The Official Good Television Thread

[muzmaze]

I lost interest in TWD early on. Maybe i should have stuck with it? I havent watched Breakn Bad either lol. Everytime i peeked in on it i yawned...just sayn.

Anybody watchn SOA or what? Its off to a great start!
And VIKINGS (hist chn) is f'in great! So glad a second season was planned.

 

[The Butt]

wahhhh i cant appreciate quality tv so i settle for bottom-of-the-barrel sitcoms

k

 

[rms]

I haven't seen a single episode of The Walking Dead. It is in my Netflix queue.

Should I watch? I have several coworkers (and my mother) telling me it is really good and to watch it.

If you are of the zombie fad then it's great, but the show has a really lame plot and really crappy characters, I didn't watch the last season though...it's really just an average show appealing to this twilight fanboy/girls for zombies

 

[The Butt]

Don't listen to him, the plot's great and the characters are engaging (except for Beth, she is useless). They've got some awesome character development too.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

TWD was just flat out bad during season 2.
Never went back

 

[The Butt]

But Season 3 was fucking awesome. The Governor was such a hateable character. Season 3 invoked major feels in me, feels I didn't know I could have for TV characters.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

TWD is okay TV ... nothing special ... has nothing on the books.

New season of Sons is off to a great start, yesterdays episode was pretty cool .... but oh' the acting ... the one thing that's always stopped this show from being mentioned with some of the other greats is the horrible acting.

Oh, and personally, i think Jesse deserved to die the moment he snitched out Walt.

 

[Krow]

As a horror movie guy, I've lost interest in TWD. It's really turned into twilight zombies. And to be honest, all zombie stuff has lately or it's just been awful.

 

[muzmaze]

TWD is okay TV ... nothing special ... has nothing on the books.

New season of Sons is off to a great start, yesterdays episode was pretty cool .... but oh' the acting ... the one thing that's always stopped this show from being mentioned with some of the other greats is the horrible acting.

Oh, and personally, i think Jesse deserved to die the moment he snitched out Walt.

The Irish took the "hands off" statement literally lol.

 

[sevag00]

Big Bang Theory is the epitome of everything wrong with modern television. Horrible acting, horrible characters, horrible jokes, horrible writing. Fuck this show

That's why the show has a Golden Globe and million other awards and nominations.

What the fuck, why? Tell me why he should have died.

Because he became a fuckin DEA rat. He worked with the DEA and manipulated Walt in order to find the location of the buried money, and because of him Hank and Gomez died.

 

[Einherjar86]

What? Because of Jesse, Hank and Gomez died? That's utterly stupid. It wasn't Jesse's fault, it was Walt's fault. Walt called in for backup, Jesus fucking Christ.

Jesus Christ, people hate Jesse. I don't understand.

 

[Dak]

The DEA was the greatest evil in the whole show. Otherwise recreational drugs are no big deal, and there is no "Breaking Bad". There is no Gus Fring. There is no Jesse. And so on.

Hank and Gomez were the faces of banal evil.

How is their death "Walt's fault"? They didn't have to go chasing after Walt for providing a quality product in high demand. Live by the gun, die by it. Same reason I don't understand the hysteria over combat death numbers. Hello, it's what the military is for. People like to forget about that. Like they like to forget all the other unpleasantries.

Yeah, you're right, I missed all that complexity.

How can you deny me what I feel? I really have no choice, certain people in my life constantly twisting any possibility of understanding out of me. I have the ability to analyze deeply but was never allowed to channel it.

 

[Einherjar86]

Fine then. But it certainly wasn't Jesse's fault. Make the DEA the ultimate banal evil. But quit blaming Jesse for all this shit!

 

[Dak]

Fine then. But it certainly wasn't Jesse's fault. Make the DEA the ultimate banal evil. But quit blaming Jesse for all this shit!

I'm not going to go around blaming Jesse for this that and the other. But he was a selfish arrogant prick only concerned about animal pleasures and rolling the shit he got on down hill on the Badgers of his world. Hardly worthy of more sympathy than anyone else on the show.

