Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[proserpina65]

17 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I thought disliking Firefly was the UO? Well, in any case, my opinion earlier was short-sighted, and I apologize to anyone I may have offended.

I will never apologize for disliking Firefly and everything about it, though. That UO I will defend to my last breath. :)

You need never apologize for liking or disliking anything.  I loved it, but fully accept that others hated it.  At least it wasn't boring. ;-)

[festivus]

Disliking Firefly is the unpopular opinion I think but liking the opening song used to be an UO. Maybe it's not anymore, it's been a long time since I watched the show or read anything about it.

[ganesh]

18 hours ago, Browncoat said:

More people didn't like it than did -- and that's part of why it was cancelled halfway through the season. 

I don't think that's entirely accurate. They buried it on a Friday night with minimal promotion. 

[DearEvette]

Fox interfered with the show from the start.  They ran eps out of order messing with story continuity and it was constantly pre-empted.  People who watched the show loved the show (I am one of them) but it was a hard show to actually watch because it could never get ratings traction.

I will admit I found Mal's attitude toward Inara problematic and thought Whedon only gave lip service to a progressive idea of sex work.  But then again I was attracted to the show in the first place only because of Gina Torres.

[proserpina65]

24 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Fox interfered with the show from the start.  They ran eps out of order messing with story continuity and it was constantly pre-empted.  People who watched the show loved the show (I am one of them) but it was a hard show to actually watch because it could never get ratings traction.

I will admit I found Mal's attitude toward Inara problematic and thought Whedon only gave lip service to a progressive idea of sex work.  But then again I was attracted to the show in the first place only because of Gina Torres.

I never saw it when Fox ran it.  I managed to catch it on SyFy because a friend talked about it so much.  I'm kinda glad, because that way I saw episodes in order.

Gina Torres rocked, and the relationship between Zoe and Wash was my favorite part of the show.

[Bort]

3 hours ago, festivus said:

Disliking Firefly is the unpopular opinion I think but liking the opening song used to be an UO.

I don't remember lots of dislike about the Firefly opening song. I remember plenty of backlash about the Enterprise opening song, though.

[GaT]

13 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

I don't remember lots of dislike about the Firefly opening song. I remember plenty of backlash about the Enterprise opening song, though.

We've rewatched Enterprise a number of times & to this day, that "song" sets my teeth on edge. What a ridiculous song for a science fiction show, & even when they changed the tempo to "fix" it, it was still ridiculous. I still don't understand why they just didn't get a new song.

[slf]

2 hours ago, GaT said:

We've rewatched Enterprise a number of times & to this day, that "song" sets my teeth on edge. What a ridiculous song for a science fiction show, & even when they changed the tempo to "fix" it, it was still ridiculous. I still don't understand why they just didn't get a new song.

UO: between the two I'd take Enterprise's theme over Firefly's any day. With the former, corny as it was, the images worked really well with it. The Firefly theme was just atrocious ("there's no place I can be since I found Seren-ity"; Joss Whedon is no song writer).

[DearEvette]

13 minutes ago, slf said:

UO: between the two I'd take Enterprise's theme over Firefly's any day. With the former, corny as it was, the images worked really well with it. The Firefly theme was just atrocious ("there's no place I can be since I found Seren-ity"; Joss Whedon is no song writer).

Put me in the camp of hating that damned Firefly song.  I don't know if it a UO or not, but that song is awful.  LOL.

[Bort]

I actually didn’t hate Enterprise theme either. I loved the visuals of the opening sequence and while I think it would’ve been better to go with an instrumental song like the previous series’, it was still fine for me. 

[GaT]

27 minutes ago, slf said:

Joss Whedon is no song writer).

He wrote all the words & music for the "Once More With Feeling" episode of Buffy

[slf]

4 minutes ago, GaT said:

He wrote all the words & music for the "Once More With Feeling" episode of Buffy

I hated those songs! I thought that episode was fun in parts but mostly self-indulgent. 

[juno]

I never enjoyed Breaking Bad but I enjoy Better Call Saul. As a result I don't care about the connection between the two and certainly don't care when Jimmy becomes Saul. Tough to enjoy Saul when all people talk about is BB and the connection.

[Miss Dee]

Don't know if this is UO or not: I think the credits for The Good Fight and Star Trek: Discovery beat those for Game of Thrones.

[Wiendish Fitch]

I think I finally pinpointed why I really hate Mike from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul: nothing ever goes wrong for him. He plans something, it works. He wants something, he gets it. He does something, it goes off without a hitch (or the hitch is small and easily corrected). 

