If by "four year old" you mean 10 year old, then yup, that's about right. But what he can throw around are actually the elements, air, water, earth and fire.

I totally read that as "throw tomatoes" at first.

Naturally, this being my favorite show, I could have stood to watch more of it, but this is the program I hold up as an example of storytelling through the medium of television. I have a great amount of respect for the creators of the show for setting out to do exactly what they did, which was tell a perfectly crafted trilogy, while creating a unique and original world, inhabited by great characters.


Well of course, that's simplifying it a bit, but essentially yes. I believe the main character is a little older than that, though. I think in the series he was supposed to be around 11 or 12 at the start of the series, though technically he's about 111 or 112 when the story starts. I apologize, but I'm about to get very geeky about the show here, in case anyone is interested. None of what follows contains spoilers, as it's all information about stuff that happens before the show even starts.

I think, actually, that the best possible synopsis of the show is the one that the character Katara gives over the intro to each show:



That's the most basic summary, but from there the idea is that Aang, who can control the element of air, needs to learn how to control the other three elements in order to defeat the Fire Lord.

To expand: in this world, the Avatar is a being who is reincarnated into each tribe of the world in the succession mentioned at the start of the intro. The ruler of the Fire Nation wished to rule the world, but couldn't as long as there was an Avatar to stand in his way, even though that Avatar was born to the Fire Nation. Once that Avatar passed away, the Fire Lord, knowing the next Avatar would be an Air Nomad, ordered his army to wipe out the Air Nomads before the new Avatar could master all the elements (I can't think of any other Nick cartoons that deal with complete genocide).

So yeah, the show starts off on genocide and war, and takes off from there to be, IMO, one of the greatest epic stories I've ever experienced, with a fully realized world that's unlike any others I can think of.

Again, sorry for geeking out and gushing about this thing, but I truly adore this show. With all this talk about it, I think I'm going to start it again for the fourth time now...

Tamara's Avatar takes center stage in this episode.

I just started watching Being Human and so far I'm enjoying it. I'm part-way through episode two right now, having watched both the premiere and episode one last weekend.

What rubbed me totally the wrong way however were the changes made to the cast between the pilot and the series main production run. Two of the three main characters were recast and re-typed. It's unfortunate, because the original actors were better in pretty much every respect. The pilot also had a slightly darker feel to it and I've been thinking all week that the show went from being "Fringe" to being "Friends" - both good shows in my opinion, but a different flavour. Not the best analogy, but the feel is just more comedy/polished.

The two main replacement cast are far more "pretty" than their predecessors, so at first I thought they were trying to pretty up the whole show. But the character of Herrick went from an attractive black male to a rather pudgy ordinary looking white guy, so that theory isn't necessarily the motivation. Anyway, I do feel that the those two main characters lost a lot of depth and personality in the change-over. Much more clichéd caricatures now.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the cast grows on me, but so far the vampire character Mitchell just comes off as somewhat of a douche bag. Unlike in the pilot.

Perfect, found that someone else wrote precisely what I was feeling about Being Human Pilot versus Series. Even though I'm still enjoying the series after 2 episodes, I would have infinitely preferred to have it directly follow the pilot versus the re-imagining we're left with.



Source: Ishmoo It's amusing to read some of the opinions of a few folks who actually prefer the series to the pilot... Especially the reply directly after the one I quoted. Doh. Twat.

I just started White Collar about a week ago. I'm enjoying it. It is 100% taking off where Catch Me If You Can left off. No question. But it's entertaining and the con man lead is charismatic (as he'd have to be). I also like Tim Dekay, though at this point I have a hard time seeing him as anything other than Jonesy from Carnivale. That's still one of my favorite shows of all time, and it kills me that there's no bluray release, as it was also one of the most beautifully shot shows I've ever seen.

I didn't see the pilot first. Only once they stuck it on iPlayer mid way through the first series did I bother watching it.

I much prefer Turner to Flanagan who just came across as some brooding emo/goth tw*t and I just couldn't stand Riseborough. They also made the right choice regarding the recasting of Herrick.

Who knows, maybe if I'd seen the pilot first then my opinion would be different.

White Collar is still on my "to check out" list. Like Leverage, it's not being broadcast in Canada that I'm aware of. Which isn't an issue I suppose, since the benefit is I don't have to fast-forward over commercials or remove them myself - someone else has already done it for me.

BTW, I finished watching the first two seasons of Leverage and quite enjoyed them. Can't recall if I had mentioned that yet. Very much looking forward to season three - this is one of my favorite "light" shows.

Sons of Tucson, premiered on Fox tonight. It's silly, but I'm liking it. 30 minute sitcom, no laugh track.


