(A continuation from the previous post).
Here is a
partial list of some of the DVD box sets I’ve worked my way through in Cambodia, and
my thoughts on them.
Kings
This TV
show came out when I was in Japan,
and was completely under my radar. I
didn’t even know it existed until I saw it in the DVD shop.
(I’m
curious, how many people back home knew about this show? I know it didn’t last past its first season,
but was it a big deal when it started?)
The premise
is that it’s a retelling of the King Saul and David story, set in a modern
setting in a fictional kingdom. It did very poorly in the ratings, and was
cancelled after one season.
Slate.com
gives the series a rave review, and laments that it was cancelled after one
season [LINK HERE.]
The AV Club
has an episode by episode guide that is mostly positive [LINK HERE].
My own
thoughts are this: it’s a really cool idea to make a TV show out of the King
David narrative. This was always my
favorite story in the Bible, and it has got enough complexity here to sustain a
TV show.
But
unfortunately in the medium of television, execution is everything, and a good
premise will only get you so far. Some
of the episodes were better than others, but I felt like I was watching some
cheesy teen drama most of the time, not a mythical epic.
Plus the
way they chose to portray David was a mistake.
He just came out so bland. The
character in the bible had a bit more of an edge to him—he could be a malicious
trickster when he wanted to, and he knew how to look out for his own interests
(such as when he defected to the Philistines).
I believe a
better TV show is possible with the same source material. Maybe in another 20 years, someone will give
it another shot.
(I’ve
actually got some ideas on how I think the King David story should be filmed,
but I’ll save that for the next post.)
Star Trek Enterprise (4th Season
Only)
Actually I already covered this in another post. So I’m not going to
review it again here. But it does belong
in the list of the excessive amount of TV I have watched this past year.
I also bought the DVDs of the
original Star Trek, and re-watched those.
I hadn’t actually seen most of these in years, and was pleasantly surprised to see they were just as good as I remembered
them.
The Wire
Everybody has been recommending this show to me. Some of my best friends have been praising it
very highly on Facebook (you know who you are). Some of you even said that this wasn’t just a
TV show, but that it had all the complexity of a novel, and should be regarded
as such.
I had a
little bit of trouble getting into this show, partly because the ridiculous
amount of praise it had gotten didn’t seem to match what I was seeing in the
first season. The first season was
alright, but it wasn’t the best TV ever made.
But a
number of friends told me the show grew in complexity with each season. So I stuck with it for the second
season.
And by the
3rd season I was hooked. By the 3rd
season I realized this really was genuinely the most intelligent TV show I had
ever seen.
I loved how
they took the idea of legalizing drugs, but they didn’t do it as just a one off
episode gag. They followed that concept
throughout the whole season. And they
showed all the different sides of it—all the good things that resulted from
this plan, and all the bad things that resulted from this plan.
Plus, right
about the 3rd season, they started really getting into the politics of the
city, and that was interesting.
And then
the 4th season, when they took on the public school system, was also really
well done.
The fifth season
dropped the ball a little bit, but by that point I was hooked anyway, so I kept
watching.
The Walking Dead (1
and 1/2 seasons)
This show
was very popular in my office and because my co-workers (mostly my male
co-workers) kept talking about how great it was, I decided to check it out.
I made it
through the first season and half of the second season and then I just stopped.
I like zombie
movies, don’t get me wrong. Those old
George Romero movies The Night of the
Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead
are among my favorite films of all time.
But, I’ve
decided zombies are villains with a complexity best suited to an hour and a
half movie. I do not have the patience
to sit through 20 hours of zombies.
Horror
movies work best in small doses to begin with, otherwise they just get too
exhausting. Plus zombies aren’t really a
complex villain. You don’t need 20 hours
to understand their motivations. They
walk slow and they feed on brains.
“But zombie
movies were never supposed to be about the zombies,” my co-workers told me when
I made this complaint. “The best zombie
movies have always been about the conflicts the humans have with each other.”
And I
agreed with this. But although there
were lots of petty arguments arising among the humans in The Walking Dead, I never saw anything that grabbed my attention
and made me want to keep watching.
