I'm kind of in love with reruns of Malcolm in the Middle these days
I think they only made like 12 episodes of The Middleman, but I found it incredibly charming.
Best to find shows that are very engrossing. I learned less to worry less about it being *quality* TV and more about being something that can take your mind off the fact that you're exercising. Of course, that's *my* goal and may not be yours.
Not sure if you're just tired of people recommending The Wire or if you didn't like it (or cop shows), but The Shield, another cop show, was perfect for exercising to. So was 24. If you've ever wondered whether getting into Lost was worth your time, that's how I got into it. Ditto for Heroes and Battlestar Galactica. These aren't necessarily top-flight shows (or shows I would even watch otherwise), but they're better for exercising than some otherwise better shows are.
Also: you should all be watching Glee. SO GOOD.
Yeah, Spaced is good.
Also, Herman's Head.
Barney Fucking Miller. Freaks and Geeks. Garry Schandling.
Battlestar Galactica is great as a theoretical exercise, but the lack of humor and wooden acting by the two notionally sexxy principals are an insurmountable burden.
Rome was utterly fantastic. British The Office. Taxi. Telenovelas, actually-- Los Plateados a few years back was a lot of fun.
70s crime drama seems like it should be wonderful, but is terrible-- early Columbo, a few episodes of Baretta, despite the wonderful intro.
I should be ashamed of loving television, right?
Six Feet Under.
It's considered by some to be nothing but a family drama kind of thing, but it's well-done. The acting and dialogue is good, and not particularly falling into the well-worn tropes of which one tires.
Oh, yeah, Lost, and Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica, would be good for exercising to, probably. When you're exercising, you're moving from equipment to equipment, so not needing to maintain much continuity might be key. In which case, probably nix the Six Feet Under for that.
Battlestar Galactica is great as a theoretical exercise, but the lack of humor and wooden acting by the two notionally sexxy principals are an insurmountable burden.
God, that show is terrible.
I adore both Spaced and The Middleman too!
I've been watching almost nothing but "How It's Made" and the yoga on Fit TV.
13: oh, How It's Made is fabulous. That's my go-to airplane show.
15: That's good to hear. I was thinking it was just me.
16: I love how they avoid showing faces whenever possible, and any human is just "the worker". Also, those generic, presumably public doman techno soundtracks. So great! Industrial-us porn has never been better.
Also, those generic, presumably public domain techno soundtracks.
I think the Canadian government has a hand in the show, so I hope they are paying some musician so he doesn't have to try to be the next Bryan Adams.
I'm head over heels for In Plain Sight. I've also recently started grooving on Psych -- it's very funny.
you should all be watching Glee. SO GOOD.
Seconded.
The episodes of Psych I've watched have been pleasantly surprisingly entertaining.
An odd show I never heard of until I came across it on Netflix is Kolchak (not to be confused with Kojak). I only watched an episode, but it looked entertaining enough.
I just started some recent seasons of the The Simpsons that everyone seems to have either hated or just given up on because looking at the same yellow-people for so many years has fatigued their retinas. But I like them.
If Mary Hartmann, Mary Hartmann is available, you might give it a try.
21: Kolchak was fun. Any series with Darren McGavin in it is going to be good enough to take one's mind off exercising.
23: Hey! I was just about to suggest that. It is in fact available; I've got a copy from the public library sitting on my desk. I adore Louise Lasser.
A second on Rome. Lotsa fun. We've decided to watch Deadwood. I'm loving it.
I know people who really, really like In Treatment. I'm not sure it's to everyone's taste.
I just rewatched In the Heat of the Night. It's held up surprisingly well. Not a show, of course, although there is a sequel (They Call me MISTER Tibbs!).
I just rewatched In the Heat of the Night. It's held up surprisingly well. Not a show, of course
I think How It's Made and the similar geek shows would be very good exercise material. Fast, quick edits, engrossing. linear, fun.
Venture Brothers is twelve kinds of awesome.
Second Deadwood. I'm thinking Spaced isn't the nest for working out, although it is great fun, once you get into it.
Deadwood, Burn Notice, Psych are all excellent choices. Also, The State.
I have a standing recommendation (that is, one I've yet to act on) to watch Dexter. The same person who recommended it also suggested Dead Like Me, which I found oddly charming.
The first two seasons of Millennium (it went badly off the rails in Season 3 then got canceled) are good, but maybe not workout material.
I think they only made like 12 episodes of The Middleman, but I found it incredibly charming.
I loved that show. Pure goofiness, but so much fun!
Ugly Betty is my workout TV of choice. Something about the pacing is just right for keeping me distracted. (I started watching The Office while I worked out, and while I love the show, it's just too oddly paced to work for that purpose.)
I don't know what it's like in the US, but in the UK, TV shows on iTunes are absurdly overpriced. You're better off buying the DVD and converting it using something like Videora. I watched most of Kids In The Hall this way.
That said, Harvey Birdman is available on iTunes, and it's great.
34: That world-ends-to-visions-of-the-Madonna-and-Patty-Smith's-"Horses" episode was really something else.
Rome and Deadwood are both good. I have a bit of a problem with Deadwood due to the fact that after watching I tend to slide into fucking swearing like a goddamn hooplehead cocksucker.
