General Television Thread

[LittleDaniel]

17 hours ago, tristy said:

Why didn't anyone tell me The West Wing was so good? I'm only on episode 4 but fuck it's really, really good. Where has this show been all my life? I remember my parents watching it when I was younger - sorta like Friends in that sense, something old that my parents watch when I was younger, and now I'm picking it up and enjoying it like they did.

Except the West Wing is good and Friends is trash

But seriously, West Wing is amazing.  That season two finale, oh man.  I recently watched through the first two seasons just to get to that point again, it was so worth it.

[tristy]

10 hours ago, LittleDaniel said:

Except the West Wing is good and Friends is trash

But seriously, West Wing is amazing.  That season two finale, oh man.  I recently watched through the first two seasons just to get to that point again, it was so worth it.

Hey now, I really like Friends actually. I binged it all in a few days about a month or two ago, it's not terribly bad for a 90s sitcom.

I think I'm about to get to the end of Season 1 of West Wing, and it's been really good. I don't think there's been a single episode I didn't like, and it all feels very accurate (or as accurate as a "Hollywood" production about politics can be). Surely Martin Sheen doesn't stay President for the entire series, though. But I do like him, at times.

[Benji]

I'm about 2 minutes into Stan Against Evil and it's already made me laugh five times. I hope it keeps up this pace.

[Adam]

Whenever I watch Friends I still find it amusing, in a bit of a comforting way from remembering watching it every damn day during my childhood. Some of the jokes haven't aged well due to how quickly society has moved on even since 2003/4, but it's nowhere near as bad as some other shows from that time. Scrubs for instance is depressingly dated in a lot of its humour.

[Benji]

I enjoyed the Trollied Christmas episode, but the return one this week was awful. Honestly not sure why I'm still watching it, Colin and Lisa have rarely been funny in seven seasons, but they still keep going with them and their shit crude humour (which isn't even humour, it's just people being gross, which in and of itself isn't funny).

Plus side, The Goldbergs return was great. I feel like it's probably hitting a point where they should consider wrapping it up in a season or two, but still nice to have a good old family sitcom to enjoy.

[Benjamin]

6 hours ago, Benji said:

I enjoyed the Trollied Christmas episode, but the return one this week was awful. Honestly not sure why I'm still watching it, Colin and Lisa have rarely been funny in seven seasons, but they still keep going with them and their shit crude humour (which isn't even humour, it's just people being gross, which in and of itself isn't funny).

Plus side, The Goldbergs return was great. I feel like it's probably hitting a point where they should consider wrapping it up in a season or two, but still nice to have a good old family sitcom to enjoy.

Oh damn, I completely forgot TV was returning this week. Just more stuff pilling up to be watched. The Goldbergs is golden, though, I will always love it because it's such an easy, joyous show to watch. It's never bad or even mediocre, even if you know what is going to happen, because it's done so effortlessly.

Have you watched Speechless, Benji? It's the greatest, so damn good. The AV Club community got me on it as they were complaining that the website stopped reviewing a lot of network comedy shows in favor of more niche ones, which was kind of sad. Still reviewing Modern Family though, for some reason.

Still quite a bit of good comedy on network TV, IMO. The Goldbergs, Speechless, B99, Last Man on Earth, The Good Place and everyone seems to have forgotten Fresh off the Boat unfortunately as the quality there hasn't dropped a bit as well, it's an amazing show. 

[MalaCloudy Black]

I hate the new AV Club. I understand why they changed to a blog format, and I'm probably missing out on some good pieces, but it's so gash now. At least Nathan Rabin's website is nicely laid out and always entertaining.

[GoGo Yubari]

nothing sums up the state of the AV Club more than the fact that they released a list of the worst things in pop culture in 2017 and one of the top ones was people going crazy over corporate brand Twitters having sassy replies... and then a day later an AV Club staffer made a post about all the Hilarious Owns that the Wendy's Twitter people made about McDonalds on a reddit AMA.

There are still some good writers there but it's a shadow of its former self and they've fucked up most of their signature features.

[Benji]

38 minutes ago, Benjamin said:

Have you watched Speechless, Benji? It's the greatest, so damn good. The AV Club community got me on it as they were complaining that the website stopped reviewing a lot of network comedy shows in favor of more niche ones, which was kind of sad. Still reviewing Modern Family though, for some reason.