And another
thing: Zombies are really scary when you’re trapped in an empty house at night
in the countryside outside a graveyard, a la Night of the Living Dead.
But of course you remember what happens in that movie the next morning,
right? The sheriff and his posse go door to door shooting all the remaining zombies.
My point
is, although zombies can terrify isolated groups of people for a limited amount
of time, they’re not a problem that poses any long-term threat to organized
humans.
I do not
buy for one minute the premise of The
Walking Dead that there was a zombie apocalypse that overran the US
military. And the fact that I couldn’t
suspend my disbelief for this premise also hindered my getting involved in this
show.
I regret to
say this caused some disagreement between me and my other co-workers. Some of them argued passionately that the
zombies would definitely have overran the US military, but I just didn’t see
it happening.
“But they would
have over-run the US
military by sheer numbers!" my co-workers said.
Listen,
sheer numbers never won any battle. The
British Raj would never have been established in India if the Indians could have
beaten them with sheer numbers. (Nor could
the British and French have burned down the summer palace in Peking for that matter.) Whoever
has the guns and the organization will win any conflict.
Where all
these zombies are coming from, and how many there are, is still a matter of
debate in my office, but I maintain no matter how many zombies there are, they
would never over-run the US military.
Boardwalk Empire (First 2 seasons)
Another
show I started watching because everyone at work seemed to like it so much.
I’ve
decided I like this show, but it tries my patience at times. I like the gangsters, I like the various tie
ins with real historical figures and real gangster history.
I can’t
stand the soap opera parts. James Darmody and his
relationship with his wife? Nucky and
his relationship with that Irish woman?
Van Alden and his relationship with his wife? Boy did all those subplots really bore me to
death.
Also, I
never thought I would say this but I’m beginning to get bored with all the gratuitous
violence. Killing off a character
suddenly is a great way to shock the audience, but if it becomes over-used, it
loses its shock value.
I’m going
to stay with this show for the moment, but it’s really borderline for me.
Arrested Development
Another show numerous people had
recommended to me. And another show I
had missed out on because I had been in Japan when it came out.
It was
pretty funny, although I spoiled it for myself a bit by watching it all
in one
marathon session one a 3 day weekend. I
think I would have found it funnier if I had taken it in smaller doses.
But I just couldn’t help myself. The show was just so addictive, I
would
finish one episode and fell like I had to watch the next one.
Community
People at
work were talking about this, so I checked it out.
Some
episodes were better than others, but at least in its stronger moments a very
funny and very inventive show.
Parks and Recreation
(Seasons 1-4)
Again, people at work were talking
about this.
Like
Arrested Development, I found it all too addictive, and blitzed through all 4
seasons way too quickly. Again, I probably
spoiled the viewing experience for myself, but it was a funny show.
Homeland (Half a Season only)
Everyone at my work loves this show, but I just didn't have the patience for it. After about 5 episodes, I decided I was pretty sure they were going to reveal he was a terrorist at the end of the season. (That was the only way they could have written it. Otherwise the whole show would have just been one long red herring.) And I couldn't be bothered to sit through the rest of the season so I could find out what I already knew.
Homeland (Half a Season only)
Everyone at my work loves this show, but I just didn't have the patience for it. After about 5 episodes, I decided I was pretty sure they were going to reveal he was a terrorist at the end of the season. (That was the only way they could have written it. Otherwise the whole show would have just been one long red herring.) And I couldn't be bothered to sit through the rest of the season so I could find out what I already knew.
How I Met Your Mother
(Seasons 1-7)
Because I’ve
been living abroad for so long, this TV show has been off my radar for many
years. I first started noticing it when
I was at University in Melbourne,
and when hanging out with undergraduates I began to notice how popular this
show was with the 18-22 year old crowd.
Since then I’ve caught a few episodes here and there, and quite enjoyed
them. And then I found myself buying the
DVDs and working through the whole series.
I love the
characters and I love the zany sense of humor of this series.
The sappiness,
however, means that I can only watch so much of this series before I start
getting fed up with it. Some episodes
really lay on the sap harder than others so, so it can be hit and miss.
