2000s - General Discussion

[Sarah 103]

I think it’s too soon for them to do this. They should at least wait two years, so there will be a full decade between the current year and the last year covered in the documentary. If they wanted to run a documentary series, what about Soundtracks? They ran one episode last summer then it was preempted every week by election coverage. They still have the documentary, it doesn’t cost them anything to air it a year later.

With the that rant out of the way, here is my prediction for the episodes (in no particular order) of the 2000s miniseries

1. Television (because they've always done television)

2. Music (because they've always done music)

3. The War on Terror

4. George W. Bush (he was president for most of the decade. this allows them to cover other political issues aside from the War on Terror)

5. Computers/The Internet/Technology

6. The Economy

Anyone else have ideas? 

[blueray]

I'm excited that this is airing this summer. They'll have to then wait a few years to make the next one, as this decade is still happening.

I think the episodes should be:

 

1. TV (there are so many great shows such as Lost, daily show and many others that came out at this time. The rise of serialized shows and changes to comedies. Possibly the rise of teen shows, I can't remember if this was covered in the 90's show).

2. War of terror ( covering 911, the wars and the effect on the country socially).

3. national disasters (tsunami, Katrina).

4. politics/economy (Bush years, the recession and the election of Obama)

5. The raise of the internet mainly social media (youtube, facebook,ect).

 

Maybe music, I guess they have always had it. Or movies. They could combine those, personally TV should be by itself though as there was a lot going on at the time.

Edited June 3, 2018 by blueray

[Sarah 103]

On 6/3/2018 at 1:25 PM, blueray said:

I'm excited that this is airing this summer. They'll have to then wait a few years to make the next one, as this decade is still happening.

I think the episodes should be:

 

1. TV (there are so many great shows such as Lost, daily show and many others that came out at this time. The rise of serialized shows and changes to comedies. Possibly the rise of teen shows, I can't remember if this was covered in the 90's show).

2. War of terror ( covering 911, the wars and the effect on the country socially).

3. national disasters (tsunami, Katrina).

4. politics/economy (Bush years, the recession and the election of Obama)

5. The raise of the internet mainly social media (youtube, facebook,ect).

 

Maybe music, I guess they have always had it. Or movies. They could combine those, personally TV should be by itself though as there was a lot going on at the time.

They have always had music, but they have never covered movies. I wish they covered movies, but for some reason they have decided not to and since this has been the case for Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, I saw no reason why they would break the established pattern for this mini-series. I do not think you can cover the economy, which would include Enron, Martha Stewart, and the 2008 crash in the same episode as the episode on politics.  

[Eureka]

I missed this announcement, when is it premiering?

[Annber03]

Tonight :). 9 pm eastern/Pacific time, to be exact. 

[blueray]

Wow that was kind of all over the place. I liked it and feel that they covered most of the good shows and the raise of reality TV. However the order was completely random. I think that the should have mentioned Lost and Breaking Bad should have been when they were talking about "HBO type of shows" that were open to the masses as oppose to shoved in toward the end. I did like how they mentioned some of the teen shows that were hits even if they were at the end of it.

[JessDVD]

I could have done with less time on Sopranos and Daily Show (still talked about them of course, just less time, it seemed like they went on forever about both, especially Sopranos). I know they have a finite amount of time to cover a decade's worth of TV, but I was still a little surprised that they covered nothing that I watched in the 2000s, except for the 2.5 seconds of Gilmore Girls. Mr. DVD and I reviewed what we watched during that decade, and it was a lot of the TLC/Discovery shows - What Not to Wear, Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Jon & Kate + Hate (that one was mostly for the lulz), he was surprised they didn't mention the cancellation and reinstating of Family Guy and Futurama, and I watched a lot of the competitive shows on Food Network that rose in that time. We've never had HBO so I was kind of "really?" to all the focus on it, though I do get that it was important to the timeline of TV.

Of the entire last episode of Friends, they OF COURSE chose the Ross and Rachel bit, insert massive eyeroll here.

I'm excited for the 00s series, I was born in 1984 so I remembered bits of the CNN 80s, the 90s was like "This is my childhood and formative years" and now the 00s is basically my early adult life.

[Annber03]

4 hours ago, JessDVD said:

I'm excited for the 00s series, I was born in 1984 so I remembered bits of the CNN 80s, the 90s was like "This is my childhood and formative years" and now the 00s is basically my early adult life.

I was born in '84, too-pretty much sums it up :D. 

I remember watching that special Stewart and Colbert did the night Obama won. That was a good night, and a fun show. Seeing those old "Colbert Report" clips made me all nostalgic. 

Regarding "Friends" ending, I remember all the hoopla over that-I distinctly recall watching the Weather Channel that morning and one of the people on there was talking about how nice the weather was going to be, "if you were planning a 'Friends' finale party or something'. Seriously. I never followed "Friends" (I've seen bits and pieces of it here and there, but that's about it), so at that time, all the fuss over that show ending kinda irked me, 'cause "Frasier" was ending that month as well and yet that show's end didn't get nearly the same amount of attention. I think USA Today had a nice full-length article about "Frasier" and some of its best episodes, but that seemed to be about it in terms of media fanfare. 

They showed a clip of "CSI", so I thought they'd talk a bit about the rise of all those procedural dramas. I know they weren't, and aren't, considered "cool" TV to the critics, the way stuff on cable and HBO is, but "CSI" was HUGE for years there, as was "NCIS" and other shows of that ilk, so I would've thought at the very least they could've discussed them a little bit more in depth, both in terms of what made them so popular, how they compared to the stuff that was on cable, and in terms, perhaps, of things like the "CSI effect", and how they've shaped people's views of how crime does/doesn't work, and things of that sort. 

I also don't remember a mention of "Boston Public". I watched that show when I was younger. 

[cpcathy]

The bit with Colbert tearing up really moved me, I wish I'd seen it the night it aired.

