Page: 1 2 3
algy
Pool player 2001
Global user
Registered: 09-2005
Posts: 524
Karma: 6 (+6/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
House.
I'd heard a lot of good things about it; saw it for cheap; bought it.
Basically it has a great central character and not much more.
---
This is why we come
So we know their names
When those Spurs are done
|
|
1/26/2008, 11:27 am
|
Send Email to algy
Send PM to algy
|
Edge44
3rd year Batmanian
Global user
Registered: 09-2005
Location: Everywhere
Posts: 1095
Karma: 5 (+6/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
quote:
algy wrote:
House.
I'd heard a lot of good things about it; saw it for cheap; bought it.
Basically it has a great central character and not much more.
I'd totally agree. The writing explains everything, and I mean everything, through dialogue. What happened to "show, don't tell?"
However, who are we to deride it; the genrel public love it (although that's probably mostly made up of Americans, so there you go), and it's won lots of awards.
---
"Everything's relative..."
|
|
1/26/2008, 1:48 pm
|
Send Email to Edge44
Send PM to Edge44
|
Fitzgerald Fortune
Registered user
Global user
Registered: 10-2005
Location: Inside the Red Circle
Posts: 792
Karma: 12 (+12/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
HOUSE is a low-sugar SHERLOCK HOLMES, but set in a hospital. It substitutes US television-flavoured additives for natural ingredients; it's okay to watch in small doses, and out of all of those current American 'forensic' shows (which, despite its hospital setting, HOUSE really belongs to--there's the 'crime' and the piecing together of the evidence by a team) I find it the most tolerable--probably due to Hugh Laurie's performance which, despite his accent (which in the first episodes seemed horrible, at least to my ears) is pretty good. When I saw the pilot episode on television, I tuned out; but it's grown on me, and I don't mind watching it from time to time. Like all of those American crime shows, it's easy to watch precisely because there's no room for ambiguity and everything is usually explained by the protagonists; however, as with most American shows (and, increasingly over the past ten years, British television) the by-the-numbers focus on soap opera dynamics and get-in-touch-with-your-feelings ongoing narratives (love affairs, the ongoing humanisation of House) of shows like HOUSE largely serve to alienate me from television. This is where a show like THE WIRE for the most part rises head and shoulders above its contemporaries.
It's interesting how many American shows seem to hammer home the ideology of teamwork, with some kind of eccentric father figure as the head of the proverbial household. It's a strange, and very American, template for 'success'.
Last edited by Fitzgerald Fortune, 1/26/2008, 2:11 pm
--- 'Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy'.
 |
|
1/26/2008, 2:08 pm
|
Send Email to Fitzgerald Fortune
Send PM to Fitzgerald Fortune
|
Djjaines
Lovable Rogue Writer
Global user
Registered: 09-2005
Location: In me own head.
Posts: 672
Karma: 8 (+8/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
My guess for that is that despite the crime and other problems America has, the family values and family togetherness of mainstream America is still valued highly. Whereas Britain's family values are slowly coming apart. America has more value for togetherness in it's democracy, it's family and it's states.
---
Daniel: Master of malapropisms and Danisms.
Danism: Using stupid sounding or vague descriptions to put what may be an intellectual point across.
Beatrice: You really put the "W" in anchorman don't you?
|
|
1/26/2008, 5:30 pm
|
Send Email to Djjaines
Send PM to Djjaines
AIM
MSN
|
Fitzgerald Fortune
Registered user
Global user
Registered: 10-2005
Location: Inside the Red Circle
Posts: 792
Karma: 12 (+12/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
quote:
Djjaines wrote:
My guess for that is that despite the crime and other problems America has, the family values and family togetherness of mainstream America is still valued highly. Whereas Britain's family values are slowly coming apart. America has more value for togetherness in it's democracy, it's family and it's states.
Or perhaps American culture is, through its fiction, trying to make up for the social divisions that exist within it.
--- 'Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy'.
|
|
1/26/2008, 5:59 pm
|
Send Email to Fitzgerald Fortune
Send PM to Fitzgerald Fortune
|
algy
Pool player 2001
Global user
Registered: 09-2005
Posts: 524
Karma: 6 (+6/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
House papers over cracks shocker!
---
This is why we come
So we know their names
When those Spurs are done
|
|
1/27/2008, 5:04 pm
|
Send Email to algy
Send PM to algy
|
algy
Pool player 2001
Global user
Registered: 09-2005
Posts: 524
Karma: 6 (+6/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
Mmmm... The Wire
Just read a bit of Brooker. He remembers saying (on Screenwipe) that The Wire was the best tv of the last decade but now that he's seen the fourth series it's the best tv ever.
I can't wait!
---
This is why we come
So we know their names
When those Spurs are done
|
|
1/27/2008, 5:13 pm
|
Send Email to algy
Send PM to algy
|
Fitzgerald Fortune
Registered user
Global user
Registered: 10-2005
Location: Inside the Red Circle
Posts: 792
Karma: 12 (+12/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
quote:
algy wrote:
Mmmm... The Wire
Just read a bit of Brooker. He remembers saying (on Screenwipe) that The Wire was the best tv of the last decade but now that he's seen the fourth series it's the best tv ever.
I can't wait!
Just before Christmas, the American boxed set of the fourth series was marked down to around U$30 (c. £15 or so) on Amazon (US), but I missed out, and now it's gone back up to $42.
--- 'Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy'.
|
|
1/27/2008, 5:19 pm
|
Send Email to Fitzgerald Fortune
Send PM to Fitzgerald Fortune
|
algy
Pool player 2001
Global user
Registered: 09-2005
Posts: 524
Karma: 6 (+6/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
Still cheap for such quality.
---
This is why we come
So we know their names
When those Spurs are done
|
|
1/27/2008, 5:48 pm
|
Send Email to algy
Send PM to algy
|
Fitzgerald Fortune
Registered user
Global user
Registered: 10-2005
Location: Inside the Red Circle
Posts: 792
Karma: 12 (+12/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Track Your Television Viewing, 2008
I've just been watching an early copy of Network's forthcoming DVD release of the rarely-seen 1969 series The Owl Service. I absolutely loved it. It's a very dark programme, and it's the kind of challenging 'young adults' programming that the television companies seem to shy from nowadays (going for the 'shock! horror!' approach of teen soaps). For teen/adolescent viewers, it's also a good entry into the myths of the British Isles. For adult viewers, it's also a cracking yarn--and, of course, for red-blooded males there's the added bonus of the 'Beat Girl' herself, Gillian Hills.
There are some genuinely scary moments as well. Very good stuff--intelligently-written television that really highlights how poverty-stricken most British telly is nowadays.
I've got THE FENN STREET GANG to watch next. I remember that show being fairly weak, so wish me luck...
Last edited by Fitzgerald Fortune, 4/18/2008, 12:25 am
--- 'Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy'.
|
|
4/18/2008, 12:24 am
|
Send Email to Fitzgerald Fortune
Send PM to Fitzgerald Fortune
|
Add a reply
Page: 1 2 3
Powered by AkBBS 0.9.5b - Link to us
- Blogs
- Hall of Honour
- Chat
Click here to get your own free message board
|
You are not logged in (login)
Board's time is: 11/24/2009, 12:28 am
|
|
|