Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Christ, the boredom

You know when you watch a new TV show that you think is the best thing since...since Salma Hayek, and it's just brilliant and funny and oh, just so gooooood, that you start talking about it to someone you KNOW will agree with you, about how great, great, great this show is and they MUST watch it and how they'll laugh with you and think you're just the bee's knees for introducing them to this wonderful, entertaining, awesome new show, and then when you FINALLY get them to sit down and watch this show with you, the network in its infinite cuntosity manages to air the ONE FUCKING EPISODE that is not as well-written, well-acted, funny, brilliant, sparkly as the others, and even you, a fan, are disappointed and you try to back pedal and say "oh, this is just not a good episode," and the other person just goes, "Meh. It's stupid."?

I fucking hate it when that happens.

19 Comments:

Blogger fatmammycat said...

What was it? The wire? House? Something equally as watchable?-I say this having never seen the Wire but I will, some day I will.

31 January, 2008 12:05  
Blogger Megan McGurk said...

It can't be The Wire, right Andraste?
Plus, that show is not about instant gratification. The Wire devotees sink in to it slowly and develop a deep-seated love of the characters and plot.

31 January, 2008 14:32  
Blogger Andraste said...

Afternoon, m'dears.

No, it's not the Wire. Haven't seen it, is it good?

It's happened to me so often with so many different shows, I was speaking generally, as a repeating pattern. "watch this, it's awesome. oh, shit, not THIS episode..." Kind of thing.

31 January, 2008 14:49  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

God damn it! I have got to get that box set!

31 January, 2008 16:33  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think it's the same force of nature that makes your car stop it's weird rattling noise whenever you're within half a mile of a mechanic.

31 January, 2008 17:38  
Blogger Andraste said...

There it is, Elizabeth. That's exactly it.

Every goddamn time.

31 January, 2008 20:36  
Blogger Kim Ayres said...

Sometimes it's the person you're with.

I remember during my time in Canada I discovered the cartoon series Ren & Stimpy, which was the funniest thing ever. Sitting watching it with a bunch of fellow students it was hilarious.

When I got back to the UK I kept raving to people about it.

A couple of years later it came to the UK and I sat to watch it with my wife, who did not find it funnny in the slightest. Suddenly it wasn't so amusing after all

02 February, 2008 07:49  
Blogger Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Your observation pretty much explains why hockey has never caught in in sports mad America. How often has someone been enticed to buying tickets to a game or sitting down with a six-pack and their television only to be not be entertained by a yawner of a game? Nothing waters down a good premise like serialization.

02 February, 2008 09:36  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The problem with hockey in the states is that there are two intermissions, and in the nation that put the deficit in ADD, that is one intermission too much. In football, viewers have reached the point of alcohol toxicity at half time, and spend the rest of the game trying to ward off the spins, in baseball, the seventh inning stretch is a good time to start detoxing whether you are viewing at home or at the park, and at the park they stop selling at that point anyway. People get disoriented at hockey watching that Zamboni go round and round again, and it doesn't do the booze spins any good either...

02 February, 2008 09:48  
Blogger Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

They do not stop selling beer after the 7th inning stretch in Canada's last remaing ballpark with an affiliation to major league baseball. If there is one thing worse than a Canadian with too much beer in him it is one denied the beer that is going to put him over the edge.

02 February, 2008 10:25  
Blogger Andraste said...

Wait...hockey hasn't caught on in the states? Where've I been living?

The only reason hockey isn't HUGE in the Boston area right now is that the we have the Bruins playing in a town alongside the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics. And some would argue that it is still pretty huge, considering the Bruins suck and they STILL get top dollar for tickets and I see people in Bruins gear all over the place...

I'm going to a game in March as a birthday present - but I admit I haven't been in several years. IT's a pricey ticket, parking is expensive, traffic down near the Garden sucks, and the MBTA is a joke. They have a chance to get me back on the bandwagon with that game though.

It's soccer that won't catch on here because there's not enough goal scoring and not enough violence. It's huge with the wee ones as a sport to play, but I don't see them following it, developing team allegiances, etc. When they stop playing, they stop following...

02 February, 2008 11:40  
Blogger Megan McGurk said...

I've been yammering on about The Wire to anyone who will listen.
Best show ever.
Buy and watch all the seasons and you will not be disappointed.

02 February, 2008 12:25  
Blogger Andraste said...

Hiya Medbh - I did watch a few minutes last night as I came upon it while surfing. Have to admit, it looked good, but because I came in not just in the middle of a season, but in the middle of an episode, I have NO idea what the hell was going on. Looked interesting though - will give it a shot!

KIM - Forgot to mention this earlier. Ren & Stimpy was absolutely HILARIOUS. When it was new I was hooked...watched it lately though and it's funny how I remember it being funnier than I find it now. Still funny, don't get me wrong - but somehow...what is it about that phenomenon?

Watched an episode of The Young Ones recently, same thing. Still funny, but not side-splitting.

I dunno...

02 February, 2008 12:46  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hockey has its following in the states don't get me wrong, but it'll never achieve the popularity with a mass audience here like MLB or the NFL. I watched some stooge episodes recently, as in Howard, Fine and Howard, not iggy and the stooges. Definitely not the yuks I remember from childhood...The other thing that annoys me about shows that I like is that when I have time to watch one, it's an episode I've already seen...

02 February, 2008 17:50  
Blogger Andraste said...

Exactly. Even before the writer's strike happened I was getting banjaxed like that. Sit down once a year to watch something - and it's the same episode I saw a year ago. Been watching some shows for years and have only seen one third of the episodes available.

Gotta get a different hobby.

YOu have to put yourself in the mindset for the Stooges, though. You can't expect it to be like it was when you were a kid - especially considering how comedy has advanced - and you must put yourself into a historical context - it's going to be a totally different kettle of fish.

Well- I DID catch a Shemp episode recently that had me dying.

Shemp is underrated.

"Hiya Lorna, how you doon?"

Ahhhahahahahahahahahhahahaha

02 February, 2008 20:57  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, Shemp...once voted the ugliest man in Hollywood. Goofball extraordinaire, but definitely, in view of the ugly label, more than met the eye...Earliest curly episodes far superior to later ones, adult themes in the humor make them presentable to young and old. Shemp episodes in a class by themselves. I don't think comedy has advanced, they just say and do stuff on TV and in movies that censors of the past would have nixed. I bet someone could write a book arguing that comics like the Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Bros., Abbot and Costello were all just different variations of ADHD, OCD, and co-dependency. Note to self: got to get that book going...

03 February, 2008 08:59  
Blogger Andraste said...

...or at least a blog...

03 February, 2008 11:03  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I watched The Wire for the first time the other night after hearing Medbh rave about it. She's right. It's very very good.

05 February, 2008 01:30  
Blogger Archivalist said...

Netflix has been denying me The Wire for several weeks now. I'm beginning to hate them.

I hope to get it by Christmas.

As a Southerner, and a hockey fan since I was a kid, I can't really say why it hasn't caught on in the US. Except that we're idiots. Maybe that's it.

05 February, 2008 19:40  

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