Maybe my memory is faulty, because it's been ages since I watched Breaking Bad, and surely stuff went wrong for Mike then, but on Better Call Saul? Everything Mike does seems to fall meticulously into place, according to plan. And you know what I call characters who never make mistakes, never have stuff blow up in their face, and never fail?

BORING.

The Mike scenes are just excruciating, because there is absolutely no tension. None. People love to sing the praises of Walter White and what a badass he was, but it's easy to forget that Walt screwed up dozens of times, did stupid, impulsive things, had plans that backfired, and often showed crap judgment. Yeah, he often wriggled out of bad situations sooner or later, but when he did, wasn't it more suspenseful and interesting than if he always got his way when he wanted it? Vince Gilligan's universe is populated by characters who are flawed, human, and most importantly? They don't always succeed. Even inhuman mastermind Gus occasionally made an error. Mike almost never screws up, never shows concern (or any human emotion, now that I think about it), so it never feels that there's anything at stake. It's dull, Mike's dull, and he's frankly dragging down Better Call Saul.

[Kel Varnsen]

9 hours ago, ganesh said:

I don't think that's entirely accurate. They buried it on a Friday night with minimal promotion. 

The idea that that show was "buried" on Friday night always seemed like an exaggeration to me. Have a look at the schedule for that season. There are pretty much no good timeslots that don't involve going up against ratings powerhouses like CSI or friends, FOX moving around their popular shows like their Sunday animation block or American Idol, or putting it on Tuesday night against Buffy. Although the amount of whining Whedon would have done if Buffy and Firefly were competing would have been funnier than anything on that season.

[ganesh]

No, FOX tends to stick scifi shows on Friday nights at the time. If there's no good time slots, then why take the show, jam in on Friday night, demand a new pilot, and then summarily cancel it? Don't take the show. 

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I think I finally pinpointed why I really hate Mike from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul: nothing ever goes wrong for him.

I think he had one thing go wrong for him. 

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The idea that that show was "buried" on Friday night always seemed like an exaggeration to me. Have a look at the schedule for that season. There are pretty much no good timeslots that don't involve going up against ratings powerhouses like CSI or friends, FOX moving around their popular shows like their Sunday animation block or American Idol, or putting it on Tuesday night against Buffy. Although the amount of whining Whedon would have done if Buffy and Firefly were competing would have been funnier than anything on that season.

I thought there were a ton of issues with Firefly that put it at a disadvantage beyond the scheduling.

A lot of the promotion before airing the pilot was heavy on Western is Space.  I personally had no desire at the time to watch a Western in Space.

I think Inara's profession automatically got rid of the younger audience who had parents paying attention.  I think this was a problem for Dollhouse too only more extreme.  Until you got to know the characters there is a certain 'are all these people assholes' aspect to the show that parts of the audience aren't going gravitate to and this show didn't really hook me in deep enough to get over that.

Then there were the people who were irritated on Buffy's declining quality and blaming Firefly for it.

It was niche from the outset.  No matter where you put it, its wasn't going to command a large audience.  I have had infuriating conversations with people who won't watch serialized shows because "they have to watch it every week" but then watch crappy sitcoms every week without fail.

I think this show had a core set of viewers that saw something special in it sooner than everyone else who came to it later. I certainly didn't.  I do appreciate it more in hindsight but its because of the actors' later work that made me give it more of a chance long after it was cancelled.

[ChromaKelly]

11 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I think I finally pinpointed why I really hate Mike from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul: nothing ever goes wrong for him. He plans something, it works. He wants something, he gets it. He does something, it goes off without a hitch (or the hitch is small and easily corrected). 

Maybe my memory is faulty, because it's been ages since I watched Breaking Bad, and surely stuff went wrong for Mike then, but on Better Call Saul? Everything Mike does seems to fall meticulously into place, according to plan. And you know what I call characters who never make mistakes, never have stuff blow up in their face, and never fail?

BORING.

The Mike scenes are just excruciating, because there is absolutely no tension. None. People love to sing the praises of Walter White and what a badass he was, but it's easy to forget that Walt screwed up dozens of times, did stupid, impulsive things, had plans that backfired, and often showed crap judgment. Yeah, he often wriggled out of bad situations sooner or later, but when he did, wasn't it more suspenseful and interesting than if he always got his way when he wanted it? Vince Gilligan's universe is populated by characters who are flawed, human, and most importantly? They don't always succeed. Even inhuman mastermind Gus occasionally made an error. Mike almost never screws up, never shows concern (or any human emotion, now that I think about it), so it never feels that there's anything at stake. It's dull, Mike's dull, and he's frankly dragging down Better Call Saul.