Edited July 9, 2018 by cpcathy

[JessDVD]

2 hours ago, Annber03 said:

They showed a clip of "CSI", so I thought they'd talk a bit about the rise of all those procedural dramas. I know they weren't, and aren't, considered "cool" TV to the critics, the way stuff on cable and HBO is, but "CSI" was HUGE for years there, as was "NCIS" and other shows of that ilk, so I would've thought at the very least they could've discussed them a little bit more in depth, both in terms of what made them so popular, how they compared to the stuff that was on cable, and in terms, perhaps, of things like the "CSI effect", and how they've shaped people's views of how crime does/doesn't work, and things of that sort. 

 

I thought about that too. NCIS has been the #1 show on CBS for a long enough time that I thought it would have merited a mention also. Again, I know they have a finite number of minutes to cover 10 years of TV, but again, they could have covered the Sopranos in half the time and been able to talk about crime procedurals or Discovery shows or the VERY IMPORTANT things that I watched in the 00s. ;-)

I was looking for an old post on my Facebook and came across this gem: "[Mr. DVD] and I have been watching this series of documentaries on Netflix about the 1980s, 70s, 60s, and 90s is coming soon. We're in the midst of the 60s right now and I keep looking up to say 'The 60s were WEIRD'."

Edited July 9, 2018 by JessDVD
punctuation saves lives

[Sarah 103]

8 hours ago, Annber03 said:

They showed a clip of "CSI", so I thought they'd talk a bit about the rise of all those procedural dramas. I know they weren't, and aren't, considered "cool" TV to the critics, the way stuff on cable and HBO is, but "CSI" was HUGE for years there, as was "NCIS" and other shows of that ilk, so I would've thought at the very least they could've discussed them a little bit more in depth, both in terms of what made them so popular, how they compared to the stuff that was on cable, and in terms, perhaps, of things like the "CSI effect", and how they've shaped people's views of how crime does/doesn't work, and things of that sort. 

Overall the episode on TV was good but it could have been better organized. They should have gone from Sopranos/The Wire to The Shield to House M.D. The trajectory being you have HBO doing cutting edge anti-hero stuff, which filters down to basic cable, which eventually filters down further to broadcast. Also, I was totally surprised they almost completely skipped over Sex and the City because without Sex and the City, you do not get Desperate Housewives. 

The episode made a mistake in thier discussion of Mad Men. The show was not the first scripted series for AMC. There was a short-lived series about a movie studio set in the 1930s called The Lot. It only lasted for a season or two but it still should count.

There should have been a segment on teen shows which would have been a logical place to discuss Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vernoica Mars, Gilmore Girls and similar shows.  

There should have been some discussion of what a game changer TiVo and the availablity of TV series on DVD were. This was the decade when suddenly there was a massive home market/secondary market for TV shows which had not existed in the era of VHS. A hit TV show getting a DVD release became the norm rather than the exception. TiVo changed the way people watched television. 

I would have liked to see more about the split between what critics gushed over and what people actually watched. Shows like Sopranos and Mad Men got all of the critical attention and a great deal of ink as well as buzz online, but the highest rated shows for much of the decade were The Big Bang Theory and NCIS. 

[Annber03]

5 minutes ago, Sarah 103 said:

Also, I was totally surprised they almost completely skipped over Sex and the City because without Sex and the City, you do not get Desperate Housewives. 

I'm guessing that was mainly because they talked about "Sex and the City" in the series on the 1990s. But even so, yeah, it would've been interesting to at least mention the shows that "Desperate Housewives" was influenced by and modeled after. 

Quote

 

There should have been some discussion of what a game changer TiVo and the availablity of TV series on DVD were. This was the decade when suddenly there was a massive home market/secondary market for TV shows which had not existed in the era of VHS. A hit TV show getting a DVD release became the norm rather than the exception. TiVo changed the way people watched television. 

I would have liked to see more about the split between what critics gushed over and what people actually watched. Shows like Sopranos and Mad Men got all of the critical attention and a great deal of ink as well as buzz online, but the highest rated shows for much of the decade were The Big Bang Theory and NCIS. 

 

YES to all of this, too. I'm really surprised the technological advances weren't mentioned here...maybe if there's an episode coming up soon about the technology of the '00s, that stuff will be mentioned there instead? 

And I think the second topic you mention would've been especially interesting, considering they did make a point of mentioning in the episode that not everyone was able to afford channels like HBO, where all these critically acclaimed shows were airing. 

[Sarah 103]

4 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

I'm really surprised the technological advances weren't mentioned here...maybe if there's an episode coming up soon about the technology of the '00s, that stuff will be mentioned there instead? 

Good point. Although if you ask me, I think a discussion of TiVo belongs in the episode on TV and not technology. TV shows on DVD allowed fans to catch up pretty quickly with a TV series so people could start the new season totally caught up with everything that happened previously. That was a real game changer and should have been included in the episode. 

[andromeda331]

I agree it was a good episode but needed to be organized better.  I thought they'd say something about watch TV shows on DVD too. It really changed things and became a game changer. It was great to be able to catch up with an entire season or watch old series that have been off the air for decades. I was so excited when I got the entire season of Bewitched and SOAP. Also very helpful in watching LOST and other shows like it where you needed to go back and watch episodes because there was often a lot going on.  

[Sarah 103]

12 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Also very helpful in watching LOST and other shows like it where you needed to go back and watch episodes because there was often a lot going on.  

This is why TV shows on DVD should have been incldued. It allowed showrunners to do more creative and in-depth material because they knew it would have a second life on DVD. It also made more sense to put in detials because there was now the expectation that repeat viewings were possible and people would be paying attention to the detials. In addition all of this is happening against the backdrop of the rise of HDTV when the picture became clearer and suddenly it was possible to see more detials.  

[andromeda331]

On ‎7‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 12:24 PM, Sarah 103 said:

This is why TV shows on DVD should have been incldued. It allowed showrunners to do more creative and in-depth material because they knew it would have a second life on DVD. It also made more sense to put in detials because there was now the expectation that repeat viewings were possible and people would be paying attention to the detials. In addition all of this is happening against the backdrop of the rise of HDTV when the picture became clearer and suddenly it was possible to see more detials.  

