Current TV Boxset Addiction

[HdE]

I've been watching the complete run of 'Alias' starring Jennifer Garner...

WHYYYYYY??? It's TERRIBLE! The writing on this show is SOOOOOO CRAAAAAP!!! Somebody shoot me! PLEASE!

I can never tell when you young things are being sarcastic.  This is a joke, right? First couple of seasons I've seen have been aces.

Working STRICTLY within my caveat of 'if other people are enjoying it, all's well and good', I'll ennumerate the reasons I'm really not liking this show:

ALL of the leads are dreadful. Jennifer Garner is prone to some hideous over-acting. Victor Garber seems to be stuck at one default setting all the time. Michael Vartan is lumbered with the unenviable and unwinnable task of making Garner's love interest look like anything but a complete drip. And the soap-opera tone of the filler stuff that fits in around the plot (and there's a LOT of it) really services all concerned poorly, in my opinion. Awww... Sydney's flatmate just got engaged, but here fella is playing about on the side? I DON'T CARE! SHOW ME MORE SPIES AND ASS KICKING, DAMMIT!

There are some enjoyable moments, true - but for me they all seem to be buried in among the dross. It's almost as if the writers don't know when they're onto a good thing, and when they DO, they really hammer it into the ground.

I mean, Kevin Weismann's techie guy is genuinely brilliant, although his character becomes nauseatingly over-written later on. Must he stumble over himself unfailingly on his every single appearance? He's gone from being one fo the highlights of the show for me to a genuine irritation now.

And for every genuinely sharp and neatly written bit of dialogue, there are a dozen clunk-tastic wads of heavy exposition that grate in the extreme. There are some exchanges between Garner and Vartan, or Garner and Garber (try saying that fast ten times in a row!) that play so appallingly I've actually groaned audibly a few times.

I'm persevering with it just because there's a decent story idea in there, and I want to see it through. It waxes and wanes, and I won't pretend that I'm not being entertained, but... it all feels a bit average to me, and it's not something I think I'll come back to watch again. It's competently staged, sure... but this isn't a well written show, as far as I'm concerned. Not even close.

[ChickenStu]

Never EVER watch the 1985 series of V. Just don't, OK?

[HdE]

I solemnly promise you, ChickenStu... I will not.

[ChickenStu]

I solemnly promise you, ChickenStu... I will not.

Don't ever watch Galactica 1980 either. You'd never survive the experience. There's just something about that show that makes people consider suicide...

[HdE]

Don't ever watch Galactica 1980 either. You'd never survive the experience. There's just something about that show that makes people consider suicide...

Saw an episode once. Collapsed in hysterics. Put me of the new BSG for a good long while, I can tell you!

[ChickenStu]

Put me of the new BSG for a good long while, I can tell you!

Lol. Yeah, I was a fan of the newer one. Got it all on DVD. The only criticism I really have about it is that it went on a good half season too long. The first part of the last season was largely superflous. I reckon they could've chucked out a lot of that bollocks, made it shorter and just did the compelling story of the second half.

Otherwise, fuck me that was some TV show!

[Professor Bear]

Those dreadful old 1980s sci-fi shows weren't all bad: I liked the synth score on V: The Series, and the opening episode where the little girl goes off to die in a cave and the snakes all gather around her corpse while "she's changing... BUT INTO WHAT?" and a green light pulses and creeptastic music plays was a commendable attempt on the makers' part at shitting the audience up the same way that lizard baby crawling out of a lady's womb under its own power did in the miniseries, but sadly there was just too much outright shite in the series as it tried too hard to be sci-fi rather than a drama about Nazis in control of America.

If you want old-school sci-fi, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is pure cheesy gold.  I still rewatch the odd episode when I want to turn my brain off - I watched the theatrical cut of the pilot a week or so back, and watch Space Vampire every Halloween.  Planet of the Slave Girls is wonderfully camp and has Jack Palance as a cult leader and terrorist with a harem of barely-legal tottie creating more onscreen ham than live coverage of a swine flu bonfire, but Ardala Returns is amazing: the plot is that a space princess has robot doubles made of Buck so they can bang her from both ends, but Buck thinks sad thoughts while they copy his mind so the robots will be depressed all the time and not want to have sex or fights, meanwhile, one of his robot doubles - who is, naturally, also wired with a nuclear bomb - is walking around with Buck's mates on Earth saying things like "ERR-OR! Incorrect response to query!" out loud within earshot of everyone around him and no-one bats an eyelid - and yet the most ludicrous thing about it?  The idea that any character played by Pamela Hensley in a bikini would have trouble getting a shag.

[ChickenStu]

Those dreadful old 1980s sci-fi shows weren't all bad: I liked the synth score on V: The Series, and the opening episode where the little girl goes off to die in a cave and the snakes all gather around her corpse while "she's changing... BUT INTO WHAT?" and a green light pulses and creeptastic music plays was a commendable attempt on the makers' part at shitting the audience up the same way that lizard baby crawling out of a lady's womb under its own power did in the miniseries, but sadly there was just too much outright shite in the series as it tried too hard to be sci-fi rather than a drama about Nazis in control of America.

TOTALLY AGREED.

If you want old-school sci-fi, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is pure cheesy gold. 

Oh you and I are SO going to be friends... 