I have a thing for documentaries, which might be worth a look. Frontline is usually reliably interesting, and you get a double whammy of self satisfaction since you are working out *and* informing yourself on the state of the world. I'm not objective, though, as I have a close friend who is associated with Frontline. The downside is that some of the shows are absurdly depressing.
It's not TV, but I've been listening to podcast lectures from itunesU when I'm at the gym.
I'm watching The Kids in the Hall while I work out. A couple of episodes make for a little less than an hour which is just right for me.
Other shows I plan to work my way through are Perry Mason, as I loved that show as a kid and the sight of Raymond Burr will spur me to activity as a negative example.
70s crime drama seems like it should be wonderful, but is terrible
OK, I have no idea whether it would be good for working out, but Starsky & Hutch is straight-up awesome. I'm pretty sure I talked about it last year when I was Huluing it. I was too young to remember anything, so it wasn't really a nostalgia hit (or, it was general nostalgia for the 70s and 70s TV), but it was great fun. Great rapport among the principals, good humor, goofy plots, &c. I was watching ravenously before Kai's sleep schedule changed and I stopped getting opportunities.
Oh, and we're about to finish the DVD run of Mad Men, with Rome planned for next. Beyond that, I'll be looking to this thread.
On the '70s crime drama tip, The Rockford Files is highly recommended. A parade of "hey it's that guy/gal" moments, a hero who's always on the side of the little guy, great TV music, great cars, gender equity and basic humanity it's hard to find on TV today and an endless supply of examples of social engineering both small and large. The guy who did The Sopranos, David something-or-other, worked on The Rockford Files a lot. He's in the opening credits of basically every episode that involves the mafia in any way. Tremendous fun.
So much love for Rome here! I was really meh about it. It's kind of luridly entertaining, in that soap-opera way, but I never really got hooked by the story or the characters.
29: I think How It's Made and the similar geek shows would be very good exercise material.
I think Scrapheap Challenge or Junkyard Wars would fit this bill well.
46: Rah liked a lot about it, and watched it, but I was likewise all meh-y. (Rah was drawn to a number of the performances of the historical figures and loves basically any sort of palace intrigue.) Personally, I didn't particularly care for what seemed to me to be the Forrestus Gumpus deal of the two dudes who wind up everywhere and pretty quickly decided that I'd much rather have simply watched I, Claudius.
Another show to recommend for working out: Carnivale. So tasty. I am also seriously considering adding Forever Knight to the rotation simply because it might make me pedal harder in an effort to escape.
Kieslowski's Decalogue was the greatest TV series of all time. Maybe not the greatest gym viewing, but what would you really rather be doing, working out or just sitting there, devastated?
39 made me spend a few minutes seeking out Madonna's version of "Horses". It doesn't exist!
Just out straight up butt kicking (your own) in the gym and you won't need TV.
The crier and election scenes in Rome are completely fabulous. Cicero is brilliantly scripted and acted. The second season goes in for too much sadism for my taste, but I thought it was a really nice blend of history and drama.
Actually, the Kapur/Blanchett Elizabeth movies are the same way.
Rockford Files is a great idea, worth investigating.
Dekalog is worth watching definitely, but only some are great; not good for workouts, though, sort of the TV equivalent of Chopin's Nocturnes. Exercise and gloom are great complements for each other, IMO. Yin and yang for life in a fragmented society composed of shards of ennui and dread.
Maybe I should stay quiet, don't care for stationary exercise, so I have no firsthand experience about what TV fits workouts. Escape from New York or Evil Dead seem about right, but that would be hard to achieve regularly on a small budget. Oooh-- wait, I've got one-- Kung Fu!
I'd much rather have simply watched I, Claudius
Actually, I've suggested this to AB. Hmm. I wonder if I only get one chance to get her to watch a drawn-out fictionalization of the Caesars....
52: I liked the 2d season mostly because everyone looks hott wearing a ton of eyeliner. Nomnom, Marcus Antoninus!
I wonder if I only get one chance to get her to watch a drawn-out fictionalization of the Caesars....
Rome seems to have ended at a point before the start of I, Claudius.
45: A Rockford Files remake is in the works at NBC. The creator of House is in charge.
56: Without reading the article I'm going to cynically assume that the main character will be a pompous ass and/or sexual predator who isn't a quarter as likable as James Garner and the show's definition of "humor" will be small-minded snideness. I'm not feeling the love on remakes these days and I think of Rockford as, in all honesty, near-perfect television.
But I'm going to go read the article now and hope that I'm wrong.
57.1 gets it (I strongly suspect) exactly right.
AB & I watched the pilot a couple years ago, and were stunned, more than anything else, by how slow it was. Now, iirc, it was a 2 hour episode that basically had all the plot of a 1 hour, so it may be that the regular run was less extreme, but here are two examples:
- Wealthy woman on her pool deck of fabulous Modernist house overlooking LA. Phone rings. Several times. She gets up, walks around the pool, inside, and picks up the phone. Honestly, I think a minute might have passed between the scene opening and her answering the damn phone*
- Climax [spoiler alert]: Jim is out in the desert with a bad guy in a Cessna strafing him (with a rifle or something). The plane makes a pass, then loops around, makes another pass, etc. At least 4-5 passes, each shown in real time (it takes at least a minute for the plane to loop around). By modern standards, a completely unexciting scene.