Yes, exactly, they could be more creative and more detailed with their stories because of DVDs. And it was so much fun as a viewer to try and watch for all those details or go back watch episodes again and see things you didn't see the first time. Or just be able to bin watch a bunch of episodes or entire season when ever you wanted. Interviews with the cast and writers. Often they'd put extra scenes not put into the episode usually due to time or not exactly crucial to the plot but were still fun to watch.  

[blueray]

On 7/10/2018 at 2:24 PM, Sarah 103 said:

This is why TV shows on DVD should have been incldued. It allowed showrunners to do more creative and in-depth material because they knew it would have a second life on DVD. It also made more sense to put in detials because there was now the expectation that repeat viewings were possible and people would be paying attention to the detials. In addition all of this is happening against the backdrop of the rise of HDTV when the picture became clearer and suddenly it was possible to see more detials.  

Maybe that would be covered in technology but I doubt it. I remember the first time I saw a show in HD on my TV, it was a rerun of Smallville. You could see every line on their face.  At the time it looked extremely sharp like the sunlight on the barn was unnaturally bright.

[Annber03]

That hour went really fast tonight, it seemed. 

Thank goodness for the "History of Comedy" show right afterward-good way to get the slimy faces of Rumsfeld and Cheney and so on out of my mind. Ugh. It's so damn infuriating watching the clips of them trying to make their case for the Iraq War, knowing what we know now (mind, it was infuriating back then, too). 

The images of 9/11 itself are still as haunting as ever. Watching those towers just collapse, hearing the horror and confusion in the reporters' voices as they're seeing the smoke...damn. I remember everything about that day clear as a bell. I was in school and we pretty much spent the entire day going from class to class and doing nothing but watching the footage on TV. That was it. Then we were taking a walk in a little path near the school for gym class that afternoon and a lady came outside and told us that Bush had been sent to the Omaha Air Force Base and that's when I got scared (I'd been in a state of shock most of the day), 'cause I was like, "...okay, so what the hell does that mean now?" 

The 2000 election stuff was nuts, too. I was just two years away from being old enough to vote myself when that happened, and watching the segment on that tonight I was thinking about the young people in Florida who would've been voting for the first time in that election. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating that would've been for them. 

Kudos to my high school history books, by the way-they were so up to date that they included the 2000 election and the craziness surrounding that. It was weird to see something in my history books that I was old enough to remember and which, as I was reading about it in 2001, 2002, was still so very recent.  

Edited July 16, 2018 by Annber03

[Sarah 103]

The episode on The War on Terror was a mess. All of the stuff about the 2000 election should have been in a different episode about politics/the Bush administration (like the way the 1980s series had an episode devoted to Reagan). Stopping in 2003 was a mistake. 2003 is not even halfway through the decade. There was so much that happened after 2003 with the war in Iraq, this episode should have been 2 hours to cover everything that happened in the decade on this topic. 

Also, I'm really surprised the History of Comedy got a warning and this episode did not. In this episode of the 2000s, you literally see people falling to thier deaths and the towers collapse killing thousands.   

[blueray]

My family and I tried to rewind this episode but for some reason it only jumped back 15 minutes or so (which we didn't notice). So we missed the whole section on the election. Anyhow for the parts I did see.

I remember 9/11 very well, I was in sixth grade. And there anousement about it. I really did fully understand until my Social Studies teacher explained in and we discussed it. Of course when I got home it was all over the TV. I still get chills when the buildings collapsed. This episode had a video I never saw before which is the pov of someone on the ground :(.  I feel like they could have done more on this as oppose to sticking it in with politics. Though it did lead to the wars.

Edited July 16, 2018 by blueray

[Eureka]

Seemed fast to me too. There was a lot I didn’t remember about those days, as one of my kids was born in 2000 and the other in 2003 and I was busy! I did, however remember the election stuff because DS was born in Dec. that year and on the day he was born, we still didn’t know who was going to be president.

[Annber03]

1 minute ago, Eureka said:

I did, however remember the election stuff because DS was born in Dec. that year and on the day he was born, we still didn’t know who was going to be president.

Oh, geez. That whole mess sounds even more wild when you put it in that context. 

One thing I've always wondered about 9/11-there's that infamous clip of Bush being notified of the attack in front of the kids he was reading to. Why didn't his aides just call him out into the hallway and tell him there, away from the kids to further avoid possibly scaring them? Then once he was briefed, they could've just found a way to tell the teacher he had to leave on important business or something to that effect. It just seemed odd they'd tell him right in front of everyone like that. 

[aabir]

Can anyone provide me a link or source where I can watch this miniseries? I am looking for it for 2 weeks and I can't seem to find it. Please help.

[UYI]

On 7/9/2018 at 10:26 PM, Sarah 103 said:

 

The episode made a mistake in thier discussion of Mad Men. The show was not the first scripted series for AMC. There was a short-lived series about a movie studio set in the 1930s called The Lot.  

It was actually Remember WENN, which aired from 1996-1998.

Edited July 20, 2018 by UYI

[formerlyfreedom]

8 hours ago, UYI said:

It was actually Remember WENN, which aired from 1996-1998.

I loved this show...

[andromeda331]

On ‎7‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 2:35 PM, Annber03 said:

Oh, geez. That whole mess sounds even more wild when you put it in that context. 

One thing I've always wondered about 9/11-there's that infamous clip of Bush being notified of the attack in front of the kids he was reading to. Why didn't his aides just call him out into the hallway and tell him there, away from the kids to further avoid possibly scaring them? Then once he was briefed, they could've just found a way to tell the teacher he had to leave on important business or something to that effect. It just seemed odd they'd tell him right in front of everyone like that. 

I wondered the same thing. It would have made more sense to do that. Ask for a word in private and tell him then. Not only are you not scaring the crap out a bunch of kids but that's also something you probably want to find out in private not in front of kids and cameras. 