Hatfields and McCoys
(History Channel Miniseries)
This hit the
DVD stores in Cambodia a few
months after it had aired in the US.
Via the
Internet, I had known it got a lot of bad reviews from the critics, but I quite
enjoyed it and many of my co-workers quite enjoyed it too.
The
Hatfields and McCoys occupy a funny bit of space in American history. Because of references in pop culture, everybody
knows that this feud existed (I remember first learning about it from a Farside cartoon [LINK]). And yet no one ever teaches
you about it in history class at school.
So every American knows that there was some bizarre feud between two
families in the 19th century that ended up killing several people, but no one
knows how or why it happened. I’ve been
curious to know the story for several years now, and, for all its faults, I
thought this series did a good job of tracing the events of the feud, and
trying to show the characters motivations in order to make the whole thing
understandable.
Maybe you
have to be a history geek to appreciate this kind of stuff. The critics probably hated it because they
wanted something with a higher level of meaning, but if you’re looking for a
miniseries that simply fills in your knowledge of a historical event, this one
will do nicely.
After
viewing the series I also enjoyed this website (LINK ) that compared the oral
history of the Hatfield clan with the TV miniseries.
Downton Abbey (1st
Season Only)
A friend of mine (he knows who he
is) actually introduced me to this show before I went to Cambodia, and I
was initially intrigued. Finding the
DVDs in Cambodia,
I started to watch them here, but must confess that I started to get a little
bored with the show near the end of the first season. Through the Internet critics, I saw that the
second season got such horrible reviews that I didn’t even bother to check it
out.
Pillars of the Earth
Miniseries
The same friend also introduced me
to Pillars of the Earth, and I found this in the Cambodian DVD store also.
I was very
disappointed with this one. It was really cheesy, overly sappy, melodramatic…and
a historical drama that wasn’t at all historically accurate.
And yet I
watched the whole thing anyway.
Caprica
I’ve actually never seen the
entire Battlestar Galatica. I’m at that awkward stage right now,
where I’ve seen too many episodes to want to watch the whole thing, straight
through but not enough episodes to get the whole sweep of the story. Someday maybe I’ll have to work my way
through that series, after I’ve forgotten enough so that I can re-watch
episodes.
But I didn’t
have that problem with Caprica, which
I hadn’t seen any of. So I watched the
whole season.
Despite
having a number of plot holes, I thought it was entertaining enough.
Black Adder
Because my British friends are
always talking about how great this series is, I eventually decided to check it
out. It wasn’t quite as great as they
had made it out to be, but it wasn’t terrible either. The last season in particular I thought
managed to combine humor with a poignant anti-war theme quite well.
Of course it
hasn’t been all new shows. I’ve also
been watching the latest seasons of old favorite animation.
I know that
The Simpsons past its peak about 15
years ago, but even though it’s no where near as good as it used to be, I’ve
still long found it a pleasant waste of time these past few years.
That is,
until now. The last season of DVDs I
bought (season 22) was just unwatchable.
As a long time fan I never thought I’d say this, but The Simpsons has degenerated to the
point where I can no longer even really sit through it.
The latest
season of South Park, by contrast, I
still found quite entertaining.
Hell on Wheels/Deadwood
I bought Hell on Wheels after a co-worker recommended it to me, but couldn’t
make it through the first season. (I
have much the same criticisms of the series that the AVclub reviewer has, so
rather than give my review I’ll just link to his LINK HERE.)
The AVclub
kept comparing Deadwood as a much
better Western period piece, so I went back and bought Deadwood instead.
As with The Wire, I know I’m a few years late to
the party on this one, but I found Deadwood
to be a really remarkable show. A nice
blend of real history with some great fictional treatments, and a cast of
really fascinating characters.
Young Justice
I’m sure I would have enjoyed this
a lot more had I been 25 years younger.
(How unfair that all the great superhero cartoons are coming out now
that I’ve hit adulthood). However, like Justice League Unlimited before it, the
show does seem to be playing to the adult comic book geek just as much as to the kids.
Having been
a huge fan of the Teen Titans in my younger comic book collecting days, this
show did a good job of hitting all the right nerd bases for me. I’d be embarrassed to tell you how much I
enjoyed it.