To be clear, it was enjoyable, but it was also astonishing that this was made in out lifetimes - it felt so old-fashioned.
* One little thing (among many of course) that Mad Men gets right is how long it took people to answer the phone in the pre-voicemail days. No rush.
Veronica Mars! Veronica Mars!
I also second Deadwood.
Veronica Mars is insanely awesome. I recently rewatched it all. Twice. Don't judge me.
60: You know, I watched the original State of Play a year or so ago (thanks to the Snarkfoxes) and it, of course, rules (and John Simm is my secret boyfriend*). But I just recently watched the US movie remake, and man oh man does it ever suck! And it got good reviews!
*Which also means that anyone who hasn't seen the original Life on Mars should watch that too.
39 made me spend a few minutes seeking out Madonna's version of "Horses". It doesn't exist!
But wouldn't it be cool if it did?
Madonna should also cover Free Money and Gloria: In Excelsis Deo/Gloria.
Oh, at times it's very slow. Part of my love for it is as an example of how differently TV has been made over time and how different it is from TV now. Those dissonances are a big part of what I enjoy when watching it: tremendously old-fashioned construction of an episode that contains ideas that are progressive to the point of sometimes spilling over into transgressive by today's standards of Dr. Science Cop, Authority Figure. It's also surprising to modern eyes that Rockford can have so little. He lives in a shitty trailer on blocks in the parking lot of a shitty restaurant. Nowhere in sight are the enormous, well-appointed apartments found only on television.
I was thinking the other day of rewatching Rome. Partly because I'm reading (very slowly) Robert Harris's Imperium, partly just to perv on Titus Pullo again.
Since finishing The Wire I have watched 2 episodes of The Office (US) and University Challenge and that's about it. So I have nothing useful to suggest.
64 to 58, of course.
anyone who hasn't seen the original Life on Mars should watch that too
It is really, really good. It's like a cookie-cutter cop show turned inside out so that it becomes really genuinely interesting. It humanizes the cops without lionizing them.
I want to be a renaissance-style art patron so I can commission works of art to fit my bizarre whims. "Manservant, take this letter to Signora Ciccone asking her to produce an album of Patti Smith covers."
61: You know, I totally loved the first season, especially Logan's character arc, but it really went downhill after that.
58: by how slow it was.
Commercials are where I really notice this. Go look at a few classics on YouTube and if you're like me you'll find yourself snoozing off. I'm curious if Laugh-In which seemed frenetic at the time would seem to lag today?
The British State of Play.
I just watched that last week (one episode a night) and loved it but found the wrap-up (and final episode overall) generally disappointing. I thought that the effort to get in one final plot twist ended up opening up a bunch of holes in the plausibility of what had happened earlier.
58 64
AB & I watched the pilot a couple years ago, and were stunned, more than anything else, by how slow it was. ...
For my somewhat similar take see here .
62
And for my take on State of Play (movie vrs miniseries) see here .
I think the movie might be more appealing if you haven't seen the miniseries.
I thought that the effort to get in one final plot twist ended up opening up a bunch of holes in the plausibility of what had happened earlier.
Agreed.
Veronica Mars fourthed, but only the first two seasons.
68: I liked season 2 much, much better the 2d (and 3d!) time around. Duncan and Meg are around being pointless much less than you think! (And I suspect I mind the over-the-topness much less than you.)
It's also surprising to modern eyes that Rockford can have so little. He lives in a shitty trailer on blocks in the parking lot of a shitty restaurant. Nowhere in sight are the enormous, well-appointed apartments found only on television.
Yes, this. IIRC, a significant part of the episode revolved around checks - Rockford's need for them and Lindsay Waggoner's (!) bouncing of them. Not a lot of characters on TV scratching for 3 figures these day (attn TV producers: I have a concept for you!).
I'm curious if Laugh-In which seemed frenetic at the time would seem to lag today?
It's been a little while, but last time I watched, it had held up surprisingly well. It probably helps to have affection for the characters and the zeitgeist, but still - it's not langorous.
71 74
I liked the final plot twist in State of Play, at least in the miniseries.
I liked the final plot twist in State of Play, at least in the miniseries.
But ask yourself this (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers) -- once the briefcase was lost why did he (the man with the briefcase) try to carry on with the op?
It seems like, at that point, he could have just bailed on the whole thing and it wouldn't have been a problem. He wasn't really in any legal jeopardy at that point.
Veronica Mars is insanely awesome. I recently rewatched it all. Twice. Don't judge me.
Twice!? Now I feel all outgunned as a Veronica Mars fan. Time to start it back up again, I guess.
76 Duncan and Meg are around being pointless much less than you think!
Yes! I was shocked by how little of the season they occupy. (The ending is still stupid, but whatevs.)
Season Three... eh. It has a few moments.
Also stupid in season two: anything happening in or near a courtroom.
M*A*S*H holds up pretty well, at least the first 8 seasons.
Veronica Mars, yes. Rome, yes. British State of Play, yes. Deadwood, yes. Dexter, yes. Six Feet Under, yes. (Can you tell I watch a lot of TV on DVD?) Though now that I think about it I think I would only watch Veronica Mars and Dexter while exercising. The others require more full of attention, in my experience.