Yep, that's an Unpopular Opinion alright. I love Mike, so it's hard not to refute the whole post, but I will put up the "I broke my boy" scene for Mike showing emotion. He does show emotion, it's just in very subtle, quiet ways.

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 hour ago, ChromaKelly said:

Yep, that's an Unpopular Opinion alright. I love Mike, so it's hard not to refute the whole post, but I will put up the "I broke my boy" scene for Mike showing emotion. He does show emotion, it's just in very subtle, quiet ways.

Fair enough.

[Sweet Tee]

I never liked Mike either.  He's not compelling at all to me.

[ganesh]

I'd also say that he's totally wound up tight because he blames himself too and just walking into situations where he can die. 

[proserpina65]

18 hours ago, kariyaki said:

I actually didn’t hate Enterprise theme either. I loved the visuals of the opening sequence and while I think it would’ve been better to go with an instrumental song like the previous series’, it was still fine for me. 

I hated the Enterprise theme with the fire of a thousand burning nuns.  The visuals were stunning and perfect for the show, but the song sucked.

[ABay]

And now for something completely different. I could not stand Liam on the 2017 Great British Bake Off (the season that just dropped on Netflix). His almost universal popularity makes my eyes roll so hard they're sprained. 

[Guest]

I'm not sure which season was the last watchable season of Great British Bake Off was but the show has sucked for several seasons now.

The challenges got much less impressive.  They either changed the time constraints on the bakers of they are running out of talented home bakers.

[scarynikki12]

I still enjoy the show, but my favorite season was Nadiya's so I guess, technically, I'm not enjoying it as much as I did that year. 

[Winter Rose]

15 hours ago, ABay said:

And now for something completely different. I could not stand Liam on the 2017 Great British Bake Off (the season that just dropped on Netflix). His almost universal popularity makes my eyes roll so hard they're sprained. 

I don't get the love for Liam either, that's more annoying to me than he is. I wouldn't go as far saying I hate him but I did think he was kind of a brat.

I had a similar problem with the Brendan love. I was at least glad in the end that I wasn't the only one who found him smug, but I'm petty like that.

[Hanahope]

I just started a free Hulu month, so watching The Handmaid's Tale.  I reached the episode where she's in the old Boston Globe offices and finds a DVD of Friends.  It reminded me how I hated that show.  I would literally scream if my only form of 'entertainment' was a Friends DVD.  

[Kel Varnsen]

On 04/09/2018 at 11:27 PM, ganesh said:

No, FOX tends to stick scifi shows on Friday nights at the time. If there's no good time slots, then why take the show, jam in on Friday night, demand a new pilot, and then summarily cancel it? Don't take the show. 

I get having to put something on, Fox only does network programming from 8-10 so it is probably not easy to just abandon a timeslot. As for always putting sci-fi stuff on Friday it kind of makes sense from a network executive's point of view. To them at least the target audience would be nerds with no social lives so they probably would be home on Friday nights anyways. Plus X-files a hit on Friday night for FOX only like 7 years earlier.

[Joe]

I didn't like Firefly, though I did like the theme music. But the show I liked even less was Cowboy Bebop. Though that too had some great music.

[ganesh]

7 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Plus X-files a hit on Friday night for FOX only like 7 years earlier.

It actually wasn't. X Files didn't take off until it moved to Sundays. Nerds also do stuff on weekends too that preclude sitting in front of the TV. 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I get having to put something on, Fox only does network programming from 8-10 so it is probably not easy to just abandon a timeslot. As for always putting sci-fi stuff on Friday it kind of makes sense from a network executive's point of view. To them at least the target audience would be nerds with no social lives so they probably would be home on Friday nights anyways.

I think sci fi goes on Friday because its expected to have a small audience on any night and networks think sci fi has a better chance of reaching a demo that advertisers find hard to reach.  Getting a higher fraction of a preferred demo on a small night can allow shows to survive on a Friday when they wouldn't anywhere else.

At least I think this used to be the wisdom before more sci fi shows started thriving on Sundays.  I remember a sci fi show that got cancelled specifically for skewing too female years and years ago.

But its also a dump night.

[Bastet]

13 minutes ago, ganesh said:

It actually wasn't. X Files didn't take off until it moved to Sundays.

