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Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions


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56 minutes ago, Zella said:

Thank you! I do enjoy your posts about that in the show's thread! :) 

Thanks. :-) I feel like I'm ready to explode every time I watch and ep and need to pour out all the thoughts it gave me. LOL.

45 minutes ago, ifionlyknew said:

This is a really good point and applies to a lot of shows.  When I rewatch something I notice things I didn't notice before because I'm looking for them.  I understand why things happen when upon the first watch might have thought WTF.

Yeah, some people really seem to think that "twists" are the most important thing, but it's only good if it's interesting when it isn't a surprise. Plus often it seems like twists that people say would be great if they happened would actually just destroy all the drama that's there and leave nothing in its place after the shock was gone.

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6 hours ago, ifionlyknew said:

I watched ER from start to finish when it originally aired.  I did a complete re watch in 2012.  There is no way I would ever do it again.  I would maybe do the first five or six seasons but then I would have to just pick and choose certain episodes from the later seasons.  

Abby really did drag down the show for me.  I would say it was the actress but I liked her on Newsradio but didn't like her on the Affair.  Or maybe I just didn't like the Affair.

Sounds like you rewatched in the DVD era! I used to have the ER DVDs but got rid of them once the show landed on Hulu. I will just do the bulk S1-S8 next time and will probably start skipping after that. I noticed overall a difference in the vibe once Mark died. 

Yeah it was definitely a mistake to make someone so miserable and selfish the center of the show. I also think Maura Tierney is overrated in the looks department. She’s not ugly but she’s not as beautiful as she’s made out to be. There are certainly more attractive actresses from both ER and in entertainment as a whole. 

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On 1/16/2022 at 11:53 AM, Mabinogia said:

Along with that, I have no problem at all giving up a show that is no longer working for me. Even if it means stopping just before the ending. Once I'm done, I'm done. When I was younger I used to be a completionism, had to see it through to the end (same with books). But I'm older now and don't have as much time to waste on things that don't bring me joy. 

I also no longer like bleak shows. Things like Succession, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, all these well made, highly acclaimed shows are just a hard pass for me. I have gotten to a point where I want my entertainment to be fun. Every once in a while I can use a good tearjerker, but shows about terrible people or good people put into terrible situations do nothing for me anymore.

Amen to that! I'd much rather watch Ghosts or What We Do In The Shadows or even a Frasier rerun that I've seen a dozen times already than a program about disgusting, greedy, hateful SOBs. I can watch the political news on CNN for that.

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On 1/16/2022 at 5:53 PM, Mabinogia said:

I also no longer like bleak shows. Things like Succession, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, all these well made, highly acclaimed shows are just a hard pass for me. I have gotten to a point where I want my entertainment to be fun. Every once in a while I can use a good tearjerker, but shows about terrible people or good people put into terrible situations do nothing for me anymore.

Amen to this. I would also add shows like Dexter and Hannibal to the list. I am just not interested in watching a show that asks its audience to root for a murderer as the primary protagonist of the story. 

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1 hour ago, Llywela said:

Amen to this. I would also add shows like Dexter and Hannibal to the list. I am just not interested in watching a show that asks its audience to root for a murderer as the primary protagonist of the story. 

I always regarded Will as the protagonist of Hannibal.   Anyway, Gillian Anderson stole the show from both of them, IMO.

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On 1/18/2022 at 11:13 AM, Minneapple said:

I tried Succession and it is so.fucking.depressing. I watched a couple episodes and that was it, like everyone on this show is completely hateworthy and not even in a fun way. The acting and writing are top notch but good God I get enough family dysfunction in my real-life relationship with my mother, thanks.

My gripe is that every new episode is just a Groundhog Day of the one before it.  Who will Logan pick to lead the company, Logan leads X to think it's him/her, Logan renegs, repeat.   It's the same damn show every week!

Edited by millennium
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20 hours ago, Zella said:

I really loved the finales for both Justified and The Americans. I found the latter particularly haunting and have thought about it often in the last few months since watching. 

Re The Americans I would have been happier if they had been caught, but watching the train pull away was like karma.

The finale of Breaking Bad was really good.  That was my lockdown binge although it took me months to actually finish it.  I still can't get into Better Call Saul though.  Maybe someday.

 

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31 minutes ago, Haleth said:

Re The Americans I would have been happier if they had been caught, but watching the train pull away was like karma.

The finale of Breaking Bad was really good.  That was my lockdown binge although it took me months to actually finish it.  I still can't get into Better Call Saul though.  Maybe someday.

