Dark Angel was great Season One. I thought Lydecker was a fascinating villain, played brilliantly by John Savage. Killing him off in episode 2 of season 2 was a huge mistake. The show changed completely and I lost interest. It was interesting to hear in the S1 audio commentary Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly “imply”/admit that S2 wasn’t very good in their comments. Jessica did look amazing back then!
The recent one with Peter Serafinowicz? I loved that. But then I am quite, quite immature, as demonstrated by the fact that I’m about to do this:
I am a bad person.
On ST: Discovery - I’m still trying very hard to like this show and am sticking with it because it’s doing a good job of world-building and character-building. It’s a pity that the plots are mindbogglingly awful (“Oh look - Michael has saved the ship/Federation/known universe again”) and that the current season has been about 95% exposition. And also that the answer to “what caused the Burn” was immediately obvious, thus making the tedious handwringing about it worse.
This is exactly why SyFy’s late Face Off - a competition between makeup and special effects artists - is the only reality TV I’ve ever watched regularly. Never found out too much about the artists’ personal lives, never any interpersonal conflict - the artists commonly stepped in to help each other when something went wrong, and each episode ended with the eliminated contestant getting a big group hug. They did all live together in a large house in Los Angeles, but we only ever saw it on the first episode of the season, and glimpses afterward; the action took place in the workshop. The judges were stern but fair, and always offered constructive criticism in explaining their decisions.
The drama came strictly from the work - would she be able to get her paint job finished in time? Would the judges approve his stylistic choices? Can she get her mold unstuck, without damaging the appliance within? The focus of the show was the art, not the artists, and it made compelling TV for 13 seasons. Even without shouting.
I think he’s talking about the cartoon - I don’t think Josef Stalin showed up in either of the live versions.
Oh shoot, yes, I do need to be really specific about these multiple-run properties. (Next time I have something to say about The Punisher or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I’ll remember that. 
) Yes, I meant the cartoon. Did see maybe a couple episodes of the later live action show (the one where Die Fledermaus was renamed “Bat Manuel” and Red Scare is a robot), but I found that one mostly forgettable.
I enjoyed the cartoon (and it had the best theme tune of the three incarnations - dop dweeeeee dop dop dop dwee dow) but the latest version was still the best (and cancelled too soon - curse you, Amazon!).
Even that needs qualifying. There has been three The Ticks so far, an animated one in 1994-96, three seasons starring Townsend Coleman, The 2001 one starring Patrick Warburton, one season and the 2016 two season one starring Peter Serafinowicz.
She Spies started out fantastic. Three gorgeous women in an almost spoof of Charlie’s Angels, with lots of jokes both recognizing that fact and referring to other, more serious examples of the source drama. Solid comedy bits, and decent action.
Then in the second season the suits must have decided that it needed to go in a more serious direction. Gone was the bumbling-yet-good-hearted male handler, replaced with a potential love interest for the lead agent. Suddenly, the humor and light-heartedness was gone, turning the show into yet another glitzy spy mystery of the week.
I saw the first episode and half an episode of the second season and never watched it again.
its more than one show but the minute an “evil” character shows up out of the blue in a later season … like in sliders or quantum leap…
I utterly hate “cringe TV” where the whole humor is what cringe-worthy incident can the main character get into and that’s it - that’s the humor. Everyone point and laugh.
Needless to say Parks & Recreation was turned off about halfway through the second episode.
Yes!!! That first season is priceless*; I bought it on DVD. The second season? Terrible.
*I particularly love the guy who hires ninjas the way other people hire day laborers: the ninjas are standing around a parking lot and he pulls up and chooses a few.
That’s too bad. Parks & Recreation was a really great show, and not all “cringe TV”. It did take a while to get in groove, though.
I quit watching “Trinkets” on Netflix when it turned out to be all relationshippy and not nearly enough shoplifty.
I am rewatching it and it did get better, but you can’t say that the first season wasn’t centered around “cringe at what Leslie Knope did”.
Bad decision there. The Amazing Race is probably the best “reality” program out there, certainly the best competition show. I don’t remember season 3 but they are currently running season 32. Some seasons are better than others (the family season was terrible and the current one is also pretty bad) but as each one is a completely new race with new people (except for the All-Stars seasons) you can’t judge one based on another. The show has also changed so much since then, that was almost 20 years ago!
That’s one that I wish I had stopped after the first season. Season 2 will leave you fuming with rage at everyone involved and the idiotic decisions made by the writers. I did actually drop that show after the turd that was Season 2, and didn’t watch Season 3 when it first came out. This year when they released the final season 4, I decided to go back and watch #3 just so I could finish it and dammit I should have stuck with my first instincts because season 3 was somehow even worse. Apparently the takeaway we’re supposed to learn is “Rapists are people too, and we should feel bad foe them.” 
I think I kind of saw this coming. Parts of the first season didn’t really make sense post revelation and I suspect it wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny afterwards. A few of the people who were “the reasons why” were at most a bit shitty, and yet they were protecting virtually an unapologetic rapist as if there was a super dark secret. But the reality was it was bad writing. I could see that then, and decided that was it for me. Sounds like a good call.
Yeah, “comedy of embarrassment” is not really my thing, although I get why other people like it. I stopped watching Modern Family for the same reason - not because the show was bad but because I don’t like that style of comedy.
Yeah, I dont like cringeworthy or people acting stupid. There are too many stupid people in the world for that to be funny. There is some Brit chick that does interviews where she acts stupid and some people think that is hilarious, but to me it is not funny at all. Same for Borat- altho I do appreciate the actor and how he gamed Rudy.
I hear you. For me, the low point of Modern Family was Phil wearing this t-shirt. (I’ve seen people on Reddit say that this was their favorite episode.)
