Bottom of the Barrel TV Series
Based on half of the first season.
Sorkin does to sports whats he did to politics in West Wing: Fast-paced, witty, well-written, intelligent dramedy. But, again, it feels like it's trying too hard to be clever, and the characters get almost no room to breathe and shine in between miles of snappy dialog. Most of the actors feel like mouth-pieces for Sorkin's writing instead of being real characters. Office politics, management, day-to-day work activities, crises and character interaction with a too-strong emphasis on dialog. Intelligent, but not interesting.
Based on the first season.
A very flawed, barely interesting dramedy about a psychologist and the various neurotic or downright crazy people in his life. His wife is utterly selfish, his brother is in an asylum, his father is a domineering, chauvinist jerk, his mother is a bitch straight out of a soap opera, his lawyer friend is a manchild, and he also has his patients to deal with, one of which is a psychotic stalker. The only sane person in his life is his son, but he seems to be unrealistically mature, level-headed and sensitive for his age. The first half of the season is quite bad, with a banal central character sandwiched in between a laughably cartoonish character of a bitch mother-in-law, and the lame and wild sexual antics of a 45 year old man who still thinks he is a cute little kid with hormones and a drug habit. It just doesn't work. The writing then gradually improves, becomes more realistic as well as more banal, the drama grows touchy-feely, and the characters never become compelling. Overrated.
Based on the first season.
I never liked Denis Leary and this show reflects his crude, caustic, immature and angry approach to everything he does. The setup is a group of fire-fighters in New York after 9/11, their personal lives, relationships, their jobs, their attitudes and psychology, damaged from having to deal with so many tragedies and their various ways of dealing with the job. Leary acts as a particularly damaged individual who is haunted by ghosts. For the first couple of episodes, the show works, combining real people and real flaws within this context of a very difficult job, mixed with some crude fratboy humor involving sex, chicks and penises. But the show rapidly deterioriates. All the men are either complete jerks, bumbling idiots or both, all of the women are either super-horny, twisted neurotics or bitches from hell, or all three. Sometimes, these characterizations are taken to cartoonish extremes. People are calling this realistic and a show about real people, but realistic would be much more balanced, not a world populated by crazies, jerks and bitches. The ghosts are a very poor and tired plot device, the fratboy humor, although sometimes amusing, gets tiring, but the ubiquitously insane and deleteriously neurotic personalities made me completely lose interest. Not to mention that after a few episodes, it's clear that most of the drama and comedy in this show has almost nothing to do with fire-fighting anymore and it has nothing more to say on the subject.
Dennis Potter's acclaimed series, later remade in the USA with Steve Martin, explores an unusual idea: Miserable and twisted people in a gloomy, fearful, perhaps repressive society, that yearn for romance, happiness and innocence through 30s hit songs, frequently breaking out into song amidst their misery as a surreal expression of their real feelings. Arthur Parker is a sheet-music salesman down on his luck, married to a frigid, puritanical woman but constantly expressing his passions in perverse or kinky fantasies. He meets a schoolteacher who seems to match his personality, gets her pregnant, thus ruining her life with what I suspect are references to Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Both their lives go down the drain as a series of circumstances, bad luck and bad choices constantly get them in trouble. The story takes a while to get interesting but when it does, it features more of Potter's typical gripping and dramatic dark depths of humanity. Unfortunately, this concept of using song and dance may work in theory, but the result, as presented in an endlessly repetitive 7.5 hour series, is somewhat of an ordeal. Besides the fact that musicals are not my cup of tea, the constant switching between downbeat life-stories to song and dance becomes repetitive. If you appreciate this approach however, there is much to enjoy here, albeit the characters get a touch melodramatic in the end and the beginning is slow.
Based on scattered episodes of the second season.
A weaker 70s sitcom about a shrink, his wife, friends and patients. He shares his office with an eccentric dentist, and his neighbour is an eccentric pilot. The writing covers the usual wide variety of storylines. But Dr. Robert seems a bit too unhappy, ineffective, insecure, confused and tongue-tied to be a shrink, the writing isn't witty, and the rest of the characters are just a little too artifically silly and broadly-drawn to be funny. Mildly amusing at best, weak the rest of the time.
In between Queer as Folk and Doctor Who, Russell Davies released this joke of a 3-hour biography featuring David Tennant as the young Casanova and O'Toole as the old version. A weary O'Toole tells the story of his life (with semi-wise commentary) to a kitchen maid while he sits in the library, and Tennant gets to act out a cheeky, fun-loving, whimsical, adventurous and, of course, sex-obsessed lifestyle. There are several problems here: One is that this is supposed to be a period movie but it feels like a modern romantic comedy where everyone is wearing 18th-century-themed, overly colorful, gay and shiny costumes and modern outrageous hairstyles. Their behaviour and language are also anachronistic and I kept expecting them to pull out their cellphones every other minute. Making a period movie demands a discipline that Davies obviously doesn't have. Next is the dramatic content which is mostly non-existent, Casanova's character is empty and like an amusement park, and any emotional outbursts built around love affairs flirt from one woman to the other like a breeze. I suppose he must have modeled Torchwood's Jack Harkness after this version of Casanova. Then there is Davies's usual forced injections of his personal fantasies and gay agenda, with an obvious emphasis placed on the love affair with a Castrado who is a woman that 'comes out of the closet' with Casanova's help, Casanova developing a deeper relationship with his male nemesis or servant than with the love of his life, and Casanova developing a chummy relationship with a priest. In short, this is somewhat fun and colorful and the scenes with O'Toole have some dignity and weight with a touching ending, but overall, it's the story of Casanova reduced to a slapstick gay romantic comedy; it's a piffle, not a movie.