 

I tried Better Call Saul for a season before seeing Breaking Bad, I guess now is a time to try again to see if knowing the characters from their future makes the prequel more enjoyable.

8 hours ago, millennium said:

Mine is that I think the Seinfeld finale was great and in perfect step with the rest of the series.

Seinfeld was another finale I hated when first watching it but came to understand on a rewatch.  

47 minutes ago, millennium said:

My gripe is that every new episode is just a Groundhog Day of the one before it.  Who will Logan pick to lead the company, Logan leads X to think it's him/her, Logan renegs, repeat.   It's the same damn show every week!

This describes Succession perfectly.  Great acting all around but the plot moves forward at a snail's pace. 

39 minutes ago, Haleth said:

Re The Americans I would have been happier if they had been caught, but watching the train pull away was like karma.

I agree.  It showed us that just because you are free doesn't mean you aren't being punished.

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46 minutes ago, Haleth said:

Re The Americans I would have been happier if they had been caught, but watching the train pull away was like karma.

 

I would have been happier if Page had been killed.   Is that bad?  LOL

Oh, and I wanted a happier ending for poor Martha.

Edited by millennium
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1 hour ago, ifionlyknew said:

Seinfeld was another finale I hated when first watching it but came to understand on a rewatch.  

I never loved the show, but I thought NBC did the finale a disservice by airing a tribute to the show right before the last episode.  They showed everyone’s favorite moments right before the finale centered around clips of . . . everyone’s favorite moments.

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2 hours ago, ifionlyknew said:

I agree.  It showed us that just because you are free doesn't mean you aren't being punished.

I like how on the one hand they're punished by that, but otoh imagine how much more difficult their future would be if that hadn't happened. 

Spoiler

I mean, imagine, bringing along someone who's been barely pretending to herself that she cares about this other country? She had less motivation to adapt to anything than Martha did and would probably punish them for her situation daily forever.

 

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3 hours ago, Haleth said:

Re The Americans I would have been happier if they had been caught, but watching the train pull away was like karma.

I think what I found so interesting about the finale and why it stayed with me for so long is the route any other show would have taken would have been for them

Spoiler

to die or be caught. I think they'd always been ready for those eventualities, but getting what they wanted but at the cost of losing their kids was, I think, more painful than death or prison. I was okay with Philip and Elizabeth getting some sort of karma for all the lives they destroyed and people they killed. So them going back to a country they really don't know anymore that is going to collapse in a few years without the rest of their family was devastating but so, so fitting. 

 

 

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5 hours ago, millennium said:

I would have been happier if Page had been killed.   Is that bad?  LOL

Oh, and I wanted a happier ending for poor Martha.

Nina's ending was horrific. Martha at least got to live.

I'd have been happy if Paige died.

Not sure how unpopular this will be, but I don't like child centered stories in my adult shows. If you're watching say, Dawson's Creek, that's a show about teens. It's fine, and it's what you expect. When I was watching The Americans, and suddenly this snotty ass teenager is eating up all the screen time? Hate it. 

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29 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

Not sure how unpopular this will be, but I don't like child centered stories in my adult shows. If you're watching say, Dawson's Creek, that's a show about teens. It's fine, and it's what you expect. When I was watching The Americans, and suddenly this snotty ass teenager is eating up all the screen time? Hate it. 

I don't know how unpopular my follow-up opinion, but I also think that sometimes when people don't like the teenager characters people say it's just because they're teenagers as if there's nothing else to the criticism. For instance, it never seemed like Sally Draper was very unpopular and I don't think it's that the character was somehow not like a teenage characters. Sometimes there's good reasons for people not liking what's done with teen characters!

That said, I am often annoyed when people want to focus on the teenager as the true hero just because they're the teenager (and therefore are mostly all potential). Like people who would randomly announce that Mad Men was "really Sally's story." Or where people just say that if the show did a spin off about the teenager character grown up they would obviously be twice as good as the story we just watched. Especially when it seems to me that the exact opposite would be true. Like as an adult they can be a totally different person.

Edited by sistermagpie
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29 minutes ago, peachmangosteen said:

I don’t even think I finished season 1 of The Americans. I actually didn’t like or care about Elizabeth or Matthew Rhys’ character at all. I was in it for Stan and Nina. Which I could see where that was gonna go for me so I was like no thanks and just stopped watching lol.

Me either.  Although I disliked him slightly less. I liked the show but I was always hoping they got caught.

I loved Stan and was rooting for him to catch them.  