The Inbetweeners
This show was a big hit in Britain, and my
British friends were talking about it a lot.
So I eventually ended up checking it out myself.
I found it
interesting at first, but quickly got bored with it. The format of the show seemed very
repetitive, and the humor, which mostly seemed to focus on getting the maximum embarrassment/
cringe factor for the main characters in every episode, I felt played itself
out quickly.
And yet I
still ended up watching the whole thing.
Peep Show
Another
British TV show, although this one recommended by an American
colleague. And another show that plays off of
embarrassment humor (which seems to be very popular in Britain). But
strangely addictive nonetheless. I ended up watching the whole thing
again.
The Slap
(Mini-Series)
This is an Australian TV
show. I’m curious, is this known at all
back in the States?
It’s an
adaptation of a book. And I probably
should have read the book instead (if I were the more literary person I wish I
was.) But I couldn’t be bothered to read
the book. I saw a couple episodes of
this show on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (one of the few English
channels I get on my cable package). I
found it pretty interesting, so I just ended up buying it when it hit the DVD
stores.
An
interesting story that really pulls you in.
Plus it takes place in Melbourne and,
having spent a year in Melbourne,
it made me slightly nostalgic for the city.
Ugly Americans
A co-worker said he was working
his way through this series, and that it was just bizarre enough to be
interesting. I picked it up based on
that recommendation, and I find myself agreeing with him.
Breaking Bad (Second
Season only)
Everyone in my office loves Breaking Bad, so I decided to check it
out myself. The week I decided to try it
out, my local DVD store was temporarily out of the first season, so for the
moment I just decided to start with the second season. (A decision which absolutely horrified all of
my co-workers. “Joel!” one of them said,
“It’s like a novel! You have to watch it
in order!”)
For
whatever reason, this show didn’t really click with me. I know everyone else loves it, and I can’t
really give you a good reason why I didn’t.
Maybe it was just a little bit too slowly paced for me. At any rate, I watched the second season, but
didn’t end up going back for more.
Mad Men
I had actually
seen the first season of this when I was still in Japan
(it was popular enough in Japan
that you could rent them at Japanese DVD stores.) I caught up on a few more of the seasons
while in Cambodia,
although once again I horrified my co-workers by watching the episodes out of
order.
As a
history geek, I appreciate the eye for period detail. But like Breaking
Bad I felt like this show just moved at too slow of a pace for me, and I
just couldn’t stay interested in the long run.
Archer
Another show I got into just
because my co-workers loved it so much.
Some of the jokes I find a bit repetitive, but a pleasant enough waste
of time.
Flight of the
Conchords
Because I had been living in Japan for so
long, this had been off my radar for a while, but word of mouth eventually
caught up to me. (My friend Brett would
make references to it.) So I eventually
checked it out. I got a bit bored with
all the songs, but I generally enjoyed it.
Chuck
Only one season in so far. Not all that great, but everyone says it gets
better in later seasons.
My Name is Earl
The show actually looks like it
should be funnier than it is.
The Clone Wars
Based on Whisky Prajer’s recommendation I decided to check this out. It is pretty impressive for a kids cartoon,
and does manage to recapture the fun spirit of the old film serials Star Wars is supposed to be based on.
Entourage
Surprisingly addictive, although
after you finish watching several seasons, you do wonder what the point
was. The show managed to pull me in for
several seasons, but I hated myself for watching it when it was all over.
Cougar Town
Actually pretty funny.
The Borgias (1 and
1/2 seasons only)
I understand this was put together
as Showtime’s follow-up to The Tudors.
I have yet
to see The Tudors from start to
finish. (My brother-in-law and me worked
through several episodes when I was last back in America, but its tough to watch a
series straight through when the DVD rental place only has one copy, and other
customers are renting the same discs you want.)
However I enjoyed what I did see of The
Tudors. I know it’s not perfectly historically accurate, but it seemed to
me to be largely historically accurate.
(Granted I’m no expert. Almost
everything I know about Henry VIII just comes from Monarchy and This Sceptred Isle. But The
Tudors lined up nicely with what little I knew about King Henry VIII).
