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What is the last Television series you watched?


Jay

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But the story is "artistic vision" as well.

Yes, but even though I didn't really exclude it, it is often less attributed to the filmmaker.

Well that always depends. The thing with filmmaking is that it's teamwork.

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Ideally, it's the director who is artistically in charge. You can easily recognize Scott's artistic vision in Alien and Blade Runner, two films made in two different countries and by two different teams. You can see he had a saying about each little detail on the screen.

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Yeah of course. He also decides on aspects of the story, in a similar fashion to Spielberg: wants this and this, has a script written, dislikes this or that and wants to add this or that, has another draft done, and so on.

Personally I appreciate filmmakers that write and direct their films. It requires quite a wide variety of skills to do that.

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Spielberg doesn't write anymore, am I right? I got the impression that he surrounded himself with a team where each team member is granted complete artistic freedom. He's no longer a control freak who lives, eats and breathes movies that he once was. Kaminski gets to decide how he's gonna shoot each movie. If Williams feels a certain film needs a disco score, then a disco score it will be. And so on ... Spielberg is the director of a well-oiled, self-sustaining machine who forgets about movies the moment he gets home. I miss the ol' fire of the young, wild and eager filmmaker.

Alex

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My thoughts on Twin Peaks:

Finally wrapped up this phase with the movie, Fire Walk With Me. It was a mostly disappointing waste of its two hour runtime - why didn't Lynch use his good fortune to be permitted a follow up movie to tie up the loose ends of the series instead of giving us a prequel we didn't need? It wasn't a truly bad movie, but it wasn't particularly necessary, either. Appetite was not sated.

But the Twin Peaks show itself is sublime. At a time when Dallas and Dynasty were the peak (easy pun) of conventional serial entertainment in the States, Peaks came along, pulled the rug from under their feet and paved the way for a new wave of rich and stupendously original American tv mini-series. That was twenty years ago, and it hasn't aged a day. Better late than never, as they say.

The characters, ah the characters; I've never known a show to feature such a diverse cast of eclectic and deliously written personalities - it would be so easy to talk about Kyle Maclachlan's universally beloved Agent Cooper, with his endless quirks and effortless commitment to his duty, his unwavering heroism in the face of fear of failure - since he is absolutely just the tip of the iceberg. In the entire thirty two episodes of its run, I can't think of a single character who wasn't at some point given something to do, who wasn't fleshed out, a backstory revealed - that they managed to be intriguing subplots of their own is clearly part of the shows enduring appeal - there's so much there to get your teeth into, and to return to. One of the best buddy duos in either tv or film are found in Cooper and Sheriff Truman, Robocop's Bob Morton as a sociopathic FBI forensic genius (with a heart of gold), Sherilyn Fenn's über-sexpot daughter (WHAT happened to her?) of season one's villain - rich would-be megalomaniac Ben Horne in his pined interior hotel, Piper Laurie's devious bitch Catherine Martell, her poor estranged husband (who right at the beginning found The Body "wrapped in plastic"), the gormlessly likeable police deputy and his slightly less daft receptionist girlfriend, the list truly does go on and on; all gifted some beautifully observed mood music in the form of lazy jazz and eerie synth - the soundtrack often as addictive as meth and as under-your-skin disturbing as only the very best soundscapes can be. As with the numerous and unique sets which soon become places of dreamy viewer comfort, it's the perfect marriage of music, characters and place - to the point that they become inseparable. Yeah, you can keep your bland Lost line-up, thanks.