Honestly at least Gomez was presented as a relatively even keeled sort of guy. Hank was worse than Walt, at least until later in the show, when Walt's ego finally surpassed Hanks. However, Walt did at least do a better job taking out drug dealers and getting dangerous product off the street than Hank did. Irony.

 

[Einherjar86]

I agree that there's an anarchic component of the show that criticizes law and law enforcement. And I also hated Hank more than Walt, until late in the series.

But your assessment of Jesse is batshit crazy (how's that for irony? ), and all it does it craft an image of you that is basically Hank-esque. "Be a man, quit whining, get off your ass, you arrogant little prick." Animal pleasures? Have you even seen the later seasons? No, you haven't. You haven't witnessed Jesse become the most intellectual and figurative foil to Walt's character, the voice that exposes Walt's hypocrisy. It's true that he isn't on the same level of intelligence as Walt; but as far as a voice of ethical reason goes, it's fucking Jesse.

 

[Dak]

But your assessment of Jesse is batshit crazy (how's that for irony? ), and all it does it craft an image of you that is basically Hank-esque. "Be a man, quit whining, get off your ass, you arrogant little prick." Animal pleasures? Have you even seen the later seasons? No, you haven't. You haven't witnessed Jesse become the most intellectual and figurative foil to Walt's character, the voice that exposes Walt's hypocrisy. It's true that he isn't on the same level of intelligence as Walt; but as far as a voice of ethical reason goes, it's fucking Jesse.

I watched everything but like the last 8 episodes of the series I think.

Sure Jesse turns on Walt, but this isn't an ethical rebirth. He didn't suddenly "wise up" to Walt's behavior since he's known what Walt was since the first manipulation. He decided to go let some new manipulators have their way with him. This isn't new behavior. He has done this on and off the entire series. The people he runs to just changes dependent on who is available. His moralizing is pure rationalizing. Jesse cannot pick a side because he has no higher principle than the immediate gratification of Jesse.

 

[Einherjar86]

"His moralizing is pure rationalizing."

This is pure falsity.

 

[Dak]

"His moralizing is pure rationalizing."

This is pure falsity.

Jesse and Walt had an ongoing "love-hate" thing the entire show. Jesse oscillated between Walt and some other power the entire show. Constant behavior pattern. Each time he changed his excuse dependent on the situation. Obviously to turn to the DEA and riding along with Hank he needed a different story than riding along with Mike. I don't buy it.

 

[Einherjar86]

His resistance toward the killing of other characters has nothing to do with rationalizing, and his mental state throughout should be something we question. You most of all, considering your interests. He's basically a PTSD case; and yes, I seriously would compare it to that, so don't try and dismantle that comparison because Jesse has never even seen military conflict or some shit like that.

Jesse had some delusions of grandeur and thought he was the shit early in the show, but then he found himself thrust into something that he had never even conceived of. He was pushed around, shoved around, his ego was ground into the dirt until it was basically a mash of selfless pulp. You're trying to make him out to be far more intentional and in control of his actions than he ever really was.

 

[Dak]

I don't have any significant problem with taking this tack with Jesse except for one problem:

This applies equally to Walter White and Gus Fring. I wouldn't dream of "dismantling" a claim of PTSD in relation to the "trauma" portion, since you can have PTSD from just about *anything*, relative to the person, and Walter and Gus both experienced Trauma equal to Jesse. However, just experiencing a high level of Trauma does not necessarily automatically lead to PTSD. The "D" is for Disorder, and indicates a malfunctioning due to the stress of the trauma. While the Trauma clearly affected all 3, calling the responses "disorders" is much more difficult.

Of the 3, Walt is the most obvious case for PTSD, as his behavior post Cancer diagnosis and pre Cancer diagnosis are radically different, and more specifically destructive both personally and broadly. On the other hand, Gus' trauma was within the career path he had begun and stuck with: Druglord. No significant alteration in behavior. The same goes for Jesse. His behavior patterns stayed consistent throughout the various "traumas" experienced.