The Borgias, by contrast, seems much
less historically accurate. Eventually I
just had to stop watching halfway through the second season. What was the point of watching a historically
drama that wasn’t even historically accurate?
It’s a
pity, because the idea for a historical drama around the Borgia family is a
great idea. What a great subversive way
to remind people of all the terrible history behind the papacy. And for historical geeks, what a wonderful
opportunity to get into some of the fascinating Papal power struggles, and 16th century politics on the Italian peninsula.
However, as
each episode just got more and more ridiculous, and further removed from the
actual history, I eventually had to ask myself, “Why am I watching this?”
I know it’s
an article of faith in Hollywood
that you should never make anything truly historically accurate, because then
no one will watch it, but I disagree. I
think there’s a huge audience for accurate historical dramas. Just think how many people love watching
documentaries.
The pity of The Borgias is that the actual history would have been interesting enough. It would have been interesting simply because
it had been real. Because they made up
their own story instead, it made things less interesting.
Game of Thrones
When this series was first airing,
it generated quite a lot of buzz around my office. People were talking about this series, and
people were really enjoying this series.
So I
checked it out of course.
It takes
about 5 episodes or so to get into this series, because initially the series
just throws a bunch of characters at you without giving you a reason to care
about them.
Once you
get about 5 episodes into it, and start getting into these characters, it is
highly addictive. Perhaps the most
addictive show I’ve seen yet. Every time
I finished an episode, I had to watch the next one immediately afterwards. The week I was watching this show I was low
on sleep and hardly ever went out.
Why is it
so addictive? Well that’s a little bit
harder to explain.
The show is
classified as fantasy, but as viewers know the fantastical elements are not center
stage. Rather, this show is part of a
genre I like to call “fake history.” It’s
the story of a fictional civil war in a fictional country.
As I
watched the show, I kept asking myself, “Why am I so interested in this when it’s
not even real?”
One of my
colleagues, a fellow history geek, once said to me, “The reason I read history
instead of fiction is because history is always more interesting. The stuff that happens in history—you couldn’t
make that up if you tried. Cortez and
the conquest of the Aztecs? The French
Revolution? The American Civil War? World War II?
Show me the fiction writer who could possibly match those stories!”
I agreed
with him on the spot, but since I started watching Game of Thrones I’ve started to question the assertion. As I watch Game of Thrones, I keep asking myself, “Is this more interesting
than real history, or would a real historical drama have been a more
interesting show? Would all of the time
and money needed to make Game of Thrones
been much better employed depicting a real historical war instead of a pretend
one?"
20 years
ago, the argument probably would have been that historical dramas make for poor
television because history is too complex.
You could never ask an American audience to keep track of all the
various factions and nobles during The War of the Roses, could you?
And yet, Game of Thrones seems to be mocking this
idea. It blatantly makes its fictional
history more and more and more complex.
(One of my co-workers even told me he had started making a chart on his
wall to keep track of who everyone was while he watched Game of Thrones). And yet Game of Thrones is one of the most
successful television shows ever.
So, now
that Game of Thrones has shown modern
audiences are not adverse to complex plots or ideas, I have a whole list of
historical incidents I think would make for great television. But I’ll save that for the next post.
(For Whisky’s
thoughts on Game of Thrones and
history versus fiction, see LINK HERE)
So, yeah, that’s
my list of shame for the past year and a half since I came to Cambodia.
It’s not even a complete list. It’s just a list of the DVDs I
watched. The hours I wasted watching “Whatever
happened to be on the TV when I came home from work” aren’t even
factored in
here.
My goal for
the next year is to read more and watch less TV. And also to be more productive.
But, I say
that every year.
Playlist is HERE:
11 comments:
I've noticed with binge-watching, which is almost (almost) the only way I watch TV series any more, that a series' particular deficits come to the fore very quickly. Sometimes this can be a matter of a particular actor and their style (if you wonder why nobody in the Lost camp has gone on to have a spectacular career elsewhere, you need to watch 11 episodes of that show, back to back), but more often than not you see long stretches where the writers lost track of what they were trying to do (again, Lost is pretty much the nadir, here).
