjoy interviews with writers, directors and so on where they explain their craft or talk about different technical difficulties they had to overcome, how they get their ideas, and so on. It is interesting and certainly enhances your enjoyment of a show. But notice that the good ones don't feel a need to tell you what you saw, because they've already put it out there for you to see. They already did that.

[caci]

Marsupial, I wish I could give you ten likes!  I love listening to commentaries because I like hearing insights to the creative process.  However, what is on the screen should not have to be explained to the general audience.  If so, the writer has not done his or her job well.  

[ABay]

With Weiner in particular, when I heard his opinion on what viewers were meant to take from a scene, I always thought "1.Then why did you make it look like the exact opposite and 2. You don't get to decide how I interpret what I watch." 

[MaryPatShelby]

I agree with all the above comments about TPTB, and what I really dislike are comment threads with posts like "I listened to the podcast and the showrunner said that this character thought X and that scene meant Y", effectively shutting down discussion/interpretation because now we know what we're supposed to think.

[Shannon L.]

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effectively shutting down discussion/interpretation because now we know what we're supposed to think.

I don't listen to podcasts or interviews or read tweets from writers (except clicking on the occasional post on face book if it sounds interesting enough), but isn't good writing supposed to make us interpret things different ways and discuss/debate them?  Obviously somethings are pretty straight forward, but other moments should challenge us and make us see things different ways.  Basically, I'm agreeing with you. 

[ganesh]

2 hours ago, MaryPatShelby said:

I agree with all the above comments about TPTB, and what I really dislike are comment threads with posts like "I listened to the podcast and the showrunner said that this character thought X and that scene meant Y", effectively shutting down discussion/interpretation because now we know what we're supposed to think.

I don't think this kind of discussion should be in the episode threads, which is what kicked off this discussion. It's media discussion imo. That's fine if people want to discuss it, but it seems more and more like outside media is a normal part of show discussion, and it's unfair to people who would rather not be part of that.

I mean, not for nothing, there's 57 Game of Thrones discussion threads. I don't think it's too much to ask an episode thread for this show or that to just have viewer input. There's a lot of interesting people here who have a lot of cool stuff to say!

Fundamentally, I really question how many people are just actually watching a show. 

2 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

I don't listen to podcasts or interviews or read tweets from writers (except clicking on the occasional post on face book if it sounds interesting enough), but isn't good writing supposed to make us interpret things different ways and discuss/debate them?  Obviously somethings are pretty straight forward, but other moments should challenge us and make us see things different ways.  Basically, I'm agreeing with you. 

A case that stood out to me: When Tyrion shot Tywin on GOT, it was a big moment. Then everyone was posting what TPTBs said about what he was thinking when he did it. How about enjoying several different takes on it instead? Was it an accident? Was it premeditated? Did he snap when he saw his gf in his bed? It was a great unexpected scene; there doesn't need to be one definitive take on it. 

Edited July 9, 2016 by ganesh

[supposebly]

I rarely pay attention to any posting that explains to me what I was supposed to see. I think showrunners/writers assume that that actually helps. It really doesn't. In the best of cases, I think, well I just saw that! Why are you telling me again? In the worst of cases, I go, well, you really didn't do a good job conveying that since I didn't see it that way. In general, if writers throughout history had to explain what they wanted to write about, then why are you writing in the first place? So, there you are, explaining what you want me to take away from your work. You're basically making the piece of art superfluous in that way. They seem to forget that once it's out there, everyone is entitled to their interpretation and if it's different from what the writer possibly intended, well, tough shit. Shakespeare has been interpreted in ways that probably would make him roll over in his grave many times over but you don't see him raise from the dead and twitter about how his vision is supposed to be and you're too stupid to see it.

Edited July 10, 2016 by supposebly

[ganesh]

4 minutes ago, supposebly said:

They seem to forget that once it's out there, everyone is entitled to their interpretation and if it's different from what the writer possibly intended, well, tough shit.

Like if you go to a museum and you're looking at a painting, and the card says, "Monet; he wants you to look at this and be sad."

The thing with tv is if you're putting together a directed narrative and viewers are talking about a whole bunch of other things, TPTBs are like, "no no no, this is what we're saying." Well, do better then. There's enough original content on now. I have netflix, hulu, and amazon too. 

