The TV Series Thread

[Jaybosan]

Recently acquired a Sky Q box, and can now stream old TV series. I'm currently watching season 1 of Swedish police drama Beck:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907683/

In an episode originally transmitted in the spring of '98, a 30-something woman laments the fact that her long term boyfriend has walked out on her, and she complains that men don't want a "strong, independent woman". Although that phrase is now almost parody, I thought it had only come into use recently - looks like the rot has been going on for a lot longer than we thought.

Yep, in the U.S I remember seeing re-runs of a 1970 show The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The plot is a 30 year old single woman moving to the city and becoming a strong, independent woman. The actress was already famous for playing a housewife in a sitcom from the early 60's.

 

[Maddox]

Yep, in the U.S I remember seeing re-runs of a 1970 show The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The plot is a 30 year old single woman moving to the city and becoming a strong, independent woman. The actress was already famous for playing a housewife in a sitcom from the early 60's.

That show though seems so tame compared to what they're pushing these days. Mary was at least a feminine woman who never said things like, "I'm a boss babe" or "Go girl!" She had a lot of respect for men, both in her work life and personal life. In short, she was a likable character.

Thinking back on those 70s shows, I can't remember one of them that featured an obnoxious, go-getter, Femnazi like you'd see today. I think the first female character that really started to poison our culture was Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show which first aired in 1984. The writers had her wear the pants in the family while Bill Cosby's character just sat there and tried to keep her happy. It was very similar to the comedy dynamics you see nowadays with the strong woman and the bumbling husband.

 

[renotime]

I liked The Terminal List. Would recommend.

Sure there's typical suspension of disbelief, and the bird hitting the glass is overdone.

Apart from that, I thought the story was good...caught the attention and I wanted to see what was going to happen next. Decent bit of mystery, with great action scenes as well. Not to mention, some plot twists to boot.

For a show about righteous indignation, I thought it did a good job showing the main character as someone who was seeking justice for noble reasons, and who was overall a virtuous person. From a Christian standpoint, it's better left up to God. But there is something about getting back on the ones who have really really wronged you, i.e. given you a death sentence disease, killed your friends, wife and child. I wouldn't blame or judge someone seeking justice for those reasons. And I think he gets his revenge in some of the most satisfying ways I've seen from a TV show.

What mystery? All the plot twists were highly predictable. It was very obvious the Lady Secretary was going to be a bad guy. The only thing that confused me was they determined she committed suicide 30 seconds after she got shot.

The show was far too black and white for me. And for him to kill his best friend with little to no consideration after the dude went to the wall for him makes me think he was kind of a sociopath. Not that I care, but it seems like a hard left turn from his standard operating procedure.

You're better off watching Death Wish in my opinion.

 

[M'bare]

What mystery? All the plot twists were highly predictable. It was very obvious the Lady Secretary was going to be a bad guy. The only thing that confused me was they determined she committed suicide 30 seconds after she got shot.

The show was far too black and white for me. And for him to kill his best friend with little to no consideration after the dude went to the wall for him makes me think he was kind of a sociopath. Not that I care, but it seems like a hard left turn from his standard operating procedure.

You're better off watching Death Wish in my opinion.

Let's just leave it at...I liked show and you didn't. It's a subjective thing, so is what it is.

In real life, sure I think his friend redeemed himself and should have been forgiven. But for the show theme, I suppose it had to be done. Overall, I wouldn't say his character was a sociopath. Plenty of instances he showed restraint/compassion and was looking out for others with empathy.

Thanks for the suggestion of Death Wish. I'll check it out.

 

[Nelson12]

Englishman here

The Saint with Roger Moore
The Phil Silver Show (still watch it on YouTube and still smile at the humour)
Grimm
Pokemon in the early 90s before they expanded it to Crystal version or gold version. That was entertaining.

I am watching the last season of Grimm and I am enjoying it.

 

[andy dufresne]

New Quantum Leap show features a tranny and looks totally woke.

Sniff. They kill everything.

Quantum Leap Star Talks Reboot's Pilot Change-Up: 'It Was Very Important to Introduce It in the Right Way'

NBC’s Quantum Leap reboot recently underwent a behind-the-scenes shakeup after Blindspot creator Martin Gero stepped in as showrunner.

tvline.com

 

[GigaBITE]

New Quantum Leap show features a tranny and looks totally woke.

Sniff. They kill everything.