And it's all so cheesy, so kitsch, so hilarious, so dark. At times frightening - who killed Laura Palmer indeed? Are they even human? With a cast of potential suspects as large as this, it's little wonder audiences were gripped to their boxes back in the day - I watched episodes back-to-back in my haste to get to the reveal to end all reveals. Famously (as it turns out), the answer came along a bit too soon - under the pressure of idiot execs who were worried about ratings - just a few episodes into the final second season the Laura Palmer case is all but wrapped up, fantastically well I might add - some of the greatest scenes I've ever had the pleasure to watch in all of tv, but from there onwards the writers really struggle to keep up the barnstorming momentum of what went before. Subplots get lazy and dreadfully contrived (and boring), worse still - a major new plot is introduced which takes up a lot of show time but in the end goes absolutely nowhere! Fuck you - gimme back my Twin Peaks! There's still so much story left from the Laura Palmer case and they waste everybodys time with this? Her pretty face over the end credits even becomes irrelevent and strangely awkward - the story has largely moved on from her and yet here she is again with her theme playing as the credits roll. Why? A new villain is introduced, or should I say, the Joker descends onto the town to reap havock from his hut in the woods. There are still moments here and there that are utterly worthwhile and important, but in general the overriding feeling is one of annoyance - to the point you start to wonder why you're still even watching. And then it gets good again. Ooo yes. Lynch returns to the helm, and tv history is made.

The last couple of episodes are absolute gold. The finale is, at the very least, subliminally known to almost everyone over the age of thirty. Lynch mounts a scarlet red climax so nightmarish and thoroughly weird (yet somehow decipherable) that I fall to my knees and bow down to the man in awe. The nonsense we endured before it is instantly forgiven; Twin Peaks may have been sadly cut short by stupid tv execs, but boy did we get an ending. I can understand how many must have hated it, felt robbed when it first aired, but as a coda it was just way, way ahead of time. Audiences may well have congratulated themselves for feeling intelligent enough to enjoy a serial which wasn't as straightforward and literal as Dallas back then, but were suddenly thrown into disarray by what Lynch was asking of them as the credits rolled. It would happen again some years later, with The Sopranos.

I've watched it all now, but the fascination continues. I must have spent nearly as much time googling the show, it's characters, the actors, the creators, the lore, as I have watching it. The depth is there, it supports further analyses and study. The entertainment value is so supreme I'm compelled to start again from the beginning.

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I'm seeing it, let's see if it's on the library. Last time I went there I found I, Claudius.

Spielberg doesn't write anymore, am I right? I got the impression that he surrounded himself with a team where each team member is granted complete artistic freedom. He's no longer a control freak who lives, eats and breathes movies that he once was. Kaminski gets to decide how he's gonna shoot each movie. If Williams feels a certain film needs a disco score, then a disco score it will be. And so on ... Spielberg is the director of a well-oiled, self-sustaining machine who forgets about movies the moment he gets home. I miss the ol' fire of the young, wild and eager filmmaker.

Well, all you have to do is to see Tintin. He decided what he was going to use from the books, assembled the story, supervised the script, supervised the designs, shot a big deal of it himself... and Kaminski wasn't there either.

And one of these days, we'll talk about War of the Worlds...

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Can anyone here recommend Fringe? It looks like it could walk a fine line between intrigue and bullshit. I don't want to waste my time if it frequently veers too closely to the latter.

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Can anyone here recommend Fringe? It looks like it could walk a fine line between intrigue and bullshit. I don't want to waste my time if it frequently veers too closely to the latter.

It's a good show, but it takes a little while to get there. The majority of the first season is one-off "monster of the week" type episodes. Then the season 1 finale (actually it could have been the episode before as well) introduce a major plot element that defines the show for much of the second and third seasons. Season 3 ends with another big game changer and season 4 has been fairly different from what came before, while still being very fresh and exciting too.

So yea I recommend it, but don't give up if the first handful of episodes don't do much for you. Like most shows, it takes a little bit to find its groove.

Also I didn't mention it yet but the score by Tilton and Seiter (with Giacchino in some early episodes) and the performance by John Noble are really top notch. Also Anna Torv as the main character didn't impress me much at first but as the show goes on she gets REALLY good especially when she gets to play.... an interesting character. Good stuff.

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I hate television. Only series i have watched in ten years was LOST.It was brilliant.

My lovely Mrs. watches a lot television and asks me time to time me to join her in the sofa.

Of course I do(in a hope to have some sex) but I can't stand those programs, live shows copied from US or UK, most

of all I hate those live audiences, they even copied that annoying cheering/shrieking from america. But I like sex.

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poor AMC, after having 9 million viewers for the Walking Dead next week they'll likely have less than 3 for TV's most overrated bore fest.

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That's because there are a lot more thick-as-pig-shit people watching tv than there are those with taste.