News clips, videos, etc.. of 9/11 always takes me back to that day. Its burned into my memory. I was asleep I had the next four days off and was sleeping in when the phone kept ringing. I couldn't figure out why mom kept calling because I usually called her when I got up because I liked to sleep in. I finally answered it still mostly asleep I'd been up late the night before. My mom kept trying to explain what was going on but I honestly had no idea what she was talking about and was really confused. She kept saying over and over that we were attack, the Trade Center was attacked and this was war. That it was just like Pearl Harbor. That confused me even more we weren't at war. I know we weren't then either but there were two really big ones going on but 9/11 there was none of that. I turned on the TV and was so stunned. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My dad was watching the news that morning and thought someone hit the wrong button and went to a movie. It didn't seem real but it was and the fear of not knowing if more attacks were coming or not. I usually watch the 9/11 film documentary that was made by the two French brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet on 9/11 they were originally following a fireman just starting out and ended up catching everything that was going on inside and outside the Towers.   

[Annber03]

It's funny, I've been hearing people joke that the Trump administration is so bad that they're even missing Bush. This episode was a great reminder of why we shouldn't be doing that. 

I think we need to really start making it a point to teach people that any politician or party that refuses to recognize the civil rights of its own citizens is not one worth supporting or voting for. Because if they're willing to treat a portion of their own population as second-class citizens (if that), then, as this administration clearly proved in spectacular fashion, they're not going to do well at handling other issues of importance to the country, like the economy or foreign affairs or other domestic issues. Plus, trying to paint some minority group as the scapegoat for all that's wrong with society makes it that much easier for the population to be distracted, so that the politicians can sneak by all their shitty behavior (like, oh, say, lying about our reasons to go to war) without anyone taking notice. Those clips of people getting all incensed over gay marriage are just...ugh. 

(And that one guy saying that people didn't respond well to Kerry's comment about Cheney's daughter being gay because "they don't like it when you bring the families of politicians into your criticisms". Really? I don't remember the right making a peep when people made horrible comments about Obama's family when he was in office. And they cheered Trump and stood by him when he went around making personal attacks on people's families, too. Guess it just depends on who's being attacked and who's doing the attacking, apparently.)

It's even more hilarious to see the Bush administration talking about how they're wanting to bring rights and freedom to people overseas, considering they couldn't seem to give people in their own country those same rights and freedoms. The Iraqis were probably looking at the shitty situation with the U.S. response to Katrina and thinking, "...and this is the government we're supposed to trust to help us recover? Oh, dear."

So glad, by the way, that we've shown we haven't learned a damn thing from the Katrina nightmare. *CoughcoughPUERTO RICOcoughcough* 

If there's one positive thing to take away from this episode, it's that people eventually turned on the Bush administration over their bullshit and woke up to all the lies and incompetence. I like to think that means there's still hope the same thing will happen in regards to all the insanity going on now, too.. Though, hopefully, we'll actually retain the lessons we learn this time around, so we don't go through even worse in another decade or two. 

Also, I miss Peter Jennings. 

Edited July 23, 2018 by Annber03

[andromeda331]

11 hours ago, Annber03 said:

It's funny, I've been hearing people joke that the Trump administration is so bad that they're even missing Bush. This episode was a great reminder of why we shouldn't be doing that. 

I think we need to really start making it a point to teach people that any politician or party that refuses to recognize the civil rights of its own citizens is not one worth supporting or voting for. Because if they're willing to treat a portion of their own population as second-class citizens (if that), then, as this administration clearly proved in spectacular fashion, they're not going to do well at handling other issues of importance to the country, like the economy or foreign affairs or other domestic issues. Plus, trying to paint some minority group as the scapegoat for all that's wrong with society makes it that much easier for the population to be distracted, so that the politicians can sneak by all their shitty behavior (like, oh, say, lying about our reasons to go to war) without anyone taking notice. Those clips of people getting all incensed over gay marriage are just...ugh. 

(And that one guy saying that people didn't respond well to Kerry's comment about Cheney's daughter being gay because "they don't like it when you bring the families of politicians into your criticisms". Really? I don't remember the right making a peep when people made horrible comments about Obama's family when he was in office. And they cheered Trump and stood by him when he went around making personal attacks on people's families, too. Guess it just depends on who's being attacked and who's doing the attacking, apparently.)

It's even more hilarious to see the Bush administration talking about how they're wanting to bring rights and freedom to people overseas, considering they couldn't seem to give people in their own country those same rights and freedoms. The Iraqis were probably looking at the shitty situation with the U.S. response to Katrina and thinking, "...and this is the government we're supposed to trust to help us recover? Oh, dear."

So glad, by the way, that we've shown we haven't learned a damn thing from the Katrina nightmare. *CoughcoughPUERTO RICOcoughcough* 

If there's one positive thing to take away from this episode, it's that people eventually turned on the Bush administration over their bullshit and woke up to all the lies and incompetence. I like to think that means there's still hope the same thing will happen in regards to all the insanity going on now, too.. Though, hopefully, we'll actually retain the lessons we learn this time around, so we don't go through even worse in another decade or two. 

Also, I miss Peter Jennings. 

I was thinking the same thing when they were showing the Katrina nightmare Puerto Rico. I think they were being way to generous that history will be kinder to his administration. Really? For ignoring a US city in desperate need of help? Being all focus on terror is no excuse for the response to Katrina. Yes, they can be surprised, yes it was unexpected (to a point, a some point a big hurricane is going to hit) but you still step up and send in help. The unexpected is part of the job.  I "love" how there was no plan for after overthrowing Saddam. Well, that worked well didn't? Who knew you needed a plan for after overthrowing a government?  I love how bent out of shape they got over the remarks about Cheney's daughter. Of course they did. They've certainly never did that.   

[Annber03]

5 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

IYes, they can be surprised, yes it was unexpected (to a point, a some point a big hurricane is going to hit) but you still step up and send in help. The unexpected is part of the job.  

Exactly. Every president has had something unexpected pop up during their time in office. Some handled the unexpected moments better than others, but yeah, by this point, you know full well, or should know full well, going into this job that it's not easy, it's going to be crazy, and while every president no doubt hopes their time in office goes smoothly and uneventfully, you should also do what you can to make sure you're as prepared as possible, just in case. 

Quote

I "love" how there was no plan for after overthrowing Saddam. Well, that worked well didn't? Who knew you needed a plan for after overthrowing a government? 