It was moved because it had become a hit despite its Friday timeslot; the season four premiere garnered well over 20 million viewers (double its season one average) and the next few episodes remained in the 18-19 million range, at which point it was moved to Sundays.  It averaged about 19 million for the season, and held fairly steady over the next two seasons, before dropping off significantly and steadily.

[ganesh]

That's not my recollection of the account. 

[Brookside]

David Letterman.  Not funny, not interesting, and with an ego the size of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  Why did your guests have their backs to the audience?  Rude, disrespectful, and making the show all about "me, me, me."

[Blergh]

6 minutes ago, Brookside said:

David Letterman.  Not funny, not interesting, and with an ego the size of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  Why did your guests have their backs to the audience?  Rude, disrespectful, and making the show all about "me, me, me."

THANK YOU! I also disliked him drinking 'coffee' (or whatever was in those cups) without even attempting to hide it from the home audience much less waiting for a commercial to consume it! You're at work. Have some respect! Hey, if the rest of us working folks can do our jobs during ontask times and wait for coffee breaks without  making anywhere close to your astronomical salary, so can YOU, Mr. Letterman!

 

Ironically, I was rooting for Mr. Leno to take Johnny Carson's spot over him but even Mr. Letterman's annoying personality wound up paling in comparison to Mr. Leno's snotty and underhanded one. I mean, at least Mr. Letterman didn't attempt to hide his true persona beneath a paper thin 'nice guy' veneer. IOW, I find them both quite unlikable but Mr. Letterman wound up being (slightly) less unlikable!

[roamyn]

On 9/8/2018 at 11:24 AM, Brookside said:

David Letterman.  Not funny, not interesting, and with an ego the size of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  Why did your guests have their backs to the audience?  Rude, disrespectful, and making the show all about "me, me, me."

Yeah, I never “got” him, either.  To me, Jimmy Fallon is the same...”me, me, me” and seems snobbish.

 I also heartily dislike Conan.  Not the man, but his ‘comedy’.  He’s not the least bit funny.

Then again, I like Jimmy Kimmel (have since The Man Show), and most people dislike him.

[GaT]

On 9/5/2018 at 4:48 PM, ABay said:

And now for something completely different. I could not stand Liam on the 2017 Great British Bake Off (the season that just dropped on Netflix). His almost universal popularity makes my eyes roll so hard they're sprained. 

 

On 9/6/2018 at 8:12 AM, Winter Rose said:

I don't get the love for Liam either, that's more annoying to me than he is. I wouldn't go as far saying I hate him but I did think he was kind of a brat.

I had no idea he was that popular, & I didn't care about him either way, but I just started watching Bake Off: The Professionals & to my surprise, Liam is one of the hosts! He really must be popular.

[Madding crowd]

On 8/30/2018 at 9:51 PM, ganesh said:

I like watching Better Call Saul. It's a really good show. But wow it is overscrutinized.

On top of that, most discussion has to be about some connection to Breaking Bad and if you forget one little thing about a show you saw years ago, you are judged as not knowing enough and are referred to a  Breaking Bad Wiki Page.

I loved B.B. and it was a wonderfully written show. But there were a lot of characters and I can’t remember the life story of every one. And I think you can have an opinion on Saul without it having to refer back to B.B.. 

[Anela]

1 hour ago, Madding crowd said:

On top of that, most discussion has to be about some connection to Breaking Bad and if you forget one little thing about a show you saw years ago, you are judged as not knowing enough and are referred to a  Breaking Bad Wiki Page.

I loved B.B. and it was a wonderfully written show. But there were a lot of characters and I can’t remember the life story of every one. And I think you can have an opinion on Saul without it having to refer back to B.B.. 

I haven't watched BB for five years, but rest assured, there will always be someone with a seemingly photographic memory, to correct my mistakes, if I quote something wrong, or just have a bad memory. I usually appreciate it, definitely more than the, "You could watch it again" comments, if I ask about something. I'm not talking about BB here, it happens on any popular show, and I envy the memories of others. 

All over the internet, people have been a bit more than snarky, this year. Not just with me. I got jumped on in a facebook group, for not thinking a show and its characters were perfect. I hope she was just having a bad day, and took it out on me, because I'm not that smitten with anything. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Anela

[Chaos Theory]

On 9/6/2018 at 9:59 PM, ParadoxLost said:

 

At least I think this used to be the wisdom before more sci fi shows started thriving on Sundays.  I remember a sci fi show that got cancelled specifically for skewing too female years and years ago.