I also, somewhat ashamedly, will offer up a recommendation for Gilmore Girls for gym watching. It's fast-paced, silly, and you can miss a few minutes without it mattering at all. Simpsons and Futurama and the like would be good for the gym, as well as perhaps something like Wonderfalls. Also, Doctor Who or Torchwood might work.
Oh, and while the suggestion Homicide might have been a joke, I totally second it. Love that show.
Rockford Files was my favorite show as a kid. I got my mom to make us tacos since Jim Rockford always used to eat them.
It is real slow to watch now.
It's also surprising to modern eyes that Rockford can have so little. He lives in a shitty trailer on blocks in the parking lot of a shitty restaurant. Nowhere in sight are the enormous, well-appointed apartments found only on television.
It is one of the best positioned shitty trailers in a parking lot of a shitty restaurant since it is next to the beach in malibu.
Apparently, robert blake was going to do the role, but the idea was that rockford was going to be a coward (he just seemed prudent to me, but whatever) and they didn't think a cowardly short man would cut it.
80
But ask yourself this (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers) -- once the briefcase was lost why did he (the man with the briefcase) try to carry on with the op?
Well the man with the briefcase was nuts wasn't he? And wouldn't your objection apply without the final plot twist? Anyway aren't lots of plots full of holes if you think about them too much?
84
Oh, and while the suggestion Homicide might have been a joke, I totally second it. Love that show.
I also liked it but it is pretty similar to "The Wire".
Is my raging crush on season 1 Logan bad, or simply inevitable?
Not a lot of characters on TV scratching for 3 figures these day
And consider the costs of maintenance and bodywork on that Firebird—no matter what abuse (all those bullets!) it took, it was in top shape the next week. I always wanted to learn his trademark 180-degree turnaround, but I've never owned a car that could handle it.
Is my raging crush on season 1 Logan bad, or simply inevitable?
Simply inevitable.
Take comfort that you're lusting after a sixteen year old being played by a thirty year old. But man, that Logan is totally dreamy.
I gave my parents Veronica Mars, which they loved. They lent it to some family friends, who watched the pilot and then never picked it up again. My opinion of the family friends slipped a notch.
I recently rewatched the season 2 ep containing Logan's drunken confession of "epic" (bloodshed! spanning continents!) love for Veronica just because. Mitigating factor: big, big, big 3d generation scientologist.
VM season 1 is possibly the most solid single season of television I have ever seen, but the dropoff in quality after the S1 finale was precipitous. I think I'm alone in preferring season 3 to season 2.
Logan is cute, but man, I can't forget or forgive Bumfights.
How does TV watching at the gym work, exactly? I could see perching the iPod on the progress monitor of a treadmill or an elliptical, but are you also able to do it somehow for other forms of gym exercise (e.g., weight machines or free weights)?
I always wanted to learn his trademark 180-degree turnaround, but I've never owned a car that could handle it.
The Firebird definitely had an extremely low center of gravity and lent itself to stunts such as J-turns. A bit of Rockford trivia: Garner insisted on doing almost all his own driving, including most of the crazy stuff.
Yes, OK, so I have kind of a crush on Rockford and on Garner.
I thought the bumfights plotline was a good use of a real world event in a fictional TV show. It worked much better than having the college kids re-live the Stanford prison experiment.
I'm sure there is also a greatest-shots collection of some famous NBA star or another that could make for inspirational watching. Say, Kobe.
I thought the bumfights plotline was a good use of a real world event in a fictional TV show.
Yeah, and it worked well to introduce us to Aaron and his anger. Definitely difficult to forgive, though. (See also: setting swimming pools on fire.)
99: It's also the ep by which we find out that Logan's dad beats the shit out of him.
No, it was definitely a good plot device. I'm just explaining why I couldn't have a crush on Logan. Because he was a horrible, horrible person.
I think I'm alone in preferring season 3 to season 2.
Season 3 kept promising to be interesting and then failing to deliver. I know they were getting jerked around by the network a lot, but still. And the characterization frequently seemed off. (Hardly any Wallace at all, and when he is around he's cheating in a class, which seems un-Wallace-like, and then he mysteriously suffers no repercussions whatsoever....) Then the Logan-slept-with-Madison thing seemed invented just to have an excuse for Veronica and Logan to break up again, which was just an excuse to have Veronica and Piz get together, and who ever liked Piz anyway? Way too much relationshippy-soapiness in that season. But the last episode was a real highlight, in a lot of ways. And I liked the Keith and Harmony subplot.
Say, Kobe.
Some things are just better left unsaid.
But this does give me an excuse to recommend Heart of the Game again. Really, everybody should see that movie.
I was just thinking about it again this last weekend it's really, really well done. And it doesn't require an interest in basketball to be interesting. I know at least a few friends of mine that can't stand sports that enjoyed and recommend Heart of the Game despite not caring about sports at all.
94 I recently rewatched the season 2 ep containing Logan's drunken confession of "epic" (bloodshed! spanning continents!) love for Veronica just because.
Oudemia can hear the bells.
Rome is absolutely fantastic and has it all -- sex n' violence, drama, and an almost anthropological take on the profound different-ness of classical society.
The Tudors is not nearly as good as Rome, but it's still fun if you like historical drama. Great costumes, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is hot.
Project Runway might be the best of all the reality shows, really a blast, but I assume it needs no evangelizing.
