Chic, IL Must see TV

We started watching On the Lot last night, and I was surprised to be actually drawn in. I expected a combination of the show's awfulness and my residual bitterness at not "making it" in "Hollywood" to keep me from enjoying it, but the show's actually pretty good, and I'm not nearly as bitter as I thought I was.

Watching Garry Marshall try to hit on the perky young hostess, time and again, is by itself worth the price of admission (free).

 

Checked out two of the "we paid for 'em; burn 'em off" episodes of "Studio 60".

Ugh. I dunno if the show's getting worse or if the passage of time is simply amplifying the aspects I wasn't hot on in the first place. Whatever the case, it was 2 hours of my time that I'll never have back.

 

It really took a turn for the "meh" didn't it?

 

Penultimate "Sopranos"...

oof.

-Le Penguin
"I've got a bad feeling about this."

 

I'm really astonished at how quickly they've tightened things up, and now hold out hope (if slim) that next week's finale will be very dark and actually wrap up a ton of stuff, as opposed to just ending in the middle of a story.

 

Penultimate Sopranos (Spoilers)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Cheap! They took all the fun out of it by telegraphing those hits. I'm also disappointed that we never got a "goodbye" episode for Sil like we did for Pauly, Bobby & Christopher. Could the "train crashing" metaphor been shoved in our faces any harder? That was dumber than the rat running across the screen at the end of The Departed.
I did like the Melfi scene though. I have to say thank jeebus it's over next week.

 

Is anyone looking forward to John from Cincinnati? I gotta say, the premise doesn't seem all that appealing to me, but HBO doesn't usually produce crap...

 

Here is a (supposed) copy of a revised first draft of the Heroes finale I posted at CF.org.

Some good changes, and a better ending IMHO. Though they did remove some pretty horrendously cheesy dialogue.

D'

 

The Ultimate Sopranos.. I'm pretty happy with that ending. Lots of great Sopranos moments. I still think that this was the weakest season, but still some good episodes.

D'

 

I really enjoyed the final Sopranos (waited til tonight so our old Soprano-watchin' crew could all get together one last time.) They gave us one good "ok, we know you wanna see some nasty sh!t, here it is" scene, some nice overall looks at things to come without really telegraphing anything, and

SOPRANOS SPOILER WARNING
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

an ending that was hardly shocking, but still very powerful. Maybe better than any other single scene in the series, we're shown how Tony Soprano lives moment to moment, even during the most casual of settings. He can only relax until the next person walks into the room, and then another lightning-fast assessment of them must be taken. That's how Tony's had to live for probably as long as we've "known" him, and that's probably how he'll have to live for the rest of his life.
(Also, Phil's final moments were nothing special, but the moments immediately after those were awesome. For 30 seconds, David Chase gave the masses what they wanted, and I'm sure they'll be grateful.)

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

END SOPRANOS SPOILERS

-Le Penguin
"All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good visit."

 

Agreed. There's a LOT of people who are mad about the ending not being a "true ending" (or whatever). But whatever "ending" they may have come up with wouldn't have been satisfactory for everyone. Either they'd have had to close so many loose ends in one swell-foop which wouldn't have been close to realistic, or pick a couple things to tie up dramatically and leave the rest open-ended anyway. I thought the ending was awesome, and "Don't Stop Beleivin'" was an unexpected but perfect choice to underscore the tension of the Sopranos swan-song scene.
Spoilers below....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It did have an "ending" per-se though. The family was at a point of functionality that was probably as "functional" as they could possibly get. Meadow has a plan (Law/marriage), AJ has a plan (movies and off suicide watch), Carmella has a plan (new house in the works) and Tony is out of therapy (for better or worse, prison or free).
However, by the end of that scene Tony could be dead or alive depending on what happens when that guy comes out of the can. The final scene is the equivalent Schrodinger's Cat.


D'
"Working hard to get my Phil."

 

Anyone like and watch "Ghost Hunters"?

 

needless to say, as anyone I'm sure could have predicted, I loved the Sopranos finale. Uncertainty, darkness, twisted humor, and family dynamics on multiple levels...what has made the show great all along.

There was almost a sense of "reset" to it too, which was kinda neat; Janice is back to scheming, Tony's back on top and beating off all comers, Paulie's as paranoid and weird as ever.

I have Big Love on the DVR to watch this weekend.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/15/television.sopranos.reut/index.html

I dunno. This screams of "zomg, people didn't like it! We were fools to trust the public to be able to handle an ambiguous ending! somebody do something!"

 

You seek Incom4. He loves that show.

 

"Freeks n Geeks" pilot from Netflix.