Based on most of the first season and some scattered episodes.
A cop-show that is more about marketing than content. The show became popular thanks to cool characters, cool clothes, cars and clubs, and the latest rock/pop hits used as soundtracks during cool montages of action or drama scenes. Combine this commercial approach and style with the fact that this was filmed in the 80s, and you have a show that reeks so much of 80s culture, it's almost unbearable. Fans would like to think the writing and plots were interesting as well, but these range from the merely entertaining to the mediocre. The characters lack depth, the action never feels real, the atmosphere and sets are too glitzy, the plot developments are often contrived and too neat. As an example, the really bad guys usually neatly die or give themselves away by stupidly shooting at cops and always missing our hero protagonists. So in summary, we have a mostly episodic, glitzy cop-show that is more Starsky and Hutch superficial entertainment than NYPD Blue or anything that came after.
I never liked the Thomas Hardy story this is based on, finding it an insufferable combination of contrived stupidity, fatalism, melodrama, and overly simplistic characterizations featuring cruel and evil men out to get the always pure and innocent powerless victims... I mean women. To be sure, the novel may present deeper themes and personalities, but these are easily lost in a movie. I only watch these series to see if they nevertheless managed to make something of it. They didn't. And to top it all off, the main actress has a blank demeanor and distracting, probably artificial, pouting lips. It's pretty and visually rich, it lovingly recreates this rural, simpler world, it's got good intentions, but at its heart it's just a simple melodrama. The 1998 series has some subtle advantages and disadvantages over this adaptation and it probably has better casting, but it is still the same story.
Based on most of the first season.
People are comparing this to Northern Exposure, but it doesn't have that show's magic, quirk and warmth. They are also comparing it to Sex and the City, especially considering the creator wrote for that show, but it doesn't have much sex nor the city. I prefer to compare it to Ally McBeal, except it doesn't have the lawyering, the quirk, and the great cast of supporting characters. Let's just call it 'McBeal vacationing in Alaska'. This is about a relationship coach who writes books about men, women and dating, who finds herself stranded in a tiny Alaskan town with a ten to one male to female ratio, right after her own relationship ends in a disaster. She is followed by a stalker female fan who is even more neurotic than she is, and her city-girl editor gets involved soon after. She obsesses over every relationship detail, the writing uses obvious symbols that are always tied into her weekly thoughts and obsessions on relationships, and the three of them start and stop multiple relationships over obsessive little details, while the guys are given typical chick-flick dialogue. It's all very mild, takes no risks, skirts carefully around gender issues, too carefully in fact, all of this resulting in a very bland, sometimes annoyingly neurotic, chick-flick TV dramedy.
Based on the first season.
British show that attempted to find the equivalent of Sex and the City for men, collecting four men past their peak, mostly divorced, trying to find pleasure in life. There's a playboy metrosexual womanizer, a man with finer tastes in art, food and various experiences, a miserably married man, and a man with erection problems. They explore what it means to be an aging male, in search of something or another. Unfortunately this show says more of society and men than I care to expand on, the image of men and their role in life seemingly taken from the viewpoint of angry divorced women or society's feminists, the men here being caricatures that drool over women, smoke cigars, behave like children, fret over their emotional immaturities, and go hunting. I don't know any men that are this ridiculous, and the name of this show basically says it all. At least Sex and the City made its characters real and fleshy, this one just sets up straw, pathetic men for bashing and calls it comedy. It seems modern men have lost their identity.
Based on the single season.
Experimental HBO show by the man behind Deadwood involving a surfing town in California, a whole lot of eccentric characters, and drama involving the supernatural. In this alternate universe, the world seems to revolve around a trigenerational surfing family: An older man who is still a legend and who one day finds himself levitating, his high-strung bitter wife who hates him, a has-been son who is now a messed up dope-fiend, and his 13 year old up-and-coming surfing star son who was the result of a screwed up relationship with a porn star. Local reporters and business-men seem to rely on this family for their bread and butter, a highly eccentric ex-cop who talks to his parrots serves as a surrogate father who helps them whenever he can, a motel and its three lunatic managers tolerate any mess that this family brings to their business, even a hood and his submissive side-kick decide to hang around the family and offer their free services. Amidst this weird fantasy world from the mind of a stoned surfer, comes John: half child, half retard, half guru, half superhero, half parrot, who seems to be guiding this whole mess towards some unknown goal with psychic abilities and a very bad form of communication. The dead come back to life, John projects himself in several places at once to avert disaster, wounds heal themselves, an epileptic gay motel manager has visions and sees ghosts, etc. What does it all add up to? Nothing. The show gets points for trying something new, but feels like it's wandering about aimlessly in this alien world that never resembles reality. Milch even injects some of his convoluted dialog from latter-day Deadwood for some of the characters. An unrewarding experiment.
Based on the first season.
More HBO drama TV that tries hard to be sophisticated and cutting-edge with quirky characters, taboo-breaking and dark subject matter. The ongoing drama revolves around a dysfunctional family that runs a funeral home. The mother is a depressed control-freak, one son lacks a sense of responsiblity and is working on a relationship with a very smart but difficult woman who has a bipolar brother, another grapples with his homosexuality, and the daughter is a typical bitchy teenage rebel. The drama is constantly spiced up with dark, repulsive but usually realistic character flaws, graphic sex, and dealings with an unusual death of the week (including talking to fantasy ghosts) that often disturbs their already rocky lives further. But several flaws sink this one: The actors are mostly bland or very unlikeable, the writing sometimes swerves the characters inconsistently in different directions, the drama slowly gets more soapish and whiny as it goes, the quirky day-dream or fantasy interludes feel forced, and it's simply not worth the investment to watch this show just to hang out with an array of whiny, depressed, repressed, or bitchy people.
