I second that.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

Fringe.

I like Mad Man mainly for the retro look.  I still think it's a good series otherwise, until they got to season 5, which like Star Trek 5, or the Godfather 3, fans of each respective series likes to pretend doesn't exist.  To me the definition of overrated is Breaking Bad/Sopranos.

I have always decided to stand clear of Fringe, and maybe it's a good series, but the fact that when Fox began to air it, they promoted it as "By the writers of "Transformers" (The michael Bay movie).  That they would promote that Fringe's writers wrote something so bad was enough for me to avoid it.

When I made my list of favorites, I forgot my other guilty pleasure (besides Big Bang Theory), and that's "Mystery Diners".  I am at my DVD recorder whenever it's on.

I also noticed that ABC is becoming the go to place for sitcoms these days.  Especially with the arrival of "The Goldbergs". Unrelated, they are big on the sitcom trend where the laugh track, live or canned, is absent.

Last edited by HoldingOurOwn (March 16, 2014 (08:20am))

At least one Twilight reference must be made.

"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

I have to agree with Carousel, Breaking Bad is an excellent show (as it happens, I just finished watching the finale of the show today).  It's not a pleasant show, but it's not supposed to be.  The writing is brilliant and tightly focused, and the actors are perfectly cast and are incredibly believable.  I really like how pretty much every character is morally ambiguous and has a nasty side to them (there is no protagonist to "root for", really, with perhaps the exception of Jesse Pinkman) and how they often turn out to be the opposite of what they initially appear.  Despite being very grey-on-grey morality-wise it still manages to be compelling.  The cinematography is really beautiful as well, I especially enjoy the unusual camera angles and perspectives.  The world feels gritty and brutally realistic, yet at the same time somewhat surreal and stylised.

In fact, Breaking Bad is almost like a Shakespearean tragedy (or what a "Shakespearean tragedy" is apparently supposed to be, since I've gotten more out of a single episode of Breaking Bad than out of all the Shakespeare plays I've ever watched/studied put together).  Coming to think of it, it's actually like a modern version of Macbeth, but with drug kingpins, hydrofluoric acid, and intelligible dialogue instead of actual kings, witches and outdated language that makes my brain melt when I try to make sense of it. 

I did watch the first few episodes of Mad Men, but honestly, it just didn't grip me.  I just got the impression it's basically about a bunch of misogynistic men who pull random advertising slogans out of thin air (and are called "geniuses" for it), chain-smoke, and cheat on their wives.  There's nothing really compelling to me about that.

Breaking Bad is amazing.

Youtube Channel Flickr #LoveWins

Part of my beef with BBT is that it substitutes mere references for actual humor. Having a character mention Star Wars should not qualify as a punchline, but it does in that show. It's very lazy. As a result, it's just condescending and demeaning toward the demographic it's supposed to be about, without making the effort to offer any insight. Laughing at, not with. The characters are so extreme that some people in the demographic don't see it as a mockery of themselves and enjoy it anyway, I guess. The show conflates all kinds of geeks into one super-nerd type that has no basis in reality. I think some basis in reality is necessary in order to create comedy that is meaningful and relevant in some way.

It's like the nerd equivalent of a minstrel show or something like Amos and Andy, which, while incredibly racist, was popular with a segment of African American audiences. Obviously, racism is much worse than making fun of nerds, which is at worst a small-scale bullying type issue, so I wouldn't hold the same level of scorn for BBT as for something that is racist. Nerds have not been oppressed for hundreds of years, so it's less of a moral/ethical issue than Amos and Andy. Still, the comedic approach of stereotyping and belittling a group of people under the guise of good-natured ribbing is the same. I don't think that it is harmless fun. Whether it's a racism/sexism issue in the vein of shows like Dads or Family Guy (or nearly everything else Seth McFarlane has ever made), or milder forms like Big Bang Theory and Duck Dynasty, which belittle groups of people within American culture while managing to be popular among those groups, I am pretty uncomfortable with the pattern in the film and television industry of celebrating this sort of humor. I think it is a negative force in society.

Alright, I'll step off of my soapbox now.

Breaking Bad is an amazing show. I also like The Walking Dead.

LOST is my all time favorite show. Both the story and the characters were phenomenal. I became so attached to the show, the series finale was an emotional roller-coaster for me.

I have also enjoyed Breaking Bad, and am currently watching Sherlock, as the the show is not concluded yet.

Last edited by Willow Tree (March 25, 2014 (12:02pm))