I'm also liking Being Human quite a bit. I've managed to move on from the differences in the pilot. While the pilot was interesting for a number of reasons already mentioned, it would have been a completely different show. I like what they've done, even though it took a couple of episodes to really get into it. There were some weak spots, but it's held together well. Season 2 is a lot darker than the first and so far excellent. However, I'm usually not a fan of such a drastic/abrupt change in "feel" of a program from one season to another. That said, season 2 seems better than the first at this point. Hope it comes back for at least a couple more seasons. And hopefully a longer episode run (season 2 was already one episode longer than 1)

Small update... Finished watching Series 2 of Being Human. I liked it all. But it was somewhat inconsistent, maybe having to do with the input of different directors, I don't know.

I've deleted 24 and Heroes from my recording list. Neither has been any good since season 1 and I've given up all hope that will ever change. Having watched all the Heroes episodes this season, I didn't even know the last one was the season finale. Hopefully they don't renew the series.

I just find it hilarious that I seem to be the only person who liked this last season, but disliked all the other seasons. The show still had it's fundamental problems, but there was a cohesive plot (well, relative to previous years), a decent villain with a complicated personality (more of a personality than any of the other characters), and a somewhat frequent display of peoples' powers.


Fun tidbit: apparently an upcoming episode of Fringe will be a musical episode. They'll pass it off as Walter's subconscious mind working things out. I have no idea how this will play out. I think the character I have the hardest time seeing doing song and dance is Olivia. I could even see Broyles doing a number.

Only because I had recalled the season being 22 to 25 episodes long and that it would be split into multiple books. I don't think you can call what happened at the end a worldly revelation. That's an easy clean-up job compared to all the other crap they've explained away.

Heroes sucked because they didn't develop a single character. Everyone just went around in a little random circles and it seems each season (actually multiple times per season) character bios/histories were abandoned and ignored. It was a series of endless little reboots which made it a pain to watch and eventually led people like me to simply not give a damn about any character. The first season being a 10, every other season was sub-4, including this last one which was so contrived and cliché it was painful to watch most of the time.

Both Heroes and 24 are in the end, just too much daytime soap for me. 24, for an action series, is extremely boring. Less action, suspense or thrill than House or Grey's Anatomy. Actually, same goes for Heroes. Simply no action.

Fringe is actually going to burn an episode with a musical? I didn't think the series was hurting, why pause to do a "special" episode? I hate "special" episodes in all shows. Like the "patient's perspective" they did in House. Don't fix what isn't broken.

I'm not trying to be argumentative when I ask this, I'm really curious, but how was the first season different from all the others when it comes to the points you just made? Like I said, I agree with those, and they're what make the show a failure to me as well.

Perhaps I should have said that I thought the last season was good compared to the others. I know we'd still disagree, because I disliked the first season too, but I'd never claim the last season was better than other shows.

At the end of the day, Heroes has absolutely nothing to say. I thinks it does, as is evidenced by all the pretentious narrations we get from it, but in the end it's empty. Perhaps they know that once they actually touch any real meaning, they'll just be mining territory that's already been covered.

Anyway, it is funny that we're having a heated agreement. In the end, I think we'll both be dropping the show. I recognize my own weakness is that I think the show is bad but I keep watching it because it's about superheroes (except that nobody does anything heroic except for Peter for a few episodes).

It's the same with Smallville. That show is just plain bad, and has been for a long time. But I watch because it's Superman. Nevermind that watching the show is like...well...you know that feeling before you sneeze, that sometimes doesn't result in a sneeze, and you're like "crap, I really wanted to sneeze there." Watching Smallville is like that feeling all the time. The show has done everything in their power to keep Clark from becoming Superman, but they're running out of ways/reasons to hold him back.

Heh, sorry for the tortured analogy

Oh dear, the one with Mos Def? That was one of my favourites. And at least IMO not the same thing at all as doing a musical, which soaps round here sometimes fall prey to at Christmas and is pure projection, the actors and producers wilfully conflating how much fun it is to do with how much fun it isn't to watch.

Peter

I like Mos Def. But I just found that gimmick took away too much from the show. No, it's not the same thing as a musical. But nonetheless it's an "oddity" episode. A "special" of sorts and usually advertised as such. Likewise when some shows do a "Live" episode.

These episodes are usually going against what makes the show good in the first place. If the special is "better," then why not have all episodes following that theme?

It's like putting steak sauce on a good steak. You might as well be dragging it on the floor from the kitchen to the table. Now if you're talking about hamburger....

I liked that House episode as well, and I disagree that it messes with what makes a show like that good. It's taking a break to look at what you like from a different angle. All the elements of the show were there, you just see it from a different perspective. It's not like that show hasn't done that stuff other times as well. There was an episode where Dr Cuddy (sp?) was the focus, and all we got of the case was that House constantly wanted to give the patient Malaria as a diagnostic tool. It was fun to see her perspective on everything. Sadly, we didn't discover why a hospital administrator would wear the world's most low-neck tops.

