What was the last TV show you watched?

Worf said:

No Mae.... NEVER "shut up". This thread is populated by many people who's opinions on T.V. and film I value... even when I disagree with some of them... (I'm looking at you Doc Strange!). Keep em flyin'!

Worf

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I didn't think we disagreed that often, Worf. While we obviously have some differing tastes and likes, I thought we were on the same page a lot of the time.

Anyway, I'm always interested in hearing your opinions too, dude!

Worf said:

No Mae.... NEVER "shut up". This thread is populated by many people who's opinions on T.V. and film I value... even when I disagree with some of them... (I'm looking at you Doc Strange!). Keep em flyin'!

Worf

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Doctor Strange said:

I didn't think we disagreed that often, Worf. While we obviously have some differing tastes and likes, I thought we were on the same page a lot of the time.

Anyway, I'm always interested in hearing your opinions too, dude!

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Attack the idea not the person. I consider both of you my friends, but we've definitely disagreed on shows, etc., but who cares, it's never felt personal; it's just about the shows.

Life is much more interesting with competing ideas and challenges as it forces one to think clearer and deeper about their own views. Life is much less interesting and, even, tiresome, when people attack each other, their character, their personality, etc.

Fortunately, that is rare at FL (but sadly, a few do it). Other than those few who do, I'd be excited and proud to share a drink with those I've disagreed with at FL because they are all disagreements in the spirit good will.

Heck, I expected to hear from one of the two of you or another FL member as my comments on "Run Silent Run Deep" (over in the movie thread) were mixed for what I think is considered a classic movie. Last thought: sometimes I come out of one of our exchanges looking forward to seeing the show or movie we've just discussed again as you've got me rethinking my position or wanting to see it with your perspective added in.

The I don't like what you think so I hate you philosophy is ruining civil discourse on any subject. Leaving aside the lightning rods of politics and religion, no topic is seemingly safe for some folks to get hateful about. Too many people demand that their world be an echo chamber. It makes me sad that free discussion of ideas is so treacherous.

Gotta agree with both of you. While nasty arguments and name-calling do sometimes break out here, this is the most civil forum I've ever participated in; a real testament to the Bartenders. And yes, at a time when social media, partisan cable news, showboating politicians, etc., has reduced so much formerly respectful discourse to angry us vs. them bubbles, it's vital that we respect each others' differences as much as agreements.

Mark, I don't disagree with your comments on Run Silent, Run Deep. It's a good, classic sub flick, but not a perfect film. So... how do you feel about The Enemy Below, Destination Tokyo, Operation Petticoat, U-571...? Geez, I didn't realize that there were that many submarine films!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_films

Doctor Strange said:

Gotta agree with both of you. While nasty arguments and name-calling do sometimes break out here, this is the most civil forum I've ever participated in; a real testament to the Bartenders. And yes, at a time when social media, partisan cable news, showboating politicians, etc., has reduced so much formerly respectful discourse to angry us vs. them bubbles, it's vital that we respect each others' differences as much as agreements.

Mark, I don't disagree with your comments on Run Silent, Run Deep. It's a good, classic sub flick, but not a perfect film. So... how do you feel about ...? Geez, I didn't realize that there were that many submarine films!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_films

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The Enemy Below - Have not seen it, will look for it on TCM

Destination Tokyo - Good WWII propaganda film with outstanding cast

Operation Petticoat - Silly and okay

U-571 - I really liked it when I saw it in the movie theater, but thought it only okay (good not great) on subsequent cable viewing.

Patrick Melrose. new 5-episode mini-series on Showtime (never read the book). I found it entertaining, and the cast is amazing. I'm not sure how this won't get tedious though. I think it has a lot of potential, so I hope they do something with the plot and characters. To be honest, there's not a lot new here, but it is really well done. Another drug glutton character.

A few episodes of Island at War, the BBC historical drama about the German occupation of the Channel Islands.

AmateisGal said:

A few episodes of Island at War, the BBC historical drama about the German occupation of the Channel Islands.

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Is that the one from '04? If so, I thought it was outstanding, really enjoyed it.

Fading Fast said:

Is that the one from '04? If so, I thought it was outstanding, really enjoyed it.