Based on scattered episodes mostly from the first two seasons.
Like Married With Children, this was another response to the perfect family sitcom syndrome, this one (over)emphasizing the woman in charge who works, runs the house and knows best while leading the housebroken and inferior husband on a leash. This was touted as a feminist breakthrough but unfortunately resorts to cheery and subtle male-bashing. More interestingly, it portrayed real working-class American family issues (day-to-day problems, hard annoying jobs, bratty kids) and more realistic people and this brought popularity. However, Roseanne just isn't that likeable, has an annoying voice, bad comedic timing and weak acting chops. Nevertheless, it was still somewhat amusing with occasional good episodes, and it had charm mainly due to the down-to-earth approach, John Goodman, and the cheery chemistry. After the horrible first half season, it improves somewhat, but not enough.
Based on most of the fourth season.
The original British sitcom upon which All in the Family was based. I watched this mainly to figure out if something was lost in translation, seeing as that show was inexplicably unfunny. Turns out some things were indeed lost: For one thing, Alf Garnett is a lot more than just an obnoxious conservative racist; he has a personality and creates comedy in a variety of situations due to his personality. For another thing, the audience doesn't laugh just because he makes racist statements; the punchlines come after he makes offensive remarks. The Americans seemed to have missed this crucial little detail. And finally, his wife is a cartoonishly submissive punchbag with an IQ of twenty. That said, I still found this show not to my liking simply because it has so much endless obnoxious ranting, arguing, yelling, insulting, complaining and bickering. The show is mostly relentlessly loud and obnoxious, with some moments of amusing comedy.
Based on the first season.
What is it with the British and comedies involving cantankerous old men harrassing their younger dumber co-worker relatives? This Britcom involves more fleshy characters in the form of an old miserly shop-keeper with the hots for the nurse next door and his nephew who gets all the dirty work. The dialogue-oriented comedy is chuckle-worthy at times, and weak the rest of the time.
Based on the first one and a half seasons.
A puzzlingly unfunny classic sitcom that makes me feel like I'm missing something. The show is old-school in more ways than one: The characters are caricatures, the writing sacrifices realism for 'funny' situations, and the main character is an old fashioned conservative racist. Archie Bunker is a mean, bigoted, always annoyed man who constantly insults people, his wife, and rants about races and their inferior qualities. He believes in old fashioned values, in Nixon, in putting women in their place, etc. The lack of humor doesn't stem from this character however, it comes from the fact that the writers seem to think that racism in itself is funny without setting up a funny situation or witty retorts. All it takes to get the audience to laugh is for Archie to say something derogatory and simple-minded about blacks or Italians to the horror of everyone around him. I don't get it. That said, his attitude would still be funny in some situations if the writers hadn't made him so cartoonishly stupid and obnoxious. But this way, it looks like a classic straw man for liberals to point their finger at and laugh. The rest of the show is slightly better with a setup that includes a cartoonishly simple-minded and meek housewife, a liberal daughter and her hippy husband who is still in college and lives in Archie's house, and a funny black man who enjoys teasing Archie by catering to his racist views. The show as a whole, though, is vastly overrated and feels contrived, an engineered piece full of cliches and straw men made up by preaching writers with an anti-conservative agenda and populated by actors that are much more cartoonish than real. The fact that this is a remake of a British show (Till Death Do Us Part), would explain how something got lost in translation, but its popularity with audiences is a mystery to me.
Based on the first and fifth seasons.
A pioneering and classic Britcom about a man and his elderly father who run a rag and bone business together and live in poverty. The son tries to read books, better himself and has aspirations of getting out of such misery but his father keeps embarrassing him and is manipulative and lonely, constantly succeeding in keeping him at his side. The misery of such a situation is raised by some typical sharp British humor and amusing bickering, banter and dialogue, but it's not funny enough and the constant yelling and quarreling tends to get monotonous and tiresome. Most fans evidently grew up on these well-drawn characters whom they grew to love, but, personally, I found it a bit too obnoxious.
Based on half of the first season.
A remake of the British Steptoe and Son by the creator of All in the Family, and both of these influences show. Unfortunately, the humor in both these shows don't appeal to me: The constant bickering, whining and arguing isn't funny, and the boorish racism and crude manners of Sanford isn't funny by itself either. Sanford (Redd Foxx) and Son run a junkyard business, the father constantly faking weak health to get out of work or give his son guilt trips, and the son nursing aspirations, pretentions and ambitions, but instead having to tolerate his father's crude tastes and manners. The characters are a little more likeable than their British counterparts, but the humor is also less sharp. Mildly amusing at best.
Based on the first season.
A sketch show from the brilliant duet of Jeeves and Wooster. This one is very obscure, odd, eccentric, absurd and British. Sketches usually revolve around dense dialog with fast wordplay, whimsical oddities, silly satires and strange absurdities. It's just too eccentric to be funny though and is most definitely in its own niche of comedy.
Based on half of the first season and some other episodes.
Let's get one thing clear: This is soap opera. It's not a satire, it's not a clever parody of soap, it's not even a Sex and the City replacement although at rare times it does feel like Sex and the Suburbs. Adultery, ongoing melodrama, catty behaviour, revenge, scandals, bitches, sluts, over-the-top characters who constantly make the wicked/wrong/twisted choice, ubiquitous beautiful people, divorce, pregnancies, closet skeletons, gossip, characters you love to hate, and even a spice of murder, mystery and crime just to up the scandal and melodrama. These are all staples of soap and this show revels in them, only with thin women, higher production values, and slightly less cheesy writing. This is not comedy, in the same way that soap and over-the-top twisted characters aren't funny, which only leaves us with the occasional lame slapstick. There's also a completely useless narrative by a dead woman, and a Gilmore Girls relationship thrown in. So yes, it's entertaining and addictive, but in a Dallas/Dynasty way. Don't expect anything realistic, smart, witty, a social statement, or something you can relate to.
