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| gromit |
 Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 4:21 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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Golf?
I'd rather watch a test pattern ...
Knox, I tailed off on the TZ.
Haven't seen those episodes.
Partly I'm saving the rest, so I don't run out; partly other things got in the way. Really, except for the fairly unnecessary one hour Season 4 and the video fiasco, the TZ maintains a pretty high level, though is a bit uneven as one would expect from such a format (essentially individual 25 minute films).
All in the Family.
It's interesting that the main focus is on a middle aged couple. Though of course it's all about the generation gap. In the middle of the transition from TV shows about working parents to those about largely non-working singles.
Some things that rankled a little. The laugh track. Though at least midway through Season 1 they take the cackles out of the theme song after Edith hits some horribly high notes.
(Oddly, that edit with the overdone laughter in the theme song resurfaces at least twice in Season 2)
Everybody yells a good deal in AintheF. I hate yelling. Makes me cringe. Sure Archie's yelling is often comical, and Gloria's less frequent outbursts even more so. But it's a lot of loud voices.
Archie is so negative and such a bully. His treatment of Edith is really horrible and only sustainable in the show because Edith so regularly unwittingly undermines him. And we do see Archie have to defer or get foiled outside of the home. So his impotence elsewhere informs his bully routine at home. And Mike and Gloria stand up to Archie a good deal, even if he is a difficult personality and awfully hard to engage with.
One other issue, the endings are almost always fairly tame/flat. It doesn't really matter, but I'm in the middle of S3, and they never really find a satisfactory way of ending episodes. Usually there's a little coda, with a weak joke and that's it.
I do like all of their voices (except when in yell mode), and Lionel is a nice additional character. I like how Archie has to interact with blacks and various ethnicities. All of the ethnic jokes (polish jokes? etc) seem like a relic of an older time. I love how Carroll O'Connor throws in all of these superfluous "here" and "there's" in his speech to sound real blue collar.
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 9:07 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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AITF was iconic, and I understand its fame in breaking new ground, but it seemed a notch overrated viewed solely on its merits as a family sitcom. Certainly had moments I recall, even through the mists of 40 years, like the ep where Sammy Davis Jr. shows up and Archie is striving not to say anything about his eye. Never have gotten around to watching the UK series it was based on.
Knox - I saw Black Leather Jackets recently on the local retro channel and thought it one of the cleverest and funniest of the series. Serling (I think he wrote this one) takes on suburban paranoia and the cliches of the biker-menace movie - brilliant. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Apr 19, 2013 9:23 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I never particularly liked "All in the Family," but I watched it, because everybody did. You never knew what kind of offense Archie was going to come up with and whether people would be talking about it at the office. And I lived in South Carolina, where it was a new experience to see a northern racist on TV. Archie wasn't a likable character, but Carroll O'Connor was skilled at giving him an understandable reality even as he became more ridiculous in his arguments. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 6:59 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
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I think they tried to set it in SC, but everyone agreed with Archie and their was no dramatic tension ...
HA!
The first 3 seasons will probably be enough for me.
Maybe I'll go further.
There are already a few weak episodes popping up late in S3.
I fondly recall one scene where Edith is telling some long drawn-out story, so Archie launches into a mime routine of taking out a make-believe gun, loading it with imaginary bullets and shooting himself. I need to find that episode.
I probably most enjoy the malapropisms and the at-times lol sarcasm. For example, Archie's been in the can for a long time and for whatever reason Gloria and Edith want him to come out.
Edith (yelling up the stairs): "Archie, you need to come out of there."
Archie (offscreen): Why, whattaya doin' Edith, selling the house?
Edith: "But Archie you've been in there 20 minutes."
Archie: "Who are you? The official timekeeper?"
I also like how George Jefferson has essentially the same racial attitudes as Archie, so for a season and half we don't meet him, but only hear some of his negative views mostly from his brother-in-law Henry, as a surrogate.