[selkie]

On 7/5/2016 at 11:49 AM, Hanahope said:

I must have been the one person on earth who wasn't glued to  "Must See TV" in the 80s and 90s.  I was in college, then grad school, doing stuff with my 20 something friends and playing computer games instead of watching TV all the time.  I caught an episode of Cheers and Friends now and again and found both to be pretty stupid. I don't even recognize any of the shows listed in the 'gap fillers' for those shows.  I only recall watching Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Buffy during that time.

I was in high school in the 80s and caught a fair amount of Family Ties & Night Court, then went off to a college that actively discouraged tv watching in '90 (middle of nowhere with one channel available over the air and one tv lounge per 80 or so dorm rooms.)  Only really got back into tv in the late 90s, where it was Highlander, Forever Knight, Babylon 5, and Buffy. And ER, which IMO still holds up pretty well in rewatch, at least the years when it wasn't totally The Abby Show and when they kept the George Clooney scenery-chewing to tolerable levels.

Turns out Babylon 5 also spoiled me for fan-show creator interaction because while it was fun to go on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 and read what JMS was saying about prosthetic Centauri sexual organs, it wasn't expected in order to follow or  enjoy the show because not even all the geeks back then made it to usenet.

[Marsupial]

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They seem to forget that once it's out there, everyone is entitled to their interpretation and if it's different from what the writer possibly intended, well, tough shit. Shakespeare has been interpreted in ways that probably would make him roll over in his grave many times over but you don't see him raise from the dead and twitter about how his vision is supposed to be and you're too stupid to see it.

This made me LOL. Exactly!

I remember an interview with Michael Stipe of R.E.M. years ago, when the subject of the band's often impregnable or confusing lyrics came up. Stipe responded that he saw no need to explain them because he assumed that everyone who listened to their songs would put their own interpretation on them anyway, and who was he to correct or interfere with that? I was a fan before that and it just doubled my love for R.E.M.

caci, thank you for your kind comment. I also enjoy commentaries but I never do the podcast/twitter thing.

[Joe]

I remember in the last season of Buffy, and then Battlestar Galactica, the writers seemed to spend more time doing interviews than workiing on their scripts. Sounds like the problem has only gotten worse since then.

[tribeca]

I have never seen the show Buffy and have no desire too.   

[Wiendish Fitch]

I don't like Joss Whedon, and I'm sick of him being heralded as this pillar of feminism when the characters he tends to favor are cutesy girl-women and utter asshole men. And I think Mal from Firefly is a complete and utter shit, and the same goes for Jayne.

[DittyDotDot]

4 hours ago, Joe said:

I remember in the last season of Buffy, and then Battlestar Galactica, the writers seemed to spend more time doing interviews than workiing on their scripts. Sounds like the problem has only gotten worse since then.

Yeah, that's my issue with this whole social media crazy for writers and such. I don't mind discussing their viewpoints after I've actually watched the show--I don't have to adopt their intent as my own interpretation and their intent can actually add to the discussion rather than shut it down--if it's all kept in perspective, that is. However, seems like they wouldn't need to explain it if they spent their time actually writing the story rather than wasting time tweeting about the story they're supposed to be writing.

[UYI]

On 7/5/2016 at 11:22 PM, Sandman87 said:

Heh. I went through a time in the late '90s where I didn't watch any TV for three years. Oh, how did I ever live without Dharma and Greg, Cow & Chicken, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, or the Fantasy Island revival? :)

 

Hey, I like Dharma & Greg! 

And The Love Boat revival, The Love Boat: The Next Wave, at least had the eternally hot Robert Urich (RIP) as the star. 

Edited July 10, 2016 by UYI

[UYI]

On 7/5/2016 at 0:49 PM, Hanahope said:

I must have been the one person on earth who wasn't glued to  "Must See TV" in the 80s and 90s.  I was in college, then grad school, doing stuff with my 20 something friends and playing computer games instead of watching TV all the time.  I caught an episode of Cheers and Friends now and again and found both to be pretty stupid. I don't even recognize any of the shows listed in the 'gap fillers' for those shows.  I only recall watching Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Buffy during that time.

I like some of the Must See TV shows like Family Ties, Friends and Will & Grace, but I think I would have preferred ABC's Tuesday night line up in the 80's and 90's (shows like Roseanne, Coach, The Wonder Years, thirtysomething and NYPD Blue) more as a whole to NBC's Thursday night line up (which was the Must See TV line up). And I KNOW how unpopular that is. 

