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Post by chemikalman on Mar 29, 2005 13:05:01 GMT -5
"Here is some television to think about. Suddenly, on many of the new shows on cable television, real means nasty. Nice and real would probably only play so long before being canceled. On “Deadwood,” people cuss so much that you notice when they stop. On last week’s episode, the male lead spoke two sentences without cussing and you expected a doctor to step into the room and tell him he had two weeks to live, having been too weak to swear violently.
“The Shield” is an award-winning cop show on the cable tonight that substitutes nastiness for story lines. Glenn Close is the new regular on this show and probably has to act her heart out to keep from recoiling slightly at some of the vileness. Last week there occurred on “The Shield” an act so disgusting that it would remain off-putting even if you tried to write around it. This would of course be the week that I had touted “The Shield” to a number of friends, each of whom called immediately when cops began acting more perverted than the lousiest of culprits."
I agree with what he said about "Deadwood." I watched it for the first time a couple of weeks ago when I was a hotel that had HBO. I found the swearing pathetically gratuitous. I found myself thinking "did they really say 'f*ck' every other word in the Old West? ... I don't think so."
As far as The Shield is concerned, I can kind of see his point but I obviously don't agree at all that "nastiness replaces storylines."
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Post by chemikalman on Jan 4, 2006 13:49:56 GMT -5
Here's what he wrote yesterday. By the way, the guy who writes this column, Jay Cronley, also writes screenplays and at least two that I know of have been made into fairly well-known feature films.
I kid not: Good TV abounds
There is no longer a traditional television season that began in the fall and ended with the summer vacation season. That’s because the best shows on television are on cable. Cable has no set season because some of the programs that run there are so good that they’re like weekly movies, and they exhaust actors and writers alike. It’s why “The Sopranos” took a couple of years off and expects to come back shortly on HBO fresh and ornery, even though it’s been away so long that some of the younger players will appear much different and one actor in the company was involved in a real shooting over illegal drugs. Doing what amounts to a movie of the week every week was so difficult that the last couple of years of “Sopranos” turned into gangster soap, with one show dripping into the next.
None of the above:There is so much good television available that the best shows are frequently missed. It can be helpful to exchange opinions of top five shows. My list contains no news or newsy programs. One reason for that is it’s frequently difficult to tell a cable television news show from a circus act. I don’t mind Rita Cosby (MSNBC) and Greta Van Susteren (Fox) because they’re not from the Miss Congeniality mode. No traditional talk show is on my top five list, either. I would list them this way. Leno, last; he’s too needy. 1. Letterman. 2. Jimmy Kimmel. When Letterman flirts with a 20-something starlet, some viewers might shift a little uneasily, as he undoubtedly has pairs of glasses that old. Popular network shows get a little gimmicky. Fox’s “24” starts another season next week and was nice the first time around. Then airplanes started flying halfway across the country in 10 minutes. “Lost” is pretty good if you don’t mind more flashbacks than current events and holes in the ground leading to another galaxy.
The top five: Here are my favorites. 5. Tie between “Veronica Mars” and “House.” Good writing permits adults to watch a show about a high school on UPN. Dr. House (Fox) needs to watch his lip a little. 4. “Real Sports” on HBO. It has a conscience and heart. 3. “The Dog Whisperer.” Its new season starts Friday on the National Geographic Channel. Host Cesar Millan might have been a terrier in a former life and trains lousy dog owners first, pets next. 2. “Imus in Morning” on MSNBC. Wake up laughing. 1. “The Shield.” The new season of this violent, nasty and brilliantly written and acted cop show starts Jan. 10 on FX. Horatio Caine from “CSI: Miami” wouldn’t last 10 minutes in this squadroom. They’d use him to clean cobwebs.
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Post by jwc53531 on Jan 4, 2006 17:55:24 GMT -5
I also agree whole-heartedly with his #2 - Imus is the best around
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Post by chemikalman on May 26, 2006 8:47:34 GMT -5
The Shield yes, House and 24 no.
The author of the article below, Jay Cronley, has written five novels that were turned into movies.
TV fiction is getting stranger than fact I said goodbye to two famous television shows this week. They’ll catch some Emmys based on love from star-crossed critics and will be back with more of the same in the fall.
The scratches from my must-see TV list leave me with one show to watch regularly, “The Shield,” which returns around the end of this year for its final season. The predictability of mainstream television makes “The Shield” seem even better in its absence. Its first few seasons are available on discs. The Spike network on cable runs two episodes each Friday night. Were crime-scene thespian Horatio Caine or the broomstick from “Cold Case” to transfer to the precinct featured in “The Shield,” they’d be used like battering rams on heavy doors.
No more House calls: The first show I can no longer justify watching is “House.” Some shows must be credible to be taken seriously. Unless a band strikes up and somebody starts singing, doc and cop programs, by definition, must be believable. Good fiction is something that could happen but probably won’t. The average medical show makes a person wonder, who is the technical adviser — a masseuse? “House” is about a doctor whose diagnostic genius comes at least partly from an addiction to pain pills popped in public. He is medicine’s equivalent of Sherlock Holmes on cocaine. The message seems to be: There’s nothing wrong with the occasional helpful dope fiend with connections. The final episode of “House” was the usual, the star being shot in a fleshy place that couldn’t be terminal but which still caused prolonged nightmare sequences. The back-story was a male patient whose eyeball popped out and whose you-don’t-want-to-know-what exploded.
Day in, day out: Another series that is going to have to come up with some way to do without me is “24.” This show is set in so-called real time, which is a terrific gimmick when you’re talking about something like a car chase and fistfights and a limited nuclear war or two. During the season, or day, just concluded, I cannot come within 20 of how many times Jack Bauer was beaten, stomped, hacked, pummeled, twisted or bounced to within a half-breath of his death. I cannot come within 30 of the number of agents changing their loyalty; within 40 of the number of times tech whiz Chloe tapped into computers still being invented. After Jack Bauer buried one president and sent the next president off to the slammer, as his bumps and bruises and concussion and wounds and sprains and fractures started to heal, he was savaged once more. He was brutalized by a gang and hauled toward the Orient in the belly of a tanker. To be continued. A giant sea bass should get him.
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Post by icy on May 26, 2006 22:48:45 GMT -5
"Here is some television to think about. Suddenly, on many of the new shows on cable television, real means nasty. Nice and real would probably only play so long before being canceled. On “Deadwood,” people cuss so much that you notice when they stop. On last week’s episode, the male lead spoke two sentences without cussing and you expected a doctor to step into the room and tell him he had two weeks to live, having been too weak to swear violently. “The Shield” is an award-winning cop show on the cable tonight that substitutes nastiness for story lines. Glenn Close is the new regular on this show and probably has to act her heart out to keep from recoiling slightly at some of the vileness. Last week there occurred on “The Shield” an act so disgusting that it would remain off-putting even if you tried to write around it. This would of course be the week that I had touted “The Shield” to a number of friends, each of whom called immediately when cops began acting more perverted than the lousiest of culprits." I agree with what he said about "Deadwood." I watched it for the first time a couple of weeks ago when I was a hotel that had HBO. I found the swearing pathetically gratuitous. I found myself thinking "did they really say 'f*ck' every other word in the Old West? ... I don't think so."
As far as The Shield is concerned, I can kind of see his point but I obviously don't agree at all that "nastiness replaces storylines."Well, maybe the nominators will remember this at Emmy time and nominate "The Shield" instead of friggin' "Deadwood". Anyone can cuss up a storm during their acting dialogue for shock value. I would like to see people nominated for their acting work, not how good they can curse. Of course, I may be just a little bit biased in my tastes...
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