Based on most of the first season.
An FBI agent goes undercover, gets in touch with terrorists in American soil that are putting together some terrorist cells for the largest strike against the infidels since 9/11. Of course, comparisons can be made to '24', but even the ridiculous '24' is more believable than this brainless outing, and that's saying a lot. This show is dead on arrival for one simple reason: The terrorists are doing it for Islam, but are not religious. They don't act or think religious. Arabic dialogue, quotes from the Koran, and calling people infidels, do not a Muslim Jihadist make. This seems more like an American criminal street gang that go to strip joints, collect money from Mexican child-prostitute rings, etc. I mean if you are willing to die for your religion, one would think you would be acting minimally religious no? This is not just a blatant inaccuracy, it also means that the show has no chance of providing any thought about real terrorists. Other flaws include the multi-national terrorists, whereas we all know very well how the many radical Muslim organizations can't even work together. And then there's the typical 24-esque casting choices for law enforcement, and the increasingly implausible complexity of the plots. In summary, this is a brainless show that offers potentially good terrorist thrills and action, but which never gets off the ground.
Based on the first season.
A Curb Your Enthusiasm clone as written by frat-boys. This type of embarrassment-humor, as I shall call it, has also been done by The Office, Reno 911!, Extras, etc. and although I suppose I am not the audience for these things, at least Curb Your Enthusiasm had sharp writing and made humor out of day-to-day things. This show thinks it has to resort to things like accidental gay sex, Nazis, molestation, and cancer in order to get its laughs. The characters are so obnoxiously stupid, cartoonishly immoral and annoyingly embarrassing, that they lose any relevance to the improvised/realistic feel these shows are supposed to have. I'll admit to laughing a couple of times, but the rest of the time I was bored. Taboo subject matter is not enough for laughs guys; you have to have half a brain to make good comedy. The fact that this show has hordes of rabid fans only makes it worse.
Based on half of the first season.
Vastly overrated comedy that seems to have endless raving reviews but offers barely a couple of chuckles per episode. The Bluth family is a very dysfunctional family and Michael is trying to make it work for the sake of his son. The loopy father is in jail for theft and embezzlement, the cold, manipulative, lying mother keeps mommy-boy Buster on a tight leash and everyone else barking at each other, there's George Michael who has a thing for his cousin, a jerk of a magician who tries to sleep with everyone, and a doctor who thinks he's an actor and has a fear of getting naked. Multiple silly storylines are juggled, but this goes even beyond Malcolm in the Middle past cartoonishly funny, to silly cartoon. The characters are broad caricatures, behaviour doesn't resemble anything in reality, developments are too silly and forced to be funny, and the narration is completely redundant and intrusive.
Based on half of the first season.
So HBO decided to take advantage of the ability to show explicit sex and make an adult show about relationships, intimacy, sex and the various psychological problems that go with it. Unfortunately the result is painful: A bunch of spoiled, waspy women constantly making high drama over stupidities, and feminized men whining right along with them. The writing shows an obvious lack of male perspective, and is further unbalanced by exclusively showing the drama, bickering and whining. There's a married couple who stopped having sex, a woman who is obsessed with getting pregnant and ignores her husband's needs, a slut who has issues with her boyfriend who can't commit, etc. Some of the neuroses develop addictively in a near-soapy fashion, the show gets points for trying, and there are some moments of insight (especially in the sessions with the psychotherapist), but overall, this is like reading through a women's magazine that nitpicks, and goes on and on over mundane relationship details that are of no interest to anyone except the couples. And as for the extended sex scenes: Most are obviously faked like some lame softcore flick, or simply awkward and lacking in eroticism.
Fassbinder's 15 hour magnum opus and dark, existential character study. It was a disastrous failure when it came out on German TV and some blame its darkness for bombing; But of course, now that Fassbinder has been made into a cinema god by film-schools and fans, and due to the fact that this work was largely unavailable, its reputation soared. The anti-hero of this series is Franz, a weak-willed, misogynist, Nazi, criminal, woman-beater whom the writer attempts to make into something slightly more sympathetic using a combination of dumb innocence in his character, hard times, circumstances and pressures, as well as artsy, literary flights of poetry and existential rants and soliloquies. He emerges from his prison sentence of four years after beating his girlfriend to death, becomes depressed, is consoled by a Jew whom he calls a monkey, rapes his girlfriend's sister, then after a whimsical promise to go honest, proceeds to make every bad choice he can by associating himself and working with Nazis, pimps, and criminals, sinking into an alcoholic depression, trading women with his friend, losing his arm, pimping out his girl, and hopping from one woman to another while cluelessly trying to build a life. Fassbinder claimed to empathize with this character for some reason, and made this into a labor of love, stretching the series to 15 hours instead of 7 and adding a terrible surreal epilogue that feels like a Ken Russell biopic, highlighting Franz's life with a weave of mad costumes, anachronisms, psychological and gay reinterpretations of the characters, and a surreal, colorful energy. Franz may also be used as a metaphor for Germany's woes after WWI. The book may have been a classic that appeals to German cultural existentialists, but for me this is just an endlessly rambling portrait of a despicable Nazi and misogynist with miles of dull dialogue and superficial attempts at meaningful literature. For a truly interesting dark character study I recommend The Singing Detective instead.