I dunno. Some of it's genuinely insightful, there's good acting overall and some nice anti-climatic moments (the weak-ass fight scene is really well done), but there were a lot of cheesy moments that were pretty painful. Hopefully they were just the standard "awkward pilot" moments, because the good stuff was very good. I spent maybe half... well, most... ok my entire life ping-ponging between the two "factions" depicted in the show (btw, mushrooms + comic 'con = awesomeness) so maybe it's just a matter of being too close to the material.

Either way, Linda Cardellini is enough to keep me watching.

-Le Penguin
"I was elected Treasurer last year... I didn't even run!"

 

Though I'm pro-Ambiguous for the ending of the Sopranos, I have to admit that the logic behind that being Tony's death is a pretty decent argument. From what I gather:

+ Tony's immediate family is as "functional" as they're going to get.
-Carmella's getting her dream house.
-Anthony Jr., though still a spoiled brat, finally has a plan.
-Meadow is set.
-Tony finally broke with some empathy for Junior
-Tony has apparently exhausted the possibility of getting "fixed" emotionally.

+ Though Tony finally runs North Jersey, his lieutenants are done for.
- Sil is a vegetable
- Bobby & Christopher are dead
- Paulie and Patsy aren't really leaders.
- Carlo is turning State's evidence

+ Tony said he felt like he was at the end of an era
- Carmine, Johnny "Sack" & Phil are all sleeping with the fishes.
- You can't squeeze the management at Jamba Juice.
- Depending on Carlo, Tony's either heading for life in prison (or the chair) in a few weeks.

+ The End Scene
- Suspicious "Members Only" guy goes without sayin'...but hey, I'm just sayin'...
- The family's all there & happy.
- Song of his choice
- And if there is a coffin, then the final nail IMHO is that he just had the best damned onion ring in the State
as far as he's concerned.

What better time to die? And you probably don't even hear it coming....


I mostly agree with Bob about Freaks N' Geeks. The good parts are good, but the bad parts are F'ing unbearable. The "geek" crowd is mostly enjoyable, but the "freaks" are full of bad acting and painful dialogue. I couldn't watch it past the first DVD.

D'

 

Star Wars: Robot Chicken via the intertubes.

Lots of old material which is disappointing. Some funny stuff though. It wasn't nearly as funny as the Family Guy SW thing that I posted a few weeks back.

 

I am pleased to announce that "Freaks n Geeks" quickly gets much better than the first few awkward episodes. The second disc (eps 4-6) are all very good, with the occasional wrong note coming only once in a while as opposed to at equal strength with the good stuff. I still feel like I identify with the characters a little too much to be able to brush off those bad spots (perhaps there's some psychological version of The Uncanny Valley happening here), but it's a very good show overall.

-Le Penguin
"I'm going to get some orange juice."

 

Ed O'Neil on John from Cincinnati is genius.

 

The Riche$ - We've marathoned 10 episodes in 2 days. Hearing Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver fake southern accents is hard to get past for the first hour, but by the 2nd episode it's not a problem. Starting in the 2nd you get some good "Eddie Izzard being Eddie Izzard" bits. The only difficulty is that the dark parts are pretty dark & F'd up and the comedy bits are pretty comical...so the transitions between can be rough. But, any fan of Eddie Izzard's stand-up routines will be pleased as he gets lots of speeches and pep-talks where he throws in odd references to Sparticus or Miles Standish from out of nowhere.

D'

 

"Studio 60" started as an entertaining/engaging show occasionally punctuated by unbelievably cornball/cliche'd moments, and it ended its brief run almost exactly the opposite of that.

The show's final 4 episodes were a horrible "let's wrap everything up as awkwardly as possible" string of bad scenes featuring bad writing, bad acting, bad dialogue and - about once per episode - the odd moment where someone says/does something intelligent or remotely realistic.

A troubled pregnancy? A hostage situation? Shoehorned flashbacks? Did I miss the announcement wherein Aaron Sorkin told viewers that he was turning the show from a halfway decent drama into a dime-a-dozen soap opera? Hell, we even got not one but two of the good ol' "total 100% no foolin' hardcore atheists who aren't afraid to turn to Jesus when the going gets tough."

Good riddance, I guess. Obviously it's too bad that the show didn't improve, but better to have a crummy show disappear quickly as opposed to having millions of dollars being spent on more of it.

-Le Penguin
"Rise above,
We're gonna rise above"

 

No more "Doctor Who" until Christmas. Hazmatt sad. But what an ending!

 

It all depends on your point of view. Sci-Fi Channel will debut "The Runaway Bride" and "Smith & Jones" this Friday, July 6, starting off Season 3. I think this may be the quickest turnaround time from Doctor Who's U.K. broadcast to its being shown in the U.S.

Torchwood will debut on BBC America on September 8.

Phil

 

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/08/top10simpsons200708

Maybe the worst "best of The Simpsons" list I've seen. Half are no-brainers. The other half aren't "off the beaten path, episodes you may not have expected" eps; they're just f*(*ing horrible.

-Le Penguin
"Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world."