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47 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

I don't know how unpopular my follow-up opinion, but I also think that sometimes when people don't like the teenager characters people say it's just because they're teenagers as if there's nothing else to the criticism. For instance, it never seemed like Sally Draper was very unpopular and I don't think it's that the character was somehow not like a teenage characters. Sometimes there's good reasons for people not liking what's done with teen characters!

 

For me, that's exactly the problem, that they are teenagers. They are teenagers, doing teenage things, with a teenage perspective, and a teenage POV.  I don't want stories that involve teenagers, simply because I don't like teenagers. I think not liking them because they are teenagers is a perfectly valid position. Sure, there may be other reasons to dislike the teen character, based on story line or actor, but sometimes, it's just because it's teenagers. I don't like younger children either. I'm at the point in life that I'm happy to watch shows where no one is younger than 22.  

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Just now, BlackberryJam said:

For me, that's exactly the problem, that they are teenagers. They are teenagers, doing teenage things, with a teenage perspective, and a teenage POV.  I don't want stories that involve teenagers, simply because I don't like teenagers. I think not liking them because they are teenagers is a perfectly valid position. Sure, there may be other reasons to dislike the teen character, based on story line or actor, but sometimes, it's just because it's teenagers. I don't like younger children either. I'm at the point in life that I'm happy to watch shows where no one is younger than 22.  

Oh, it's definitely a valid position. I don't think it's wrong to feel that way at all - in fact, it's better to just know when you don't like something so you can avoid it! And sometimes, really, even if you don't dislike teenagers as a rule it's obviously a bad idea. I've been shocked when people will be watching a show like Breaking Bad and act like it's a flaw that we're not delving into Walt Jr.'s school life.

I was just talking about a different situation where somebody doesn't always dislike teenagers or female characters or whatever is saying perfectly reasonable (if negative) things and people just dismiss it as people never liking teenagers or being harder on women or whatever.

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16 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Oh, it's definitely a valid position. I don't think it's wrong to feel that way at all - in fact, it's better to just know when you don't like something so you can avoid it! And sometimes, really, even if you don't dislike teenagers as a rule it's obviously a bad idea. I've been shocked when people will be watching a show like Breaking Bad and act like it's a flaw that we're not delving into Walt Jr.'s school life.

I was just talking about a different situation where somebody doesn't always dislike teenagers or female characters or whatever is saying perfectly reasonable (if negative) things and people just dismiss it as people never liking teenagers or being harder on women or whatever.

I gotcha. Sometimes people don't like a story line and get dismissed as if they are JamLikeMe. "Well, it's not that the story is bad, you just don't like teenagers." And you're like, "No that story is bad."

17 minutes ago, ifionlyknew said:

There is a reason soap opera children suffer from SORAS.

Well, that and the rules for children working as actors are difficult for soaps to follow. As long as they aren't showing it's face or anything, I'm fine with using dolls for babies in scenes. Just swaddle it a doll. It's fine. 

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6 hours ago, Crs97 said:

I thought NBC did the finale a disservice by airing a tribute to the show right before the last episode.  They showed everyone’s favorite moments right before the finale centered around clips of . . . everyone’s favorite moments.

That's how I feel.  I love Seinfeld, and I liked the finale at the time, but I thought it was a bit of a let-down.  When I re-watched it later, I loved it, and I realized my initial reaction was heavily influenced by having watched the clip show right before it.

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13 hours ago, Hyacinth B said:

Amen to that! I'd much rather watch Ghosts or What We Do In The Shadows or even a Frasier rerun that I've seen a dozen times already than a program about disgusting, greedy, hateful SOBs. I can watch the political news on CNN for that.

I have gotten to the point where, between all the hateful SOB shows and all the subscriptions one needs to watch everything, I am far more interested in watching reruns of old favorites than watching anything new. There are some rare exceptions, obviously, but most of what is out there just doesn't appeal to me enough to get another streaming subscription, and I gave up cable too. 

Right now I'm watching an old ep of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (the old Melissa Joan Hart version) and enjoying it far more than I would any of the "prestige" shows available. 

I also love old British comedies, so I love your username and photo. 

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2 hours ago, Bastet said:

That's how I feel.  I love Seinfeld, and I liked the finale at the time, but I thought it was a bit of a let-down.  When I re-watched it later, I loved it, and I realized my initial reaction was heavily influenced by having watched the clip show right before it.

I dislike clip shows in general but I have a special disdain for that one for no other reason than it features Green Day's "Time of Your Life."   I hate Green Day, possibly the most overrated band ever.