Quantum Leap Star Talks Reboot's Pilot Change-Up: 'It Was Very Important to Introduce It in the Right Way'

NBC’s Quantum Leap reboot recently underwent a behind-the-scenes shakeup after Blindspot creator Martin Gero stepped in as showrunner.

tvline.com

This is essentially the state of most popular culture since the mid-2010s, but especially after 2020.

Which isn't to say old Quantum Leap wasn't Woke for its time. There was even an episode about "saving" a gay in the military during the 1960s. Back then, though, you mostly had white actors in the principal and supporting roles who were delivering the Woke messaging.

 

[GuitarVH]

This is essentially the state of most popular culture since the mid-2010s, but especially after 2020.

Which isn't to say old Quantum Leap wasn't Woke for its time. There was even an episode about "saving" a gay in the military during the 1960s. Back then, though, you mostly had white actors in the principal and supporting roles who were delivering the Woke messaging.

I saw a bunch of the old ones, don't remember the episode about saving a gay military dude. Ludicrous.

Sounds more like Quantum Creep.

 

[Cavalier]

That show though seems so tame compared to what they're pushing these days. Mary was at least a feminine woman who never said things like, "I'm a boss babe" or "Go girl!" She had a lot of respect for men, both in her work life and personal life. In short, she was a likable character.

Thinking back on those 70s shows, I can't remember one of them that featured an obnoxious, go-getter, Femnazi like you'd see today. I think the first female character that really started to poison our culture was Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show which first aired in 1984. The writers had her wear the pants in the family while Bill Cosby's character just sat there and tried to keep her happy. It was very similar to the comedy dynamics you see nowadays with the strong woman and the bumbling husband.

They had to start somewhere. It was a subtly subversive show. Prior to that she was a typical traditional wife on the Dick Van Dycke show. So very subtle subconscious manipulation.

 

[Cavalier]

New Quantum Leap show features a tranny and looks totally woke.

Sniff. They kill everything.

Quantum Leap Star Talks Reboot's Pilot Change-Up: 'It Was Very Important to Introduce It in the Right Way'

NBC’s Quantum Leap reboot recently underwent a behind-the-scenes shakeup after Blindspot creator Martin Gero stepped in as showrunner.

tvline.com

Old Quantum Leap was fairly woke. Didn’t realize it at the time. I watched some reruns and had to turn it off.

 

[GigaBITE]

I saw a bunch of the old ones, don't remember the episode about saving a gay military dude. Ludicrous.

Sounds more like Quantum Creep.

The bitter pill to swallow is that these issues were always on the agenda. Back in the day, the episodes dedicated to these issues were few and far between. They gradually upped them until they became the standard.

When I was younger, there was a popular TV series called The Practice. David E. Kelley was one of those showrunners who was often called upon to produce liberal legal shows. Sometimes he tried to be "evenhanded," but it was always obvious his sympathies were with his liberal characters and their ideals. I remember a conservative took issue with one of his LGBT episodes and sent an email to ABC which was intercepted by one of their tech employees who sent a rude response back. This actually made the news because ABC ultimately had to apologize to the conservative. Today they would not. The whole thing is covered by Snopes but below is the exchange.

The conservative wrote,

ABC is obsessed (or should I say abscessed) with the subject of homosexuality. I will no longer watch any of your attempts to convince the world that homosexuality is ok. THE PRACTICE can be a fairly good show but last night’s program was so typical of your agenda. You picked the ‘dufus’ of the office to be the one who was against the idea of his mother being gay and made him look like a whiner because he had convictions. This type of mentality calls people like me “gay basher”. Read the first chapter of Romans (that’s in the Bible) and see what the apostle Paul had to say about it. He and God and Jesus were all ‘gay bashers.’ What if she’d fallen in love with her cocker spaniel is that an alternative lifestyle? (By the way the Bible speaks against that, too.)

The tech degenerate replied,

How about getting your nose out of the Bible (which is ONLY a book of stories compiled by MANY different writers hundreds of years ago) and read the Declaration of Independence (what our nation is built on) where it says “All Men are Created Equal” — and try treating them that way for a change!? Or better yet, try thinking for yourself and stop using an archaic book of stories as your crutch for your existence.

To which the conservative replied,

Thanks for your reply. Evidently, I hit a nerve from your harsh reply. I will share it with all with whom I come in contact. Hopefully, the Arkansas Democrat Newspaper will include it in one of their columns.

