| Author |
Message |
< Television ~ Alternate Universes |
| bartist |
 Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 11:15 am |
 |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
|
Syd wrote: Flashforward's been canceled, which isn't a surprise because the ratings have been tanking. Still, next week's show is the other end of the blackout.
I know a couple of deserters of this show. I saw mebbe 50% of them and seemed like they couldn't write their way out of the logic holes (scrolling back, I see you caught the main one, Syd), give Joe Fiennes a credible personality, or take the hint from Suicide Man that nobody is really committed to what they saw in their vision. I saw this week's and found the new "Rainman" character repellent, annoying, and a grotesque caricature of an autism spectrum disorder. I might watch next week, just to see John Cho try to explain to his fiance why he knocked up a lesbian coworker. |
|
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 11:45 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
|
...rusty gates squeaking, wind whistling around empty houses, tumbleweeds rolling by....
Sorry, I guess I was just hoping for "chat mode" here, rather than "Pony Express" mode. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 12:25 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| Not a lot of "Alternate Reality" interest at the moment, though the finale of "Lost" might draw me in after all this time--just to see how they wrap it up. (Loved the Letterman Top Ten last night, especially the "spoiler" that Betty White would guest star.) |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 4:20 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| It just occurred to me that nobody around here has mentioned the new season of "Ashes to Ashes" on BBC America. (It's a good thing I read the TV guide carefully that day or I'd have missed the series opener myself, considering that BBC America these days seems to be running Gordon Ramsey, car races, and old American movies 90 percent of the time.) It's still a bit of a mess in some ways but compelling in its drama, even more so than its predecessor, "Life on Mars." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 9:02 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
|
Caught the Top 10 -- and Dave's intro, where he "recaps" Lost -- funny stuff. If they go with Jimmy Buffet, that will be quite a different finale.
If you haven't seen Seasons 5 or 6, the finale may be rather puzzling, I suspect. Maybe the retrospective show they are running before the finale would help you, Carrobin?
One thing I can tell you, based on what I know of fans, if they run a "Life on Mars" type finale, there will be rioting in the streets -- people don't want any of those "it was all a dream" or "they are all dead and don't know it" or "they are all in cryogenic sleep" type endings. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 9:16 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| I generally hate the dream/coma/mass delusion kind of thing, but sometimes it works well, and I loved the ending of "Life on Mars"--though I'm not so sure "Ashes to Ashes" can be handled that well (after all, she has a daughter she's anxious to get back to). Joss Whedon could make it work in the Sunnydale construct. But I don't think "Lost" would go that direction. I'll try to catch the retrospective because I know I've missed a lot. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 11:52 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
|
I'm not sure I even like that kind of ending for Life on Mars, though it was easier to take because the show's whole concept was straight out of the Philip K. Dick playbook -- Dick wrote all kinds of stories with people displaced in time, often with noir/detective elements, often with incongruous and surreal intrusions...and the ending of the series was lifted intact from a Dick story, "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon," combined with "Ubik."
Life on Mars did have a tremendous ensemble cast -- too bad it was "thawed" too soon! |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 12:01 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| Despite reading a lot of sci-fi back in the day, I never got around to Philip K. Dick. I have one or two of his paperbacks somewhere in the stacks here in my apartment, though. So many books, so little time.... |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 3:07 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
| They actually did manage a reasonably satifying conclusion to Heroes, considering they didn't know for sure that the series would be cancelled. The conclusion of Dollhouse was also pretty good, but the "Epitaph" really, really sucked. |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 5:55 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
| Fan of The Medium. Watched last night and got a bad feeling. Made some big changes and was waiting for her to wake up but about 20 minutes in and no awakening. That it, stick with this scenario and you've lost me. Kept watching though and it was OK but I just didn't like the set up. With about 15 or 20 minutes left I figured out what this was leading to and started to relax. I was right and it turned out to be a good episode and didn't lose me as a fan. Whoopie! |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 7:21 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| I tend to like "The Medium" and find it always works things out satisfyingly, but I haven't seen it in a while because it was opposite Bill Moyers' Journal. But now that Moyers has left, I forget that "Medium" is on. Maybe I can catch up with the repeats. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| ehle64 |
| Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 9:10 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 7149
Location: NYC; US&A
|
| I heart Medium, too. They did give the actress who plays Ariel a lot to play with this season. Didn't really pay off for me. Patricia Arquette is one of my favorite television actresses -- it's just no nonsense, this is what my character would do, stuff. LOVE IT. (But really don't like all of the "let's make Allison 'this or that' plotlines") The show's formula works without all of that. |
_________________
It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is. |
|
| Back to top |
|
| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 6:51 am |
|
|
|
Guest
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Marj |
| Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 12:36 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
| So do I, Wade. In fact, I think she and Jake Weber are the most realistic couple on TV. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| bartist |
| Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 5:28 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
|
Medium has surprised me, the times I've caught it -- not expecting much due to the supernatural premise, and then I'm drawn in by the clever and sometimes whimsical plots, the naturalistic quality of the familial scenes. I don't know if I'd put Weber's astonishing levels of patience (consistently being awakened during his wife's graveyard shift in dreamville) under the "realistic" column, but he somehow sells it to me.
EARL -- drop by Elba tomorrow, if you can find time, and join in our Lost post-mortem. Unless you're passed out on Dharma beer, or having a date with Cindy the flight attendant. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
