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TV shows or speecials you like; notable/favorite episodes

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by cwerdna, Mar 27, 2011.

  1. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    TV shows or specials you like; notable/favorite episodes

    Let's talk about TV shows that we like. It can be a series, special, documentary, one off or just particular episodes that stand out and/or might appeal to Priuschatters.

    Now, there are plenty of places to talk about TV shows in general like Now Playing - TV Show Talk - TiVo Community or TWoP Forums (Powered by Invision Power Board) so perhaps we shouldn't go into too much depth about a particular show or set of eps...

    I'll start. I happened to stumble upon Home | Comedy Central Roast of Donald Trump | Comedy Central thanks to TiVocommunity. It was mostly funny. It was a bit odd that the roasters seemed to rip on each other more than they did The Donald. The Situation from Jersey Shore (UGH!!) bombed on the roast.

    On that note, there was an SNL ep (no, I don't normally watch SNL) years ago when The Apprentice was still new and it featured The Donald. It was very funny.

    I also somehow stumbled across Shatner's Raw Nerve - On BIO Channel, I believe from going thru a Star Trek keyword wish list on my TiVo. I happened to catch eps where he interviewed Walter Koenig (Chekov), Levar Burton (Geordi) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock).

    I don't normally watch Futurama but there was a great ep [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_No_Fan_Has_Gone_Before"]Where No Fan Has Gone Before - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] which had most of the Star Trek TOS cast in it and tons of Trek references.

    Years ago, there was Roast of William Shatner Official Site | Comedy Central.

    MANY years ago, there was an ep of Weakest Link (I'd never watched the show until that point) featuring a whole bunch of Star Trek actors. It was quite funny and IIRC, the EMH or Geordi won w/most or all of the actors being pretty good. It looks like someone uploaded it to Star Trek: The Weakest Link Video by Doctor Memory - Myspace Video.

    I also caught an ep with where all the contestants were Playboy Playmates. They were not exactly pinnacles of intelligence. :D

    Those of you w/DVRs might want to set an equivalent to TiVo's auto-record wishlist in case any of the above interest you or look for them on DVD. Unfortunately, I don't believe any of the above are being rerun in the next 2 weeks.
     
  2. ursle

    ursle Gas miser

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    I once watched Gypsy Rose Lee introduce an aspiring protege on a talk show, the young(very well endowed) woman could twirl tassels in different direction while making her belly button area discern the face of Richard Nixon, it was the only thing I've ever seen on TV that was worthwhile. Well, until "Barbwire" was released...

    These days I rather enjoy Bill Maher's show, he's a bit of an ogre but overall the show is enlightening.
     
  3. twittel

    twittel Senior Member

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    I'm a passionate Seinfeld fan and find the show perfectly captures the social, political, economic and religious undertones of our country. There are so many good shows I can't pin down one or two favorites...mmm..."Master of My Domain" or whatever...yadda, yadda, yadda.
     
  4. car78412

    car78412 Member

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    There is a new show on one of the networks called Traffic Light. They had an episode last week where this guy bought his girl friend a new Barcilona red Prius IV. He was driving it to her house to give it to her and was stopped at a traffic light. Then his girlfriend pulls along side of him in the exact same car that she just purchased. It was pretty funny. :D
     
  5. twittel

    twittel Senior Member

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    Who wouldnt love a Barcelona Red Prius:) I've given the show a couple views, but my jury is still out on this one.
     
  6. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    Wah?!?! There's TOO MUCH good stuff on TV and no time to watch it all.

    Mythbusters is good but I'm way behind on it. Bizarre Foods w/Andrew Zimmern is entertaining too but I'm really behind on it.

    CNBC has done some great stuff like News Headlines (about the whole mortgage mess and reckless lending). [ame="http://www.hulu.com/watch/46536/cnbc-originals-the-age-of-wal-mart"]Hulu - CNBC Originals: The Age of Wal-Mart - Watch the full episode now.@@AMEPARAM@@http://www.hulu.com/embed/kl_IS2zGrVcFn4QosF3wsg@@AMEPARAM@@kl_IS2zGrVcFn4QosF3wsg[/ame] and News Headlines were good too. CNBC did a documentary on Target and that was boring though... don't bother w/it.

