Been watching Battlestar Galactica (the 2000s reimagination). Great, great story arc. The only character I'm sympathetic toward are the two Adamas, Madam President, and a few others, but all those hotshots I'm pretty sick of. I tolerate them.
Been watching Battlestar Galactica (the 2000s reimagination). Great, great story arc. The only character I'm sympathetic toward are the two Adamas, Madam President, and a few others, but all those hotshots I'm pretty sick of. I tolerate them.
NBC brought back the train wreck of a show Blindspot. It started out as an intriguing and entertaining show, but devolved into an extremely stupid and comically implausible show. My guess is they fired their adult writers and hired a bunch of kids, in an attempt to attract a younger audience.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
The writers have been tinkering with this show since the end of the first season, in 1985. It is as if they wanted to keep the plots as complicated and convoluted as possible with ever-changing and ever-recurring enemies of the force. As a result, the original premise of the tattooed Jane got lost along the way and it has been very difficult to follow with any sort of ongoing interest or intrigue. One of the most interesting characters, Roman, was killed a couple of years ago, which I thought was a big mistake. The show tries to be too many things to too few people (as ratings continued to plummet).Originally Posted by progmatist
So I've continued to watch both Paradox and Humans. Both very good shows. Of course, there's only five episodes of Paradox, and I've watched the first three, but it's been pretty good. Humans is also getting very interesting too.
I've also started an Amazon show called Upload. In the future (2033, to be exact, people are given the option of uploading themselves to a virtual environment, instead of just dying. There's just one catch: it's very expensive. The main character is a programmer who was working on a freeware version of uploading, who dies in a car accident. Or rather, he's in a car accident, he seems to be ok in the hospital, but the doctors want to operate, and his rich bitch girlfriend talks him into doing the upload instead. And things get strange from there. Pretty good show so far, though I wish the comedy wasn't so banal, but what do you want from a new show in 2020?
Also started re-watching Chuck. Having fun with that one. I think I must have missed much of the first season, because I don't really recognize the episodes I've seen so far. I know I never saw how Chuck ended up with the Intersect in his head in the first place, but I guess I must have joined this show pretty late, possibly not until the second season.
Chuck actually got cancelled, but when scores younger people complained, NBC brought it back. A similar thing happened with The Wonder Years and Freaks and Geeks, but the complainers were older people reliving their youths.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
That's happened with lots of shows over the ages. Star Trek actually got cancelled after it's second season. It was a letter writing campaign that led it to being renewed for the third season.
The Expanse got cancelled by SyFy, much to the fury of the shows fans. It moved to Amazon because one fan in particular was Jeff Bezos.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
I've always referred to the Nielsen rating system as the Electoral College system of voting, working in reverse. That's more true than ever when "families" now constitute a minority of viewers.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Watching an episode of King of Queens where they're at a wedding. I looked up and thought the bandleader looked familiar, and it took my brain a few seconds to place him. It's Peter Tork!
So apparently, I must have started later than I thought with Chuck, because I'm about 2/3's of the way through the second season, and I don't really remember any of these episodes at all, other than the one when his college girlfriend shows up. But then, I don't think I ever really watched this show in reruns (has it ever been shown in reruns?), so maybe I did see some of these, but only the one time, and thus they're not seared into my memory the way Star Trek, Doctor Who, or Barney Miller are.
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 06-15-2020 at 06:52 AM.
Freaks & Geeks was great. I watched the series when it was on Netflix. Sure, it would have great to have a second season, but perhaps I'm fonder of it since it ended with me wanting more, rather than have it wear out its welcome.
I watched most of it in it's original broadcast. A decade or more later, there was a documentary done, around he time that Sundance (I think it was Sundance) reran the show, and the producers were talking about all the grief they got from NBC about it. They kept shuffling it around the schedule and then sometimes even preempted it (I remember asking my mom to record it on the VCR for me one night when I had to work, and she said it wasn't on, even though it was indeed listed on the TV schedule channel). They said NBC kept begging them for an episode with a "happy ending" and the producers were trying to explain to the twits at NBC that "it's not that kind of a show". I think NBC wanted John Hughes, and the producers gave them Scorscese instead.