Based on the first season.
Early HBO comedy going behind the scenes of a TV talk-show, complete with jokes, celebrities and music, mixed with back-stage vicious network politics and characters. Celebrities are made fun of even more viciously off-stage, corporate pressure makes the host do all kinds of annoying things like commercials, apologies and spiders crawling up his arms, and characters bicker and play cruel power games with each other making you wonder how the show still manages to run smoothly when the cameras roll. Half of it is a meaner NewsRadio, the other half is uncomfortable office humor which probably inspired The Office, but it excels in neither. Amusing at times, but mostly left me cold.
Based on the first season.
A slapstick Britcom revolving around the misadventures of an extremely accident-prone and idiotic Frank Spencer and his supportive wife. This is no Buster Keaton or even Mr Bean however, the physical stunts and antics lacking the elegance and timing of such brilliant actors. There is some comedy in how he reduces everyone he meets to tears and depression, ruining everybody's lives and destroying everything he meets, but even this gets repetitive. What really sinks the show however is the annoying voice and whiny character of the lead actor.
Based on most of the first season.
Dated, and definitely not one of the better 70s classic sitcoms. Mike Evans from Jeffersons wrote this one about a poor black family from the projects and their little inner strifes. John Amos is the father who works overtime to make a living, J.J. is the artistic high-schooler who is always painting, his mother, sister and little black militant brother all add to the color. But the writing isn't witty, and sticks the poor black victim angle in our faces all the time. In addition, many of the actors over-act artificially and project the fact that they are trying to be funny. J.J. is the worst offender, mugging for the camera and practically shuckin' 'n' jivin' in really silly antics that only got worse over time. The Jeffersons was miles better than this.
Based on the first season.
A white housewife sells weed to make ends meet after her husband dies, buying it off a local black dealer family while trying to raise an oversexed teenage son and a weird little boy with a slightly disturbed imagination. Other characters include her husband's loser brother, the uppity PTA, and the strongest character of the show: Celia Hodes a cynical bitch who makes her 11-year-old daughter diet and generally terrorizes her family. The show tries very hard to be quirky and hard-edged but, like Gilmore Girls, suffers horribly from contrived characters and writing. Most of the characters don't remotely resemble anything in reality, Mary-Louise Parker may be pretty but is dull as dishwater, and the quirks often feel forced. I didn't laugh once, a cute little fuzziness underlies all the hard-edges, the characters are contrived and problems are often solved with a quirky snap of the fingers, so what's the point of the show? Too soft and fake.
Based on most of the first season.
There have been many hospital shows, so one would expect a new hyped show like this to have a new angle. But not only is it full of cliches and predictable, dull writing, it steals the idea from Scrubs to make the show about nervous and young interns, copying most of the characters from that show, only it leaves out the comedy, takes itself seriously, and makes the show about their banal lives. This makes you appreciate ER even more, seeing as that show emphasized what really mattered: The patients, the crises, the crazy life in a hospital, and the effect all of it has on the doctors. Here, we get petty drama about their personal lives, soap-opera romance where everyone sleeps or wants to sleep with everyone else, self-centered interns and doctors that seem to think surgery is some kind of game or prize, and patients that are lucky if their stories share the spotlight but often seem to be there only to make the interns' little lives more dramatic. Also, the female writers seem to have a thing about making childish comedy over penises. There's some occasionally effective hospital drama here but, overall, this one isn't too far away from dreck like General Hospital.
Based on half of the first season and some episodes.
Parody on the show 'Cops' with the structure of a sketch show. A team of incompetent, moronic, accident-prone, mean, slutty Reno police men and women go about their duties, dealing with one embarrassing or ridiculous situation after another. Sting operations go wrong, crazy characters repeatedly cause disturbances and run off in their police cars, one closet-homosexual hits on suspects and citizens, etc. The humor is mostly moronic American trash-TV and frat-boy humor with the usual political incorrectness and raunch, and some elements of Office awkwardness and sketch punchlines, but a lot of the dialogue is improvised and feels that way. Offers occasional chuckles, but mostly this lacks wit and is too idiotic.
Based on the first season.
Spielberg-produced slice of super-neurotic estrogen. Tara has Dissociate Identity Disorder (AKA multiple personality), and she and her loving husband both agreed that she should stop taking the medications and handle her personalities rather than suppress everything. So we get to watch Toni Collette act out several personalities and try to deal with life's little dramas while her husband supports, her teenage daughter angsts, and her gay, retro-chic, eccentric teenage son angsts some more. For starters, I'm not sure D.I.D. personalities are this broadly drawn, over-the-top stereotypes. But even if they are, it looks like Collette is having much more fun acting out as a cartoonish trashy teenage slut or trashy male redneck vietnam vet, than the audience is having watching it. It reminds me of Six Feet Under: It may be well-written, but that doesn't mean it's interesting, fun or entertaining to watch. The sad thing is, the sister is even more annoyingly neurotic than multiple-personality Tara. In fact, almost every character feels immature and whimsically air-headed or trashy, demonstrating a lack of maturity in the writer. Another thing that could have helped this show is some testosterone. Just a tiny bit. Because then maybe the emasculated men would actually feel real. So all in all, this is not a show about a mentally damaged woman, but a show about a world where everyone is mentally damaged or airheads. In the end, and I don't believe I'm saying this, this is just more tiring extreme dysfunction that doesn't deserve its own TV show, and after this and Californication, I feel I need a fix of 60s sitcom-land where people were abnormally healthy instead of abnormally unhealthy.
Based on half of the first season.