Hadn't even heard about it. Knowing UK TV's tendency with good US comedies, it probably won't come over here for another season or two. I like the cast though, looks very promising.

Also, Friends is now on UK Netflix

[Josh]

1 hour ago, GoGo Yubari said:

nothing sums up the state of the AV Club more than the fact that they released a list of the worst things in pop culture in 2017 and one of the top ones was people going crazy over corporate brand Twitters having sassy replies... and then a day later an AV Club staffer made a post about all the Hilarious Owns that the Wendy's Twitter people made about McDonalds on a reddit AMA.

There are still some good writers there but it's a shadow of its former self and they've fucked up most of their signature features.

I’m of two minds about it all. I do hate that it’s harder to find some stuff. On the other hand, I have a few friends who write or edit there and I really value their opinions (at least in their specialty topics.) I dunno. The conflicting points of view have never bothered me. I feel like they’ve been there for ages anyhow.

[livid]

LA to Vegas is not nearly as bad as the commercials for it implied. 

[livid]

Animaniacs reboot gets 2 season order at Hulu. 

The rest of the series is also now available to stream, including Pinky and Brain spinoffs. 

[GoGo Yubari]

Original cast or no buys.

[JasonM]

Seeing the three VA's of the original Warner Brothers (and Warner Sister) are still alive and reasonably young (oldest is 66), i'd be pretty annoyed if they got replaced with different voices.

[GoGo Yubari]

Yeah, I've heard them all do the voices in person within the last year. The only one who sounds even a little different is Tress MacNeille's Dot, which makes perfect sense because she's 66 and Dot is Dot, and it's really not that far off. Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, and Maurice Lamarche are all still dead-on.

But then, "they can still do the voices but also we could pay unknown voiceover artists a whole lot less money to do reasonable imitations" is the story of what happened to Powerpuff Girls a couple years ago.

[tristy]

New Girl returns on April 10th for eight episodes, with a two part series finale. The season will be a time jump, three years into the future.

I'm super salty about the season being that short.

[MalaCloudy Black]

2 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

Original cast or no buys.

Speaking of the original cast, y'all need to watch Talkin' Toons with Rob Paulsen. 

[Jimmy]

Just finished the first season of Mr Robot, and while I enjoyed it for the most part, especially the visual style (like wow, it's a beautiful looking show and those compositions are incredible), I really wasn't into the direction they took the show in the last few episodes. I dunno, it felt a little too in love with itself, or just a bit silly. Anyone who loved it - would love to hear why, and is it worth sticking with the next few seasons? I feel it definitely earned enough benefit of the doubt, but I feel a little disappointed considering the hype. 

[GoGo Yubari]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Just finished the first season of Mr Robot, and while I enjoyed it for the most part, especially the visual style (like wow, it's a beautiful looking show and those compositions are incredible), I really wasn't into the direction they took the show in the last few episodes. I dunno, it felt a little too in love with itself, or just a bit silly. Anyone who loved it - would love to hear why, and is it worth sticking with the next few seasons? I feel it definitely earned enough benefit of the doubt, but I feel a little disappointed considering the hype. 

Season two is a big old mixed-bag, I think. The cool shit about it is still cool but it wastes a lot time with the first half of the season. There's one filming gimmick/episode theme that's really amazing to watch them pull off in terms of radically changing the style of show it is for a little bit, though.

Season three is brilliant and, in part, a deconstruction of what it sets up in season one. Like, a lot of the stuff that I thought was kind of corny or too in-love with itself gets turned on its head in season three. I thought season one was pretty good but not quite as amazing as it was hyped up to be

[Jimmy]

8 hours ago, GoGo Yubari said:

Season two is a big old mixed-bag, I think. The cool shit about it is still cool but it wastes a lot time with the first half of the season. There's one filming gimmick/episode theme that's really amazing to watch them pull off in terms of radically changing the style of show it is for a little bit, though.

Season three is brilliant and, in part, a deconstruction of what it sets up in season one. Like, a lot of the stuff that I thought was kind of corny or too in-love with itself gets turned on its head in season three. I thought season one was pretty good but not quite as amazing as it was hyped up to be

Basically what I wanted to read, cheers!