ABC apologized to the conservative,

We apologize for the e-mail message that was sent to you with comments that reflect neither the view of ABC nor of its executives. Viewer mail is traditionally handled by our Audience Information department for response. Your message was inappropriately handled by a programmer from ABC.com. I want to assure you that the response that you received does not in any way reflect the views of ABC Television, and most importantly is not at all consistent with the manner in which KATV, our valued partner in Little Rock, would ever treat their audience/community members.

Keep in mind that this was in 1999. If only there had been more people like that guy.

 

[Maddox]

They had to start somewhere. It was a subtly subversive show. Prior to that she was a typical traditional wife on the Dick Van Dycke show. So very subtle subconscious manipulation.

I agree that there was some subversion there, but it didn't come from the Mary character. Instead, the show used her friend Rhoda to deliver these messages so Mary remained "the good girl."

 

[andy dufresne]

The bitter pill to swallow is that these issues were always on the agenda. Back in the day, the episodes dedicated to these issues were few and far between. They gradually upped them until they became the standard.

When I was younger, there was a popular TV series called The Practice. David E. Kelley was one of those showrunners who was often called upon to produce liberal legal shows. Sometimes he tried to be "evenhanded," but it was always obvious his sympathies were with his liberal characters and their ideals. I remember a conservative took issue with one of his LGBT episodes and sent an email to ABC which was intercepted by one of their tech employees who sent a rude response back. This actually made the news because ABC ultimately had to apologize to the conservative. Today they would not. The whole thing is covered by Snopes but below is the exchange.

The conservative wrote,

The tech degenerate replied,

To which the conservative replied,

ABC apologized to the conservative,

Keep in mind that this was in 1999. If only there had been more people like that guy.

Good stuff.

Yes....the agenda has always been there.

Love the Andy Griffith show...it's about as clean as you can get.

I recently watched a very early episode from the show where Andy's girlfriend runs for town council....the first woman to do so. Of course the men-folk are all worked up and happily playing the early version of 'White Man Bad'. I wish at some point in the show Andy would have opined something along the lines of : "You woman are great at having babies, cooking and cleaning and supporting your men but when you run the show you destroy everything." The look on Aunt Bea's face would have been priceless.

 

[Wolfgang01]

What mystery? All the plot twists were highly predictable. It was very obvious the Lady Secretary was going to be a bad guy. The only thing that confused me was they determined she committed suicide 30 seconds after she got shot.

The show was far too black and white for me. And for him to kill his best friend with little to no consideration after the dude went to the wall for him makes me think he was kind of a sociopath. Not that I care, but it seems like a hard left turn from his standard operating procedure.

You're better off watching Death Wish in my opinion.

Agreed. It lacked the "moral nuance" that I was hoping it had. There wasn't any inner monologue from Reese as to why he has to take it this far with his plan and not enough push back from people around him about how callous and brutally he was killing people on his list. I could buy it as a simple revenge story if the bad guys were clearly defined and so evil as to "deserve" death.

 

[Nelson12]

Bergerac with Roger Nettles as well

 

[Nelson12]

*John Nettles* my mistake

 

[Kangaroo]

Mr Inbetween (aussie show about a hitman)

 

[renotime]

Let's just leave it at...I liked show and you didn't. It's a subjective thing, so is what it is.

In real life, sure I think his friend redeemed himself and should have been forgiven. But for the show theme, I suppose it had to be done. Overall, I wouldn't say his character was a sociopath. Plenty of instances he showed restraint/compassion and was looking out for others with empathy.

Thanks for the suggestion of Death Wish. I'll check it out.

Haha in real life I don't think they test some random drugs on Seals. And that guy would have been dead inside of a week. And I'm still totally puzzled as to what mystery there was.

Although there was that scene where he crashed into that dude's car because he was wearing wrap around shades. Way to jump to conclusion, man. But of course he was right because he's an infallible Navy Seal American Hero.

Honestly the show was so bad it was good. I'll probably watch the 2nd season. This is what entertainment has come to, I guess.

A show I've been watching that is halfway decent is City On A Hill. Kevin Bacon is an old and crusty FBI agent that doesn't pay anyone any mind. Takes place in early 90s Boston when all the corruption was going on. At times it gets a little too righteous with the black lawyer and his annoying black lawyer wife. It's basically a poor man's The Wire.

 

[Benjamin Cooper]

Game of Thrones
Money Heist
The Witcher

 

[Maddox]

So many lame comments recently. If you've watched a good series, at least give us your thoughts on if you liked it or not and why.