Television

[Admin]

Discuss your favorite - and not so favorite - television programs.

[Chakotay]

They have now come out with the DVD collection for this series.

Has anyone else become captive of Planet Earth?  I find watching it puts me in what I would in old hippie days have called an altered state.  True, they get a bit self-laudatory about the film/footage they managed to get, but damn, with good reason. 

[thanatopsy]

I'm not a big TV fan but do enjoy PBS programming. It is by far the most informative and entertaining.  Bill Moyers Journal recently presented a hard hitting show on the controlled media's failings in the leadup to Bush's war on Iraq. A very striking presentation it was.

Aside from that I usually only watch sports on TV, especially international football (soccer), WTA tennis, and road cycling. Occasionally, I watch an old movie on TCM.

Otherwise, I only watch local news.

[JL...W]

Television Review | 'Grey’s Anatomy'
The New Modern Woman, Ambitious and Feeble

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/arts/television/05grey.html?em&ex=1178769600&en=ee28fa33c7ec0a75&ei=5087%0A

I was pleased to read this review as I felt like hurling something at my TV after watching this episode. It's pitiful what they've done with the women characters on this show and the spin-off looks to be even worse.

JL

[fartonbink]

I am a captive of planet Earth (gravity, and all that) but not of "Planet Earth."  The only sci-fi I currently watch is "Lost" and that mainly because it's not so much straight sci-fi as it is a blend of allegory and magical realism with flawed and fascinating characters.

[harrie]

It's official, I'm confused.  Is this Planet Earth the nature-y series, or the schlocky John Saxon/Diana Muldaur ABC '70s TV-movie (he goes into the future a la Planet of the Apes, and the world is ruled by women)?  I like 'em both, just wondering.

[Donotremove]

"Planet Earth" is/was a series that ran on the Discovery Channel just recently.  I think some portions of it are in rerun now.  A documentary five years in the making, it is well worth your time to sit through it although if you have the DVD I would say to break it up into several sittings.

I'm watching the "green" stuff on Sundance--varied docu's long and short about how we humans are in relation to the ecosystem in which we reside.  These run on Tuesday's, I think, but I generally wait till I have some time and bundle a few getting them On Demand on cable (I guess everyone has the On Demand feature that has cable.)  These segments are free of charge and are up to view late for X period of time.

The film on what's in our water and what happens to the sludge will make you want to get a ticket on the next rocket going to another planet.  The fact that in the year 2007 cities and towns (even in Canada) are still dumping raw sewage into lakes and streams just blew me away.  That's not to even start on manufacturing still polluting merrily away . . . .

[harrie]

I've caught some of the green stuff on Sundance, too -- it's hard to stick with, though, because it's so depressing. 

Plus, I've become a little jaded about Redford since reading the book on the emergence of independent cinema which paints him not so flatteringly.  Not in a gossipy way, but that he runs the whole Sundance entity in a way that's really difficult on the underlings, ie it's impossible to get a green light while a project is still alive.  So the fact that the green stuff actually got made must mean he's extremely committed to it; so at least "yay" for Redford on that front.

These days I'm mostly watching escapist fare -- Heroes and Lost -- and unfortunately, the Sabres circling the drain.

[harrie]

And supposedly I have On Demand for free, but I haven't a clue how to use it.  I'd imagine there's a fair number of us out there.

[Donotremove]

Harrie, I hear you on the depression part.  Me, too.  Plus I read books like that, also.  It's enough to test the mettle of an old fart like me.  However, I must be the only person on the planet who has never seen a single episode of the "Sopranos" or any of the "reality" shows, or Lost, Survivor, Funniest . . . , any of the "crime", Dr/hospital, nannies, wife swapping, or dancing, oh me, you get my drift?.