106: I just like the way he scooches forward.
"The Amazing Race" is the best of all the reality shows.
106: But now that song is stuck in my head.
87: Oh, and while the suggestion Homicide might have been a joke, I totally second it. Love that show.
I also liked it but it is pretty similar to "The Wire".
Homicide was a good show, and preceded The Wire by quite some time. They're similar, I guess, but by that measure they're similar to Hill Street Blues (good show) as well.
Veronica Mars is insanely awesome. I recently rewatched it all. Twice. Don't judge me.
To 61: I do judge you. I judge you AWESOME!
I recently Tivo'd all of Moonlight (a crappy remake of Forever Knight, which was crappy enough to begin with) just to see Logan as a vampire. Worth it.
Yes, season 3 of Veronica Mars is spotty, but it is worth it to see Logan smash out the car windows to get sent to jail so he can beat up the guy who tried to rape Veronica. Such an awesome moment. I deliberately didn't watch the last episode so that for me the series just never officially ended.
V. Mars, of course.
I'm also kind of ridiculously into How I Met Your Mother at the moment, having purchased seasons 1 and 2 on iTunes and watched them in their entirety within about 3 days.
Anyway aren't lots of plots full of holes if you think about them too much?
True for my life, real plausibility and motivational lacunae.
Why are there not enough benches at any gym except the pricey ones?
I'm just explaining why I couldn't have a crush on Logan. Because he was a horrible, horrible person.
Word. Plus the whole "I'm straight" thing. Point being, I've never really understood women with Logan crushes. On a superficial level, it's somewhat understandable. But it seems to me there would be far, far too many countervailing factors.
Straight men are never attracted to female characters who are bad news. Never!
I deliberately didn't watch the last episode so that for me the series just never officially ended.
I did this with Raymond Chandler. The last dozen pages of Farewell My Lovely are sitting unread in the trunk of my car because I'm not ready for a world in which there's no more Chandler to read.
Oh, and while the suggestion Homicide might have been a joke, I totally second it. Love that show.
Another show more favored by Rah than by me, but I love Richard Belzer and really enjoyed every episode of Homicide that I happened to see.
I deliberately didn't watch the last episode so that for me the series just never officially ended.
I made the decision when I was an adolescent never to read Curtain, and I still haven't.
A show I am looking forward to watching (based on my children's enthusiastic recommendations) is the anime Monster which looks like it will show on SciFi (which is now Syfy I guess?) two episode at a time starting next Monday at 11. Apparently there will is an English-dubbed set of discs due out in December.
SciFi (which is now Syfy I guess?)
Yeah. Boy is that dumb.
119: You are kidding, right? I mean, I only saw about half the first episode, so maybe it got better, but what I saw seemed pretty much like an unmitigated disaster.
Straight men are never attracted to female characters who are bad news
I'm not saying that, obviously. Hell, VM herself acknowledges she's bad news later in the series. The point is that there's a line, surely, and Logan seems to me to have crossed it quite a few times.
122:
Yes. I havent seen it, but a bunch of 40 yr old women-friends love it.
Hell, VM herself acknowledges she's bad news later in the series. The point is that there's a line, surely, and Logan seems to me to have crossed it quite a few times.
Bumfights: bad! Baby-kidnapping: hott!
Veronica is bad news? How's that?
Homicide was a good show, and preceded The Wire by quite some time. They're similar, I guess, but by that measure they're similar to Hill Street Blues (good show) as well.
If Standpipe were here, parsi, he might direct you to this link.
126: I remember her giving the "You don't want to date me; I'm bad news" speech to Leo -- but it seemed that mostly she didn't want to date Leo.
127: Uh-huh. The Corner is phenomenal. Tough. To watch.
I don't have any strong argument to make. Homicide was a bit more formulaic than The Wire, that's all. The latter broke ground in a way that the former only hinted at. My point was that shows like Hill Street Blues set the stage for something like Homicide. But it's not really a big deal enough to argue about.
129: It is pretty standard to argue that Hill Street Blues set the stage for all of the high end TV dramas with season long plot arcs that we see now. I think the Everything Bad is Good for You guy claimed that.
Personally I think Twin Peaks was the real turning point for how much a TV show was allowed to challenge its viewers.
123
... The point is that there's a line, surely ...
Apparently not.
130: Robert, I was just remembering this morning your coming up to me in Annapolis, at the very beginning of senior year, to exclaim, "The two biggest shows on tv are by Matt Groening and David Lynch!" And we both just shook our heads. 19 years ago! Oof!
"Veronica is bad news? How's that?"
Breaks the law on a regular basis. Properly fucks over Leo and her father. Manipulates people to achieve her goals. Takes advantage of her friends. All in a good cause, of course, but still.
Personally I think Twin Peaks was the real turning point for how much a TV show was allowed to challenge its viewers.
Snark and I were having this conversation just the other night. (We agree with you.)
129
I don't have any strong argument to make. Homicide was a bit more formulaic than The Wire, that's all. The latter broke ground in a way that the former only hinted at. ...
Sure, but if you didn't like "The Wire" you probably aren't going like "Homicide" either.
I liked "Veronica Mars" a lot also but not because I had a crush on Veronica. She seemed like she would be a very annoying gf.