What annoys me is when shows do these things for no reason. I don't see why Fringe would do this. On Buffy, the musical episode was so very well done, fit in with the universe, and didn't feel forced. Plus the music was fun, with perfect lyrics.

I guess we disagree. If I wanted to watch a show about the hospital administrator, I wouldn't be watching House. I really disliked that episode, as did my wife.

Actually, its adherence to formula is the major thing that holds House back from being great. As it is, it's merely very good, but its quality is not due to: "patient gets sick, House dismisses patient, patient gets worse, House recants, House incorrectly guesses at illness three times, then has an epiphany while talking to Wilson".

It's not even really because of the character interaction, which can occasionally also be a thing that holds it back, when people treat House as if he's going to change, despite all evidence to the contrary. But that's the nature of serial drama: the appearance of change while everything actually remains exactly the same.

What makes it a good show is the exploration of House's psyche: how he finds himself in others, and others find themselves in him.

Heroes S1 had mystery, awe, and wonder. It also had all kinds of coincidences. These characters were all discovering one another and discovering themselves. It was pretty damn cool. Heroes S3 didn't have anybody discovering anything, unless you want to talk about Claire's love life.

On other topics in this thread, I don't watch Fringe, but I did watch Buffy, and the musical episode of Buffy was absolutely brilliant, as was the "silent" episode. Certainly, Southpark brings in musical numbers every one in a while to much good effect. Suffice to say that it can work.

South Park is still the most brilliant show on TV. And it's even more amazing now that they broadcast in HD.

I agree with Bitt's comments on House, and it's why I found the "special" episodes dull.

And which is why I tended to find them interesting. Having a different point of view on what makes House tick, and the effects that he has on those people is beyond relevant to the show.

I might be able to agree with South Park being great if it weren't for all the libertarian claptrap.

Matt, did you go back and add a ton of content to one of your previous episodes? When I replied (a few posts back) I don't remember seeing any of the content I just saw now. Weird. BTW, I think we're in agreement mostly.

Um...I don't think so. I was posting up a storm this afternoon, so maybe it slipped by.

That particular episode hadn't shown in the UK at the time, so I didn't know which one you were talking about. Now it has, and I completely agree with you. There was nothing wrong with it as financial drama, but that's not what I watch House for. Plus I think it was an egregious example of the thing I mentioned in the last TV thread, where having different writers per episode causes characters to lurch wildly in motivation -- in particular, in this episode

whereas just last week

It's as if the episodes got shown out of sequence, but Wikipedia lists them in the same order.

Peter

There's nothing to indicate that that episode of House took place between the events of the episode before and the episode after.

In reality, I imagine it has far more to do with scheduling than writing.

I dunno, I think that in the absence of explicit flashback or flashforward framing, one's entitled to assume that the arrow of time from episode to episode, if uneven, is at least monotonic. Perhaps Lost doesn't work like that (I haven't seen it), but that'd be because its timeline is part of its gimmick, and other House storylines --

-- only make sense if episode order is timelike in the internal worldline.

Scheduling is, at least in the gross sense, part of the script editor's job, which is part of the writing job. But whatever you want to call that job, it's being done lazily and compromising the otherwise excellent programme.

Peter

I suppose it really is all about expectations. I, for example, expect as much from House as I'm getting, which is to say a purely episodic show with little to no ongoing story. I mean really, it was quite clear by the end of the first season that this show had either no interest (or, perhaps, ability), to develop a really interesting serial story. If someone I knew had never seen an episode of House before, I really could tell them to go watch ANY episode. Yes, even the ones we're discussing.

Because this is what I expect from House, I quite enjoy the occasional flights of fancy like the Cuddy or Mos Def episodes. If you don't like them, there are usually 23 other episodes in a season to keep you happy.

This goes back to the long discussion we had about US TV programming. When you have 22-24 hours in a season to fill, occasionally you get episodes that don't fit the "mold" of the show. Sometimes these fall a bit flat, but other times it's a really fun momentary departure from the norm. In a show that has no ongoing story to drive momentum, there's even less reason to stick to the forumula.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy House, but it's far from one of my favorites. As I said before, it has zero serial value, I really could care less about any of the supporting characters, and it truly does follow the formula Bitt posted earlier, which made me chuckle from its accuracy:

My wife and I call out "Bing!" when he has those epiphanies. We tend to also do that during Medium, when Allison figures out the thing that the audience worked out 20-50 minutes beforehand.

Impressive, considering that it's a 44-minute show.

Not that you're wrong. She really is stupid.