Being dropped this week from my PVR favorites (auto-record) feature:

Chuck = unimaginative, at least 1 or 2 super-lame tech/geek lines per episode, the semi-hot "girlfriend" CIA agent isn't enough to get by the utter boredom of watching.

Bionic Woman = OMG. This is like an ULTRA-cheap version of Alias combined with the Nikita TV series sets. Serious overuse of dim/gloomy lighting. I don't really give a rat's ass about any characters and I think the lead absolutely stinks. The character is totally flat and the combat sequences are just a notch above the 1960's Batman TV show.

Back to You = dull typical 80's sitcom.

Life is still quite good after 3 episodes. I'm also enjoying Pushing up Daisies, but would be willing to bet it will be cancelled. It's too out there for a mainstream audience. Surprisingly I'm also enjoying Big Shots. It's like a 1 hour men's version of Sex and the City in many ways.

I'm not too sure if anyone else here is hooked on "dexter" but the next 2 episodes (11,12) of season 2 have been posted to usenet as dvdrip pre-airs.

Wonderful. They've cancelled The 4400. In my opinion, it was superior to Heroes in almost every way other than production values and marketing.

Did anyone else watch all the episodes of Journeyman? The show only improved, IMO, particularly when they started setting up some good situations around the time travel stuff. Too bad it's also canceled.

Other shows I wanted to comment on:

Jericho - why was this resurrected and not Veronica Mars?

Bionic Woman - I finally stopped watching this show (only the second show I've stopped watching in the last three years - after Jericho). What was the final straw? In the last episode, Jamie and her annoying CIA boyfriend are fighting some guys in a hotel room. To avoid gunfire, the CIA guy hides behind a chair. Yes, you actually see bullets being stopped by a fancy upholstered chair. This is one of those situations where I'm able to suspend disbelief on big plot points, but little crap like that is just stupid and pointless. I'm done with this show.

Are there any canceled shows (not just strike-affected ones) that you guys are mad about?

I disagree strongly. In my opinion the 4400 has been totally lost for ages (since about mid way through last series). It just seems to wander aimlessly about repeating the same sort of stuff over and over again.

Some of the story lines in the latest episodes really were awful, it was almost as if they have taken the story from three episodes, hacked some chunks out and stuck them together in one episode.

The last episode of Journeyman is on tonight... Hope you don't miss it. When you wrote about them canceling it was on episode 10 and a you mentioned, it looked like they might not air the remaining episodes. Except instead of 2 there were actually 3.

Easily the best new show of 2007, perhaps tied with Life. I also quite like Pushing Daisies. Those are my top 3 new ones. Big Shots, Private Practice and Reaper round out my top 6. I don't think I watch any other new 1 hour programs a those 6 are enough. I've read Big Shots might not get picked up either which is too bad. It's difficult to relate to anything in the show at face value, but it's "fun."

Heroes unfortunately isn't even in my top 3 of returning shows. Those likely being Boston Legal, House and Grey's Anatomy.

I'm not saying I think that too (I don't), but you're saying you don't agree with me on the grounds that half of the 4400's final (4th) season was no good? Heroes started sucking after the "future episode" of season one, and this season has been really bad.

My main argument for the 4400 over Heroes is that Heroes isn't saying anything. Hell, 99% of the time it doesn't even deliver on a geeky superpower level. At the very least, the 4400 has social commentary (that seems based in reality, IMO), and compelling plot developments. I've heard people say "well, Heroes is going to get to that stuff." I don't think they are. The show seems to relish in its characters' anonymity and "inner struggle" (ha!). They're all self-absorbed, whiny, and (*spoiler alert*) the first time they try to expose the existence of superpowered people, look what happens.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm really disliking the show now. The writing is simply terrible.


Oh, I know! I'm going to watch it in a little bit (have to build up some Tivo time).


Yeah, the creator said that when they looked at the ratings and the impending strike, they decided that the end was nigh. At least they retooled the scripts for the final episodes to wrap up some plot points. Supposedly we're going to get some answers (which I feel the show has been doling out fairly well as it is!).


Pushing Daisies is easily my favorite. At the moment it's my third favorite show overall (behind Avatar and Dexter). Life is better than I expected (the pilot didn't impress me), and it really kicked it up a bit in the final few episodes.

After watching the 13th episode of Journeyman I can only say again what I said in my previous post. I wouldn't change a single thing about the show. Not any of the writing, plots, actors, direction, etc. It's been a brilliant run of 13 episodes that have only gotten stronger as they progressed. I'll be very sad to see it go.

I've got all 13 episodes recorded on my PVR which I'll have to have my fiancée watch sometime. It's one of the only shows I watch that he doesn't. The others being Reaper and Avatar.

When I mentioned Journeyman being part of my strong top 3, I wasn't including 30-minute shows nor animated series. Avatar is phenomenal and the lat few episodes have been great. I think they got off to a really slow start this season. But even last season, the second half was definitely where the money was. It's also a returning series and I mentioned Journeyman a a new series. Animation-wise I still highly rank South Park and to a lesser extent American Dad, Family Guy and King of the Hill - I no longer watch the Simpsons.

Oh well, looks like there's nothing on for another few weeks. Time to catch up on some movies.

FWIW, The Simpsons has been really good this season. And I agree that the last ... five? ... seasons were mediocre at best.

I wonder is Journeyman has been strong enough to warrant another network picking it up?

Edit: apparently not by the following analysis

http://www.syfyportal.com/news424554.html

If Aint it Cool's coverage of it over the last few weeks is to be believed...no.

It's been pretty clear for a long while that the show wasn't getting the ratings, and as Bruno and I were hinting at, at one point NBC wasn't even going to air the last few episodes. I think they wanted to play out all their new content before the holiday break, and the only way they were able to do that was to give Journeyman and Life each 3 episodes in 10 days.