A joyless HBO animation. Tim is a dumb, pushover loser who always finds himself in embarrassing or raunchy situations such as having to fight an old man, explaining a hooker to his girlfriend's family, and covering up for a dog by claiming its 'accidents' as his own. This is no Curb Your Enthusiasm however, the situations always feel forced to suit the writer's childish sense of humor. The characters are charmless, laid-back bores and very unrealistic, the animation is ugly, and the humor is more suitable for immature drunken fratboys. The occasional chuckles and tight structure barely save this from being totally worthless.
Based on the first season.
Silly British comedy by the makers of Are You Being Served revolving around a French cafe owner during WW2. Germans frequent his joint and expect sexual favors from his girls in exchange for other arrangements, the French underground uses him for cloak and dagger operations, he can't seem to be able to get rid of a pair of dumb British airmen hiding in his cafe, the Gestapo is close on everyone's heels, the wife is a terrible cabaret singer, while he has affairs with all the waitresses. Too puerile and repetitive to be funny, the characters are extremely cartoonish, and the fake German and French accents dumb things down further.
Classic TV mini-series featuring the king of TV: Richard Chamberlain. It's like a Gone with the Wind in Australia, spanning generations with soapy love affairs, deaths, marriages, betrayals, passions, and ambitions. A priest is torn between his love for a girl whom he helped bring up and his priestly ambitions while being taunted by a wicked old woman who likes power games, and interacting with the various family members and workers of the Australian farm. Good actors, a sweeping story with a large scope, and great production values, but soap nevertheless.
Based on the first season.
A popular British show about two fourty year old female bandwagon jumpers that never grew up and live a life of alcohol, parties, irresponsibility and fashion. One has a conservative daughter that constantly berates and insults her while treating her like the child she is. Mildly amusing, but only due to Lumley and some of the secondary characters. The main character is acted over-the-top and comes off as pathetic and annoying rather than funny.
Based on scattered episodes of the first season.
A hop on the CSI bandwagon, mixing tech-forensic mystery-solving with a primary emphasis on analyzing skeletons, charred/mutilated remains, skulls, etc. and a crime-solving duo molded after Mulder and Scully. Boreanaz is OK here as a capable FBI agent, but isn't given much and plays second fiddle to a completely charmless, dull, sometimes bitchy and annoying female forensic expert. I understand that this is supposed to be her character but making such a person the lead in a show is one mistake, not balancing out her character with other casting choices is a worse mistake, giving her infallible genius, boobs, as well as karate expertise is yet another mistake, and her lifeless portrayal of a flawed, but potentially interesting character is the final nail in the coffin. Scully and Mulder complemented each other, but here, Bones is unrealistically given all the power. As if that isn't enough, the structure is too episodic, the writing isn't ever inspired, and the tech-jargon is unrealistic and too convenient a la CSI.
Based on the first season.
Over-hyped show that is way too neat, repetitive, flashy, unrealistic and superficial. It looks entertaining and interesting at first when a forensic team does its Sherlock Holmes stuff at crime scenes, uses technical jargon to solve crimes, and prove the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent. But when episode after episode features the same flashy special effects, the same show-off, unrealistic technical jargon, and every mystery gets solved neatly by a neat tiny detail neatly left at the neat crime scene, and the flawlessly PC forensic team for some reason make arrests and interrogate people while looking beautiful and not developing any character, it becomes very dull fast. No arcs, no character, just episodic, technical detective work that isn't as clever as it thinks it is. Gore, flash and jargon do not realism make, neither does increasing the transgressive content and violence every season. This superficially flashy, nonsensically-technical and fast approach to forensics launched so many other shows and had such an effect on the populace that there was a backlash by law enforcement.
Based on half of the first season.
Another animated show by the creator of Family Guy, attempting a blend of dysfunctional family a la Simpsons, raunchy satirical humor a la South Park, pop-culture references, and a satire on the America of Bush, terrorists and neo-cons. The American dad in this case is a jingoistic CIA agent, always ready for action wherever it isn't needed, fighting terrorism in every shopping mall, battling immoral behaviour, planting the seeds of democracy, and trying to force his family to do the same. The son is a geek, the daughter is a *gasp* liberal, the raunchy pet fish lusts after the wife, and they have adopted a renegade gay alien. The laughs are scarce, with most of the humor being forced, awkward, lame, and overconfident and the political agenda is obvious.
Based on the first season.
Another South Park clone, attempting a similar combination of offensive, raunchy, politically-incorrect humor, pop-references, parodies, musical stints and touches of satire, but ends up painfully unfunny. Some stereotypical cartoon characters such as a fairy-tale princess, a video game hero, a pokemon creature, etc. are all made to live together in a reality TV show and deal with each other's monster vaginas, woodland creature massacres, homosexuality, histrionics, bulemia, etc. The problem with this show is that, like with the beginning of South Park, the assumption is that raunch, toilet jokes, movie-references and offensive content are funny by themselves. Lesbians and scatological pranks do not adult humor make.
Based on the first season and some scattered episodes.
A rip-off of the Simpsons without any of the wit, charm and personality. Dumb dad, sensible mother, loser son, etc. find themselves in one outlandish crisis after another along with their misanthropic, genius baby and a talking, cynical dog. The show attempts to put the fun in dysfunction and offer subversive ranchy humor a la Southpark by making fun of everyone and everything while wrapping it up in a moral, but it almost always comes out forced, unfunny, soulless and silly. Southpark hit the nail on the head when they pointed out that the humor in this show is so random and meaningless that it may have been written by sea animals moving idea balls around.
Based on three episodes.
