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Mar. 18th, 2018 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat* Mother: I don't understand why you aren't losing weight and gaining it instead, if you are eating all those salads and fish.
Me: well, it would probably help, if I didn't eat any candy or drink wine.
* Best Television Ensemble Serial Dramas that I've Seen and can think of, off the top of my head.
1. The Wire by David Simon and Ed Burns, with Denis Lehane, and Richard Price as co-writers. Starring Idris Elba, Michael Williams, Dominic West, Aidian Gillian, among others. Best Cop Show/Procedural ever filmed, also best urban drama. It is about a Baltimore Police Department attempting to bring down a drug cartel, and the various areas of the city that affected by the drug cartel as a result.
2. Friday Night Lights by Jason Katims and Peter Berg. Starring Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Michael Jordan, and various others. Best drama about depressed rural small town life and high school -- focuses on high school football in a small Texas town in the beginning of the 21st Century.
3. Breaking Bad by Vince Gillian, starring Brian Cranston among others. Best anti-hero story about a drug hustler. This is about a disenfranchised angry white male chemistry teacher in Arizona during the beginning of the 21st Century, who teams up with one of his students to make crystal meth in the desert and ends up running a drug cartel with increasingly disastrous results. It's a brutal black comedy that comments on the dark underbelly of society and the toxic machoism that drives it.
4.Justified -- by Elmore Leonard's son and various others...excellent modern western. Also a great depiction of depressed southern United States.
5. Fargo by Noah Haley -- a black comedy about rural crime.
6. Battle Star Galatica v. 2 by Ron Moore -- a science fiction series about a group of people fleeing a war with robots they created, to find a new world and to start over.
7. Prime Suspect starring Helen Mirren -- story about a woman's rise to top detective in Scotland Yard and the sexism and misogyny she fights along the way.
8. ER by Michael Crichton and John Wells, starring Juliana Marguiles, Anthony Edwards, George Clooney, Alex Kingston, Noah Wiley, Maura West, and others...about a hospital ER in Los Angelos in the late 1990s.
9. Game of Thrones -- fantasy series based on GRR Martin novels, that stars Lena Headley, Peter Dinklage, Maisie Williams, etc.
10. The Good Wife -- a political satire about the legal profession, starring Juliana Marguiles, Christine Baranski, Alan Cumming, Matt Czurchy, Chris North, etc...
11. This is Us a family drama by Dan Fogleman, which follows the members of one family throughout their lives.
12. Thirtysomething -- follows a bunch of friends through their lives and business.
13. Lost -- science fiction drama about a bunch of plane crash survivors stuck on an odd island.
14. True Detective S1 -- starring Matt McConaughy and Woody Harrleson.
And I can only think of 14 that I've watched all the way through for the most part.
* Deception
Not bad. I found the pilot entertaining enough to continue with it. Like the concept a lot, much better than Castle. I actually buy this one, I didn't buy Castle's. The difference?
Master illusionist's brother is framed for a crime by a mysterious woman illusionist. One year later, he still can't find the person who did it. And they only have his brother's word that he's innocent of the crime she framed him for. The illusionists (the two brothers) had been doing the illusion out of the Prestige and the series borrows heavily from the story.
Anyhow, he catches a news story about a plane that exploded. And immediately figures out that it didn't because the hanger and surrounding area is intact. It was a bait and switch act. He goes to the site and manages to convince the FBI to listen to him. It requires a lot of persuading.
They give him a trial run. Then dump him when he screws up. He goes back to his team for help, and his brother, who is in prison, they agree to help him -- he manages to convince the FBI (with a great trick) to give him a second chance and with his team's help pulls off an illusion the nabs the bad guy and provides the first clue to the illusionist who framed his brother.
[It's actually more similar to The Mentalist than Castle in this regard, except no serial killers, yay! I hate serial killer storylines. Much prefer a competing magician a la Now You See Me.]
Unlike Castle -- the lead has a reason to work for the FBI, it's not just to write mystery novels, it's to save his brother and get the FBI's assistance in tracking down the criminal illusionist who is also working against the FBI. Also the FBI has a reason to get his help, they are dealing with someone like him. [Again more similar to The Mentalist, which I liked better than Castle.]
My problem with Castle is there's no way in heck any police department will take on an annoying novelist to help solve crimes. Also, his relationship with the female cop bordered on sexual harrasment, as did everyone else's.
Here, we don't have that as much. She's also not being forced to work with him. She chose to.
It's actually better than Lucifer in this regard as well.
So...giving it a chance. But I have a lot of tv shows, so we'll see if it lasts. (And ahem, no time to watch 85% of them. Possibly because I'd rather write posts on the internet or write period than watch tv.)
Me: well, it would probably help, if I didn't eat any candy or drink wine.
