2012 Fall TV Thread

Ryan Murphy is some kind of tv antichrist

Finally got around to seeing Last Resort (had to make time to watch it on hulu, as it was on OnDemand for some reason). Did a pretty good job of setting up the premise in one hour. Wasn't moving too fast or wasn't too confusing for me at all. Looking forward to getting my Braugher fix for at least one season (plz don't get canceled!).

*wasn't on

yeah we watched it last night and it scratched a pretty good action/political intrigue itch. Will keep up with it for the foreseeable future.

REVENGE OMG YOU GUYZ it's really stupid but I loved it.

LOVE Revenge, soooo dumb but massively entertaining. Emily is awesome and terrifying in full-on psycho avenger mode - love that she broke out the red dress at Victoria's memorial after an entire season dressed in beige/white. I love expository costume design (see Mad Men).

haven't seen any of the new shows except The Mindy Project pilot, which I liked! Def promising. What else seems decent?

Ben & Kate, 666 Park Ave.

It just occurred to me tonight what's missing from Up All Night...Missy, the assistant. I wish I'd never realized it, because now I'm sad.

She's playing basically the exact same role on mindy kaling's show.

lol surprised that anyone is repping for 666 Park Avenue.

liked The Mindy Project a lot more on the 2nd episode.

not sure how i feel about last resort - so much of it is mediocre and then andre braugher cries and i'm like holy shit this guy

I'm liking Revolution but the premise just makes absolutely no sense. Like, what, EXACTLY, happened to all the electricity? It can't be that some supernatural "electricity ITSELF doesn't work thing" happened, because our brains and bodies are electrical. In 15 years, nobody, including Mr. Google Millionaire Computer Guy, has figured out how to work a steam engine or a human-, animal- or water-powered dynamo?

It reminds me of those old Super Friends episodes where everyone would be stuck on some planet that took away their powers, and for some reason Batman and Robin lost their utility belts.

I haven't seen Revolution but based on the previews I determined that the correct way to apprehend it is as a fantasy story about magic going out of the world. There was even a magic amulet iirc!

Mr Google Millionaire Computer guy cracks me up. His whole character is "walk around like a sadsack in a band tshirt most of the time and occasionally go on wistful flights of fancy talking about when I used to be rich"

personally i'm fine with a high concept/sci-fi show establishing some rules, and then kinda saying "don't worry about it, just go with it." obviously if the rules are inconsistent or overly hand-wavey, or everything hinges on a really unbelievable detail, it's gonna bring down the house of cards, but if the story and the drama work then i'm pretty forgiving as far as science and plausibility go. or if it's something like Revolution, which is so uncompelling that i can't even be bothered to think about whether it makes no sense.

I mostly don't care about Revolution, but I still find myself watching it. I don't expect it to get *better*, I just want to see where they're going to go with it, such as it is.

The Hunger Games main girl is v annoying.

yeah Revolution seems pretty inert right now. I'm thinking of waiting until the back-ordered episodes show up to start watching again, on the assumption that they're getting feedback now about what's shitty and will make adjustments.

if you're really missing Lost-style shenanigans, Once Upon A Time S2 has wisely realized flashbacks are boring and has jumped directly to its "Kate we have to go back" moment.

xp she was earmarked as the Kate of the show from the first episode

Right now the show is mostly all Kates, one sort-of Sawyer, no Hurleys.

pff. i'm not even bother coming back then!

But Jacob is on it now!

Like literally Jacob, i.e. Mark Pellegrino.

I'm liking the militia backstory, Billy Burke is about the only half-watchable character in the show imo (also kinda handsome in a 'well there's nothing much else to look at' way)

Zak Orth is doing a pretty serviceable Hurley imo

basically everyone is doing the Others

Star Trek parallel

they even have a cloaking device! i guess i missed that in the pilot.

Second ep of Last Resort kept up the good imo. RUSSIANS!

= klingons

Yeah some corny / iffy bits here and there but they're keeping up the action and intrigue quite nicely.

I still don't know everyone's names, but the girl who developed the cloaking device showing up to the hospital room with next to no remorse and just taking the piece of paper out of the dying guy's pocket was awesome.

Also, Robert Patrick at his scumbaggiest.

Admiral's daughter girl, Grace? looks like Julia Roberts + Sandra Bullock.. and the SEAL guy who drinks all the time is v handsome.

I am really digging this show. It's fun watching a show that's like a mini action movie every week.

Ben & Kate and The Mindy Project got full season orders.

good, both are great

both new comedies i'm most invested in - mindy project & new normal - are kind of brazenly hitting topics not normally covered in a way that makes them totally engaging to me while at the same time I'd understand if anyone was like "lovely bit of asshattery there, fuck this show forever." New Normal is definitely more glib than Mindy Project in this regard, though. On one hand they've got one of the most committed, loving couples - straight or otherwise - i've seen on a sitcom - and on the other they're hiring a mariachi band because the lil kid wants to have the "california experience" of a quinceanera before she potentially leaves wtffff

Which topics in Mindy Project?

haha i already regret bringing it up because there's no way to talk about thematic content on a sitcom without a) overstating its impressiveness and b) making the show seem less fun. I don't really want to do the "ok this line about age/gender/race/diversity/success/romance was striking to me" bit cuz for all i know ally mcbeal got there a decade ago, but both shows have had bits on those subjects that were a little "woah, have i seen that on TV before?" to me while still making me laugh.

also i don't want to trumpet the refreshing novelty of anything too much cuz mindy project is still a show where the woman who loves romcoms and the man who loves sports have to learn to get along and perhaps fall in love

i'd hope that the new normal might get less cutesy and smug as it goes on, but honestly that's not what ryan murphy shows tend to do

They only ever get worse.

ben of ben & kate was too much of a sub-carrell dolt on the pilot for me to want to investigate further but between the mindy project and the new girl (which i've started watching now that i know it's basically another "hot people gettin' bantery" show where zooey is no more quirky than the dudes) i may just give in to the whole fox comedy night line-up. which will make this the first time i've watched fox regularly since the last simon season of idol.

Ben is still slightly annoying to me, but the rest of the cast makes up for it.

yeah it's crazy how quickly Fox has gone from barely being in the live action sitcom game for a few years to having one of the best lineups of the big 4 networks (maybe THE best if NBC keeps picking up crap and rushing its good shows out the door)

abc best right now imo

ben in ben and kate more irresponsible, feckless than doltish i think, or at least his doltishness is rooted there as opposed to idiocy like w/ michael scott. veronica mars ex makes new girl watchable for me, still far from crazy about it - i like mindy project alot more for instance - but it's watchable.

xxpost hah croup I misread that as "which will make this the first time I've watched fox regularly since the last simon & simon" lol

who is the veronica mars ex?

as soon as i saw the simpsons on ullman i was like "this is gonna lead to some hacky bullshit 20 years from now"

i wrote off fox when they retooled duet as open house

guy who plays Schmidt was a cop love interest in a few episodes of Veronica Mars (xpost)