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Post by chrisfan on Jan 4, 2006 11:56:36 GMT -5
Okay, it's high time that we give TV viewing it's own thread around here ...
Is anyone else watching House? I am totally addicted now. I'd never had any interest in the show, because for whatever reason I thought it was a very dark somewhat sci-fi show. (again, no idea where I got that impression) My sister got me watching it over Christmas and I am hooked. You have to hang on House's every word because just about every line he has is hilarous. It's my new favorite show.
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Post by luke on Jan 4, 2006 12:22:09 GMT -5
Never seen it.
TV is in a slump for me, with the only viewing being My Name Is Earl and The Office.
Doing lots of catching up on DVD, though, as The Sopranos are coming, and nothing else on that tube matters.
Also pretty happy about Best Week Ever finally getting back on.
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Post by chrisfan on Jan 4, 2006 12:29:11 GMT -5
I love Earl and The Office, but have not been watching them much because of the time period. I'm thrilled that they're finally moving both to Thursday where they should have been all along.
If you get a chance, check out House. Most of the show is drama. But the lines that House has are so hilarious and politically incorrect that it gives the show a totally unexpected tone.
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Post by tuneschick on Jan 4, 2006 14:46:16 GMT -5
I have yet to see House, but my in-laws got the first season for Christmas, so I'm planning on stealing it next time I'm up. Of course, by the time I see it I'll be totally behind and probably never catch up... always the way.
I keep missing Earl, so I'm happy it's moving to Thursdays too. Always loved Jason Lee, glad he's finally getting some recognition... and Jaime Pressley plays really good trailer trash. Not sure that's a compliment, but hey.
Only other show I really care about these days is Rescue Me (which Luke, I'm sure you'd hate since I remember you ragging on Denis Leary some time ago.) Seriously though, my favourite show on TV. It's perfectly cast and can have me laughing hysterically and desperately trying to hold back tears (usually unsuccessfully) within 10 minutes. I love Leary, and really think this is the perfect vehicle for him... don't know what they were thinking, trying to put him on regular network TV with The Job.
(which I also loved - we got the box set for Christmas. The entire series - a whopping 19 episodes!)
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Post by chrisfan on Jan 4, 2006 14:51:19 GMT -5
House isn't one of those shows you really need to catch up on. There is some little background stuff about character which can come up, but for the most part, each episode stands alone. It's pretty much got a Law and Order type formula - patient comes in with a problem, they don't know the cause, they spend the entire hour trying to figure it out, they're wrong at least once (and House usually has a hunch they were) and then it ends. His character and the dry wit of his lines is what makes the show. Oh, it's going to start airing Friday nights on USA beginning this week at 11.
I need to check out Rescue Me. Everything about it sounds like the kind of show I'd watch, but I've never checked it out. That's the problem with a lot of shows like that ... I see the promos and think I'd love it, but I do'nt watch the network enough to get in the habit of knowing when it's actually on.
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Post by tuneschick on Jan 4, 2006 14:56:39 GMT -5
Not sure when House is on here (we don't get USA) so I'll have to find out. I think I'd love him.  Rescue Me is great... I avoid recommending it to some people I know who are overly sensitive, because it can be pretty offensive, really. Some of it is pretty much what you'd figure from a bunch of guys hanging out all the time. But the characters are brilliantly written, even the ones who are pretty much there for comic relief... and I'm such a wuss that I cried for half an hour after the season finale. Hardhitting stuff. I don't know when the third season starts there - the second season just ended here about a month ago, but I know your station that shows it (F/X I think?) is quite a bit ahead of our Showcase channel. |
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Post by RocDoc on Jan 4, 2006 15:20:03 GMT -5
Having missed maybe 5 episodes of 'ER' since they began a long time ago, I watched the first few episodes of House and saw it as a pale imitation...
All the ghosts hanging around Dennis Leary's character in Rescue Me reminded me of 'An American Werewolf In London'...
I've been watching FAR more sports (esp basketball) than I would honestly choose to, but my recently arrived father-in-law speaks/understand very little English and I'm the 'designated buddy' in the evenings after our son's bathed, fed and crashed-out....so we go downstairs, grab a couple of beers and sports is the only things he's got a handle on as 'entertainment' here so far....I actually had gotten a chance to watch the 'Scrubs' premiere and began watching the second one (two new ones consecutively last night) when he came downstairs, and I'm like 'Shit, I'd really like to watch this show...MY show' and then discovered they had full contact Karate on ESPN luckily (tired of watching the Bulls lose, I am)...and saw some pretty evil looking beatings happen.
