Deadwood, yea, forgot about that one. Still no West Wing though...

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I agree it has despicable aspects, but it's one of the funniest I've ever seen (I saw only up to season 3, and the last one is below season 1 & 2).

Deadwood was good too. I've more difficulties with Breaking Bad (It's certainly good, but it doesn't make me want to go further. The same with Soprano or 6 feet under).

The worst I've ever seen is for now Heroes (I thought Fringe was worse, but John Noble saves it).

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the books (not that they're exactly fine literature). One of the things I find distasteful about the show is it's not willing to be despicable. It's too busy making Dexter into a family man.

There are a number of other problems like a reliance on plot contrivances and pointless cruelty for the sake of drama. I won't deny it's entertaining, though.

If you find the series funny, I recommend the books. Dexter has a much drier, cutting wit in them.

That's precisely what I find despicable, especially in season 3. I may read the books one day, but since it'll be a translation, I'm afraid of the result.

Nope, can't agree on this one.



(Who said there's no use for the batman icon ???)

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

Regarding 24: the first few seasons are very good, but it goes downhill pretty quickly. It eventually becomes a parody of itself, and starts to re-use plot ideas in the last couple of seasons, and even steals some from books that are well enough known to be noticeable. One of the problems in the series is that Jack Bauer is a totally wooden character. Even though the writers try to make him have some sort of life as the series goes on, they fail. He does not change at all, other than making a few grimacing reflections about whether he should be doing what he's doing. (But you always know he'll keep on doing it.) He's a machine; he's a comic book character. The show is a thrill to watch at times, but I could have done without the last two seasons. In the first few episodes of the last season, some things were so ridiculous that I broke out laughing.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

Not a big fan of The Wire but I will say this, "The king stay the king."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B-QE_g3JPU

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Where've you been? Zatoichi could slice the board in half, put it back together again and rearrange the position so fast that no-one even knew he'd drawn his sword - and he was blind. ~ John Fairbairn

I like him anyways. I also like Clint Eastwood, about whom Sergio Leone once said: he has two facial expressions - one with and one without hat.

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone seemed to really like each other a lot

Yes, but that's only for a few movies. With Jack Bauer, you go through 8 seasons of it, and it gets a bit boring. He never, ever has fun in the series. There are no moments of levity, of humanity at all. Don't get me wrong: as an action series, it is well constructed, in the early seasons at least. But it's just a bit dark over the long term.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

On a similar subject, I've been re-watching The Sopranos recently. I'm near the end of season three, and while it's a great show - well written, very good acting from little-known actors - I realize that it's hard to empathize with many of the characters because they are all, without exception - even the children, in some ways - sociopaths. Tony Soprano is antipathetic, and most of his crew are as well. Even the kids grow up to be like him - not unexpected - and there's not one character in the entire series who is really likable.

Nevertheless, it is a good series, which shows that you don't need to like or identify with characters to appreciate their stories.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

For once, I totally agree with you. Except that I wasn't able to go further than season 2 of Soprano's.

Strange enough, I like Dexter though the main character is a psychopath.

Yeah, except the thing that bothers me about post seasons 2 Dexter is that he's basically a saint. The only exception to that is when he kills that hillbilly guy, but even that they make as sympathetic as possible.

I miss old Dexter who seemed to actually have a dark streak in him. The face-offs with Doakes are something I'll always remember.

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

I've just finished season 3, and yes, that's a problem... I'm disappointed if it remains the same in s4...

This was my christmas present:


First impression: very explicit language - I wonder if those people really speak like this in Baltimore ...

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

+1 for 'Dexter' and +100 for the whole first two seasons bit.

What I cannot believe in all this chat about 'best' TV series no one mentioned 'Mad Men'. Nothing on TV is quite like it and very little comes close in terms of quality (from what I've heard 'The Wire' is the only one in the same league). I am a fan of more obviously popular shows and I don't miss an episode of 'House' or 'The Mentalist' when they come out, but 'Mad Men' I save up the whole season, buy it on DVD as soon as it comes out and watch the season through in a week.

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Teamovich 2
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3062

My (Dead) Study Journal
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=2058

The first season has a nice introduction to chess.

Yo, check it out, right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0mxz2-AQ64

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

When I went to B'more on holiday last year I went specifically because I enjoyed The Wire so much. But I very rarely heard anything like what I heard on The Wire. The only time I heard a genuine Aw yight was on the my very last day on the tram back out to the airport, from a blind black man who answered a mobile phone he had just dropped. When someone picked it up for him and he thanked them, he spoke a bit differently from the way he spoke to whoever was on the phone.

Obviously I was usually in the mostly white city centre, though I did end up in some totally black areas - and felt perfectly safe despite a few stares. The language there was more Wire like, but without the expletives and the slang. The only time I witnessed yobbish behaviour (and was threatened once) was by drunken white youths. I had a similar experience in Chicago, the only very, very tiny blips on 10 out of 10 holidays (helped by the fact that US Immigration behaved themselves for a change!).

As to the programme, I did talk at some length to a policeman who told me that The Wire was 100% accurate, so much so that all the police force knew exactly which real people and events were being dramatised.