[Chaos Theory]

8 hours ago, Joe said:

I remember in the last season of Buffy, and then Battlestar Galactica, the writers seemed to spend more time doing interviews than workiing on their scripts. Sounds like the problem has only gotten worse since then.

Battlestar Galactica at least had an excuse.  It was in a lot of ways a casualty of the writers strike.   When writers don't write they tend to talk about what they wrote.  

Edited July 10, 2016 by Chaos Theory

[ganesh]

iirc, RDM used to do a podcast/commentary, so you could rewatch the BSG episode while he was talking. It was like, this is how we did this shot, this is why I wanted to open the show with this scene, etc. 

Stuff like that is cool.

[Marsupial]

"Roseanne" was an excellent show, actually, it was groundbreaking in many ways and not least because it showed actual working-class life in America as no other show has done in my memory. I appreciated the fact that the family's home was a normal middle-class house rather than an unrealistic showplace, and that nobody on the show looked like they were attending a model's convention (Becky was pretty, she was "the pretty one," but she was not depicted as a drop-dead beauty always dressed in the latest fashions). I get really tired of everybody in every American TV show and movie looking perfectly thin, coiffed and Botoxed, living in homes that belong in Architectural Digest, especially when the premise of the show is that they're teachers or police detectives or whatever.

The only other show that did this was "Married with Children," and another of my UOs is that I loved that show, too.

I never heard of "Cow and Chicken"!!! What have I missed?

[Wiendish Fitch]

34 minutes ago, Marsupial said:

I never heard of "Cow and Chicken"!!! What have I missed?

Not much, I assure you.

[caci]

My UO is that I didn't like Roseanne and thought it was pretty overrated, esp. as the show progressed.

[fishcakes]

1 hour ago, Marsupial said:

"Roseanne" was an excellent show, actually, it was groundbreaking in many ways and not least because it showed actual working-class life in America as no other show has done in my memory. I appreciated the fact that the family's home was a normal middle-class house rather than an unrealistic showplace,

One of my favorite lines is when Roseanne says to a visitor, "sorry about the mess, but we live here." I sometimes use that when someone I wasn't expecting drops in at my house.

Edited July 10, 2016 by fishcakes

[ribboninthesky1]

1 hour ago, ganesh said:

iirc, RDM used to do a podcast/commentary, so you could rewatch the BSG episode while he was talking. It was like, this is how we did this shot, this is why I wanted to open the show with this scene, etc. 

Stuff like that is cool.

See, I have zero interest in commentary.  I can objectively appreciate the creative process, but I can't stand to hear someone droning on in voiceover about it.  I remember trying to sit through commentary on the few TV DVDs I have, and couldn't do it.  Maybe I could tolerate reading someone's thoughts about their show, as it's less intrusive for me.  That said, I don't give much of a damn about creators' (or actors') opinions of their shows.  Just write it, and I'll enjoy it or I won't. I don't feel any sort of unspoken social contract with TPTB, especially in a time when there's a lot of stuff to watch.  It's why I'm the type to abandon a show after a pilot if my interest isn't piqued.

I'm usually more interested in other viewers' opinions.  

Re: social media and TPTB - I keep wondering when there'll be a critical mass of this kind of interaction. It seems to blow up in their faces more often than not, and I suspect there will be a shift, if not withdrawal, of showrunners/writers engaging with viewers directly.  

Quote

I have never seen the show Buffy and have no desire too.   

You are not alone! Plus, I've always had a visceral reaction to Sarah Michelle Gellar. 

Edited July 10, 2016 by ribboninthesky1
Added a quote

[ganesh]

31 minutes ago, ribboninthesky1 said:

It seems to blow up in their faces more often than not, and I suspect there will be a shift, if not withdrawal, of showrunners/writers engaging with viewers directly.  

TPTBs are too easily accessible nowadays. If you have a really good show, you're excited to interact and talk about it with the fans. If your show isn't that good, you're using social media as a crutch to 'fix' your show. 

I just don't like that it's seemingly considered the 'norm' now, and I'd like for there to be some acknowledgement that there's a decent enough segment of viewership that doesn't want to interact in that way.

Edited July 10, 2016 by ganesh

[ribboninthesky1]

I suspect MOST viewers don't interact in that way.  I believe that, as it's always been, there's a very vocal minority that expends time and energy engaging with TPTB.  

[ganesh]

I don't know. I think it's a sizeable segment of viewership.