I have been trying to get through the fourth season of 'Six Feet Under', with headphones on, generally after my father-in-law goes to sleep...but dammit, I'm already sleep-deprived as hell with an 18 month old (today is 18 mos exactly, in fact) son.
Now I try to get in a couple of 6FU episodes and get to bed at midnight and I' often up at 5 AM when 'the boy' awakes...
Great series that one...
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Post by chrisfan on Jan 4, 2006 15:36:44 GMT -5
I've heard the House / ER comparison made before, and having now watched it, I can honestly say I don't see it AT ALL. IMO, the only thing the two have in common is that they take place in a hospital. ER to me is more of a continuning saga about people who work in a hospital. The story of the medical cases comes into play, but the ongoing stories are about the people. House on the other hand is more about the cases. You assume the characters have lives outside the hospital, since doctors usually do, but you don't have much of a clue as to what those lives entail. Two ENTIRELY different shows IMO.
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Post by strat-0 on Jan 4, 2006 17:54:38 GMT -5
Over New Years we spent many an hour watching the Twilight Zone marathon on SciFi. Great stuff. The one with Shatner on the airplane is classic. Also the Mardi Gras mask episode.
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Post by RocDoc on Jan 4, 2006 17:54:53 GMT -5
...but aren't House's 'personal demons' a big part of the show. Leg injury, narcotics, blahblahblah....those first few couple definitely played that up...those and then his relationship with that female supervisor, the one who interestingly played a transexual on some lawyer show a couple of years back, McBeal or some such.
It's not strictly a 'procedural' like you're saying...it is character-driven all the same even if it doesn't ever 'leave' the hospital, like you seem to be saying.
But ER gets completely engrossed in a several 'cases' during each show...'entirely' different?
I definitely do not think so...but you've apparently seen quite a few more episodes of 'House' than I have.
Maybe they've found their stride...and improved since the first few expository shows which ANY series is going to be forced to begin with...
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Post by chrisfan on Jan 4, 2006 17:58:21 GMT -5
There are certainly nuances of each character which come into play. But that's the secondary plot (like the pateint stories are secondary on ER). The patient stories ae the primary focus on House. The doctor stories (Abby being pregnant, Neela getting married, Shane West being a pig, Mark Greene dying, etc) are the primary focus on ER.
I'm anxious to see the early episodes of House when they run on USA. It may be that the show was headed in one direction and then changed, which happens frequently enough. But the episodes that I've seen have definitely NOT been an ER ripoff.
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Post by RocDoc on Jan 4, 2006 18:29:01 GMT -5
'Ripoff'? Nonononono....not what I meant at all either.
Just some similarities brought in by the subject matter which cannnot be helped.
So I didn't mean 'imitation' necessarily in a 'Yeah, all the same but shittier' sense.
Tho the way you're saying it now, 'House' is always about 'the Case'...whereas I couldn't disagree with you more that each ER show was making no effort to have a patient's story become the primary focus...or 'a' primary focus within the swirl of a seeming jillion things happening in several departments (and personalities) of this County General-place...
By comparison, the episodes of House that I watched were far more claustrophobic...closed-off. Again that was maybe 3-4 episodes.
This is where I think ER succeeds massively, in that they DO experiment and give the show over to a particular subject and character for large portions of the show (sometimes, yes, excluding 'medicine'), with great regularity...it's definitely not a one-note show.
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Post by RocDoc on Jan 4, 2006 18:31:23 GMT -5
So who ELSE is waiting with bated breath for '24'??!!!!
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JACkory
Struggling Artist
Posts: 167
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Post by JACkory on Jan 4, 2006 20:49:17 GMT -5
What's TV?
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Post by Ayinger on Jan 4, 2006 22:53:44 GMT -5
So who ELSE is waiting with bated breath for '24'??!!!! Seeing how I missed the entire last season, YES! Also with baited breath: THE SHIELD (in what I believe in the final season). You'll have my comments on f/x's RESCUE ME joining in on the positive...tho' I wish they hadn't gotten rid of 'what's-her-name' as the one female in the firehouse. The same actress worked well with Leary in THE JOB.......anyone ever catch on one of the last episodes where Leary's charactor was actually wearing a "Job" t-shirt as an inside rib? |
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