3 minutes ago, millennium said:

I dislike clip shows in general but I have a special disdain for that one for no other reason than it features Green Day's "Time of Your Life."  

I remember that song got used in a LOT of montages for things back in the day, and at graduations and whatnot as well. Which is funny, because the song is not intended to be a nostalgic look back, if you listen to the lyrics. 

But of course, a lot of people never do pay attention to song lyrics, so....

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New UO: No more Marilyn Monroe.   CNN is running promos ad nauseum for their upcoming Marilyn special which is supposed to reframe/redefine her.   Marilyn died almost sixty years ago.   Can't we just let her rest in peace?   Most of her contemporaries are dead.   The only reason younger generations know who she is, is because Hollywood and the media keep milking her tragedy as a source of revenue.    Enough already.

1 hour ago, Zella said:

Like all the people who think Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" is a love song. . . . 

I thought it was about a postcard.

Edited by millennium
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3 hours ago, Zella said:

Yes!!!!! I'm always astonished when I hear about people picking that for their wedding dance. I've also seen people misinterpret "Don't Stand So Close To Me," which is even more egregious. 

Yes, 60s, 70s and 80s British Rock has a lot of dark corners. Younger fans who only know the music from downloads missed out on reading and dissecting the lyrics on the liner notes or the backs of the albums. Or reading the contemporary magazines for the stories behind the songs.

Pink Floyd is a perfect example. Absolutely brilliant music, but a lot of pain behind so many of the equally brilliant words.

 

The Stones' "Brown Sugar" is another eye-opener.

 

(And so far I don't remember reading any UOs about Fawlty Towers. That makes me very happy.)

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2 hours ago, Hyacinth B said:

Yes, 60s, 70s and 80s British Rock has a lot of dark corners. Younger fans who only know the music from downloads missed out on reading and dissecting the lyrics on the liner notes or the backs of the albums. Or reading the contemporary magazines for the stories behind the songs.

Pink Floyd is a perfect example. Absolutely brilliant music, but a lot of pain behind so many of the equally brilliant words.

 

The Stones' "Brown Sugar" is another eye-opener.

 

(And so far I don't remember reading any UOs about Fawlty Towers. That makes me very happy.)

I think it's more of a personality thing than an age thing, to be honest. I know people who grew up with this music who still have no clue what it's about and no interest in the lyrics. I'm an early 30s Millennial who's always been interested in lyrics--if the music is good but the lyrics are shit, I'm out--and sought out reading them and the stories behind them, whether it was on CDs when I was younger or the internet now, ever since I started actively listening to music independently as a 9/10 year old. 

Edited by Zella
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Quote

Yes, 60s, 70s and 80s British Rock has a lot of dark corners. Younger fans who only know the music from downloads missed out on reading and dissecting the lyrics on the liner notes or the backs of the albums.

Or, just listen to the lyrics of those songs, especially beyond the chorus of the song (see U2's One, another song which you have to wonder whether the people who choose it as a wedding song have actually listened to the full lyrics or not).

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13 hours ago, Annber03 said:

I remember that song got used in a LOT of montages for things back in the day, and at graduations and whatnot as well. Which is funny, because the song is not intended to be a nostalgic look back, if you listen to the lyrics. 

But of course, a lot of people never do pay attention to song lyrics, so....

You would think the fact that the title of that song is actually Good Riddance might clue some people in. 

As for Seinfeld, for me the finale would have been a lot better with no clips at all. No retrospective clip show and no clips every time a witness showed up. The clips in the episode told me they were making it for all the new viewers that would be watching not for actual fans who knew who those people were.

 

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16 hours ago, Bastet said:

That's how I feel.  I love Seinfeld, and I liked the finale at the time, but I thought it was a bit of a let-down.  When I re-watched it later, I loved it, and I realized my initial reaction was heavily influenced by having watched the clip show right before it.

The Seinfeld finale I've always thought was bad.  I forgot about the special that aired before it.  

It's just a glorified clip show.  I know symbolically them ended up in jail has some meaning but still, just....ughhh, whatever. 

I still love the reruns but I never rewatch the finale. No reason to do so. 

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29 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I still love the reruns but I never rewatch the finale. No reason to do so. 

I have a done rewatch (sometimes multiple times) of just about every show I watched from the late 70s/early 80s to now.  And I have never done a rewatch of Seinfeld.  I watched reruns of course before there were streaming services because what else was there to watch?

A friend and I once discussed if we thought Seinfeld was well written and we both agreed we didn't think so.   We thought Frasier was well written.  But we thought Seinfeld was just built around jokes.  It's a classic show for sure but I don't think it is one of the best sitcoms ever.

