May 21, 2014
Did you — like us — watch the finales for "American Idol" and "Survivor" tonight?
Spoil away in the comments. I'll just say, without spoiling, that "Survivor" had perhaps its best season ever. What a great show tonight! As for "American Idol," it was a strange season, and maybe the best thing tonight was when last week's loser, Alex Preston, did a duet with Jason Mraz. I liked the absence of yelling, and now the old show's gone quiet until 2015. What will we watch on TV? Other than Brewers games I mean.
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40 comments:
Woo screwed the pooch.
What to watch? Get a Roku, stream Sherlock and seven seasons of Doctor Who.
I have a Roku, and I have cable with on demand, but we just don't like fiction shows. We did get into Breaking Bad, but nothing else seems to work.
Catch up with Game Of Thrones, if you haven't already. Peter Dinklage is amazing.
I watched the Spurs crush the Thunder, and taped "The Americans" to watch later.
I wouldn't rate Survivor the best ever, but it was pretty good and better than it has been in several years, with some very unique characters. The show had done a shift, heavily skewed to younger hot chicks and guys, such they you couldn't remember who was who.
By the time they reached the final five or six, it seemed obvious to me that Caleb was a notch above the rest. It was an OK season, and I think the audience votes were pretty much on target, which actually works against it.
Performances:
Legend is legend.
1.Urban can play.
2.Phillip Phillips deserved to win.
3.J Lo - I don't get it, perhaps performance over singing.
4.strawberry streak girl had too much of the free food during the run, but sounded good in her duet.
Fiction? Silicon Valley is hilarious. Sadly, the actor who played the VC guy died before the show started airing.
A guy who graduated from Blacksburg High School won The Voice, so my family was watching the show and rooting for him. He's ten years older than my kids, so they never crossed paths, but it's been a nice hometown pride buzz around here.
Breaking Bad was a great series. Surprised you have not gotten into Mad Men, it is all about the 60s. I think you and Meade would enjoy it. The new Fargo series on FX, which is not the same story as the movie, is also excellent.
A new season of Duck Dynasty starts on June 11th, or you could order up Archer from Netflix.
My daughter tells me Meatloaf Jr won. I can't see him making it, but then again, I didn't see much a future for Philip Phillips.
No. I have watched AI in the past, there are some talented singers so it provided entertainment. The drama of the voting is lame.
Survivor watchers should be voted off this planet.
This Survivor season was pretty great. My guess is that the lack of returning players was the reason. It let all kinds of new players have room to breathe. Imagine if Tony had been on the same tribe as Russell or some previous alpha dog. It would have dominated the story line. Same think with Kass, Spencer and Tasha. All of them were better because they were all new to the situation.
I watched the finale of Obama. The dumb son of a bitch says being named Barack Obama means he knows about being the underdog.
In that he is correct. Our bitch-cunt president is always the millionaire-most-powerful-position-occupying-person-potentially-in-the-history-of-existence underdog fighting the Man.
Bring it on. We men are superior and can hack it.
And live it up Seattle. Your Super Bowl victory, because of dumbass'-in-chief hubris, cost you Colorado's vote for Hillary!
Cory Gardner wants to BAN BIRTH CONTROL because he is batshit insane (I've seen it on the television), yet he will win.
Louder Barry, WE CAN'T HEAR YOU.
The NBA post-season is shaping up to be very good. You might try that.
I'm beginning to believe that the referees are even trying to call the games straight. That'd be new.
Um, no.
"Reality" TV bores me to tears, because its bogus.
Fiction television asks the viewer to engage in the "willing suspension of disbelief" particularly when the setting is exotic -Star Trek for example.
A contest show where the winner is almost certainly predetermined by the show's producers (the ugly guys don't win) strains my disbelief mightily. Frankly it is already sore from the strain of just reading the news. So, no. I don't watch it.
I have never watched Survivor and maybe have seen one or two American Idol in the last 5 years or so.