    There have been so many great eps of Ultimate Factories | National Geographic Channel like the ones on IKEA, Porsche 911, Rolls Royce, the Chevy Volt (about the pre-production/pilot line stage), and Bugatti Veryon (1001 hp car).

    Food Tech — History.com TV Episodes, Schedule, & Video usually was good too.

    If you watched at least some of Enteprise and had seen the Star Trek TOS ep "Mirror, Mirror", then the two parter "In a Mirror, Darkly" of Enterprise was AWESOME!
     
  7. KK6PD

    KK6PD _ . _ . / _ _ . _

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    I currently am a Top Gear addict. I have the DVR set to record ALL episodes, and I watch 'em as I get 'em!! Quite the show!! When I am watching other stuff, I can be found on Discovery, Nat Geo, Learning, Science, all that is NOT "reality crap" and other wastes of my time!!!
     
  8. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    1) Dead like me. (TV version, not the movie).

    2) Torchwood.

    3) Doctor Martin.

    4) Dr. Who.
     
  9. KK6PD

    KK6PD _ . _ . / _ _ . _

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    The new season of Doctor Who starts on 4/23 on BBC-AMERICA!!!
     
  10. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    I wouldn't waste your time - it's dreadful!
     
  11. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    Hahaha! I never was a fan of Dr. Who TOS and I think I tried an ep of the remake and didn't like it either. There are some fans of the remake though...

    I do like the remake of V (on ABC) but you have to suspend disbelief and ignore all the gaping plot holes. It's in hiatus right now. It never did very well in the ratings, so I wouldn't be surprised if it gets canceled. :(
     
  12. luchinis

    luchinis Junior Member

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    Battle Star Galactica (newer version)
    Deadwood
    dexter
     
  13. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    One series that seemed to have a well thought out plot line and good execution was "The West Wing" for the first three years. Once the original creator left, the series decayed accordingly, but prior to that, it required a thinking audience.
     
  14. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    This one will probably baffle my American friends as I don't think they've ever shown it in the US, but it has to be Time Team [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Team"]Time Team - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] (the original UK version).

    An hours Sunday evening enjoyment - it doesn't get any better than this! lol. Can't imagine you'd be able to understand some of the wooley haired West Country archeaologists as I have a hard enough job of it. Love it that they find whole Roman villas with mosaic floors in a school playing field nearly every week :rolleyes:.

    Search it on YouTube if you're curious, but fast paced it is not.
     
  15. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    Interesting... I'd never heard of it. Two things that baffle me are WAY before reality shows were big (and I like some reality shows) I tried watching COPS and boy, did it suck. Yet, there's the thread at COPS: Does TV get any better than this? - TiVo Community. :confused:

    The other is Jersey Shore. UGH!! As I said, I like some reality shows but I tried watching an ep. Boy... what a bunch of idiots!

    My opinions were summed up at Forced to watch a full episode of "Jersey Shore" for the first time... - Page 2 - TiVo Community. I can't believe this show was doing very well for a cable show. I know of some people who watch and it some describe as their "guilty pleasure". Why do people watch this garbage? (I'm guessing there probably is least one Jersey Shore fan here and I've probably offended them...)

    Right now on the US iTunes store, the last ep of the season "At the End of the Day" is the #2 on the TV ep sales chart. :rolleyes::confused:
    I liked BSG TOS and TNS. However, TNS/the remake went really downhill towards the end w/a fair # of (lower budget) "internal episodes" as RDM termed there where they don't leave the ship, have few effects and unfortunately, to me, added little to the storyline.

    On BSG TNS, apparently, Ron Moore attended a http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Frak_party of one of the season finales. He did a bunch of Q&A w/the attendees and it's up as a podcast.

    Although this isn't a favorite (by a long shot), I did finally check out an ep of http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/. Wow. My apartment's messy and I have a lot of stuff, but these people really take the cake.
     
  16. cit1991

    cit1991 New Member

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    Good shows:

    Top Gear. I love when they make fun of the Germans.

