TV Right Now: The good, the bad and the totally sucky

[Dave Cullen]

What amused you, appalled you or moved you in any way on TV recently: this minute, this hour, this week, this season.

What good show is getting even better, who is going down the damn toilet?

Who just appeared on The Daily Show and horrified you or amazed you, what show took a surprising twist, why everything on is fading, or what you just discovered that you think you might love.

This is the thread to discuss what's going in TV right now.

(Or anything looming on the horizon, or missing from the horizon, or you're dying to see on the horizon . . .)

[Dave Cullen]

South Park:

Comcast just screwed with our local offerings, and I missed the exciting conclusion of the two-parter.

I saw the first ep, where The Family Guy was threatening to show a picture of the prophet Mohamed, and Fox was not going to censor it.

But the point was about Comedy Central censoring South Park, with the show daring their own net to show the picture, while showing a clip from a fake Family Guy. It ended with a dare, previewing next week, and including a line like: Will Comedy Central puss-out and censor . . .  (something like that.)

So what the hell happened?

[annabel]

Gotta love "House"

[Lola]

I have never seen Southpark, the Family Guy, the John Daley show or House!    I have never got the fascination for prime time cartoons, not even the Simpsons, which is going on 17 years or some crazy thing.

I have been a big fan of American Idol, but this years batch seems to be the worst yet, I am wondering if there will be a next season, although I assume there will be.  Too much money still to be made.

Most reality TV makes my head spin, I am very picky about what I watch on television.  If it is bad for sucky, I just wouldn't waste my time.

[Dave Cullen]

wonderful little throwaway exchange on the OC (last week? i watched it this week.)

they are both totally deadpan and Summer is intensely serious through this:

Summer: Remember that movie the boys made us watch last year about the GAYguys on the mountain?
Marissa: The Lord of the Rings.
Summer: Right, so . . .

hehehe. it has popped back into my head about 20 times since then and i snicker over it every time.

even though the show ran out of things to do two years ago, it still has those wonderful little moments that almost make it worth still watching.

[jayiijay]

DAVE:

SOUTH PARK: Conclusion of the Cartoon Wars:  If you like, I will mail you the episode, it will be rerun all week long, I will tape it.  PM me if you want it, very worth seeing - will probably get SP another Peabody.  On the other hand, if you don't care that much, I'll post the conclusion on the Forum tomorrow, gotta go to sleep in a few minutes.

[Poohbunn]

I give two thumbs up to "Cold Case" and "Without a Trace," both of which had recent episodes which showed gays/lesbians in a very compassionate way. Both shows make me cry every time I watch them.

Pooh

[annabel]

Is it me, or are many of the Law and Orders just plain running out of steam?

[Dave Cullen]

Seems like a lot of the good shows are running out of steam. Which always happens, but there has not been a whole lot to replace them.

And three of my faves ran out of steam really fast. The OC and Desperate Housewives each had one wonderful season and zero followup, Gilmore Girls had two, I believe.

Not that any of those were Greatest Ever class shows, but I liked them a lot and looked forward to seeing them every week.

Seems Amazing Race has run out of gas, too. Only great reality show left is Project Runway. Though I do still enjoy The Apprentice.

Hmmmmm. I'm drifting into the past, though.

This season I've really enjoyed Boondocks, though maybe not as much as the first few weeks. And Wondershozen can be really flat or just stupendous. And sometimes it makes me feel dirty. Not always in a good way.

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Jay, I would love it if you'd mail me the Southpark ep. My cable is fucked. Down to like 60 channels. Imagine! hahaha. They had sent me something about needing a converter box for every set in the house, but I have only one set connected to the cable and it HAS a box. Apparently I needed to do something else. Or they just fucked up.

three or four hundred channels that I never watched, suddenly gone. Plus a few I do. No Daily Show, or Colbert Report turning up nightly on my Tivo, no weekly Footballers' Wives. Yow. And no time to fuck with the cable company till I hit my deadline. And a tax-extension form to fill today. Yikes. Good thing I don't have a holiday to celebrate.

[Mr. Wrong]

I'm curious. what would you all think if HBO or Showtime decided to do a series on Brokeback Mountain that would span Jack & Ennis's 20 year relationship? Would you be upset or interested to see the relationship explored in more detail? Do you think it would take away from the movie? Do you even think it could be done satisfactorily?

Jason

[downloaded1]

I'm curious. what would you all think if HBO or Showtime decided to do a series on Brokeback Mountain that would span Jack & Ennis's 20 year relationship? Would you be upset or interested to see the relationship explored in more detail? Do you think it would take away from the movie? Do you even think it could be done satisfactorily?

Jason

The story is finished.

[jayiijay]

DAVE:  South Park - taping it for you tonight.  PM'd you, pls take a quick look when you get a minute, you'll see why.


MR. WRONG: I agree with DOWNLOADED1, the Brokeback story is done.  However, you might have already heard that Crash is being developed for tv.  Not a surprise, since that is what it was written for - and it certainly played that way, no offense to the many fine tv movies out there, of which Crash was not one!


LOLA:  You should give some of the animated series a shot.  I know it's not your thing, but much of the smartest, most topical and daring writing on tv is on South Park, Family Guy, etc.

[mountain boy]

I'm curious. what would you all think if HBO or Showtime decided to do a series on Brokeback Mountain that would span Jack & Ennis's 20 year relationship? Would you be upset or interested to see the relationship explored in more detail? Do you think it would take away from the movie? Do you even think it could be done satisfactorily?

Jason

It wouldn't be good, but I'd like it anyway.     

[Casper]

I'm waiting for the third season of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES because I read in an interview where Marc Cherry said that one of the married men on the show is going to have a tryst with another male.  I have a feeling it will be Tom Scavo.  Why?  It's just there is some sort of gaydar between Tom and his boss at the company he works for.  I have noticed that he and his boss are  enjoying playing childish pranks with each other and one time Lynette can be seen staring through the window at them like Alma did in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.  Something is definitely brewing and there has to be a dynamite push on the show to hold viewers' interest.  I think the third season will be a vast improvement over the second.

[Dave Cullen]

Britain's Channel 4 often does polls and reviews on various themes in tv and film RE: the Greatest 100 tearjerkers, the Greatest 100 Films of All Time, etc.  Quite extraordinarily, The Simpsons has won the 'Greatest Animation of All Time' poll, and Homer Simpson voted as the 'Greatest TV Character of All Time.'

It's definitely had an amazing run.

But Homer is not my fave, even on that show, by a longshot. My heart longs to say Lisa, but I think that's just because I take Bart for granted. What a wonderful, gleeful character, animated or otherwise.

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But back to right now, or the immediate future. Brokeback sequel:, expansion, anything. I pray that will never happen. Download put it really well. And I don't want to see the extended version of Romeo & Juliet either. (Although if somebody wanted to wait 500 years to redo brokeback, i guess i'd be all right with that.)

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How come Masterpiece Theatre has been so bland this year? I haven't caught them all, because D Housewives insists on running 2 minutes past the hour, so my tivo refuses to record MT unless I intervene, but I haven't caught anything good yet. Most years it's been one great outing after another. I didn't even finish last week's "My family and other animals" (was that the name?) SO cutesy. Even with music to cue us how cute it was.