Re: The Incredible Disappearing "Heroes"

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:56:25 GMT, Brian Thorn
<bthorn64@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:32:27 -0500, Mason Barge <masonbarge@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


"Chuck" is NBC's best show at the moment.

--- For whatever reason, the simple point is that 30 Rock is the only
NBC show that's gone upward from last season.

NBC actually has four shows I like enough to watch every week,
compared to one on ABC: Medium, L&O, Friday Night Lights, and 30
Rock.

I like "Medium" because it tries to be different.

Yeah, it does, and that's on thing in it'v favor for me, too.

I actually think Medium is a terrible concept and almost never saw it.
The reason I've liked it is 1) Outstanding acting in every part, 2)
The heavy family elements broadens it (and works in seamlessly), the
plots have been good, 4) Allison isn't full of herself.

It tries to stick to realism except for the single fantasy element.
Like, the slice-of-life relationship of the parents and kids.

"L&O" however is the
epitome of "same story every week".

I'm not about to fault your dislike of it. It *is* formulaic. But I
like it; they do, usually, manage to get some fresh subject matter to
fill out the plot. My favorite thing is how they manage to show
current political and philosophical elements, with intellegence and
showing both sides. I also like the characters and seeing how the
lawyers translate the cases (usually minus some key piece of
evidence).

"30 Rock" always comes off as a
full-of-itself "insider" comedy about TV (although I like Fey and
Baldwin and wish they had better material),

I'm sensitive to this, and I don't find it to be true. Or at least,
they give total hell to GE and almost everybody else except Liz Lemon.
She's Mary Tyler Moore for the 21st Century.

and I tried to watch
"Friday Night Lights" after all the praise for it, but was
disappointed to find it was just another bed-hopping teen soap
opera... my only surprise is that it wasn't on WB/CW.


Yeah, it does have a heavy dose of teenage relationships. But they
are handled without the touchy-feely saccharine of CW shows and they
are only a minority of the story. The center of the story is high
school football. Every one of the teenage characters has a lot of
non-relationship story kept fairly close to reality.

Like, take Julie and Saracen. Yeah they got together and broke up and
are jealous. CW would have had them with agonizing long talks filled
with psychobabble. But even before they started, her father's
character had been well established as the head coach. Saracen's
character -- kid who comes off the bench and screws up, works and
fights, has to take care of his grandmother and work at the burger
joint, has a hard time talking, etc. -- is fully established.

Then they act like kids.

A lot of the relationship aspects are not teenage and not necessarily
romantic. Take Connie. In the first place, a terrific actress. Her
relationship with her husband is realistic. No big adultery, etc.
Most of her interpersonal stuff is like with the Mayor (trying not to
get hooked into doing campaign work), a lot of students (as guidance
counselor), Tyra (trying to get her to play volleyball. She has
dinner with Smash's mother (another great role).

Well, anyway, I think it's the best thing on television. The human
interactions are three-dimensional and fairly realistic. It's a
realistic slice of life in a small Texas town.

If you don't like it, you don't like it. Hope you'll give it a chance
for a few episodes, theough.
.

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