Right? Invade a country through lying and false information, overthrow their leader, and then have no plan to help out or work with the people afterward, so that we find ourselves in a no win situation where if we leave we're shitty 'cause we're not cleaning up our mess, but if we stay, we're occupiers and the people want us to get the hell out of their hair. 

And yet it's still just a total mystery to some out there why anti-American sentiment festers in some parts of the world. Gee. Yeah. I wonder...

[Sarah 103]

I wish they had labled the episodes something more like Bush: The First Term and Bush: The Second Term or just made it a two hour episode. This felt like it really should have been a two hour episode on W. Bush's presidency. There was enough in there to merit a two hour episode, but dividing it up by term and then giving the episodes' names that did not accurately reflect the content did not work work for me. 

I wish they had spent more time on Katrina. They should have explained why more people didn't leave. In addition, they could have done a better job of explaining that once FEMA was under Homeland Security, that meant more layers of approval were needed which slowed down response time.  

[andromeda331]

13 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

I wish they had labled the episodes something more like Bush: The First Term and Bush: The Second Term or just made it a two hour episode. This felt like it really should have been a two hour episode on W. Bush's presidency. There was enough in there to merit a two hour episode, but dividing it up by term and then giving the episodes' names that did not accurately reflect the content did not work work for me. 

I wish they had spent more time on Katrina. They should have explained why more people didn't leave. In addition, they could have done a better job of explaining that once FEMA was under Homeland Security, that meant more layers of approval were needed which slowed down response time.  

This would have been a really good idea. So much happened during his presidency they could have covered it all in two hours and it really doesn't make sense to break it up into two episodes.  Katrina deserved more time too. I'm also surprised they didn't mention that crazy hurricane season. There were a lot of hurricanes that year.   

[Sarah 103]

4 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Katrina deserved more time too. I'm also surprised they didn't mention that crazy hurricane season. There were a lot of hurricanes that year.   

Agreed. I think Katrina should have been in its own episode. Between the response, the aftermath, and the rebuilding there is enough to easily fill an hour. They could've talked about the possibility that climate change/rising sea levels had an impact on the strength and intensity of the storm. 

[GaT]

Does anybody know why they decided to do the 2000s before they were over? They're missing a large chunk of the decade, why wouldn't they wait?

[Annber03]

5 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I'm also surprised they didn't mention that crazy hurricane season. There were a lot of hurricanes that year.   

Yeah, they quickly made their way through the usual alphabet list and had to go into the Greek letters that year, there were so many. I was living in Wyoming at that time, so I thankfully didn't have to worry about all the hurricanes, but I remember watching the constant coverage of them on the Weather Channel as they happened. It was crazy. 

The scariest part of looking at that Katrina footage is knowing that the storm had dropped down to a Category 3 when it made landfall. If that's what Category 3 hurricane damage can do, I don't even want to imagine how much worse it could've been had the storm remained a Category 5 when it hit. 

[andromeda331]

3 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Yeah, they quickly made their way through the usual alphabet list and had to go into the Greek letters that year, there were so many. I was living in Wyoming at that time, so I thankfully didn't have to worry about all the hurricanes, but I remember watching the constant coverage of them on the Weather Channel as they happened. It was crazy. 

The scariest part of looking at that Katrina footage is knowing that the storm had dropped down to a Category 3 when it made landfall. If that's what Category 3 hurricane damage can do, I don't even want to imagine how much worse it could've been had the storm remained a Category 5 when it hit. 

Yeah, I remember wondering what they were going to use if they ran out of Greek letters. They got the sixth letter Zeta before the season finally ended. It was crazy.  All that damage it did at a Category 3 I can't imagine what 5 would do. I think Maria was a 4 when it hit Puerto Rico. I can't imagine how what a 5 would look like. And we'll be as unprepared for it as we were for Katrina and Maria.  

[Annber03]

It was freaky looking at that satellite image of Katrina as it was moving towards the coast. Made me think of watching satellite footage of Irma from last year and being horrified at how BIG it looked. I lost count of how many times I kept thinking, "Weaken! Weaken, already!"

I've never had to experience a hurricane. I live in Tornado Alley and those storms are scary enough as it is (and unlike hurricanes, the warning/preparation time is much shorter). But at least tornadoes only last a few short minutes to, at most, an hour or so, and then they're done. I can't imagine having to deal with a violent storm of that nature for days on end. 

I got a kick out of the clips of people talking about how residents in that area needed to seek higher ground...all while people are sitting on rooftops that are almost completely underwater. I mean, when even your normally safe higher ground shelter is underwater, what the hell do you do then? 

[Sarah 103]

On 7/24/2018 at 2:51 PM, GaT said:

Does anybody know why they decided to do the 2000s before they were over? They're missing a large chunk of the decade, why wouldn't they wait?

I am not sure what you are talking about. The decade this series covers is 2000-2010. 2010 is in the past. I think they should have waited two years for the first year to be 20 years in the past. 2020 for coverage of 2000-2010. They are only two episodes into the miniseries and the series goes thematically, not chronologically. 

Edited July 25, 2018 by Sarah 103

[GaT]

Never mind.

Edited July 25, 2018 by GaT

[JessDVD]

Finally caught up.

Bush years 1 and 2: they were far more generous to him than I expected, I was expecting them to nail him to the wall for his missteps. I do agree with the talking heads at the end of the second, that history will be kinder to him. Every president has things thrown at them but I think it's fair to say that W had a heavier dose than other recent presidents. Sidebar: even if you hated everything he did, his memoir "Decision Points" was an interesting read that helped lend some context. There are reviews on Amazon from people who never supported him, who appreciated the book.