Likewise. I thought the ending was rather beautiful and a fitting finale to a show that had a lot of promise. It's a shame that it gained steam late. I think some people might have bailed early on.


Oh, I know what you were saying in your rankings I just wanted to stress that not only was Pushing Daisies my favorite new show, it's in my top three over-all. I guess that technically, Avatar got off to a slow start, but that's never been an issue with me, as I don't believe I've been let down by a single episode. Each one has more great writing, character development, fun, and heart than any other show I've ever seen. I'm going to have to see how the third season plays out, but if it's able to top the last two episodes, and they stop the series there, then Avatar has a chance at being my favorite show of all time...


This period of time is going to be killer for a TV junkie like me! I'm going to have to go outside! Ugh!

Luckily I just started reading again (which has never been big with me). If you're a superhero geek, I highly recommend "Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Grossman. It's a lot of fun.

Yep the series ended very well.

No, when I said "last series" I meant "previous series", so I'm saying the whole of series 4 and most of series 3 was badly written.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. The 4th "season" (as we call it over here more often), ended in September, so to me, that was "last season."

I still disagree, though

I said it ended well. It wasn't till the next morning I realized the final episode still has the seeds of a new season.

Old thread alert....

Just watched the whole first season of Californication starring David Duchovny. Brilliant from start to finish. Easily his best work ever on small or large screen.

I'm also so glad they cast Evan Handler as I've always thought he was the shorter, chubbier and bald version of Duchovny.

There have only been two episodes, but so far I'm really enjoying Breaking Bad. Interesting that there's a good amount of cursing in it that is blanked out. I'm guessing it was intended for pay TV and not basic cable.

I've just seen that advertised on AMC up here in Canada and thought it might be a god watch. Will set the PVR to record it since I think it hasn't yet premiered (here).

breaking bad is really good, the wire season 5 is also a good watch. If you havn't seen hbo:the wire before season 1 and 2 are so very captivating.

Based on Bitt's recommendation, I've started watching Breaking Bad. My wife calls it "the druggie show." So far (two episodes), I'm impressed. It's a bit creepy, yet funny.

Still need to check that (Breaking Bad) out as well as Dexter. On related news, the writer's strike is apparently coming to an end, with an agreement reached last Friday. No idea if shows halted in mid-season will come back to finish off their current seasons though. I'd like to see the full run of Life and Pushing Daisies though, among others.

vh1's freeradio is very good.

That's what I've been wondering the whole strike. I've been thinking that it will be interesting to see how long it takes to put out new episodes.

Unfortunately, the latest I've heard is that they'd only be able to produce three or four more episodes before they wrapped up for the summer. I'll never understand the imaginary TV wall that is May.

Ok, I was wrong about Lost. Somewhat anyway. I still didn't like the way they handled last season's finale, but this season is off to a very good start. I wasn't sure the new twist on the format was going to work, but surprisingly I'm finding it really enjoyable.

There have been a few things in the past couple of episodes that were meant to keep the audience guessing, but unfortunately I figured them out early on and didn't get hit with the writer's planned shocker at/near the end of the episodes.

On another positive TV note, new episodes of the UK's Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares have just started on Food TV Canada a couple of weeks ago. So far they've been great. Who can I write to about making sure the new US season sticks to the original UK format? I can live with editing out the swearing, but putting in some obnoxious US narrator and constantly repeating the same video clips over and over is really annoying. On top of the previously mentioned drama/makeover angle the US version is pushing as well.

Have also been enjoying episodes of Last One Standing on Discovery. 6 guys, 3 from the UK and 3 from the US travel around the world to compete in various indigenous competitions/events, some fighting-based and some endurance/sports-based so far. Likable real-life cast and some very interesting locales.

I'm just praying that they don't decided to apply any of the nonsense in the US format to the next series of the UK show.

I've just watched the last ep of the Sarah Connor Chronicles and I have to say I found the series really good. It's been showing on Virgin 1 over here in the UK and when I found out I set the Myth box to record it for me thinking I'd probably watch an ep decide it was worse than T3 and not bother watching the rest. I ended up loving it so much I downloaded the remaining ep's and watched them back to back.

There has always been a special place in my heart for the Terminator franchise. I remember watching the first film long before I was really old enough (about 9 or 10) and it scared the living crap out of me. Admittedly not as much as Robocop did, I still cannot watch the scene where Murphy is gunned down, it makes me feel physically sick.

I then watched Terminator 2 when it came to video (I was about 13) and that inspired me to watch the original again and I loved it..... and that was that, I thought, the tale was told.

Fast forward 12 years and I read about T3 being in production, I read all the articles about it, watched the trailer and went to see it on it's opening day, and I hated it. I don't know what it was, maybe it was the fact Arnie is really too old to play the part convincingly, or maybe that skynet is powered by Dell, or that the movie annoyingly ends on a cliffhanger, something the previous two films didn't do. Or was it that fact they injected too much humour.... Talk to the hand? Give me a fucking break.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned the third film hasn't happened and this series is where it's at. I only hope they don't cancel it before they make a second series.

Oh, and Summer Glau is 'so' hot. Something I never really picked up on in Firefly, maybe because she was seriously odd in it, or perhaps she was overshadowed by Jewel Staite.

That's the only thing I can agree with you (wholeheartedly so) on in regards to this show. I just don't think it's very good, and then they brought in a 90210 kid. I agree that T3 was bad, though.

I'm hoping the fourth movie is good.

Weird. I think it started off pretty mediocre and got better and better. It's not excellent, but it's pretty good, I think. I could have stood an actor other than the 90210 guy, though.

Okay, it's not perfect but I'm worried T4 will actually be worse than T3. I've lost faith in the films.