130: It is pretty standard to argue that Hill Street Blues set the stage for all of the high end TV dramas with season long plot arcs that we see now.
Heh. I didn't know that.
I like The Venture Brothers. And Frisky Dingo.
Manipulates people to achieve her goals.
Not that they mind. "Isn't that the bedrock upon which our friendship was founded?"
I can't believe no one has mentioned Weeds yet! My boyfriend and I are halfway through Season 2 on Netflix and loving it. I have several laugh-out-loud moments per episode, and the characters are generally well-developed and 3-dimensional. Plus: Mary Louise Parker. So hot.
Of course, exercising is the last thing I think of doing while watching Weeds. Usually I'm partaking of the theme element and eating cheese crackers. So maybe it's more of a leisure-time show than a motivating one.
Lastly, "Little Boxes" is a great song.
I recently discovered Eureka on Sci-fi Syfy. I wouldn't call it great television, but it's good silly fun when you just want to shut down your brain for a while.
I liked "Veronica Mars" a lot also but not because I had a crush on Veronica. She seemed like she would be a very annoying gf.
Come on, James. Just be glad she doesn't flip her hair. She'd own you.
Speaking of cop shows, Miami Vice had many virtues (introductions of future stars like Liam Neeson, those wordless down endings where Sonny Crockett and his colleagues brood over the injustices that they could not prevent, beautiful cinematography thanks to Michael Mann's insane disrespect for budgets), constrained by crappy '80s television formulae.
Lastly, "Little Boxes" is a great song.
Me, I think Tom Lehrer had it right when he described it as "the most sanctimonious song ever written".
I find Eureka amusing, too.
Weeds, on the other hand, I can't stand. I hate every single one of the characters with a passion even as I recognize that I should be finding it all hilarious. Eh, whatcha gonna do?
145: Uncle Andy rules. The rest of them should be suffocated, particularly Mary Louise Parker's character, who has by now been a party to the murders of a surprising number of people.
re: 62
John Simm is one of those actors who makes reliably good choices. He's always watchable. Having him, Bill Nighy, David Morrisey, and the lovely Kelly Macdonald* in one program ... so good.
* who is like the Platonic form of a particular type of Scottish girl ...
Having him, Bill Nighy, David Morrisey, and the lovely Kelly Macdonald* in one program ... so good.
Seriously. Morrisey regularly makes bad choices (Basic Instinct 2, anyone) but is so attractive!
144 gets it right, but that song has been outstripped in sanctimony many times in the last 40 years.
Any and every Joss Whedon show. Firefly and Angel are my favorites. the first season of Dollhouse gets to be pretty good halfway through, and Buffy is of course classic.
Also - the original Miami Vice is super entertaining in small doses.
Lastly, "Little Boxes" is a great song.
Me, I think Tom Lehrer had it right when he described it as "the most sanctimonious song ever written".
Both of these statements are correct. It irritates my wife greatly when we have to visit her suburban-dwelling colleagues, and I sing it when we're driving through the housing developments where they live. Just wait, I think, until I teach it to our daughters.
Bad comma placement, but you get my meaning.
Uh, trying to split the difference here I guess- season 1 of weeds was funny and nicely paced. In season 2, the characters were reduced to a stock line or attitude for comedy, and the program veered towards a Sopranos-lite soap. I haven't watched anything subsequent, not optimistic, except about Ms Parker's sweet smile.
I hope to finish watching Homicide someday, but I gave up (for a while) somewhere during season 3. It was good, but a bit too theatrical for my tastes, and some of the sub-plots seemed a bit too far out. I heard it starts to cohere around certain cases as it goes on. The big difference from The Wire is that it's comparatively all about the cops.
Eh, whatcha gonna do?
Watch Cops at the gym?
Watch Cops at the gym?
You never know when they're coming for you.
(Sadly, I'm singing this in my head now.)
Speaking of cop shows, Miami Vice had many virtues (introductions of future stars like Liam Neeson,
Also in the first season: Bruce Willis and the guy who plays John Locke in Lost. Having grown up in South Florida, I just love it for the set pieces in seedy clubs and the like. The episode where they get kidnapped by the weird survivalist clan in the Everglades is particularly awesome on this front.
so in love with season 1 logan. I know you're all shocked. actually I had a friend pwn me recently when I was saying I was watching heroes and had a big crush on someone and before I could finish he was like "sylar! you have a thing for sylar!" um, yeah.
and if you guys had just rtfa archives you'd realize becks has watched veronica mars already, and been let down.
I have to say (again) that it's really annoying that Hulu only works in the US. There seems to be a general copyright bottleneck with streaming video up here - the netflix-equivalents don't appear to have a streaming option (though I haven't signed up for one, so I might have just missed it in their promotional info).
Watching anything other than a pulse counter on an iPod screen at arms length would give me motion sickness while exercising.
Watching the big TVs on the wall, I find sports are good, because for intervals I can go all out when the puck/ball/stick is in play, then recover; it's like tabata times ten.
I used to watch late night talkshows on the big overhead TVs with captions, and it was obvious Conan had better writing than Kilborn. Now the I workout earlier and the TVs are on CNBC and various E! VH1 shows about breast implants and dating men in rap constumes.
How did I miss the Rockford Files thread?