I think Jena was the better singer, and more interesting artist, but that can be debated. Caleb paled in comparison to Kiss, though, whereas Jena held her own with Paramore (and all those ridiculous balloons). Alex and Jason were excellent. The quartet of Harry, JLo, Randy and Keith was everything that's wrong with Idol: Too watch emphasis on the judges.
(The less said of JLo's solo performance the better).
"Surprised you have not gotten into Mad Men, it is all about the 60s."
That show seems more of interest to younger people who didn't have to deal with that stuff at the time. I would find it irritating, I've always thought. I don't like to sit around watching fiction shows that just make me feel bad about something that was bad.
"Catch up with Game Of Thrones, if you haven't already."
I haven't cared enough about that even to read what it's about. I have no idea. Seems like a lengthy drama set in the past somewhere. I don't see why. The fact that an actor is good in something… eh.
"This Survivor season was pretty great. My guess is that the lack of returning players was the reason. It let all kinds of new players have room to breathe. Imagine if Tony had been on the same tribe as Russell or some previous alpha dog. It would have dominated the story line. Same think with Kass, Spencer and Tasha. All of them were better because they were all new to the situation."
Good point, but at the same time, I had the feeling that a lot of them were playing not just to win -- which is always a long shot -- but to get invited back as a return player.
I'd certainly like to see Spencer again, and Kass was auditioning for the female villain role that always seems to need to be filled.
I'm liking Silicon Valley.
Trish chewed the scenery to a fine pulp in that final jury scene.
""Reality" TV bores me to tears, because its bogus."
Depends on the category of reality. The more structured competitions don't script and reshoot scenes. But you have to care for some reason.
The "Real Life" type shows that are just following people around waiting for them to do or say interesting things are more of a problem.
If it's fakeness per se that you hate, how can you watch fiction? That's all fake. Buncha actors hamming it up, trying to say lines written by somebody else as if they are actually real people speaking spontaneously. That's an old trick I've seen attempted a million times. Boorrringg.
"Caleb paled in comparison to Kiss…"
Yeesh. That whole scene embarrassed me. I've never seen the point of Kiss. Come on. They made up their faces like mimes, then everyone started hating mimes, but somehow Kiss got a pass. What are these guys about 70 years old? Wearing their Transformers outfits. Is the music supposed to be good? I couldn't name one song of theirs. I couldn't recite one phrase of lyrics. Including from the song I watched them purport to perform last night.
Blecch. 40 years of this novelty act! Go away!
"The less said of JLo's solo performance the better…"
They might as well double down on the pimping of JLo. It's been so annoying all season. Why not turn it into high camp?
"but we just don't like fiction shows."
As if "reality" television isn't stage-managed and edited to the nth degree. It always surprises me how many otherwise-intelligent people are fans of reality television. There's a lesson about American politics in there somewhere, and untapped audiences for the WWE among Ivy Leaguers.
I couldn't recite one phrase of lyrics
Kiss as a band does not hold up well with time, I agree, but one song does:
I want to rock and roll all night
And party every day!
"Trish chewed the scenery to a fine pulp in that final jury scene."
As I watched the jury unfold, I thought Tony was toast. Then Spencer made an impassioned case for Tony. Has that ever happened before? Did Tony offer Spencer a cut of the winnings?
"Did you — like us — watch the finales for "American Idol" and "Survivor" tonight?"
No. Actually, never.
I watched the British version of "Shameless".
Which, coincidentally, jumped the shark at about the same episode as the American version.
Since you're open to sports, perhaps give the NHL playoffs a try. Nothing compares to playoff intensity, and even though it is greatly diminished by the absence of my beloved Devils, you can still watch some of the best teams do their thing.
Nope, I watched a documentary on Brian Eno last night, but:
When anyone on American Idol decides to make art, I'll be there.
And, when Survivor takes place in an American ghetto, I'll be there.
Just to see the obstacles,...
MathMom,
"stream Sherlock"
Or watch old episodes of House and get the same thing,...
Haven't seen any episode of either "Idol" or "Survivor". Baseball or (mostly) old movies. 1940's and '50s.
