TV Advice

Dello wrote:

JKLever wrote:Just caught up with the first 2 eps of series 3 of Dexter - good stuff

It's oddly comforting to know that everyone's favourite, cuddly serial killer is still on form.

Deb's still annoying to the nth degree, though. When's he going to chop her up?

Aye

Who wouldn't want to be Dexter? You get to chop up the bad guys for fun and then when you do go home the old girl is either cooking him something to eat or shagging him silly....

Dello wrote:

JGK wrote:Heroes has always been disappointing to me. Too many threads happening for anything particularly interesting to happen in any one episode. It's a bit like reading a Robert Jordan book.

NBC are supposedly the butt of many jokes in American TV land for their inability to make TV shows. Heroes is kind of an example of that: a good initial idea, some decent early "buzz" and interest surrounding it, followed by a complete mess of muddled story-lines and re-heated (or totally stolen) scenes from better sci-fi series and movies - not to mention the constant promises to "the fans" to do better and learn from their mistakes.

The Suresh storyline that has started the current series isn't just a nod-and-a-wink to The Fly, it's almost a word-for-word, shot-by-shot remake.

It's very watchable, but doesn't feel remotely like a quality, intelligently-plotted series. It's more like an extended advert. I wonder when the action figures will come out...

I agree. Except the Japanese dude and the time travel thing, Heroes disappointed me bigtime.

I just started Dexter based on what people here and elsewhere had said.

Meh. It's much of a muchness so far.

furriner wrote:I just started Dexter based on what people here and elsewhere had said.

Meh. It's much of a muchness so far.

Keep at it. The first series is awesome. Heroes is annoying because the second season seriously messed the show up. Third series is awesome though except both Claire and Hiro annoy me with their stupidity.

Henry Nolonga wrote:

Heroes is annoying because the second season seriously messed the show up. Third series is awesome though except both Claire and Hiro annoy me with their stupidity.

It's not awesome at all. The sloppy writing in the second series has basically left the show's "Heroverse" up shit creek. Suspension of disbelief can only be stretched so far - they've created plot-holes and inexplicable character decision-making which can only be attributed to thinking that the audience is in some way developmentally retarded.

Firstly, no-one can die now, since it's been established that the unkillable Claire's blood can heal anyone. Human, mutant, probably that shitting dog of hers too. Kind of undermines any sense of danger that any one character might be in - the knowledge that there's an easy fudge up the writers' sleeves in order to bring the character back.

Secondly, Hiro (and now Peter) can time travel to any point in the past or future with impunity. Although in the first season it was suggested that Hiro had to be very careful about travelling back and would only do it the once (when he delivered his "save the cheerleader" line to Peter on the train), in season two it was time-travel a-go-go, all over the place. Which, again, totally destroys any sense of dramatic tension over just about anything as - if he weren't so interminably stupid (or the writers didn't treat the viewers as though they are) - Hiro can go and rewrite any event that hasn't turned out well by jumping back a couple of hours/days/weeks and making things right. Even Bill and ****** Ted worked that one out. Excellent!

The whole plot of the current series centres around Hiro losing a piece of paper after opening a safe he shouldn't have opened. Even now, after five or six episodes of everyone getting increasingly serious about the future of the world and blundering about dramatically to no real effect, Hiro could just pop back to, say, a minute before he opened the safe, tell himself not to do it, and that'd be the end of that. Perhaps he's saving that brilliant plan up for the very last second before the world comes to an end in the series finale...

Everything that now happens in the Heroverse has been rendered utterly worthless by the terrible writing.

I like a thick slice of brainless TV every now and then - it's like comfort food - but Heroes is beyond brainless: it's a badly made mess.

furriner wrote:I just started Dexter based on what people here and elsewhere had said.

Meh. It's much of a muchness so far.

Furri in "can't tell shit from Shinola" shocker.

Furry is a 'heroes' man I bet...

Dello wrote:

furriner wrote:I just started Dexter based on what people here and elsewhere had said.

Meh. It's much of a muchness so far.

Furri in "can't tell shit from Shinola" shocker.

JKLever wrote:Furry is a 'heroes' man I bet...

I'll have you know I'm a 'Galactica', The Wire' 'The Office' kind of man. Also watched 'Rome', found it not half bad. I didn't like the 'feel' of Heroes to begin with, so never watched.

Dexter, OTOH - just watched the first disc, which is the first 4 episodes - seem to be a story about a nut job's inner lack of feeling/ principles played out the small screen. A serial murderer for the good guys, so to speak. Which is an ok premise to begin with but the story seems to be bland after that. The main character, Dexter, doesn't seem to be very interesting. The other characters are quite indifferent; the hero's sister is a putz, the black detective who has a 'bad feeling' about Dexter is overplayed. The black detective boss is 'meh' too. The storylines are indifferent - apparently serial killers are here, there, everywhere. And we are told that Dexter's father channeled his serial killer urge to 'do good' or some such. Come on.

The only mildly interesting characters are the Hispanic detective and - at a stretch- the Japanese tech.

To add to that, the main character hasn't been 'pushed' far enough to be interesting, IMO. For one, he's a serial killer who is supposed to enjoy killing FFS. I would prefer a character that is shown to actually do that, not 'artfully' created scenes where he's shown to be killing serial killers 'at one blow' so to speak, without seeming to enjoy it. I would prefer more conflict in his character.

furriner wrote:

I'll have you know I'm a 'Galactica' kind of man.

Huzzah.

I quite liked Firefly but when someone told me about Galactica when it first came on I struggled to get the crappy 70's series out of my head so didn't watch it.

Recently rented the first 2 series and have to say it's bloody well made...

Firefly was pretty good too.

iro could just pop back to, say, a minute before he opened the safe, tell himself not to do it, and that'd be the end of that. Perhaps he's saving that brilliant plan up for the very last second before the world comes to an end in the series finale...

I remember when Adric died in Doctor who and the Doctor's female sidekick said they should just go back in time and save him. The Doctor got really pissed off and said never ever ask me to do that again.

Maybe Hiro watched that episode.