The Big Bang Theory- highly intelligent, nerdy, socially awkward guys hang out and talk about star wars/trek a lot. totally up my alley, but i’ve never watched an entire episode. i don’t hate or even dislike it, i just can’t get into it.
Glee- i love musicals and the other music i’ve heard them cover(in particular i enjoy lea michele’s cover of “i dreamed a dream”), so again, right up my alley. see my comments above: don’t hate it but can’t get into it, never watched a whole episode.
Wicked- i love the wizard of oz. i mean, i really love it. out of the many films that i consider among my favorites, oz is #1. but i’m pretty indifferent to wicked. i’ve never seen it, although i think it’s been here at least once and i’ve been to new york several times. if i got free tickets or something and it was in town, i’d probably go, but i’m not sure i’d go out of my way to see it or spend the money. i’ve heard a lot of the soundtrack and not much stuck with me (although i do really enjoy “defying gravity”)
Dr. Who. It’s sci-fi, it’s British, it’s drama, it’s written by great writers - everything I ought to like. I’ve tried it a couple of times but can’t get into it. Maybe I should start with some particular season so that I can get a better feel for it?
ETA: And teela brown: where did you start watching Doctor Who? I’d suggest starting with either Christopher Eccleston’s run, or David Tennant’s. The newer show is much more accessible than the classic, though after working my way through all of Eccleston’s, Tennant’s, and Smith’s runs, I’ve started watching the older shows (starting with the Third Doctor–not really into One or Two) and have developed a new appreciation for them.
You are so right about the Big Bang Theory. I tried it when it first came out and didn’t like it. But my friends at work talk about it and how hilarious it is so a few nights ago, I tried it again and I didn’t like it again. More. I mean, less. The characters seemed to be shouting and the laugh track (or maybe it was a live audience) was very loud. Maybe they had to shout to be heard. I dunno. I wanted to like it.
Also, Modern Family. It’s okay and for a while I taped it, but then just erased all the unwatched episodes and cancelled the recordings.
The Guinness commercial with the guys playing wheelchair b-ball. I know I should commend them for including their friend, but I find it incredibly condescending.
The Watchmen - and I do mean the original comic book series (oh, excuse me, “graphic novel.”)
I was in m prime comic book reading years when the series initially ran in comic book installments. I read some great reviews and the book had some hype surrounding it. Yet when I actually skimmed through some issues at my comic book shop, I was turned off by it and never bought an issue. I didn’t like the artwork at all. I confess that I was a bit of a cliche bronze age comic fan in that I didn’t necessarily want deep, reflective themes in my comic books. I wanted to see easy to follow fight scenes and black & white morality stories in which the heroes were always in the right and the villains were snidely whiplash bad.
Time marched on of course, my tastes broadened and I became more open receptive to stories with greyer shades in them. I even became a bit more cynical of the typical superhero story myself, and even grew to appreciate comic books with deeper themes like Neil Gaiman’s "the Sandman.’ Just recently, I finally after so many years sat down to read “Watchmen.”
Blech. Didn’t care for it at all.
I still don’t like the artwork, which looks crude and amateurish. And I am a Dave Gibbons fan; I also recently re-visited some of his “Doctor Who” comic strips from way back and the art still holds up well in those stories. "Watchmen’ however looks just plain bad - not ‘crude as a stylistic choice to depict the gritty milieu’’ bad (as I’ve heard it explained a few times)…just, just bad. It also looks as if it were colored in crayon.
The story however is even worse. Yes, there are some interesting ideas in it. But it’s boring for long stretches of time. I can handle cynicism, but the punk nihilism of the story seems every bit as one-dimensional and juvenile as the silver-age morality stories this series is supposedly satirizing. It’s misogynistic (of course the original Silk Spectre is going to be madly in love with the man who raped her and beat her up! Just…of course that would happen.) Ozymandias’ master plan is frankly stupid. And for a series that was purportedly written as one self-contained novel, it reads like something that was made up on the fly, with a hastily slapped together denouement.
All in all, this really does not live up to its reputation.
Python – me likewise. And Terry Pratchett. I’ve tried his books, but they do less than nothing for me: so far as I’m concerned, he tries frantically and over-the-top-ly to be ever-so-ever-so funny; and fails dismally.
I’m with the OP on the Big Bang Theory. I’ve watched a handful of episodes now, because I wanted to give it a fair chance, and it just strikes me as more of the same unfunny “har har laugh at the nerds” jokes that frankly I’ve had to put up with since high school, just dressed up with some chemistry and physics references to make people in the audience feel smart.
Re Wicked, I USED to be on the same page as the OP. I could have written that part of your post word for word a couple of years ago. But then a friend pretty much dragged me to go see it, and I loved it. It was an amazing experience for me. I’m not suggesting you drop a bunch of cash on tickets for a show you are lukewarm about, but in my case it actually worked for me a lot more than I thought it would, just based on hearing some of the songs from it and knowing the general story. (I’d read the book and didn’t particularly care for it, which was also a contributing factor.)
Anything by Joss Whedon, anything by Quentin Tarantino, and anything by Ridley Scott. Compared to my friends who I am most similar to, I am missing out big time. But in reality I’d be happy if I never see anything by any of them ever again.
I don’t feel superior to those who enjoy the show. I feel inadequate, like I can’t get in on the joke. Something’s wrong with me. It’s keeping me up nights. Like tonight. It’s 5:00 am, and I’ve been awake since 2.
Star Trek TNG - that’s going back a ways! But when we still watched TV together, Mr. Sali and I watched the first episode with great interest. We both agreed Patrick Stewart was The Bomb and this series looked like it would be worth watching. But we never DID watch another episode!
Which ones have you tried? I had fairly similar opinions, but discovered that for one his variance is high - his good stuff is really good, but he does turn out clunkers. For another, many people try getting into Discworld in publishing order(I did), and that is NOT the way to do it. Pick up Guards! Guards! and read through the Vimes series. Or perhaps Wee free men. Those are both absolutely brilliant.
As mentioned, *The Big Bang Theory *and *Buffy the Vampire Slayer *would have to be up there. I’m solidly in the target audience for both, but they never really appealed to me. The former has never been on in my own home (though I’ve seen it elsewhere), and I’ve seen the majority of my Buffy episodes at one academic conference.
I’ll add the new *Doctor Who *as well. I don’t dislike it, or go all fanboy on how they’ve ruined the show (though I have found it rather full of itself at times), but I can’t get into it. I was a big fan when I was a kid, but I think it is one of the childish things I put away as I got older. I respect the show, I respect the fans, but it’s not my bag. Almost all my friends like it, though, so I’m abreast of most Whovian happenings regardless.
My take on Python is that they were incredibly inventive, tried absolutely anything that they could imagine and so sometimes were brilliant and sometimes it just did’nt work. They were more into stretching the envelope, being creative, than always hitting a home run.
My current “So What” is the Olympics. I am a skier. I should be excited about seeing the best do it well but I just can’t get up any enthusiasm for it all this year.
The recent series of Marvel Avengers films. I saw Iron Man, but I just didn’t get around to seeing Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America (although I thought I was looking forward to that one), The Avengers, or any other. I started watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and now have six episodes on the DVR yet to be watched.
I am huge a comics nerd, but I seem to like the new Marvel movieverse better in theory than for actual viewing. Perhaps if I were thirty years younger I might feel differently.
I also have no interest in watching Game of Thrones. Martin lost my interest when we waited so long for “A Feast for Crows” to such small reward. I read about 40 pages of “A Dance with Dragons” and have not picked it up since.