Now that The Walking Dead has finished, the vast majority of its audience will move onto American Idle.

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I tend to believe it is because people really don't give shit about smoking advertisers and their whorish ways. It's not must see tv.

Big Bang is the first show to beat American Idol head to head. And bashing American Idol is pointless, people find the contest interesting, it doesn't make them stupid because they do.

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Where did I "bash" American Idol? It supplies a demand.

Anyway, anyone who attributes ratings to quality is a bit of numbskull if you ask me. Yeah, Transformers 3 is fucking awesome - look at its box office! High five, bro! Whoop! Hey... um, do you remember where I parked the pickup?

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Where did I "bash" American Idol? It supplies a demand.

Now that The Walking Dead has finished, the vast majority of its audience will move onto American Idle.

Jason can smell a Tin Tin from a mile away, but that golden typo would never be noticed.

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Not sure if a lot of people outside the US were familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender, the anime style cartoon, not the shitty movie. There is a follow up show The Legend of Korra that just had it's first two episodes premiered online (legally). Pretty good stuff so far, can't wait to get into the show.

Tim

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The girl I work with surprised me with the info that she's a fan of the cartoon series, and she insists I give it a go. It's on Netflix and I did watch some of the first episode very late one night a few weeks ago. I was terribly tired, but I was struck by how... crude the animation was. I'm not sure I could get past that. But yeah, apparently the mythos itself is pretty good.

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Leonard Nimoy on this weeks Big Bang Theory. I figure it's just a voice only. Stephen Hawkings will be on later this seasons. He's just creepy.

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What I didn't care for was the Yahoo news article that mentioned two of Stephen Hawking's previous TV appearances as being The Simpsons and Futurama.

Um, those were frikkin' cartoons! They didn't even need him to show up. All they would need would be a Speak'n'Spell.

Now, if some news agency wants to mention "Descent, Part I," then I'd be impressed. Until then...

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it had it's highest ratings ever, which would still get most any network show cancelled.

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After long months of not watching anything, I decided to pick the next series I want to commit myself to. Today I bought two seasons of Carnivale (which from what I understand is the whole thing). It's a blind buy - I've never seen any clip of that so it's going to be entirely fresh.

Karol

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Carnivale is AWESOME!!!!! My absolutely favorite drama of all time. Season one moves at a fairly slow pace, but season 2 really kicks it into overdrive. it's an AWESOME storyline!

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After long months of not watching anything, I decided to pick the next series I want to commit myself to. Today I bought two seasons of Carnivale (which from what I understand is the whole thing). It's a blind buy - I've never seen any clip of that so it's going to be entirely fresh.

Good choice, crocs!

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Anyone seen the episode from Modern Family with Edward Norton as the bass player from Spandau Balllet? That was the show's funniest moment (and probably the first time I had to laugh).

4236654296_05dc7faabd.jpg

Too bad that I can't find the clip on youtube.

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Watched the first two episodes of Carnivale. It's very laid back pace-wise. But that's ok. But for now what's keeping me watching is the visual side. This show looks very cinematic. This, and its overall feel. Intriguing.

Karol

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Anyone seen the episode from Modern Family with Edward Norton as the bass player from Spandau Balllet? That was the show's funniest moment (and probably the first time I had to laugh).

4236654296_05dc7faabd.jpg

Too bad that I can't find the clip on youtube.

Loved that episode! But I wouldn't rank it as the funniest. Modern Family is hilarious and its had several moments that showed the premise in its prime.

Does anyone here watch Community? The show is absolutely hilarious, arguably my favourite comedy at the moment with all its great meta-humour and such. The last episode was great!

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Watched the first two episodes of Carnivale. It's very laid back pace-wise. But that's ok. But for now what's keeping me watching is the visual side. This show looks very cinematic. This, and its overall feel. Intriguing.

Karol

:up:

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Watched the first two episodes of Carnivale. It's very laid back pace-wise. But that's ok. But for now what's keeping me watching is the visual side. This show looks very cinematic. This, and its overall feel. Intriguing.

Karol

:up:

...not to mention the brilliant title sequence. Stick with it; it gets really good!

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