Tuesday, June 16, 2015

What TV Show Do (or Did) You know is Good and Yet...


you just don't like it. For me it is VEEP. Darn, I know the writing is top-notch, insightful, sharp, funny and yet I just fade out when this show comes on. I think it's because it dislikes all of its characters. It wears its cynicism on its sleeve. And the dialog seems the same from one character to another. And its also too similar from week to week. Yes Selena Meyers is a new character for TV-a woman who is both smart and incredibly foolish at the same time. And JLD is her usual funny, attractive self but darn, I just can't get on-board. The thought of such a wretched woman running the country--argh!

Having said that though, I am going to rewatch it with CC on. Sometimes I think it's speed defeats me.

What show now or in the past, that you knew was good, didn't attract you? 

22 comments:

George Kelley said...

I have the same feeling about VEEP. It took me a while to warm up to BREAKING BAD.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Good choice! We've tried to watch VEEP several times but have not been able to make it through a single episode.

Will think about past shows.

Jeff M.

Jeff Meyerson said...

To be honest, MAD MEN is on that list for me. I lived through that period and do not want to relive it with those people, as well done as it was.

Jeff M.

Al Tucher said...

AMERICAN CRIME, and I'm not sure why. I have liked other stories with no sympathetic characters, but I can't handle this one. Felicity Huffman especially is doing some extraordinary work, but even that isn't enough.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Yeah, I watched the first two eps and than bailed on AMERICAN CRIME. And I am also not sure why. It left a bad taste in my mouth to hear the racism come out of her mouth so easily.

Deb said...

Although I don't watch many series anyway, the one I absolutely never got was The Sopranos. One night I fell asleep with the tv on and when I drifted back to consciousness, The Sopranos was on but at that point I didn't know it. Before I opened my eyes, I heard a voice and I just KNEW it was Buddy Hackett! But the words didn't sound like they were part of a comedy. So I opened my eyes and there was James Gandolfini talking about whacking someone using Buddy Hackett's voice! I knew I'd never be able to watch the show...and I never did.

J F Norris said...

TRUE DETECTIVE. I liked the first three episodes but then it just derailed. I thought the whole thing was nothing but intellectual BS. Some good acting, some very well written scenes, artfully filmed and designed, but all so intensely surreal not "gritty realism" as most people were calling it. McConnaughey delivering pretentious monologues got to be dreary and maddening. The story grew increasingly amoral and nihilistic as the series progressed. Yes, that was the point but it wasn't new, it wasn't daring, it wasn't different at all. The whole thing reminded me of SEVEN with lots of drug use. By the time I got to episode six when Woody Harrelson's wife behaved *completely* out of character I thoroughly hated it and stopped watching it. Don't care at all how it turned out.

pattinase (abbott) said...

So true, John. And now after those ridiculous commercials MM does, it would be even harder to take it seriously. Still I will give the new season a chance. I watched THE SOPRANOS but more for its commentary on domestic life than the mob stuff, which always seemed generic.

Loren Eaton said...

Breaking Bad. I made it through the first season and couldn't finish the second. I think it was because they made the cancer treatment so over-the-top.

Jeff Meyerson said...

For whatever reason we stayed with AMERICAN CRIME all the way through. The acting was great for the most part and it just kept me watching the way so many other shows do not. We watched TRUE DETECTIVE but there were many draggy bits, and yes, McConnaughey's Lincoln commercials are unbearable. I have to mute them whenever one comes on.

Jeff M.

Todd Mason said...

Patti--I think the cartoonishness of VEEP can get in its way...certainly, one recent week had VEEP and THE GOOD WIFE, about people who've made it to the WH and the IL Gov's mansion, making rookie errors in political practice that even the greenest rookies would have to strive to make, and that was a bad Sunday for plot developments. But I think also you want to give the tops of hierarchies too much credit, even as I might err in the other direction (if I err in this wise at all, and of course I'm not sure I do). However, I am quite sure that if I don't like something, it's not because on some level it's somehow Objectively Good and I'm just crotchety. I'm bored by GAME OF THRONES because it doesn't show me much of anything new or compelling when I tried it, even as I found LOST intolerably pompous and twee. While the likes of HALT AND CATCH FIRE is apparently rather underrated, and while MOZART IN THE JUNGLE is no more realistic than ER was, I still dig where it's coming from. And things can be overrated and still entertaining, such as MAD MEN and certainly TRUE CRIME, though that latter certainly dipped as it went along. THE WIRE was by no means perfect, but at its best pretty damned impressive. TREME is probably the series I like the most that I find to be oddly uncompelling...I'll watch it when it's on, but don't feel any great need to see every episode.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Just discovered HALT AND CATCH FIRE, which I like.
Loren-after the second season, I don't think there is another mention of cancer treatment.

Loren Eaton said...

I may have to give it another go then. To listen to everyone talk about it, I feel as though I missed out on a good show.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Now my husband never liked it. He couldn't tolerate the violence and what he saw (incorrectly in my opinion) as making a villain the hero of a show. But I saw it as Walt's journey from a nebbishy guy to a villain, something unleashed by the illness. Perhaps always there, much like the cancer may have been. Endlessly fascinating if you don't need a "hero" as a protagonist.

Loren Eaton said...

I don't mind flawed, noirish protagonists as long as the writers don't make them into antiheroes. It's sort of a fine distinction, but a significant one.

Gerard said...

BREAKING BAD and GAME OF THRONES.

I watched the first episode of BREAKING and it was okay. I bailed on the second episode after getting creeped out by the opening sex scene.

I saw the first season of GAME OF THRONES. That, too, was okay but after all the gushing and praise I expected a lot more.

Yvette said...

Oh just too many to name, Patti. :) I got sucked into the first season of SCANDAL and soon lost interest. Name all the popular shows that everyone watches and I won't have seen them. The subject matter of these shows and their characters just don't appeal to me. I'm an old curmudgeon.

The main show I've TRIED to watch and love like everyone else is SHERLOCK. I just can't get into it. I lose the train of the story, have trouble understanding the fast and snappy patter. I do like the stars of course, but not the show. I am a big fan of Holmes from way back (I listen to the audios all the time - Conan Doyle's stories, I mean) but not all this new stuff. Exception: I love Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes coat. Very dashing.

Yvette said...

Oh, and I stopped watching THE GOOD WIFE when they killed off you know who. Also lost interest in MAD MEN after one of my favorite characters was written off. That's how I am. :)

pattinase (abbott) said...

Yes, that snappy patter is too quick for my years on SHERLOCK too.

Peter Rozovsky said...

Have you tried the great The Thick of It the show on which Veep was more or less based (and a brainchild of the same creator, Armando Iannucci)?

I might be with you on this if I had watched more than four minutes of Veep. I put up a blog post at the time:

"I've just watched the first 3 minutes, 43 seconds of Veep, the new American TV series created by The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci, and that was enough to send me back to The Thick of It. A Wikipedia article on Veep says the show uses `the same cinéma-vérité production style' as TToI, and all I can say is what was that particular publicist watching?"

pattinase (abbott) said...

Would like to try it but I only get netflix streaming.

Peter Rozovsky said...

It was available for a while on YouTube clips, but those innocent days are largely gone.