Things you love/hate

Cafe Society
1

What things (since this is Cafe Society, I’m referring to books, movies, TV shows, etc.) do you love, except when you hate them?

For me, it’s definitely the new Battlestar Galactica. It has so much going for it… great acting, an incredibly cool tone, very good writing, mystery, some amazing action scenes, good-enough special effects.

But then it just has to go and piss me off over and over again. I hate Gaius Baltar, both as a person and as a character. Hate hate hate. Every moment he is on screen is one too many. I hate all the plotlines involving the Cylon gods. I hate the way the writers constantly seem to start by having a point they want to make (“biological warfare is bad, mmmkay”) and then find a way to warp the plot to make a one-off episode making that point, and then the whole mess is never spoken again. Most of all, it drives me batty how much suspension of disbelief I need. Now, I love me some 24, so I clearly am happy to suspend my disbelief. But BSG practically RADIATES “this is a serious gritty ultra-real adult drama… our dogfights in space have real physics and no sound… we are REAL” and then they turn around and throw in plot twists and technical implausibilities that would make Jack Bauer blush. Grrrrrr…

2

Monk. I freaking loved that show for the first few seasons. It was hilarious and heartfelt and sweet. But right about the time Natalie came along…eh. She was just the poor man’s Sharona. Even when she started caring about Monk like a friend instead of an “assistant”, it all seemed fake. The plotlines started getting less interesting and more…out there. Anyone remember the episode with Snoop Dogg? Yeah, that’s the last one I watched. Also, Monk is acting more like a parody of himself. Maybe this is all just me, but I can’t stand to watch the show that I used to love so much.

3

My Name is Earl. Its first season was sheer genius. Unfortunately, it’s been very uneven of late. When it’s good, it’s very, very good. But when it sucks, yech, it sucks.