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Yes, it is indeed! A young Joanne Froggatt (of Downton Abbey fame) is in it as well as a young Sam Heughan (of Outlander fame).

Hopefully they won't end up like poor John Nettles.... after all he did for Jersey's tourist industry, he presented just one, very balanced, documentary about Jersey during WW2 which acknowledged the reality that there were islanders who collaborated with the Nazis. For that they refused him right of residency on the island. (They like to pretend there were no such collaborators.)

Mae said:

Ha! Thanks. I think. I tend to rage, especially about Sherlock's last season. I couldn't believe how bad it was. Steven Moffat ruined it and Doctor Who as far as I'm concerned. Oh well. A female Doctor was far too late, though I don't doubt Miss Whitaker's (Whittaker's?) acting ability. I'm sure she's doing well. Anyways...

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Moffat ruined Sherlock from the start of Season 3. I was saying it then and nobody would agree with me, though it's interesting how many of those who shouted me down on FB at the time were forced to agree when season 4 came out!

Moffat made a real pig's ear of Who for sure. I'm glad he wasn't the one to introduce a female Doctor, given his readily apparent misogyny. Neither his Good But Stupid nor his Clever But Evil female characters would have worked for the Doctor. In many ways, Chibnall is fortunate in that he cannot possibly make it worse, so he is free to do a lot of stuff differently. It was such a tragedy to watch an actor of Capaldi's quality so, so wasted on what Moffat did to the show.

Moffat was the John Nathan-Turner of the 2010s, but without the question-mark sweaters.

Fading Fast said:

The Enemy Below - Have not seen it, will look for it on TCM . . .

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It may seem familiar to you once you watch it. It inspired the famous Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror." When I saw the film again a couple of years ago, I realized it's not specific scenes as such that are similar, but the concept of a mental duel between two ship captains.

Edward said:

Moffat ruined Sherlock from the start of Season 3. I was saying it then and nobody would agree with me, though it's interesting how many of those who shouted me down on FB at the time were forced to agree when season 4 came out!

Moffat made a real pig's ear of Who for sure. I'm glad he wasn't the one to introduce a female Doctor, given his readily apparent misogyny. Neither his Good But Stupid nor his Clever But Evil female characters would have worked for the Doctor. In many ways, Chibnall is fortunate in that he cannot possibly make it worse, so he is free to do a lot of stuff differently. It was such a tragedy to watch an actor of Capaldi's quality so, so wasted on what Moffat did to the show.

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Figured the female was Moffat's idea since it was basically being broadcast for many seasons in bad foreshadowing. *shrug* It was a crime how horrible the writing was in Capaldi's era. NOT ONE episode was good. Sure visually many of them looked good, but I still think back on it with disdain and hope he got something from his dream SINCE CHILDHOOD! Ugh.

Sherlock? Glad someone was fighting the good fight on Facebook. I figured, being a woman, I couldn't even bother to open my mouth, or type against Cumberbath without some woman coming back at me with an angry argument about how she would marry him. Really? You find that attractive? That? I'll never get the adoration.

LizzieMaine said:

Moffat was the John Nathan-Turner of the 2010s, but without the question-mark sweaters.

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Was that the man who ended up stealing Colin Baker's wife? Uuuugghh. That's terrible.

Benzadmiral said:

It may seem familiar to you once you watch it. It inspired the famous Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror." When I saw the film again a couple of years ago, I realized it's not specific scenes as such that are similar, but the concept of a mental duel between two ship captains.

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That only encourages me to see it more as "Balance of Terror" is one of my favorite of all the original Star Trek episodes.

Several good items this weekend:

"El Paso Stage," a 4th-season episode of Have Gun -- Will Travel, with Buddy Ebsen (yes!) as a dangerous and unpleasant town marshal -- a far cry from his likeable Jed Clampett -- who clashes with Paladin in a script from Gene Roddenberry.