Of all the police procedural fantasy episodic shows a la CSI, this has got to be the worst conceptually. Where CSI is a forensic wet dream where every crime scene is solved neatly using flashy little convenient clues, this is the equivalent for Hollywoodized psychologists. There is a reason why the actual FBI 'profiler' jobs are restricted to the FBI and usually mean analytical research and, at best, a minor ingredient in a real investigation: It isn't that effective. Humans can't be categorized neatly with field pop-psychology and statistics, and even where they do fit, this knowledge won't come up with much that is useful for catching them. What's most off-putting about this show is their confidence, how any theory they come up with suddenly becomes dogma and the criminals neatly show up to verify their every 'insight', when it's obvious that there are dozens of other possibilities. At times, this show seems to think it's some kind of supernatural trick, where the profilers see things that actually happened. In short, this is unwatchable because it's impossible to get past the conceited concept. And throwing around random famous quotes like some kind of thought-of-the-hour doesn't make it any better, since the quotes have nothing to do with what is going on.
Based on most of the first season.
A convoluted conspiracy causes an engineer's brother to be put in death row for a murder he didn't commit, so he plans a convoluted prison break with his knowledge of engineering and gets himself put away in jail in order to get his brother out. Multiple set-backs and complications cause him to constantly adjust his plan, while family and friends get killed trying to pursue the legal angle with an all-powerful conspiracy at their heels. Now, some shows ask you to suspend disbelief and switch off some of your brain in order to be entertained. This show asks you to surgically cut out every cell of your brain, crush it to a mush on the floor, and then throw it out the window. Not a single episode goes by without some howlingly bad or non-existent logic or ridiculous coincidences. For starters, there's the fact that you can plan and execute a prison break with much more freedom and resources from the outside. Tattooing a blueprint of the prison is unbelievably idiotic: He could have committed it to memory or sneaked it in a book or by employing any of the dozens of ways they sneak in all the rest of their illegal tools. Then they expect us to believe that nobody can see it's a blueprint because you need special effects to see it. The all-powerful conspiracy group take care to cover their tracks and make it look like other people are committing the crimes one minute, the next minute they are killing people indiscriminately and leaving behind a trail. People are left alive for no good reason dozens of times just because the writers need them. The actual prison break plan never makes any sense, with multiple stages that aren't even needed, and new stages that make you wonder why they didn't just do that in the first place. Not to mention that it seems to rely on many coincidences and other people's charities. And so it goes, with every episode making you groan until you completely lose interest. Add to this the fact that anyone with their head screwed on straight shouldn't even want this prison break to occur, seeing as it is killing many innocents along the way, and causing murderers to escape and come along for the ride. '24', with all of its ridiculous implausibilities, at least had a minimal level of brain matter to keep you watching. And yet this show is still rated highly. Are audiences this stupid?
Based on half of the first season.
Rappers in their own sitcom? I was expecting an MTV video with lots of egos, booty and urban posing. Imagine my surprise when I got exactly that. The cartoonish style is similar to Malcolm in the Middle only without the funny bits. Two rappers move into a rich white neighbourhood after striking it rich, clash with their neighbours and their overbearing mother who moved in with them and constantly whacks them over the head as a running joke. Other humor involves race stereotypes, showing off of riches, egos, fame and bikini-clad girls, and some sitcom cliches. Delivers about one laugh per episode.
Based on scattered episodes of the first season.
Silly sitcom that feels like a dumber, high school version of Friends with elements of the 70s unsuccessfully forced in. A group of teenagers with the usual horny, geeky, wannabe, annoying girlie, etc characteristics and their parents interact in this throwback sitcom that sometimes brings to mind Happy Days. The acting is silly and artificial, the dumb humor gets at best a couple of weak chuckles per episode, the idiotic Kutcher is in it, and mere colorful clothes and crazy hairdos do not the 70s make.
Based on most of the first season.
I could compare this to the original British version and say things like the actors are unconvincing and the manager over-acts. But the truth is, this is an inferior clone by Americans who didn't even feel the need to bring something new to the writing and thus produced a completely useless show. Later seasons may have more original writing, but I just don't care anymore after such a lame first season.
Based on half of the first season.
A spin-off of Law and Order, focusing on sex crimes. There is also more emphasis on the order rather than the law and the policemen's (boring) personal lives are explored as well. In summary, we have dull cops investigating all sorts of dramatic or extreme sex crimes, neatly finding the perpetrator in every episode. In addition to the boredom however is the real criminal of this show: plots and characters that wander into preachy, smug or contrived territories, politically correct stories where women weep and men are always the monsters, feminist propaganda, and an annoying bitch cop with a chip on her shoulder.
Based on most of the first season.
A terrible cult-surreal comedy from England. Two zoo-keepers, one a pretentious idiot, the other an effeminate bigger idiot obsessed with clothes and hair, their highly eccentric boss who can never remember words for animals, one gypsy/Indian/whatsit guru, and a bunch of guys in animal costumes, make very random, surreal, fantastical and silly comedy. The appeal of this show, if you like that sort of thing, is that you never know what will happen next. A man is forced to fight a kangaroo, mutants break out in song and dance, there's a surreal dream sequence involving pairs of round objects, random people make fun of Howard's moustache, magical hair-restorer cream becomes a major plot point, there are ongoing jokes about pocket-cups, and so on. But the problem is that nothing is funny, just random and really silly, despite the fact that it revolves around semi-coherent episodic plots rather than sketches. The many comparisons to Monty Python obviously have no respect for the wit and satire of that troupe. If anything, I would compare this random anything-goes fantasy approach to The Goodies, except that one was much more fun.
Based on five episodes from the first season.