What a viewer loses with binge-watching, however, is that time of fecund reminiscence and speculation between episodes. One reason I'm gaga over Mad Men at a time when my friends all think the show is passé, is because I've watched only the first season and the first three episodes of the second in a span of the last two years. It still reads to me as a situation ripe with possibility (even though that is very much not the case).
By the way, dude, you really are watching too much telly. Too late to address the issue now, I'm sure, so why don't you see what you think of Carnivàle?
I've also enjoyed the Hatfields and McCoy's MIniseries, due to similar interests to know more about the legend of the family feud. I did enjoy the series, Chuck, but season 4 was more of a letdown. The first three seasons built up nicely, I thought. If you haven't had a chance, check out Top Gear. I prefer the American version, simply because I am more used to american humor, but the British version is also well done. Even if you don't like cars, people like my wife - for example - have laughed so hard she fell off the couch. It has been quite enjoyable to us. Plus there really are some amazing vehicles out there to see.
Whisky
>>By the way, dude, you really are watching too much telly.
Oh, I know. I'm not proud.
I also agree with your points about binge watching. By going through DVD sets, I have burnt myself out on many TV shows that I might otherwise have enjoyed going more slowly.
In my case what usually happens to me is that the formula becomes more obvious if I binge on a TV show. I start to see more the strings about how the writers are artificially creating tension or drama, and then the characters in the TV show no longer seem like real people to me, but just plot points and I lose interest.
I made it into about 5 episodes of Lost, and then gave up. 5 episodes was enough to make me realize the writers were stringing me out on all sorts of plot points they had no intention of paying off anytime soon.
Carnivale--correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you give that show a mixed review
Dean--
I've seen parts of Top Gear while flipping channels. I think maybe it was the British version? It didn't grab me, but maybe that was partly my own fault for not giving it a chance. Next time I run into it, I'll try and give it more of a chance.
Another show we watch regularly is The Amazing Race. It is fun to travel the world with the racers, albeit quickly and incompletely, but if you like something with a little competition, interesting challenges, views of all different locations around the world, travel challenges, and rewards then you might enjoy it also. We always wanted to compete, but we don't have that much vacation time at work!
The Amazing Race is another show I've come across channel flipping, but never stopped to watch in full. I'll try and give it a chance next time I come across it.
Re: "mixed review" -- I suppose I did (here). However, I've given it plenty of "what might have been?" mulling since I wrote that -- not in the broad strokes, which were obvious and finally a bit disappointing, but in the subtler ones. Someone on-line said the show's brilliance was in capturing how America's immigrant populations brought their tribal pagan beliefs into the new country, where the geography became the stage for bloody skirmishes. I think that's right, and I think it captures some of what I felt growing up in the prairies with restricted access to television and radio (which had limited material to offer in the '70s), in a town of many other Protestant tribes that co-existed with a certain wariness of each other, and the world around them.
BTW, have you seen the opening credits for Carnivàle (here)? I think you'd dig it. It draws out some surprising subtleties from many of the usual broad strokes we get from that period of history (The Great Depression/The New Deal) -- which is what the series was good at. And besides, two seasons was exactly right for what they did.
Okay, I just checked that link out, and you're right, it does look pretty cool.
One final question--In your review you compared it to Battle Star Galatica, which I still haven't seen yet in it's entirety. Which show do you recommend I tackle first?
I got really fed up with BSG, and forced myself to watch the last season and a half. Would I be any poorer if I'd bailed? Hard to say. I know I don't feel that way about Carnivàle, but suspect I probably would have if it had been given another season to flesh the story out.
Okay, so I've now tracked down and watched both seasons of Carnivale based on your recommendations.
It was....well, it was very much like you say. Interesting, but hard to sit through. Those bottle episodes had me itching for the fast forward button on my remote. An interesting idea, but the pacing was just all wrong, and the plot was teased out for far too long before it began to make sense. And at the end of the day, there's not enough there to make me want to sit through another 4 seasons. And yet, there are some brilliant ideas in here: the idea of combining history with mythology, the romance of the old carnivals.
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