Gotta agree with Ann on Kiss. Why and how that band succeeded and survived is beyond me. Hated them when they started, hate them now. Any of a hundred hair metal bands of the 80s (and I didn't like any of them, either) would blow them off the stage. Every time I see some 70 year old still trying to be the rock star I remember seeing Grace Slick on some late night talk show saying "I'm 60 years old, I don't need to be out there singing 'Someone to Love" anymore." It's not that 70 is too old, it's that 70 is too old to be doing the same old crap that you were doing 40 or 50 years ago.
I have a Roku, and I have cable with on demand, but we just don't like fiction shows. We did get into Breaking Bad, but nothing else seems to work.
I watched five minutes of Survivor once long ago, felt my IQ dropping so I turned it off. You probably have IQ points to spare, though. Re: Idol? A local kid was on it a while back, got voted off the island or whatever they do, so I stopped watching it.
As to "you don't like fiction"? If you ever read the Sherlock stories you might find as I did that I am enjoying the repurposing of the original themes in a very creative way. The cool thing about Sherlock is that they didn't fark with the characters of Holmes and Watson too much to "modernize" them. Dr. Watson is still a soldier invalided home from Afghanistan, 100+ years later. They are being quite true to Arthur Conan Doyle's writing. Sometimes Holmes is played as a dunce in so many of the old movies and series (how did he become a doctor if he was a dunce?), but IMHO Sherlock and John in this series are as satisfying as chocolate mousse.
Acting is splendid, cinematography is something totally new and a thing of beauty, and worth looking at for that alone. It is fun to watch, even with the sound off. Each of the (now nine) episodes is movie-length, so all the loose ends have time to be tied in bows...with the exception of the red thread that runs through the episodes, showing up now and then so you know Sherlock is still busy trying to sort out the Big Problem.
Doctor Who never appealed to me in the 70's when I first encountered it - I had been spoiled by the high production values of Star Trek TOS(*coughcough*). But the new series that is currently running has really grabbed me. I have a TARDIS Christmas tree ornament, but no "My Other Car Is a TARDIS" bumper sticker.
Since I brought up Star Trek, now you are going to tell me that parts of Star Trek aren't even true, aren't you?
:o)
Crack -
Maybe I just like English actors. I think Hugh Laurie is great. I like House, but haven't watched it a lot in the last few years.
Netflix can solve that problem, eh?
I turned against Idol after Lee DeWyze beat Crystal Bowersox a few years ago, and stopped watching forever after that Scotty guy won the next year. I'm proud to say I have no idea who was involved this year, or even who the judges are, although I hope Nikki Minaj was sent packing.
"I watched five minutes of Survivor once long ago, felt my IQ dropping…"
In other words, it's trashy. It's candy. We watch TV at night to hang out together and relax. The right reality show, like the right sports event, serves our needs well.
"As to "you don't like fiction"?"
Don't like fiction shows. I sort of dislike actors.
"If you ever read the Sherlock stories you might find as I did that I am enjoying the repurposing of the original themes in a very creative way. The cool thing about Sherlock is that they didn't fark with the characters of Holmes and Watson too much to "modernize" them. Dr. Watson is still a soldier invalided home from Afghanistan, 100+ years later. They are being quite true to Arthur Conan Doyle's writing. Sometimes Holmes is played as a dunce in so many of the old movies and series (how did he become a doctor if he was a dunce?), but IMHO Sherlock and John in this series are as satisfying as chocolate mousse."
Yeah, I read a New Yorker article about this show.
I've noticed that after people grow out of a tribal phase the TV shows they watch are almost random. I rarely recommend my favorite shows to my friends, and when I do, the batting average is exceptionally low. (For the record, other than live sports, Parks and Rec, PTI, Highly Questionable, and Brit mysteries like Midsomer Murders, Poirot, etc. As I say, random.)
I don't see any of that working for Althouse, but I don't think anyone has mentioned all of the "cooking competition" shows. My wife likes them. Food Network and HGTV are infested with them.
I have no idea. Seems like a lengthy drama set in the past somewhere. I don't see why.
You'd be surprised to find that it's Thrones' female characters, much more than the sword-swinging men, driving the story.
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