I still rewatch the odd episode when I want to turn my brain off - I watched the theatrical cut of the pilot a week or so back, and watch Space Vampire every Halloween.  Planet of the Slave Girls is wonderfully camp and has Jack Palance as a cult leader and terrorist with a harem of barely-legal tottie creating more onscreen ham than live coverage of a swine flu bonfire, but Ardala Returns is amazing: the plot is that a space princess has robot doubles made of Buck so they can bang her from both ends, but Buck thinks sad thoughts while they copy his mind so the robots will be depressed all the time and not want to have sex or fights, meanwhile, one of his robot doubles - who is, naturally, also wired with a nuclear bomb - is walking around with Buck's mates on Earth saying things like "ERR-OR! Incorrect response to query!" out loud within earshot of everyone around him and no-one bats an eyelid - and yet the most ludicrous thing about it?  The idea that any character played by Pamela Hensley in a bikini would have trouble getting a shag.

I used to love that show as a kid. REALLY love it. I've flirted with buying the DVD set a few times but for some reason have never had the guts to do it. I remember one magical saturday when I had the most horrendous hangover (don't drink now btw) an old channel called Bravo did a WHOLE DAY of Buck Rogers. It was absolute fucking HEAVEN and MIRACULOUSY it made my hangover go away (although a great big bacon and sausage baguette - greasy as fuck - played a big part).

I'm getting it. That's all there is to it, I'm fucking getting it.

[Beaky Smoochies]

Those dreadful old 1980s sci-fi shows weren't all bad: I liked the synth score on V: The Series, and the opening episode where the little girl goes off to die in a cave and the snakes all gather around her corpse while "she's changing... BUT INTO WHAT?" and a green light pulses and creeptastic music plays was a commendable attempt on the makers' part at shitting the audience up the same way that lizard baby crawling out of a lady's womb under its own power did in the miniseries, but sadly there was just too much outright shite in the series as it tried too hard to be sci-fi rather than a drama about Nazis in control of America.

Pretty much spot-on as to why V was largely a one-off deal for me, or should have been anyway; it was a social-political allegory exploring how the typical Americana community would react in varying ways in the event of a totalitarian takeover, it didn't even begin as an alien invasion drama, the villains were 100% human fascists, but NBC thought it needed more pizazz and suggested making them aliens... an inspired suggestion as it turned out, as that first scene when Marc Singer rips off the Visitor's face mask and you get a good look at what really  lurks underneath remains one of the very best scenes of modern sci-fi drama.  That first mini-series ends perfectly; all the principal characters have chosen sides in the new regime (whether it be co-operation or resistance), and although the humans have won the first skirmish the war continues, there was nothing more to say after that... it was never about defeating the alien invasion and liberating Earth, it was always a character piece about how people react to fascism and whether they accept or rebel against it!

[Daveycandlish]

Yeah but if we had left it there you would never have had Michael Ironside turn up. And he's great.

[ChickenStu]

Yeah but if we had left it there you would never have had Michael Ironside turn up. And he's great.

I've met him you know... in fact... a few years ago he probably would've made an awesome Judge Dredd!

[Professor Bear]

Caught the last 9 episodes of Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, and for a show whose central conceit is the secular pursuit of truth at all costs, that was one batshit crazy series finale.  If you know Scooby Doo only as a cultural phenomenon - I couldn't really stand any of the other versions of the show but this one - you grasp the core idea: kids investigate seemingly supernatural goings-on and always find a logical explanation which may or may not be a bit silly, yet Mystery Inc creates an overarcing cause for it all in the form of an elder god manipulating the kids and their adversaries across time.  By the end the show is revealed not just as a prequel to the original Scooby Doo series from the 1960s, but also as a meta-origin for all the other versions of Scooby Doo, and we find this out when Harlan Ellison shows up, though not before the show crosses over with Twin Peaks and also makes it clear Velma really was gay in the original series, which she realises only when her would-be girlfriend is murdered in the penultimate episode - no, really.
It didn't always make sense and was not subtle, but it ends with what is easily one of the all-time great series finales. 

[auxlen]

I cannot recommend highly enough Callan the colour years starring edward woodward. 70's drama at its understated best.

[Hawkmumbler]

Caught the last 9 episodes of Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, and for a show whose central conceit is the secular pursuit of truth at all costs, that was one batshit crazy series finale.  If you know Scooby Doo only as a cultural phenomenon - I couldn't really stand any of the other versions of the show but this one - you grasp the core idea: kids investigate seemingly supernatural goings-on and always find a logical explanation which may or may not be a bit silly, yet Mystery Inc creates an overarcing cause for it all in the form of an elder god manipulating the kids and their adversaries across time.  By the end the show is revealed not just as a prequel to the original Scooby Doo series from the 1960s, but also as a meta-origin for all the other versions of Scooby Doo, and we find this out when Harlan Ellison shows up, though not before the show crosses over with Twin Peaks and also makes it clear Velma really was gay in the original series, which she realises only when her would-be girlfriend is murdered in the penultimate episode - no, really.
It didn't always make sense and was not subtle, but it ends with what is easily one of the all-time great series finales.

OK, I need to watch this now.

[Spikes]

I cannot recommend highly enough Callan the colour years starring edward woodward. 70's drama at its understated best.

Ive given some thought to buying this set. From Network, isnt it?
And while were talking of the great Mr Woodward, im hoping somebody will eventually get round to releasing this as a complete box set.