Both Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton have very good comic timing and really come across as real-life characters.
Apparently Mickey Rooney was Norman Lear's first choice to play Archie Bunker. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 7:26 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote:
Apparently Mickey Rooney was Norman Lear's first choice to play Archie Bunker.
Dodged a bullet there. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:13 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6944
Location: Black Hills
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LMAO!!
I have no idea if Portland was saved from the molten demon thing last night, on "Grimm." Nothing but Boston last night on the networks - possibly a similar plot, but it tended to drag in places, with the usual inane chatter as anchors stood in the street, waiting for some news. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 9:33 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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| Hard week for Finch, with the Machine breaking down, and Bear staying with Aunt Carter. It's nice to know she's got some serious protection now. Lionel just gets more and more interesting. The science was wrong on the muder-by-Polonium...takes several days, up to a week, not 24 hours...but one can accept it as necessary compression for a teleplay that has to wrap up in 47 minutes. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Fri Apr 26, 2013 9:46 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
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| I enjoyed "Person of Interest"'s version of "D.O.A.," a noir classic that I've always considered original and compelling. I was getting worried about Bear, which tends to distract me from the human element, so I'm glad he's with Carter. Looks like Root is back next week--she should be able to fix the Machine, but will she steal it in the process? |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 12:13 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Yes, I expect a deal with the devil there.
Is D.O.A. a classic? I remember it as good, but marred by some kind of weird wolf-whistle routine and some bad dialog. I might have to remove my 21st century goggles when viewing. IIRC, the doctor in DOA refers to the poison O'Brien has taken as a "luminous compound" or something like that, so probably radioactive. Or maybe a good Scotch comes with a certain glow from the heath.
Bear's muddy paws at the end - looks like he helped Carter save Lionel from the IAB guys, sniffing out the original grave. Someone reminded me it was Reese who had actually killed Fusco's corrupt ex-partner, but Fusco had to do the burying. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 3:38 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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Sherlock > Elementary; but they're both fun.
Sherlock Holmes is some character. |
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I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
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I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| carrobin |
| Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 3:48 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: NYC
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| "D.O.A." isn't a great film, but I consider it a noir classic just because it fits the category with an intriguing and memorable premise. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:26 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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Agree "Elementary" is fun, though JLM sometimes overplays it. We catch glimpses of a vanity in him that I don't recall so much in the original. As Carro noted, there's also the odd sense of being in an alternate Doyle-less universe, the result of actually naming him Sherlock Holmes and then having no one react to the name.
GOOD WIFE had a very funny episode last night, regarding ballot box shenanigans. I always enjoy Martha Plimpton's guest appearances. I expect Billy enjoyed the tussel over a missing apostrophe. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:52 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: I expect Billy enjoyed the tussel over a missing apostrophe.
Didn't see it yet, but yeah, it sounds as if I'd like it's thrust.  |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:51 am |
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In my opinion, after watching last night's The Good Wife, the good wife isn't that good and her husband seems to be a much better and mature person. The good wife is like a teenage girl who just doesn't know who to love, her current boyfriend or her previous one and cheats on her current one and smooches with her previous one. She borders on being a selfish slut.
Good episode. Chis Noth's character comes off as the only one who is sort of decent in this bunch of self-centred bitches and bastards. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 11:46 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1245
Location: St. Louis
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If you watch on a regular basis, there's some backstory that makes more sense of Alicia's dalliance. And Peter (Noth), in the past, has done things that don't really promote wifely loyalty. "....seems to be a much better and mature person...." -- seems, but isn't.
I really enjoy the guests who come in and play various kinds of bastards and bitches, like MJ Fox, Matt Perry, Martha Plimpton. And there are the recurring Amanda Peet apps, which make my hubbahubba-meter redline. Throw in the very amusing Carrie Preston, an odd Michael Bloomberg cameo, and you've got the sort of bread and circuses I like to munch on. |
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