I thought it was brilliant. I loved the one where the geeks swapped out the beer keg at the one kid's sister's party for non-alcoholic beer, and everyone still got "wasted". The one where the one kid finds out his father is cheating on him, and then he gets asked to pull out his ventriloquist figure during a party, and he just sort of comes unhinged during the piece, and the really nerdy guy says "I told you that thing was take over him!". And how can you not love a TV show that has a scene where Linda Cardenelli (who I kinda had a crush on) dances to Box Of Rain. I think they used almost the entire song in that scene, too! There was another episode, the Halloween one, I think, where they used a big chunk of Cheap Trick's Gonna Raise Hell too.
And of course, there's the one where Joe Flaherty schools Jason Siegel about drummers. "Yeah? Well, Neil Peart couldn't drum his way out of a wet paper sack!". Of course, Flaherty was friends with the Rush guys (doing a Count Floyd bit for one of their tours back in the 80's), so I'm sure he was having a good chuckle with that scene, but it still felt like, "Take THAT, Rush fans!".
On tonight's Chuck repeat, guest star Chevy Chase greets two Japanese men. One of them he says, "Arigato!" to, the other he says "Inna-Gada-Da-Vida!" to. Brilliant!
And after watching series three they might have wondered why they'd bothered.
re: Star Trek
The network put a producer named Fred Freiberger in charge of the show for series three, and over the years, he became notorious for doing the exact same thing as he did with Star Trek, i.e. being brought in late in a series run (or for series two, in the case of Space: 1999), which coincided with a drop in the quality of the program, and also of it's ratings.
Having said that, he was in charge of the last season of both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, and during that time, they made my favorite episodes of each (the Sharks two parter in the case of the former, and The Deadly Music in the case of the latter).
RE: Star Trek
I was in the Navy when they dropped the rank of Commodore, replacing it with Rear Admiral Lower Half. I thought it was ridiculous when the Star Trek universe followed suit. I'm sure the 23rd century United Federation of Planets is going to follow the 1980s US Navy's lead.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
Well, I finished watching Chuck. That last season was a bit...dark. And the ending was...I dunno, it just felt a little dull. But I enjoyed it in general. I'll have to start over again at some point.
Working my way through series two of Humans now, and I've started on The Expanse now, too. Also one episode from wrapping up season four of Orphan Black.
Started watching Tales From The Loop last night also. One of the actresses in the first episode was one Elektra Kilbey, who turns out to be the daughter of Steve Kilbey, The Church's bassist and lead vocalist. Thought that was kinda cool.
Tales From The Loop turned out to be a whole lotta WTFrell?! Eight episodes, all with interesting stories, but then each episode would end without the respective story being resolved properly. It's like the writers couldn't figure out how to end any of the stories they wrote. I mean, really! WTF?!
Starting on Counterpart now. This looks might be intriguing, though I have a feeling I'm gonna find the goings on more than a little depressing. Need to get back to the Expanse.
Also found out that much of the Clarkson/May/Hammond era of Top Gear is on Amazon Prime too, so I've been reliving soem of that. And I think some of the episodes are unedited, too!
So now I'm also watching Hunters, a show Amazon premiered last year, about a group of Nazi hunters in 1977. Al Pacino plays the head hunter, a Jewish man who survived Auschwitz, I believe. Meanwhile an FBI agent has been tasked with finding out who killed a German born NASA scientist, who was gassed to death in her own shower. And there's also a group of Nazis who are trying to pull some ignoramus Fourth Reich dren. This could be promising, although I suspect it might also be disturbing.
The universe is about to implode. On last night's Colbert, NBC morning personality Willie Geist was one of the guests. On last night's Seth Meyers, it was CBS morning personality Gail King. They should know from a certain 1980s documentary not to cross the streams......unless of course a giant marshmallow man is about to get you.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
I haven't watched any of the late night talk shows since Letterman retired. Actually, that's not true, I think I watched James Corden a few times, thought he was kinda funny. He had some actor on, who apparently people kept mistaking him for some singer, Ed Sheeran or whatevfer his name is. So this actor's talking about how Leo Sayer told him, "Oh, I LOVE the new album". And Corden explains to the audience, "Leo Sayer is a singer from the 1970's, for those of you under 100!".