Last night, technology: that was an interesting ride down memory lane, if perhaps more focused on Apple than I thought was necessary. They were absolutely pioneers but I thought the focus was still a little heavy. The only thing I thought they should have included was how the instant messaging and ability to create one's own content on the internet (who else had a geocities website??) that rose in the late 90s and early 00s, led to online communities (I hung out in a lot of Harry Potter ones), which IMO is a component of what led to social media and its explosion. Man, I remember when I was in my dorm and my friend IMed me and asked if I'd gotten an account on "thefacebook" yet and I was like, what is this thing and why on Earth do I need it. Haha, famous last words. Fun tangential anecdote: back when you could create groups for no reason other than to be dopey (I seem to recall being in one that was something like "I love to flip the pillow to the cold side"), we made one called "thefacebook owns my soul" and some local reporter saw it and called me to ask if she could interview me for an article about this new Facebook thing. Being young, I didn't really realize how things that sound fine spoken make one look ridiculous in print. I sounded ridiculous in print. I hope my parents don't still have that article.

The other thing about social media that they didn't address was how previously everyone had a screen name or handle, and once Facebook came on the scene, people were using their real names, which before was like, you never do that!

The taking head who said that technology skipped a generation in its speed in the 00s was absolutely correct. I graduated in 02 and got a desktop computer for graduation that I think had 40 *megs* of storage and while that wasn't groundbreaking technology, it was considered pretty good for its time, the following year I got my first cell phone that did nothing except make calls. In 2010, Mr DVD got an iPad and smartphones weren't far behind for him.

That reminds me that they also didn't talk about Nextel 2-way but I'm not sure I'm complaining about that mercifully brief period of history. :-)

[Sarah 103]

Overall, I liked the episode. Since I know there will be an episode covering the 2008 election, I wished they had moved the segment on that  topic to that episode. Instead of spending the time on Obama and social media, it would have been great for the episode to at last touch on some of the copyright issues involved with creating and sharing content on social media, especially YouTube. It would have also helped to explain why Apple's iTune's store was such a big deal. It was the first widespead, user-friendly music service that made it possible to legally download mp3s/music. 

12 minutes ago, JessDVD said:

The only thing I thought they should have included was how the instant messaging and ability to create one's own content on the internet (who else had a geocities website??) that rose in the late 90s and early 00s, led to online communities (I hung out in a lot of Harry Potter ones), which IMO is a component of what led to social media and its explosion.

I agree with you that this should have been included, but I have a different take on it. To create a website you needed to know how to do some type of coding/programing language (not totally sure if that's the term but I think you get the idea) but to create something on most early social media sites like Facebook or YouTube, none of that was needed. All you had to do was type or upload your content. I think social media represents a contrast to geocities. I totally agree with you that AIM should have been part of this. In that respect, social media was building on what people were already doing, having conversations with friends online. 

12 minutes ago, JessDVD said:

The other thing about social media that they didn't address was how previously everyone had a screen name or handle, and once Facebook came on the scene, people were using their real names, which before was like, you never do that!

This was a big change that should have been included. 

I'm glad they covered BlackBerry. It might not be a major player now, but in the early 2000s BlackBerry was a status symbol. When I went off to college with a BlackBerry in 2005 it was a big deal. (One of the many things that my father remembered about 9/11/01 was that many cellphones didn't work but that BlackBerries did, so when I decided to go to a college in Washington, DC, my Dad sent me off with a BlackBerry). Most of my friends had flip phones or whatever was one step from a filp phone.     

[JessDVD]

47 minutes ago, Sarah 103 said:

I agree with you that this should have been included, but I have a different take on it. To create a website you needed to know how to do some type of coding/programing language (not totally sure if that's the term but I think you get the idea) but to create something on most early social media sites like Facebook or YouTube, none of that was needed. All you had to do was type or upload your content. I think social media represents a contrast to geocities. I totally agree with you that AIM should have been part of this. In that respect, social media was building on what people were already doing, having conversations with friends online. 

 

As I recall (it's been awhile, of course), Geocities, Angelfire (ah, blast from the past) and the like had some kind of basic editor that you could drag and drop stuff without having to know any HTML, but you're right - Facebook and YouTube pretty much just meant you had to type or upload and no formatting, design skills, or anything else was necessary, which opened up social media to people who never would have done their own websites.

With them mentioning that Twitter originally had the 140 character limit and was intended to answer the question "What are you doing?" (totally didn't know that 2nd part), they should have mentioned that Facebook originally had a character limit and posted all of your content in the form of "Jessica is ______" so we were always coming up with weirdly worded present progressive language.

And something ELSE they didn't mention is the privacy concerns that came with all of this. In the late 00s, a friend of mine actually had to resign from a teaching job (ironically, the same friend that told me about Facebook in the first place) because she posted a complaint about a student on her closed, private FB page, and somehow the student's parent found it and made a stink.

We have a picture of my oldest (age 9 now) when she was a baby, gumming on Mr. DVD's Blackberry. She learned how to crawl with the encouragement of my LG Rumor phone placed 5 feet away from her. My 4th (final) child (age 3 now), it was some kind of smartphone, and I think I had at least 4 phones in between. That reminds me also about how they didn't address that before cell phones, you bought a landline phone and pretty much kept it forever unless you or your kid broke the cord from going too far away from the base, and now with cells, you end up getting a new one at least every 2 years. Mr DVD's current phone (Google Pixel XL) takes nicer pictures than some DSLR cameras I've seen. It was about 2015 when I got a new phone that took better pictures than our point-and-shoot and I started taking pictures on my phone only. These are the things that make me feel weirdly old, I was taking pictures on film in college and a digital camera was like "What is this sorcery" technology, and that wasn't THAT long ago (2002-2006, by the end digital cameras were a lot more common), and here we are not even done with the following decade and your basic point-and-shoot digital camera is basically obsolete.

[Sarah 103]

10 minutes ago, JessDVD said:

And something ELSE they didn't mention is the privacy concerns that came with all of this. In the late 00s, a friend of mine actually had to resign from a teaching job (ironically, the same friend that told me about Facebook in the first place) because she posted a complaint about a student on her closed, private FB page, and somehow the student's parent found it and made a stink.

They really should have included some time on privacy issues. Sorry to hear about your friend. In high school, a teacher had a blog in which she complained about her students (she didn't give anyone's name). A student found it during Spring semester around March or April and told other students (keep in mind this was a small private school. The typical graduating class was around 55-70 students), and somehow the dean of students and/or the academic dean got a printed copy of the blog. While she finished it out the school year she did not come back the next year. 