"Nemesis," a Season Two episode of The Fugitive: "Kimble escapes from a sheriff by stealing his station wagon, unaware that Lt. Gerard's son is hiding in the back seat." The son is played by Kurt Russell (whose real-life father, character actor Bing Russell, appears late in the episode). I've said before that whenever Lt. Philip Gerard is featured, the episode is a tense one. But this one lessens his impact for good reason, because his son Phil Jr. loves and respects him, and he clearly loves the boy. It humanizes Gerard in a way no previous episode has done.

One other nice character touch: When, late in the story, Kimble disarms and knocks out the game warden who is holding him at riflepoint, he takes a moment to unload the rifle -- both magazine and chamber -- then tosses it away.

Mae said:

Was that the man who ended up stealing Colin Baker's wife? Uuuugghh. That's terrible.

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Nope, that was Sir Michael Grade, who was a high-ranking cheese at the BBC in the 80s == who insisted that Baker be fired as a condition of Who being renewed for another series. The more you learn about the BBC's internal culture in the 1980s, the more of a hive of scum and villiany it seems to be.

My biggest problem with the JNT era of Who was that it absolutely wallowed in fanboyism at the expense of good storytelling. A producer who brings back Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines for a story and then never actually has them do anything remotely interesting is a producer with his head way too far up his continuity to be of any value. Moffat himself was a fanboy product of that era, which explains a lot of his weaknesses. His obvious fetish for "tough businesswomen in tight suits" got on my nerves too.

LizzieMaine said:

Nope, that was Sir Michael Grade, who was a high-ranking cheese at the BBC in the 80s == who insisted that Baker be fired as a condition of Who being renewed for another series. The more you learn about the BBC's internal culture in the 1980s, the more of a hive of scum and villiany it seems to be.

My biggest problem with the JNT era of Who was that it absolutely wallowed in fanboyism at the expense of good storytelling. A producer who brings back Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines for a story and then never actually has them do anything remotely interesting is a producer with his head way too far up his continuity to be of any value. Moffat himself was a fanboy product of that era, which explains a lot of his weaknesses. His obvious fetish for "tough businesswomen in tight suits" got on my nerves too.

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Continuity? What's that? Ha! The greatest continuity I've seen in a fantasy/sci-fi series is Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, maybe until this season. But, I'd blame Kevin Feige for that. Another guy whose ego you can smell coming off the screen and you never even see him. He doesn't care about the tv series even if the fans do only how much money the movies make. (Billions!) It's only on tv still as an advertisement. The poor writers who've poured their blood, sweat, and tears into it are titling the final episode "The End" because they're expecting cancellation.

As far as Moffat is concerned when he wrote scripts did he have a quota for the word "clever" because the characters said it a lot?

Mae said:

Figured the female was Moffat's idea since it was basically being broadcast for many seasons in bad foreshadowing. *shrug* It was a crime how horrible the writing was in Capaldi's era. NOT ONE episode was good. Sure visually many of them looked good, but I still think back on it with disdain and hope he got something from his dream SINCE CHILDHOOD! Ugh.

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Yes. Sad for Capaldi. There was the occasional episode in the run I found acceptable, and the tail end of Capaldi's run was nowhere near as badly written as the absolute nadir of the tail end of Smith (including the overblown and awful anniversary specials) and Capaldi's first season.

Having a female Doctor was Chibnall's idea - he had the actress in mind and apparently has some very specific ideas about how he wants to handle it. I'm cool with it as long as it's well written; my only worry is that "Hey, I'm A Woman Now" would end up the only storyline - that'll get old, fast. A bit like how Moffat reduced Jenny and Vrax to "Tee hee hee! Lesbians!" I get the impression though that Moffat really doesn't like women, so I couldn't see him going that way. My only real worry with Chibnall is that he wrote Cyberwoman - by orders of magnitude the weakest of all the Torchwood. Still - Not. Moffat.

Sherlock? Glad someone was fighting the good fight on Facebook. I figured, being a woman, I couldn't even bother to open my mouth, or type against Cumberbath without some woman coming back at me with an angry argument about how she would marry him. Really? You find that attractive? That? I'll never get the adoration.

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Ha, my other half says much the same; she insists he looks like Roger from Family Guy. I'm indifferent. I can see him appealing to a certain geek girl mindset (sometimes as much out of pose as anything - you know, the girls who make a point of being superior because they fancy Hiddleston and not Hemsworth), though for my money he lacks Tennant's easy charm. I can see him making an interesting choice for the Doctor in about thirty years' time.