    How It's Made. It's just about manufacturing techniques...without some goatee'd loudmouth trying to show how cool he is.

    Boston Legal. Missed.

    Psych. Good for tune-out-the-world mindless entertainment.

    Nova. When it's good it's great. When it's boring, it's very boring.
     
  17. Comrad_Durandal

    Comrad_Durandal New Member

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    A second vote for BSG here, I loved the entire series and it's mini-movie spin-offs - with the exception of 'Daybreak' (the final episode of the RDM's Battlestar Galactica series). Well, to be fair - Daybreak was even good... except for the last...ten to fifteen minutes of it.

    Caprica was good, sadly SyFy killed it on purpose before it could get the audience 'critical mass' due to incompetence. I am hopeful that Blood and Chrome will be good, but given that they want to get away from the large plot arcs and story driven action to a more formulaic episodic nature - I don't get good vibes on the direction of this new one.
     
  18. cwerdna

    cwerdna Senior Member

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    I liked BSG and even liked the final ep. Out of the spinoffs, BSG: The Plan wasn't really that great but I liked Razor.

    As for Caprica... I tried watching a few eps and never grew motivated to watch more. Eps kept piling up on my TiVo and finally I just deleted them all (lack of time and too much other good stuff on TV) after reading thru the summaries of my unwatched eps.

    A lot of the criticisms I'd read online and from friends on FB was that so little happens. One of my friends wanted "less human nonsense and more Cylon nonsense". I agree. It just wasn't interesting. I cared so little about the characters or what was going on. As someone at http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8171548#post8171548 felt,
    I don't think I missed much by not watching.

    I was blown away by how much some folks on TWoP would get into Caprica. :confused: I could barely get myself to watch an ep, let alone discuss to the depth they were at. To each his/her own, I guess.

    Back to BSG (and relating to Caprica), I liked BSG's music. Although Bear McCreary is no John Williams, I liked much of what he did for BSG. Watching some of the extra on DVDs/BDs or online (?) of his work doing the music for BSG was quite interesting. He uses lot of unconventional instruments like those from Armenia and Japan, esp. taiko drums.

    I ended up buying the soundracks for seasons 1-4 of BSG on CD. I bought a couple songs from the miniseries which were done by Richard Gibbs and a rather different style.
     
  19. koa

    koa Active Member

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    Breaking Bad.

    [ame="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903747/"]Breaking Bad (TV Series 2008– ) - IMDb@@AMEPARAM@@http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM3MDc3MjA1OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjY1NDAyMw@@._V1._SX94_SY140_.jpg@@AMEPARAM@@BMTM3MDc3MjA1OF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjY1NDAyMw@@@@AMEPARAM@@SX94@@AMEPARAM@@SY140[/ame]

    "Informed he has terminal cancer, an underachieving chemistry genius turned high school chemistry teacher turns to using his expertise in chemistry to provide a legacy for his family... by producing the world's highest quality crystal meth."

    This is one of the best shows on cable and very addicting, fourth season starts in July. Netflix has first and second season, iTunes has third. Start from the beginning.
     
  20. Comrad_Durandal

    Comrad_Durandal New Member

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    Bear McCreary is absolutely amazing in his soundtrack work, he really made the shows with the music. I don't think Battlestar Galactica would have been nearly as exceptional with anyone else.

    I personally liked RAZOR and The Plan, as they added unseen elements to the story - but yeah, you can tell there was a bit of 're-purposed' footage used in both of them, mostly because NBC Universal was in such a big hurry to tear down the sets and sell the scraps for pocket change. EJO did the best he could with The Plan considering, but considering a few actors didn't want to play along - it limited the depth of the story-telling a tad.

    Caprica really just wasn't given the chance to get good - in my opinion. That's a whole other discussion though.

    Other shows that I have really enjoyed would be Star Trek (I don't include Enterprise, it's not Star Trek), and even though it absolutely stomped all over cannon - I did enjoy J.J. Abrams interpretation of it. Law and Order, SVU (before it became about the tired stereotypes and 'perp' abuse), and Criminal Intent. Rizzoli and Isles, Psych.

    I am sure I am missing some... but there you go.