But I seem to recall Dave had the NBC anchors on his show pretty regularly, first Tom Brokaw back when he was on NBC, and then later one, he had Brian Williams on a lot. I remember Dave was fretting about how he had only 15 followers on Twitter, and Brian explained, "No, that's the sites you're following, most of which are Indiana sports teams!". Not sure if either of the turkeys who took Dave's place on NBC ever had any of the CBS anchors on.
Pre-pandemic, I didn't care for the way Corden interviewed all guests simultaneously throughout the show. I prefer fast forwarding through the guests who don't interest me.
I don't recall ever seeing a 2 network crossover on the same night, like 2 nights ago. But for Dave's preexisting relationship with Brokaw from his NBC days, I'm not so sure there would've been so many appearances on the CBS show.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
At some point in the 90's, I stopped watching Leno, and the only other talk shows I watched were the guys who came on after Dave, and other than Tom Snyder, I only did that intermittently. I mean, staying up to 1:30 in the morning can wear on ya when you're in your 30's (yeah, I like I didn't stay up WAY PAST 1:30 on most nights anyway).
I only watched Conan when he had a musical guest on I liked. I don't think I ever watched either of the Jimmies (as Dave called them a couple times), and I don't think I ever watched Carson Daly. I watched Bob Costas pretty regularly, though, that's going back to an earlier era (and I remember for some reason, the local NBC affiliate started sticking that Rush Limbaugh guy's show in between Letterman and Costas, so back when I was still trying to maintain a normal relationship daylight, I'd have to tape all three shows, then fast forward through Limbaugh).
Wait a second. I thikn I did watch one of the Jimmies once, I forget which one, but he had Jessica Alba on, and for some crazy reason, I wanted to watch it (I dunno why, this was after she was married and had her first kid, so it's not like she was still totally hot the way she used to be).
As for Brokaw, I dunno, I may be misremembering. I know they used to stuff on NBC, things like a viewer asking what's at the top of the spiral staircase in the back of the Late Night set. Dave goes up to the staircase, and it leads into the NBC Nightly News set, and Brokaw's in the middle of a broadcast or something like that. Dave's like "Dont' mind me, I'm just getting some drinks out of the fridge" or whatever. Another time, someone asks what the large knife switch, also in the back of the set, does, and Biff explains, "Ya know, I'm not sure it's even hooked up to anything" and starts flipping it back and forth, and they cut to the lights fading and out on the NNN set, with Brokaw looking around with a "WTF" look on his face. Maybe he didn't do so much later on.
But I do remember Brian Williams doing the show a lot, once he took over the job, and there was apparently a point where someone wondered why he never had the CBS news anchor, Scott Pelley on, so he started having him on. I think Dave had Dan Rather, on as well a few times, in the 90's, before Rather got sacked. There was a gag that hinged on Rather dancing to that REM song What's The Frequency Kenneth (because the song was sort of inspired by something that happend to Rather).
I also remember a running gag with Connie Chung, though I think this might have been back at NBC, where Dave would insult her husband, Maury Povich. I think the first time I saw this go on, Dave asks about her husband, and suggests it's 60 Minutes reporter Morley Safer. She laughs and says she's married to Maury, who at the time was hosting this tabloid show called A Current Affair. Then, Dave got into this regular gag where he'd refer to Maury as "Murray", whenever talking to Connie. For his part, Maury took up the joke, and carried on (presumably facetiously) about how Dave had a thing for Connie. I remember once he had his talk show, he had somebody on, some actress, I forget who, who said she was neverous when she did Dave's show because "I sorta have a crush on him". Maury gets that look in his eyes, and says, "Well, I'm sorry to break this to you, but Dave has eyes only for my wife!".
Frell! There's no reason for me to actually know any of that dren, off the top of my head. But hey, there's no reason for me to use the Farscape swear words, either. (shrug)
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 04-16-2021 at 06:19 PM.
Dave also had a crush on Isabella Rossellini. He'd often introduce her as his girlfriend or fiancé. Finally he changed it to ex-wife, "and here's a woman I was married to for several years".
We watch Colbert on a regular basis but the energy just isn't the same without an audience. I read that the talk show producers keep up a weekly email chain on coping with this pandemic and when they can go with a full audience.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
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