LizzieMaine said:

My biggest problem with the JNT era of Who was that it absolutely wallowed in fanboyism at the expense of good storytelling. A producer who brings back Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines for a story and then never actually has them do anything remotely interesting is a producer with his head way too far up his continuity to be of any value. Moffat himself was a fanboy product of that era, which explains a lot of his weaknesses. His obvious fetish for "tough businesswomen in tight suits" got on my nerves too.

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Moffat'S ultimate problem was that without a showrunner to keep him in check, he can't keep his own ego in control, so instead of telling a story, he'll waste entire episodes just showing us all how clever he thinks he is. One of those people who thinks that a Big Surprise *must* be great because noone could have predicted it, which doesn't work. Sometimes noone thought of it because it is a bad idea - that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we got the end of Life on Mars USA... Or, more pertinently, RTD's biggest sin: Rose = Badwolf. Ironically, I was one of those who celebrated Moffat's ascension after RTD, thinking he could save the show from RTD's worst excesses. How very wrong I was.

MoffaT'S other big problem was that whereas some shows are ruined by writers blindly writing what they think the fanbase want (Yes, How I met your Stepmother, I'm looking at you), he seems to delight in persisting with ideas he knows the fans will hate, thus the 'sonic sunglasses', the electric guitar, and so on.

Mae said:

As far as Moffat is concerned when he wrote scripts did he have a quota for the word "clever" because the characters said it a lot?

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I think that was just his own inner voice congratulating himself seeping out unconsciously...

I enjoyed the basic concepts of Eleven and Twelve more than the actual execution -- I thought Eleven, especially, had the potential for an extremely layered Doctor, and I thought Smith was perfectly cast. But he was quickly reduced to a collection of tics and quirks -- bowtie, fez, flappy hands, blah blah blah, in exactly the same way Capaldi's icy, forbidding Season 8 Doctor devolved into sunglasses/hoodie/guitar. I think I said "OH COME ON" more often during the last two seasons of Who than I ever have in thirty-plus years of watching the show.

In the cases of Eleven and Twelve, I think there's plenty of fanfiction that's better written and more interesting in terms of characterization than anything that actually got on the air. That's pretty damning.

Edward said:

Ha, my other half says much the same; she insists he looks like Roger from Family Guy. I'm indifferent. I can see him appealing to a certain geek girl mindset (sometimes as much out of pose as anything - you know, the girls who make a point of being superior because they fancy Hiddleston and not Hemsworth), though for my money he lacks Tennant's easy charm. I can see him making an interesting choice for the Doctor in about thirty years' time.

I think that was just his own inner voice congratulating himself seeping out unconsciously...

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Feel much the same about Hiddleston. Not my type, I suppose. But, I'm not a teenage girl. lol

LizzieMaine said:

I enjoyed the basic concepts of Eleven and Twelve more than the actual execution -- I thought Eleven, especially, had the potential for an extremely layered Doctor, and I thought Smith was perfectly cast. But he was quickly reduced to a collection of tics and quirks -- bowtie, fez, flappy hands, blah blah blah, in exactly the same way Capaldi's icy, forbidding Season 8 Doctor devolved into sunglasses/hoodie/guitar. I think I said "OH COME ON" more often during the last two seasons of Who than I ever have in thirty-plus years of watching the show.

In the cases of Eleven and Twelve, I think there's plenty of fanfiction that's better written and more interesting in terms of characterization than anything that actually got on the air. That's pretty damning.

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THE LOVE TRIANGLE! I despise them. I believe Smith had more chemistry with Karen Gillain's (Gillan?) cousin in his first episode than he did with her or any other companion/love interest he was thrown into a scene with. But maybe that's just because I liked Who better when sex was not a part of the show at all. And the obvious digs on lesbians were just tasteless. You would think a British show would have more respect for homosexuality no matter it's form. Male or female. But, when Bill came along, it got even worse. Was "You know I only like girls" or whatever line she said every episode supposed to be her catchphrase? Because it was awful.