Metal Reviews

Season 1 of parks and rec is strangely different from the other seasons. I remember watching it when it first aired and thought it was really meh, then everyone kept saying that it was a great show and I eventually started watching it again and got really into it when I started on the second season. The show has peaked by now, and should be cancelled as soon as possible, but the seasons in the middle were amazing.

No.

No way NBC can afford to cancel Parks and Rec, with season 4 of Community most likely being the last and The Office being done soon, Parks and Rec will become its flagship show.

Also, only 2 episodes left of The Sopranos. SPOILER: just watched AJ try to kill himself.

Up next will either be Banshee or Band of Brothers. Then, Game of Thrones at the end of the month!!!

I have had Season 1 of The Wire on dvd for about 3 years, and still haven't gotten around to it.

I originally bought it because the guy whose opinion I value most when it comes to books/movies/tv/comics told me it's his favourite show ever. And he keeps getting on my case to watch it every time I see him, and it's getting ridiculous now.

Only problem is I don't really watch TV dramas. At least, I never really have in the past. So I'm just trying to find a time when I actually feel like embarking on this epic TV drama, and the time just never comes.

Pull the trigger, bro.

Do it.

Great freaking show.

saw 1.5 episodes of The Wire. hard to understand what is happening when they're dropping departments and acronyms left and right. first time in ages that i had to get subtitles for a show in english.

will keep at it but ugh.

Banshee is such a great series. Some of the most brutal fights I've ever seen on TV. Too many sex scenes to be honest, but the riveting story makes up for that.

Thank you Blade, you made my decision much easier.

More people need to watch Trailer Park Boys. Even the less funny seasons are brilliant. Except the Sebastian Bach season, never cared for that one.

I didn't love the Sebastian Bach season, but I absolutely loved every scene with Bach in it.

That hair!

The show went down hill during the 5th season when Corey and Trevor were nothing more than dogs. Season 6 and 7 have no Corey and Trevor and really aren't that great. Although Phil Collins does a good job filling the role. Greasy mustard tiger.

finished The Wire S01. very good stuff, but it did require an investment of maybe 4 episodes. i do think they could have skipped some parts until they got the wire authorisation.

the police and gangster jargon makes it a bit hard to follow for me at times though, i'll have to find something with subtitles.

GAME OF THRONES IS ALMOST STARTING AGAIN OMG OMG OMG

on an unrelated note, it's funny that discussion died down just as we were talking about the death of this forum and the forum format in general.

^I still urban dictionary phrases every few episodes because I don't know the street lingo lol. I'm just starting season 4 and I think it's really good, but I don't have any idea where people got this best show ever talk from.

Well, since you've already seen season 3, if you don't feel that way now I doubt you ever well. But yeah, I think the show belongs in that conversation. I guess my primary reasoning is two ways the show went beyond TV standards and more into the novelized format. One was how three dimensional the setting of the show was as compared to others. Characters from different sections of Baltimore are constantly making small connections with characters from other subcultures and the city itself is a major characters. Story takes precedence over character more than the vast majority of TV as well. Other than McNulty at times (and definitely not in season 4), I never felt the show had to sidetrack from the story to tunnelvision on a character. Show felt more like a novel than TV in both these respects.

+1

and spending time developing characters and their relationships really helped make some scenes even more climatic near the end of the season.

i'll try to catch an episode or two this weekend. that and Boardwalk Empire, just started on season 2. might try Mad Men for the third time now that i'm getting used to 'slower' TV.

beginning to think i enjoy series more than movies, in both comedy and drama.

I don't know how I feel about the emphasis of story over character. I think I'm totally fine with TV being about characters; my favorite moments in the show are McNulty and Omar. Would I like them as much if they got more face time? I don't know, but those are the sections I like best.

In terms of it being more like a novel in terms of intricacies, I don't know if I'd describe that moment as being like a novel, maybe you could. It seems more like day to day life in some respect. I think it is great storytelling and the show is great, but I think I have different expectations of what TV should do. It's a page turner in that I can't stop watching it, but it never has me freaking out, except maybe with the killing at the end of season 3. I said holy shit, but I didn't forget to breath like some other shows have done recently. Maybe the page turning aspect is suited for television and maybe film should cause the anxiety fits. I don't know what I'm saying. I dig it regardless.

You have to admit that the scene where Bunk and McNutty walk through the apartment and all they say is "Fuck" is one to the greatest scenes in television.

Also, Omar's comin...

It's not that kind of show though. It's very much grounded in reality.

Characters are great, characters define most TV, and most of the best TV, just like so many of the greatest novels. Look at Tony Soprano or Al Swearengen for example. Unforgettable characters make for unforgettable TV.

I don't think the Wire ever sought that. Omar and McNulty have major impacts, but ultimately the writers wanted them to feel replaceable. This show was about the creation of a city and various power structures within it, and how characters struggle against the institutions (drug trade/politics/school system/police department/port etc...) that ultimately win the day.

It is a rather depressing message, and maybe it isn't that compelling ultimately, either, but, to me, it feels uniquely authentic.

As to the literary aspects of the show, you have a point about it not being much of a page turner. Everything dramatic about the Wire feels more orchestrated and foretold to me than genuinely surprising or shocking. But also, when I watched the Wire, I see the anti-'history of great men/character' story that TV conventionally loves to show.

To draw a parallel to a book often described as a novel, but in many ways a historical account, War and Peace was very much about demythologizing 'Great Men' like Napoleon. War and Peace cut against the traditional story of Napoleon as supergenius that couldn't possibly have a lost a battle and showed just how much chaos and luck was involved in making the supermyth out of a man. I'm not saying The Wire was on par with that in terms of knocking down the supercharacter at the core of every great TV show, but the way you see characters in the Wire struggle against overpowering institutional forces gives, to me, a literary component that at least recalls something like Tolstoy.