[Annber03]

1 hour ago, JessDVD said:

Man, I remember when I was in my dorm and my friend IMed me and asked if I'd gotten an account on "thefacebook" yet and I was like, what is this thing and why on Earth do I need it. Haha, famous last words. Fun tangential anecdote: back when you could create groups for no reason other than to be dopey (I seem to recall being in one that was something like "I love to flip the pillow to the cold side"), we made one called "thefacebook owns my soul" and some local reporter saw it and called me to ask if she could interview me for an article about this new Facebook thing. Being young, I didn't really realize how things that sound fine spoken make one look ridiculous in print. I sounded ridiculous in print. I hope my parents don't still have that article.

Funny enough, in my case, I first heard about Facebook from my parents and my older relatives :p! My parents talked about it back when it was just starting out as a " find old friends from school" sort of thing, and then my relatives would ask me to join so they could keep in touch, which is the only reason I even wound up getting an account at all. I haven't used it in years, though, so I keep thinking I should just get rid of my account, but I always forget to do so. 

Same thing happened with MySpace. I got an account back in the day, but I never thought to use it much. I'm apparently shit at keeping up on social media :p. I think it's mainly 'cause my life is so damn boring that there's hardly ever anything worth actually sharing, LOL. 

28 minutes ago, JessDVD said:

And something ELSE they didn't mention is the privacy concerns that came with all of this. In the late 00s, a friend of mine actually had to resign from a teaching job (ironically, the same friend that told me about Facebook in the first place) because she posted a complaint about a student on her closed, private FB page, and somehow the student's parent found it and made a stink.

Yeah, I would've liked a little more discussion of that issue as well-the crimes that started happening because of people interacting with questionable people online, and the fact that teenagers had to learn that what they post sticks with them and can cause a lot of trouble for them. I was very grateful to finish out high school right around the time Facebook was just first starting to get attention (I think it started around then), and well before Twitter and MySpace and other social media sites, so I got to escape all the issues and nastiness with social media that high school (and middle school) students have had to encounter and deal with. It would've been interesting to see a bit of discussion on how a new generation had to learn to navigate some of the more troubling aspects of social media. 

Overall, this episode just reminded me of how not tech-savvy I apparently am. I've never used an Apple product, let alone owned one, and I've never had an iPod or an iPad or an iPhone (my sister got me a little SanDisk mp3 player for Christmas years ago, though, so...there's that?). A large part of that is because I couldn't afford a lot of those things, but also because, with the exception of the iPod (having something to carry all my music with me to listen to would indeed be nice)....I've never felt I really needed one. I just got myself a laptop a few short years ago and I'm pretty happy with that. I like my phone to stay a phone, and I'm not big on watching video clips on a super tiny screen, and I don't like touch screens, and stuff like that. So I've just never really felt a rush to buy the latest gadget. Especially since it seems that by the time you do buy one, it's going to be replaced by something that's supposedly better. I don't know that I could even afford to keep up with all the changes!

And regarding YouTube, I never think to watch people's random personal videos that they share on there. I only use that site to watch music videos from my favorite bands, or interviews with my favorite actors and musicians, or old TV series, or clips from various shows, that some people upload on there. And that's it :p. 

So interesting to see the clips of Steve Jobs in his younger days. I can only recall seeing him in his days when he had the gray hair and the balding head. I don't know that I ever really saw footage of him early on in his career. 

Edited July 30, 2018 by Annber03

[cpcathy]

I am so thankful for the invention of Youtube. I don't watch the random videos either, but I've found some awesome stuff there. Found a 1981 Mercury commercial I had been searching for!

[willco]

Last nights tech show is probably my favorite one so far. I have a lot of thoughts on it, but just briefly want to say that Youtube might be the greatest thing ( in both a good and bad kind of way) ever invented that's free. I spend way too much time on there because you can go from thing to thing, never spending more than 10 minutes on any topic if you feel like it. If you are a bit impatient and bore quickly as I am prone to, it's a great way to breeze thru an hour ( and the time goes by so fast ) !

[blueray]

Quote

led to online communities (I hung out in a lot of Harry Potter ones)

Me too :). I used to have mugglenet as my homepage.

 

I liked this episode. I liked how it mentioned the different websites and technologies that really impacted me as I was a teen at the time. I couldn't remember when Steve Job's died, I thought they were going to mention that. It must have been this decade.

[JessDVD]

2 hours ago, blueray said:

Me too :). I used to have mugglenet as my homepage.

 

I liked this episode. I liked how it mentioned the different websites and technologies that really impacted me as I was a teen at the time. I couldn't remember when Steve Job's died, I thought they were going to mention that. It must have been this decade.

Yep, muggle net was one of my primaries too. And Steve Jobs died in 2011, so maybe they'll mention that when they do the 10s.

[Annber03]

Geez, tonight's episode. I feel like we should play this for every single politician out there and be like, "This is why regulations are very important!" 

My family has never owned a house. We've always rented houses or apartments, and at the time this financial crash was happening, we were struggling with personal issues regarding my dad's health that had us winding up living in a motel for a time. And I haven't the first clue how the hell the stock market works. So we weren't impacted by all that craziness the way people who are directly involved with the stock market and the housing market and whatnot were. 

But I still share the outrage from those who are pissed that taxpayer money went to bail out people who fucked things over so badly. I don't know how viable an option this would've been, but if possible, I think the people who set all this chaos in motion should've been forced to sell off all of their fancy (and no doubt numerous) houses and cars and yachts and so forth, and then all the money from those sales, combined with the money from their precious golden parachutes, would've no doubt been more than enough to make up the necessary bailout cost. They're the ones with all the money at their disposal, it should've been their money that was used to clean up this mess.  And then they all should've been sent to jail for the rest of their lives. 