One of the greatest shows of all time. So incredibly well written, and it really updates the noir tradition well. For me, the 1970s LA scenes are so evocative, like a grimy beige Madeleine. Plus, my family friend/coach/mentor was a character actor in a bunch of episodes.
Gardner basically killed his body doing his own stunts. The show spent so much on its writers, cast, and location filming that it lost a bunch of money despite being a hit.
I have to say (again) that it's really annoying that Hulu only works in the USSSH tunneling is your friend.
wait, I can somehow watch hulu? tell me more. I have the rockford files theme song on my ipod, and it often shows up in shuffle, making my day just that much more awesome. waa-na wanana weedle weedle weed wa naah. so much synthesizer/harmonica action.
Hill Street Blues barely preceded St Elsewhere, they ran concurrently from the same MTM studio, but SE rarely gets any love, except for the 13 Emmys.
I always felt HSB was in-your-face ostentatiously dark and edgy, with insufficient variety. Preferred the hospital.
Did anybody mention Journeyman? Only lasted one season, but Kevin McKidd (intense Vorenus dude from the Rome show) in a semi-quantum leap kind of thing, except he's home more often and pals around with his hot ex-girlfriend in the various time strata. And his brother thinks he's back on the drugs and gambling. What's not to like?
The dog men from the future episode is what's called "the shit."
I just watched, and then read about twenty reviews, and nobody gets this movie The final scene is unnecessary except for the final line, and the revelation is no big deal, and even detracts. Yeah, Thomas is uin ever scene, but the movie is not about Thomas
I mean we got Nancy, and two vietnamese adoptees, and an old rotund man who picks up women at the swimming pool, a secretive but kind professor who escapes into literature, and a very needy parole officer, and a refugee family from Iraq and stroke-mute grandpa in the library that the brilliant little girl attaches post-its to, and a boss who just wants Thomas to be a little more sociable and cafes, and books in almost every scene, and pickups, and silly drunk academics playing soccer. etc etc etc. And a sister with a frightened husband.
Watch the fucking movie and listen to the words. When the "background" is this detailed, varied, attractive and well-observed, it could be that the background is the point.
The movie is about family, friends, and France.
I thought it was going to be Saw III until I followed the link.
Watch the fucking movie and listen to the words.
But I don't speak French!
172:Umm, how long does it take to understand when "si" is more appropriate than "oui?" I think it came up twice.
I am getting to the point where I think the subtitles are getting in my way.
how long does it take to understand when "si" is more appropriate than "oui?"
This was in a recent episode of mad men. The answer: a long time (for the nasty smarmy ones).
wispa! something i wrote about v/s/m got a hilariously shitty response from s/ir rog/er doug/las! I feel special, an ex- minister of finance made fun of me!
166: wait, I can somehow watch hulu? tell me more
You can bounce all your traffic via a proxy server in whichever jurisdiction they're looking for. For Hulu the connection appears to come from wherever your server is, so it passes all the checks. They send the data out to the proxy and the proxy sends it back to Narnia.
HTTP proxies generally don't work for this since they usually give away that they're proxies, so they're easy for Hulu to filter out, but a SOCKS proxy that just runs the traffic out directly generally does.
SSH (for Windows: PuTTY) in moderately recent versions has inbuilt support for tunneling one of those over the encrypted connection. It's just a regular proxy like you sometimes find in workplace networks, but listening on a port on the local system, so it can be configured for use with anything that supports that.
You do need to have a server in the place you want to pretend to be, or a friend who'll let you use theirs. You can get low-end virtual servers in the U.S. for a few dollars a month.
Useful is this Firefox addon, which dynamically changes the proxy for certain sites so you don't have to do it manually or run absolutely all your traffic through it.
This is too long already, but that's the gist of the process. This is how I watch Colbert from work. Ahem.
It just doesn't seem worth it. Colbert and the Daily Show are on over here, just on a different channel and corresponding website.
What really annoys me about Hulu is that some of the old movies appear to be public domain*, but their blanket exclusions keep people from watching those too.
*In the US. Canada's law is a bit less restrictive, I think, so odds are what's public domain there is public domain here.
Hilariously shitty! You lucky thing, reiK. Publicly or privately?
He would probably help his cause, any cause, better by staying the hell out of it.
The local VSM crowd managed to get one laughably poor candidate elected (unopposed) to the Vic exec, which should be entertaining.
They're on here too, I just prefer to watch it at lunch than at night (and they're not locally online, just broadcast). It would work just as well for Hulu or anything else, though. One proxy per location, not per site.
It's not really a complex process to get set up. But whether it's worthwhile depends on how much you actually want to watch.
Well, it'll be in next week's Ca/nta. I mean, it's pretty stock stuff actually, but he -- or rather, his comms staff -- have clearly googled me and found the one place i'm mentioned on wikipedia & so lots of `it is no surprise that he would say that' and then `it is a surprise his arguments are so bad' and such.
yeah, vuwsa politics is always hugely entertaining. Remember cos/grove? and fre/mantle's expulsion?
bleh, googleproof fail!
(if anyone would care to fix, i'd be grateful...)
Exciting. Google-stalked by a Knight of the Realm!
Remember cos/grove?
Remember? He never left. He's just been trespassed again within the last few weeks, after yet another protest he colonised.
Bit of a sore spot, though. A friend of mine lately appears to have joined the Workers Party and begun speaking in soundbites. It's disheartening.