I HAVE watched every episode of "Deadwood", "Big Love", and most of "Desperate Housewives" and "Brothers and Sisters", except where something like a rerun of "Bleak House" on PBS interferred (I'm a sucker for period pieces where people like Lady Deadlock breathes in once at the beginning and never breathes out after that--O her lovely neck, so strained and vulnerable.)  So you can see I AM part of the unwashed who wallows, somewhat, in such dreck.

On Demand is accessed by the number 1 on your remote that goes to your cable unit (not your TV remote) and learning to use it is, well, a 5 on a 1-10 scale.  Some stuff is cashed in categories that don't make all that much sense.  Like the Sundance Channel's green stuff is under Free Movies (scroll till you come to Sundance).  I wouldn't think of the "green" episodes as "movies", myself.  One thing, I'm hard-of-hearing and stuff without closed captioning is hard for me (none of the green stuff has it,) especially if the sound track has "soaring music" overwhelming everything.  But badly done CC is worse than none at all--where the captioning lags behind the speakers.

Yes, Robert Redford is "difficult" I hear.

[harrie]

Thanks for the OnDemand tips -- will have to give that a try. 

Also big fans of Deadwood at my house -- we get the season on DVD, rather than pay the HBO ransom (my personal hangup).

But we did watch last night's 2.5 Men, and Robert Wagner was great.  Holland Taylor is always wonderful, but she was great too.

[oilcanboyd23]

I saw a few minutes of the "Planet Earth" documentary on the Discovery Channel (in HD!), and they were showing these ginormous great white sharks eating seals in super-slo-mo.  I'm still a little shaken by it, and that was like 2 weeks ago.

All you see is this seal swimming in the ocean, then suddenly (well, not suddenly, exactly, because it's shown in super-slo-mo, but still) the shark comes from below with his mouth wide open.  The shark must have been swimming vertically really fast because it busts out of the water, catching the seal in its mouth, and flies out of the water like 20 feet.

I remember in "Jaws" (which I loved, it's my 9th favorite movie of all time) when the shark jumps on the back of the boat, you're like, yeah right, a shark can't do that, but you say, well, this is a great movie, so I'll forgive it that little artistic license, etc.  But this footage on "Planet Earth" confirms that, not only could a shark do what the shark did to the boat in "Jaws", but it could actually jump OVER the boat if it wanted to. 

[Kam]

"Jaws" (which I loved, it's my 9th favorite movie of all time)

You mean you have JAWS over Open Water?   j/k
Any Sopranos watchers? 

[harrie]

Donotremove, I must thank you for the OnDemand info.  I checked it out a little, and there's a pretty good selection of free stuff.  A bunch of movies, of which a handful are pretty good -- some Hitchcock, some Woody Allen -- plus other neat stuff.  But best of all -- karaoke!!!!   Pity the hubby.  Guess who's getting industrial strength earplugs for his birthday?

[prairiepop]

Since we live out in the woods miles from the nearest cable access, we got a satellite TV--which offers far too many channels for these old eyeballs to keep up with.  Highly recommend Turner Classic Movies [TCM] which provides tons of the old great noir flix...last night's was "The Killing", with Sterling Hayden.  Also, the Documentary channel, which has some really assorted goodies...juxtapose these, pilgrims: an hour of old Russian newsreels from WW-II, followed by something in the way of experimental dance theatre from Brazil and a Greenpeace boat excursion.  Truly like Mister Gump's box o' chocs.

Now call me an Ancient Quivering Wreck if you will, but somehow there's something therapeutic about following Wolf 'n Lou with a whole hour [2 half-hour stories] of "The Rifleman" on the Westerns channel...gee that nice Luke McCain and his splendid lad Mark...Mark doesn't shoot dope, goes to school every day, minds his Pa, and Luke may give his sideways grin at the schoolmarm and the shop lady, but nobody gets nekkid.

Have a hunch that for most of this Election Cycle, I'm gonna be hanging with Luke and the kid just to keep from sharpening my pitchfork and heading for Washington.  Ou sont les pickiteurs d'antan?  To paraphrase Winston C., clop-clop is MUCH better than war-war.