And I can sympathize with the people who were so desperate to own a home that they were willing to sign and take any offer, no matter how risky. Yes, it wasn't a wise thing to do, no question, and this idea that having a home of your own will make it easier for you to move up in the world has issues of its own tied to it. But, as alluded to with my family's financial struggles above, I know what it's like for a family to be shut out of so many things because of credit issues and things of that sort, and I get being at the point where you're so financially unstable that any offer to improve your living standards will sound VERY tempting to you. Plus, a lot of people do not understand financial legalese and terminology-I sure don't-so that only made it that much easier for the people making these offers to scam these potential homebuyers and tell them what they wanted to hear. 

As for the Enron scandal, I was in high school at the time, so I mainly heard the basic summary of what happened, but I have no memory of the California blackouts and how those were tied to Enron. Those guys actually laughing over the dangers the blackouts were causing...fuck off, creeps. 

Other random thoughts...I think tonight officially proved I watch WAY too many true crime shows, because when they were using the analogy of having a life insurance policy that you're unable to pay on when the time comes to do so, I immediately thought, "Boy, that'd make for one hell of a twist if a person killed somebody in the hopes of getting their life insurance...". 

Seeing Jim Cramer just reminded me of Jon Stewart's incredibly tense (to put it mildly) interview with him when he was on "The Daily Show".

And finally, hi, James Comey! Fancy seeing you here. 

Edited August 6, 2018 by Annber03

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Geez, tonight's episode. I feel like we should play this for every single politician out there and be like, "This is why regulations are very important!" 

My family has never owned a house. We've always rented houses or apartments, and at the time this financial crash was happening, we were struggling with personal issues regarding my dad's health that had us winding up living in a motel for a time. And I haven't the first clue how the hell the stock market works. So we weren't impacted by all that craziness the way people who are directly involved with the stock market and the housing market and whatnot were. 

But I still share the outrage from those who are pissed that taxpayer money went to bail out people who fucked things over so badly. I don't know how viable an option this would've been, but if possible, I think the people who set all this chaos in motion should've been forced to sell off all of their fancy (and no doubt numerous) houses and cars and yachts and so forth, and then all the money from those sales, combined with the money from their precious golden parachutes, would've no doubt been more than enough to make up the necessary bailout cost. They're the ones with all the money at their disposal, it should've been their money that was used to clean up this mess.  And then they all should've been sent to jail for the rest of their lives. 

And I can sympathize with the people who were so desperate to own a home that they were willing to sign and take any offer, no matter how risky. Yes, it wasn't a wise thing to do, no question, and this idea that having a home of your own will make it easier for you to move up in the world has issues of its own tied to it. But, as alluded to with my family's financial struggles above, I know what it's like for a family to be shut out of so many things because of credit issues and things of that sort, and I get being at the point where you're so financially unstable that any offer to improve your living standards will sound VERY tempting to you. Plus, a lot of people do not understand financial legalese and terminology-I sure don't-so that only made it that much easier for the people making these offers to scam these potential homebuyers and tell them what they wanted to hear. 

As for the Enron scandal, I was in high school at the time, so I mainly heard the basic summary of what happened, but I have no memory of the California blackouts and how those were tied to Enron. Those guys actually laughing over the dangers the blackouts were causing...fuck off, creeps. 

Other random thoughts...I think tonight officially proved I watch WAY too many true crime shows, because when they were using the analogy of having a life insurance policy that you're unable to pay on when the time comes to do so, I immediately thought, "Boy, that'd make for one hell of a twist if a person killed somebody in the hopes of getting their life insurance...". 

Seeing Jim Cramer just reminded me of Jon Stewart's incredibly tense (to put it mildly) interview with him when he was on "The Daily Show".

And finally, hi, James Comey! Fancy seeing you here. 

Definitely felt the anger at bailing out those banks. Let's see them selling their yachts, vacations and other homes. Their jets! They got away with it. So really what is to keep them from doing it again? Nothing. They destroyed so many lives but get off scot free. I got really angry that the guy towards the end acting like there was nothing they could be charged with. Bullshit. Excuse my language but they could have and should have been charged.  What they did was criminal but no let's pretend there's nothing they can be charged with. 

I did know people effected in the house crisis. On one hand I do agree some should have realized it was a bad idea and not to sign mortgage. If you have no down payment, no money and no job how are you going to pay for that house? I knew many who did have jobs but ones that didn't pay anywhere near what would pay for it. But for the most part they were signing things they didn't understand or thought they did until after they signed and a lot of mortgage companies were letting and encouraging signing anything or not disclosing everything about the loan. Making up a lot of creative mortgages. One of my brother's friends didn't realize until afterwards he signed an interest only loan where the first ten years he paid none of it went to the principal. He would have to pay his mortgage for ten years before finally he could start paying towards paying towards the house. So many signed stuff like that or even worse. If you were able to find someone to buy your house it ended up being a big loss.  So many couldn't find anyone to buy their house. So your stuck with a house you can't afford and you can't sell.    

[Annber03]

5 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Definitely felt the anger at bailing out those banks. Let's see them selling their yachts, vacations and other homes. Their jets! They got away with it. So really what is to keep them from doing it again? Nothing. They destroyed so many lives but get off scot free. I got really angry that the guy towards the end acting like there was nothing they could be charged with. Bullshit. Excuse my language but they could have and should have been charged.  What they did was criminal but no let's pretend there's nothing they can be charged with. 

Right? I think any decent prosecutor worth their salt would be able to make a good case against these guys. I don't know if there's a statute of limitations on that stuff or whatever, but I wonder if anyone could still manage to find a way to charge them even now? It's been ten years, yes, but I imagine a lot of those people are still out and about and doing the same things they did back then. So if somebody can nab them, if not for their crimes of the past, then for any crimes they may be committing now, I'd be all for that. 

I'm sorry about what your friend went through. What a mess. Yeah. Depending on who becomes our next president, if it's somebody who actually cares about regulations that can help prevent this kind of BS, that should be one of their first big priorities. And they should make those regulations as ironclad and difficult to remove as possible, so that it winds up being extremely tough, if not outright impossible, for anyone to find a way to "work around" them or chip away at them. If we can get an administration that does that, that'd be wonderful. Here's hoping. 

Edited August 6, 2018 by Annber03