Google-stalked by a Knight of the Realm!
I know! it's made me kind of paranoid now.
i always felt conflicted about the WP, because i guess they are properly left, and their hearts' are in the right place, but they seem rather sect-y in the good old marxist way, but with less flair for polemics & feuding. (though RAM always gave me the creeps: come on, admit, you're commies&socialists, quit pretending you're the cits & rats.)
They're like a cult. And "properly left" in a dubious, furthering-themselves, not particularly ideologically coherent way. They infest and seize control of any sort of protest, about anything, and then disappear as soon as there's a new cause du jour. And creepily, creepily rigid.
Not short of polemics or feuding, either. They chucked out Jas/mine bloody Free/mantle for being doctrinally suspect. And have now decided they're being repressed by the establishment, spawning more polemics again. I have avoided any ambivalence about them.
We are considering holding an intervention. I think she's having a breakdown.
the free/mantle thing was fucking nuts, she was the best thing that happened to them!
the cos/grove shit pissed me off so much, like his `i (heart) my penis' shirt & the flag burning thing. i mean, (a) dude, burning a flag is not going to endear you to any actual workers and (b) not on a wooden fucking deck!
(mind you, not being a student at vic meant it was generally all just entertaining gossip; vuwsa does much better drama than any of the other student's associations. ucsa is just vaguely tammany hall.)
what does your friend think about free/mantle? that might be a place to start, but might also just bounce off the dogma.
(i almost bought the wp newspaper, just for the title. and then i thought bugger that. but i did sign a petition, because it was on union letterhead, so. But i felt kinda guilty about giving aid and comfort to these guys who were clearly clearly comicbook maoists/trots/leninists without any self-awareness.)
She really was. I still don't understand what the actual reason for that was. But I am quite convinced I don't want anybody I care about involved with them.
In fairness, it's not actually wooden. At least if it's the one I think it was. But there is a lot of wood, cloth, and plastic there, and trees around. So yes, very stupid. The latest trespass is after throwing things at people during a council meeting. Now they are crying persecution.
She has "mixed feelings" and claims to have "personal issues" with her (I'm pretty sure they've never met). It seems there was a lot of gender politics playing into the expulsion though, which really might help. I am surprised that those weren't a dealbreaker in fact. But it's remarkable how quick the transformation has been. Once upon a time she was scathing of them. (For context: her flatmate hanged herself about eight weeks ago; "breakdown" isn't really implausible). It's a shitty situation. I really have no ideas, but a quasi-cult is not a good solution to anything.
||
That was a hell of an ending.
|>
christ that sucks.
Ii got the strong impression that gender was a big part of it, including a fear of competent women. That and an inability to handle disagreements (which really isn't a very helpful thing for your friend).
mind you, most people come out of encounters with the mad marxists reasonably ok. there's really not much active you can do is there, because the obvious `just point out they're nuts' thing has certain flaws.
(and i see that my `gossip with the y-l types' strategy for keeping informed about vuwsa has flaws...)
I have to say (again) that it's really annoying that Hulu only works in the USSSH tunneling is your friend.
It's a hard life being a sailor on the USS H Tunneling, so it's only fair they should get Hulu.
Anyway, in the past I've used AnchorFree as a proxy to access Hulu and other sites, but I can't recommend it 100%. Mainly because one automatic update a while back triggered constant BSODs, and partly because it's damn slow. Still, it's free and they've fixed the crashing bug, so if you don't want to pay for a decent proxy it's a viable alternative.
The episode where they get kidnapped by the weird survivalist clan in the Everglades is particularly awesome on this front.
"Maybe... you won't even... twitch."
154 is right on Weeds, it started out well but has gone downhill. Season 3 loses all touch with a plausible reality.
"Generation Kill" was a fantastic war movie once you get into it. Almost a little too accurate/realistic, but that's not a flaw in my mind.
It does suck. But you're right, there's not much actually to be done. She'll come to her senses eventually, and we'll learn to put up with the soundbites until then. I guess there are worse strategies. It's just disheartening to see a previously rational person go down that way.
The YL people have occasionally come to violence with the WP people (and so may not be entirely reliable on the subject themselves). It's all very entertaining and dysfunctional from the outside.
Question -- the "watch instantly" feature on Netflix. Does that work on an iPhone? I suppose I could just try it, but I thought I'd ask first.
193: Sadly, no, it does not work on the iPhone. Just tried it again (after not having tried in a while) and it's a no-go. I am very sad.
Microsoft is presumably not rushing to release "Silverlight for iPhone."
Too true. I'd forgotten that it was Silverlight. I'd assumed it was Flash video and that isn't supported on the iPhone yet, either.
Stupid Microsoft Silverfish.
Flash video will be (is? Not sure about the timing) supported, but only in apps. So there could be Hulu app, but probably not a streaming Netflix app unless they decided to switch over to Flash.
If you find amoral degenerates funny Trailer Park Boys is worth a watch. Plus it's Canadian, so you get that foreign TV cred.
Microsoft is presumably not rushing to release "Silverlight for iPhone."
Foolish, really, given Apple's reluctance to put Flash on iPhones. Presumably there would be similar problems with Silverlight, but hypothetically if there weren't, it would be a cunning way to persuade web developers to use it and erode Flash's market share.