In which Dopers discuss televsion, film, comic, or literature series they like overall, but still have a major problem with a significant element.
This morning as I was getting ready for work, I turned the TV on to TNT and saw that they were showing the first episode of Angel’s fourth season. I love the show, and the fourth season is by far the best…but it’s very annoying, because, once the season-long storyline gets going, it’s almost impossible to follow unless you watch every damn episode. During its first run I found this very annoying and could easily imagine it was chasing away new viewers by being, in essence, an 18-hour long movie.
I love Scrubs,
But I Loaaathheeeeee J.D.,
I hate Elliot,
I hate Carla,
and I dislike Turk.
I’m still trying to figure out I can love a series when I don’t like the actors on screen 80% of the time. But the supporting cast is so Damn funny It makes it work for me.
As I’ve written in other Scrubs discussions, I don’t think we’re meant to like JD anyway (though they’re backing off from that this season). We’re definitely laughing AT him (and Eliot too), not with them.
I’m very late to Scrubs. I only watched in syndication until this year. I agree Elliot is supposed to be unlikeable and JD is obviously whiny. The huge numbers of offbeat and oddball characters are what makes the show. Seinfeld lost me along the way as the 4 main characters were so hateful and annoying but with Scrubs, JD is among the worst and has far more humanity than anyone on Seinfeld and they use the supporting cast very heavily. Perry is a gruff guy but comes across as someone easy to like. In a lot of ways the characters are so silly and impossible that they feel like they must all be the kids of some of the 60s sitcom characters. The show is Zany and I guess it works for me.
Chuck: I really enjoy Chuck, but the fridge logic of nearly every episode is tough. Too much happens too near to the Buy-More. The Buy-More subplot is often flat. It is a show that required me to not think about it. I still really enjoy it.
David Gerrold’s “War Against the Chtorr” series. Book 4 ended on massive cliffhanger… TWELVE DAMN YEARS AGO. I can understand real life intruding upon writing sequels, and he’s still fairly prolific in other areas of SciFi… but if that’s going to happen, make each book self-contained. At this rate, he’s going to die before the series is ever finished.
I love House and The Closer, but I’m getting a bit weary of the Random Comment Uttered 48 Minutes Into the Show Leads to the Epiphany plot trick. (There are no blueberries in my blueberry muffin! Aha! Patient has Glock-Whatever It Is Syndrome/Of course! The sister in law did it!)
Can we not have an episode where the main characters, albeit very smart, can figure it out through hard work and putting the puzzle together?
Love it, and love Penny, but she needs to develop a broader range of facial expressions and/or reactions to the other characters. I don’t hate her, but sometimes she takes me out of the scene completely.
This is probably heresy, but I’m put off (and always have been) by Chloe Sevigny on Big Love and anything else I’ve seen her in. I don’t like her as an actress in general.
“How I Met Your Mother.” I love the show, love the characters, but the whole, “Kids, let me tell you about the time … yada, yada, yada” has gotten to be a bit much for me. For instance, the episode when Ted and Aunt Robin couldn’t get along as roommates so they started sleeping together. Really? You’re telling your kids this? And even if you are, they’re putting up with listening to you talk about it? Then there was the time Ted and Barney kept the bar open so they could try to score with some college girls. Nice story to pass on to the kiddies. In practically every episode I find myself finding it horribly unrealistic that the episode’s plot would in any way, shape or form be repeated to one’s children. I really think they need to drop that whole premise, though I suppose they can’t because then the name of the show wouldn’t make much sense.
House. Every time I watch an episode I get sucked in within the first few minutes and have to see what happens, but every episode has basically the same exact plot. Patient has mysterious illness, House & his team verbally batter back and forth with how to treat them, with the first few tries failing and the patient getting nearer to death, until the last 5 minutes when House suddenly has the epiphany of what is really the problem.
Barbara ‘at the time wife of the producer’ Bosson on “Hill Street Blues.” I have to imagine that the reason Bochco got her the gig was because that’s how she actually sounded/screeched at home, and at least this got her out of the house for long periods so that he didn’t have to listen to it.
I don’t like buying edited movies or tv programs, but it would not have bothered me at all if they had left out all her scenes in HSB.
She was perfect in that role as the neurotic, manic ex-wife. Whether or not she was acting or being normal is unknown, but it was easy to dislike that character.
I love Monk and all his phobias and idiosyncracies, along with his talents . . . hell, that’s what makes the show as great as it is. But I hate it when his obsessions turn him into a selfish, inconsiderate boor, totally oblivious to the feelings of others (usually Natalie). Even for someone with all his emotional baggage and self-absorption, it seems out of character.
We actually had a thread not too long ago about all us folks that still watch Grey’s Anatomy despite our better judgement.
And it’s getting worse. Creeping cast inflation. Derek and Meredith need to be sent packing. Enough with the rotating sex partners. And too much network interference messing up long term story lines.
I’m getting worried that Stasheff won’t live to complete the series. I hope he has time to put this series to bed the way he did with the “Warlock” series.