* Best Television Ensemble Serial Dramas that I've Seen and can think of, off the top of my head.
1. The Wire by David Simon and Ed Burns, with Denis Lehane, and Richard Price as co-writers. Starring Idris Elba, Michael Williams, Dominic West, Aidian Gillian, among others. Best Cop Show/Procedural ever filmed, also best urban drama. It is about a Baltimore Police Department attempting to bring down a drug cartel, and the various areas of the city that affected by the drug cartel as a result.
2. Friday Night Lights by Jason Katims and Peter Berg. Starring Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Michael Jordan, and various others. Best drama about depressed rural small town life and high school -- focuses on high school football in a small Texas town in the beginning of the 21st Century.
3. Breaking Bad by Vince Gillian, starring Brian Cranston among others. Best anti-hero story about a drug hustler. This is about a disenfranchised angry white male chemistry teacher in Arizona during the beginning of the 21st Century, who teams up with one of his students to make crystal meth in the desert and ends up running a drug cartel with increasingly disastrous results. It's a brutal black comedy that comments on the dark underbelly of society and the toxic machoism that drives it.
4.Justified -- by Elmore Leonard's son and various others...excellent modern western. Also a great depiction of depressed southern United States.
5. Fargo by Noah Haley -- a black comedy about rural crime.
6. Battle Star Galatica v. 2 by Ron Moore -- a science fiction series about a group of people fleeing a war with robots they created, to find a new world and to start over.
7. Prime Suspect starring Helen Mirren -- story about a woman's rise to top detective in Scotland Yard and the sexism and misogyny she fights along the way.
8. ER by Michael Crichton and John Wells, starring Juliana Marguiles, Anthony Edwards, George Clooney, Alex Kingston, Noah Wiley, Maura West, and others...about a hospital ER in Los Angelos in the late 1990s.
9. Game of Thrones -- fantasy series based on GRR Martin novels, that stars Lena Headley, Peter Dinklage, Maisie Williams, etc.
10. The Good Wife -- a political satire about the legal profession, starring Juliana Marguiles, Christine Baranski, Alan Cumming, Matt Czurchy, Chris North, etc...
11. This is Us a family drama by Dan Fogleman, which follows the members of one family throughout their lives.
12. Thirtysomething -- follows a bunch of friends through their lives and business.
13. Lost -- science fiction drama about a bunch of plane crash survivors stuck on an odd island.
14. True Detective S1 -- starring Matt McConaughy and Woody Harrleson.
And I can only think of 14 that I've watched all the way through for the most part.
* Deception
Not bad. I found the pilot entertaining enough to continue with it. Like the concept a lot, much better than Castle. I actually buy this one, I didn't buy Castle's. The difference?
Master illusionist's brother is framed for a crime by a mysterious woman illusionist. One year later, he still can't find the person who did it. And they only have his brother's word that he's innocent of the crime she framed him for. The illusionists (the two brothers) had been doing the illusion out of the Prestige and the series borrows heavily from the story.
Anyhow, he catches a news story about a plane that exploded. And immediately figures out that it didn't because the hanger and surrounding area is intact. It was a bait and switch act. He goes to the site and manages to convince the FBI to listen to him. It requires a lot of persuading.
They give him a trial run. Then dump him when he screws up. He goes back to his team for help, and his brother, who is in prison, they agree to help him -- he manages to convince the FBI (with a great trick) to give him a second chance and with his team's help pulls off an illusion the nabs the bad guy and provides the first clue to the illusionist who framed his brother.
[It's actually more similar to The Mentalist than Castle in this regard, except no serial killers, yay! I hate serial killer storylines. Much prefer a competing magician a la Now You See Me.]
Unlike Castle -- the lead has a reason to work for the FBI, it's not just to write mystery novels, it's to save his brother and get the FBI's assistance in tracking down the criminal illusionist who is also working against the FBI. Also the FBI has a reason to get his help, they are dealing with someone like him. [Again more similar to The Mentalist, which I liked better than Castle.]
My problem with Castle is there's no way in heck any police department will take on an annoying novelist to help solve crimes. Also, his relationship with the female cop bordered on sexual harrasment, as did everyone else's.
Here, we don't have that as much. She's also not being forced to work with him. She chose to.
It's actually better than Lucifer in this regard as well.
So...giving it a chance. But I have a lot of tv shows, so we'll see if it lasts. (And ahem, no time to watch 85% of them. Possibly because I'd rather write posts on the internet or write period than watch tv.)
no subject
Date: 2018-03-20 04:33 pm (UTC)Yep, and any series that went past five? Tends to be weak.
MASH was great for the first four or five seasons, but it went on too long. Once you pass the 5 year mark, quality goes down, in part because the writers and cast start to get burned out.