Vastly overrated cheesy action show 'based on' the superbly perfect French movie of the same name. It's not about a sexy babe kicking ass, you stupid Americans. And making her a pacifist only makes her less interesting, not more. The first episode rushes through highlights of the movie in flabbergasting superficial ways, setting up an innocent woman this time, who is accused of a crime and sentenced to death, and then 'rescued' by a clandestine agency that trains her to be a secret agent. The show then sets up episodic missions like some cheesy 80s action show, featuring Ken and Barbie dolls in cheesy action and short skirts saving the evil Communists and terrorists from themselves, with bad acting, cheesy emotional drama, people that sacrifice themselves for no good reason, and silly sci-fi gadgets from a bad James Bond clone. This looks and feels like soap opera actors in an action series. At least the producers/writers improved a little for '24'.
Based on the first season and some scattered episodes.
Yet another show that hopped on the bandwagon of kickass-females, this time placing her in convoluted plotlines of spies and double-spies with over-the-top James Bond gadgets and Mission-Impossible-esque thrilling scenes. She's pretty, she's sexy, she wears crazy outfits, disappears in exotic countries and speaks their language, knows kickboxing so well she can wipe out 5 burly men in seconds, she always gets away somehow, she handles double-agent games with a smile and she's still in college. What a load of crap. I could perhaps understand the fun if she had character, charm and a sense of humor but she's dull. The only reason Buffy got away with it was because there was an element of the supernatural and they didn't take it seriously. This is dumb, dumb, dumb.
Based on scattered episodes of the first season.
I suppose this show was inevitable given the trendiness and popularity of lesbians. Somewhere an executive figured he would cash in on the female curiosity, addiction to relationship soap-drama, as well as the drooling male idiots, and make a lesbian drama with nudity and sex. Ignoring the fact that even the butch lesbians in this show are unrealistically pretty and that in this strange universe, all females are either lesbian or thinking about it, I tried a simple exercise: Imagining that this was a show about heterosexuals. All I got was soap, boring writing and whiny drama. Just more dull, superficial, self-obsessed women. At least in Sex and the City there was comedy; Here it's all estrogen-heavy drama. The high-points include the endless, annoying drama about a straight, engaged, cheating woman who doesnt know if she's a lesbian, and one lesbian couple repeats the phrase 'let's make a baby' so many times as if to chase away the painfully and stupidly obvious. If this show was supposed to show lesbians in a better, non-stereotypical light, it failed.
Based on most of the first season.
A show for losers that drool over anything celebrity and glitzy and that can't get enough of the TV channel E! or MTV. Actually it's even worse than that: This show feels like it was written by some virgin, big-mouthed, fratboys obsessed with sex and celebrities because they can't get any of either. Film-star Vincent and his entourage of horny guys wander around Hollywood, fighting with agents, alternatively praising or bad-mouthing stars, attending one party after another, throwing away money like it was used tissues on expensive things which they are too brainless to appreciate, constantly getting laid by glamorous girls and groupies that are somehow always hot, easy and available, bumping up against real celebrities that act as themselves, etc etc. It's not funny, insightful, interesting, witty, or even satiric, and the annoying characters are not real or interesting in any way. A complete waste of time.
Based on scattered episodes of the first season.
Take teenage high-school drama with shallow characters and push it over-the-top and what do you get? According to critics and fans you get a clever satire. But it's really just over-the-top teenage high-school drama.
Based on half of the first season.
Whiny, angsty, spoiled female teenagers with neurotic parents have way too much drama in their lives to whine about. The lead cynical, boy-crazy, sex-obsessed and depressed female character spouts out dumb 'wisdom' from time to time in between dramas. Who the hell cares? Often praised as being realistic to teenage concerns, but don't bother unless the lowest common denominator of trendy teenage angst interests you.
Based on the first season.
Thirty-something British soap drama mixed with a touch of Friends comedy. Three couples go through trials and tribulations with relationship issues, sex, babies, adultery, etc. Besides the soap and the fact that the show is somewhat dull, the biggest problem here is that all the women are complete bitches and the men are kinda pathetic. Since when did bitchiness become comedy?
Based on two episodes.
Um, no. This one I just don't get. Moronic loser musicians, their incompetent manager, and a single pathetic groupie make comedy in a musical TV show with absolutely terrible music that uses moronic dialogue for lyrics. It may help if the moronic loser angle reflected something from real life, but these morons are so moronic that they are cartoonish, except they are so braindead and listless, they can't be compared to cartoon characters. Of course, people are calling this 'genius' and 'subtle', but you can feel your brain cells falling out of your ears like dead flies while watching this one. Dead boring.
Based on scattered episodes.
Some writers took their unrealistic fantasy of an ideal, mother-daughter relationship, wrote witty and fast-moving dialog that only special actors could have gotten away with, and hired a few wooden and boring pretty actresses to spout these lines and act cute. In other words, an unrealistic chick-flick about relationships that tries to be clever but gets really annoying fast. Avoid.
Based on three episodes.
I don't understand what is happening with humor lately. Even toilet humor can be funny at times, but what is funny about embarrasments, losers and jerks? This is yet another comedy failure by HBO, featuring the most annoying jerk you've ever seen. An ex-celebrity baseball player who flushed his life and opportunities away thanks to his huge ego. Now he lives in his home town terrorizing his brother, his ex-girlfriend, the school where he works, and many kids with his foul-mouth, crude behaviour, obnoxious attitude, and racist views, his life run by the most basest impulses and childish, wounded-ego motivations, and they all let him get away with it. Obviously HBO thinks that the more crudity, and non-PC shock values you can throw at a show, the funnier it will become. This is pathetic.