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37 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

The Seinfeld finale I've always thought was bad.  I forgot about the special that aired before it.  

It's just a glorified clip show.  I know symbolically them ended up in jail has some meaning but still, just....ughhh, whatever. 

I still love the reruns but I never rewatch the finale. No reason to do so. 

I find Seinfeld to be hit and miss.  Some episodes I like, more episodes I don't.  But, I actually do kind of like the finale.  It went all out on the ridiculousness factor.  Of course, that would never happen in real life.  The most the four of them could be expected to do would be to call the police.  Since a police officer showed up literally 2 seconds later, the fact that they did nothing is moot.  And they weren't even obligated legally to do that much, though, of course morally it was wrong to just stand there and laugh at someone being attacked.

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23 minutes ago, ifionlyknew said:

I have a done rewatch (sometimes multiple times) of just about every show I watched from the late 70s/early 80s to now.  And I have never done a rewatch of Seinfeld.  I watched reruns of course before there were streaming services because what else was there to watch?

A friend and I once discussed if we thought Seinfeld was well written and we both agreed we didn't think so.   We thought Frasier was well written.  But we thought Seinfeld was just built around jokes.  It's a classic show for sure but I don't think it is one of the best sitcoms ever.

That's funny because I never rewatch Any shows I used to love as a kid basically pre-1990 or pre Seinfeld/ Simpsons.  

Ive tried.  Things like family ties...so many Very special episodes and thinking wow, this isn't funny. 

I also watched quite a bit of taxi because I'd never seen it before maybe two years ago. Shows were just so different then.  Usually an A plot and MAYBE a B plot, the pace, the writing style, character use, all so different.  It's an ok show but certainly see it from a different era.  

Threes company I rewatched and just a show you can't comprehend socially if you didn't live through it and even then you're like my god, what is happening?  Oddly though I still find it funny at times. Maybe ironically funny now vs at the time.?  

For the most part though pre 1990s sitcoms just feel so different. 

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5 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Threes company I rewatched and just a show you can't comprehend socially if you didn't live through it and even then you're like my god, what is happening?  Oddly though I still find it funny at times. Maybe ironically funny now vs at the time.?  

I watched Three's Company when it originally aired. I was barely a tween and didn't get a lot of the jokes.  When I have seen episodes as an adult I cringe because I get the jokes now and they aren't that funny.  Soap on the other hand I still find funny.

7 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Any shows I used to love as a kid basically pre-1990 or pre Seinfeld/ Simpsons.  

I like to watch them because it takes me back to different time when I was younger and life was easier.  

 

 

  • Love 4

And people who think Hallelujah is a love song or religious song. I cringe whenever I hear a kid sing it. 
 

14 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

I stand by my unpopular opinion that sitcoms aren't funny and aren't worth watching. 

I agree. They are mostly about making fun of other people.  I don’t find being mean to people to be funny. 

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14 minutes ago, ifionlyknew said:

I watched Three's Company when it originally aired. I was barely a tween and didn't get a lot of the jokes.  When I have seen episodes as an adult I cringe because I get the jokes now and they aren't that funny.  Soap on the other hand I still find funny.

I like to watch them because it takes me back to different time when I was younger and life was easier.  

 

 

I have never seen soap and it's the one I've tried to find to watch.  Doesn't seem to be on any stream services I have.  I think someone said it's an YouTube deluxe prime or whatever.   Just don't want to pay for another service though. 

Just now, Haleth said:

And people who think Hallelujah is a love song or religious song. I cringe whenever I hear a kid sing it. 
 

I agree. They are mostly about making fun of other people.  I don’t find being mean to people to be funny. 

YES. I don't enjoy comedy based on cruelty. I can't stand The Three Stooges or those shows that dumped slime on people. Pies in the face aren't funny. Mocking someone's singing ability isn't funny. Watching people embarrass themselves doesn't entertain me. 

I did enjoy Soap. I watched South Park but that's not real people, so it was somehow not as awful? I don't know. I did watch How I Met Your Mother as a bonding experience with niece/nephews. There was an equality in the show about all of them mocking each other like real friends, but I didn't enjoy most of the physical comedy aspects. Also, Ted sucked. 

I remember when I was seven or so and we'd first gotten cable and I came across The Honeymooners. When the husband threatened to punch the wife, I came out of my seat, horrified and in tears that someone would think that was funny. We never, ever watched that show again. 

  • Love 1

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