I believe that was what happened to the tv version of Blade on Spike.  A channel that supposedly played man shows had a show that had a mostly female viewership so it got cancelled after the 2nd season.  

 

14 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

On top of that, most discussion has to be about some connection to Breaking Bad and if you forget one little thing about a show you saw years ago, you are judged as not knowing enough and are referred to a  Breaking Bad Wiki Page.

I loved B.B. and it was a wonderfully written show. But there were a lot of characters and I can’t remember the life story of every one. And I think you can have an opinion on Saul without it having to refer back to B.B.. 

That is the problem with prequels and/or sequels people who were fans of the original will want to connect the prequel as much as possible and BCS is a true sequel in that The main character plaid a huge roll in BB and as the show goes on so do more and more of the characters so it’s easy to say....”hey it’s the guy who....” every time you see a familiar face. 

I am actually curious if Mayans MC is going to be as connected or just a show that exists in the same universe as Sons Of Anarchy.  Both work for me but i wouldn’t mind seeing characters for SOA stop by.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[dalek]

2 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

I believe that was what happened to the tv version of Blade on Spike.  A channel that supposedly played man shows had a show that had a mostly female viewership so it got cancelled after the 2nd season.  

Yep.  They had promised the advertisers they would hit the key men 17-39 demographic and instead ended up with a show that was the second highest rated show Spike had at that time, but we women got our ovaries all over it, so it had to be cancelled.  In some ways it was inevitable.  The show they created was so very slash able. I'm  not surprised it was popular with women.

[Katy M]

31 minutes ago, dalek said:

Yep.  They had promised the advertisers they would hit the key men 17-39 demographic and instead ended up with a show that was the second highest rated show Spike had at that time, but we women got our ovaries all over it, so it had to be cancelled.  In some ways it was inevitable.  The show they created was so very slash able. I'm  not surprised it was popular with women.

I have honestly never even heard of this show, but I'm surprised, if it was popular with women that some other network didn't pick it up.  Advertisers love advertising to women.

[ganesh]

Scifi has been 50% women since TOS Star Trek. I'm amazed that this still is an issue. Don't you want a lot of people watching your show?

[callie lee 29]

I would be totally fine if The Big Bang Theory continued without Jim Parsons/Sheldon. I had my fill of that character write a few seasons ago. And Amy can go with him.

[Vixenstud]

(Peers in)....So.  I've never seen an eppy of TBBT.

That is all.

(Runs out, ducking)

[Raja]

55 minutes ago, ganesh said:

Scifi has been 50% women since TOS Star Trek. I'm amazed that this still is an issue. Don't you want a lot of people watching your show?

However was Blade seen as SciFi or grindhouse by those in the buying department of Spike?

[Madding crowd]

5 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

I believe that was what happened to the tv version of Blade on Spike.  A channel that supposedly played man shows had a show that had a mostly female viewership so it got cancelled after the 2nd season.  

 

That is the problem with prequels and/or sequels people who were fans of the original will want to connect the prequel as much as possible and BTS is a true sequel in that The main character plaid a huge roll in BB and as the show goes on so do more and more of the characters so it’s easy to say....”hey it’s the guy who....” every time you see a familiar face. 

I am actually curious if Mayans MC is going to me as connected or just a show that exists in the same universe as Sons Of Anarchy.  Both work for me but o wouldn’t mind seeing characters for SOA stop by.

I get a kick out of seeing the familiar faces too-my husband and I often saying ""Hey, it's that guy". But I should be able to comment on something that I see on Better Call Saul, which is supposed to be its own show in its own universe without hearing "But don't you remember, in Season three, this happened," because this is a prequel and nothing inn BB has actually happened yet. 

[ganesh]

I don't mind the connections with Breaking Bad because it is a prequel. It does provide an nice extra layer that I know what Gus' motivation is or how the underground lab was built. It's the overanalysis of every line of dialogue. The judge was telling Kim she needs to get back to work. That's it. There's no code or clues that he's trying to tip her off about Jimmy forging the records. There doesn't need to be 17 pages going over one line of dialogue. 

[ratgirlagogo]

On 8/30/2018 at 10:51 PM, ganesh said:

I like watching Better Call Saul. It's a really good show. But wow it is overscrutinized.

At least it doesn't come with a high-decibel  wrapup show conducted at a breakneck pace by a feverishly overexcited host with guests, call-ins, contests, prizes and  a screaming live audience.