Game of Thrones/TV thread

[glduck]

based on the direction it seems to go, i agree.

 

justified s4 just ended. i'll miss it. i would do dark and disturbing things to winona. 

[MrBug708]

Slow but necessary episode in GoT.

[glduck]

yeah i was fine with it. the scene with joffrey and natalie dormer was hilarious. 

 

it was a pretty epic tv week for me, game of thrones, justified ended, and mad men began. 

 

AMC is so weird. mad men and breaking bad are two of my favorite shows, ever. the killing, rubicon, and hell on wheels bored me shitless, and i hate the walking dead with a passion. and all their reality stuff looks like TLC-level trash. but i watch everything they put out just on the possibility that it'll be great, because when they're hitting nothing is close. 

[Orange]

yeah i was fine with it. the scene with joffrey and natalie dormer was hilarious. 

 

it was a pretty epic tv week for me, game of thrones, justified ended, and mad men began. 

 

AMC is so weird. mad men and breaking bad are two of my favorite shows, ever. the killing, rubicon, and hell on wheels bored me shitless, and i hate the walking dead with a passion. and all their reality stuff looks like TLC-level trash. but i watch everything they put out just on the possibility that it'll be great, because when they're hitting nothing is close. 

 

I'm putting your stuff on the lawn.  I'll send your deposit.  You bastard.

[MrBug708]

How do we feel about SyFy's channel? That new show Defiance looks interesting, but I'll defer to you guys

[Mano]

yeah i was fine with it. the scene with joffrey and natalie dormer was hilarious. 

 

it was a pretty epic tv week for me, game of thrones, justified ended, and mad men began. 

 

AMC is so weird. mad men and breaking bad are two of my favorite shows, ever. the killing, rubicon, and hell on wheels bored me shitless, and i hate the walking dead with a passion. and all their reality stuff looks like TLC-level trash. but i watch everything they put out just on the possibility that it'll be great, because when they're hitting nothing is close. 

 

 

Breaking Bad is the best thing currently on television and love Mad Men. I liked Hell on Wheels, but the story was a bit jumbled at times. I really wanted to like Rubicon, but I could tell it was failing after the first few episodes when they had to preface the new episodes with a narrator explaining what had happened in the previous episodes - if you have to explain, you have a problem.

 

I liked the first few episodes of the Walking Dead, especially the first,  but it got old. I realized I had totally lost interest in the second season, and just quit watching.

 

The thing with the AMC shows, even the bad ones, is that they are very well made. Production values, cinematography, acting, overall quality is much higher than what I am used to, and it makes the bad shows watchable, and the good shows incredible.

[MrBug708]

Great, GREAT ending

[glduck]

game of thrones is one of those few shows that doesn't cram every single character into an episode just to get them screen time. no john snow or robb stark last night, no problem. 

[KUGRDON]

I was a late comer to Mad Men, as I am to most tv stuff.  I started watching in about 2010.  Over the last couple of weeks I caught up by watching about 3 1/2 seasons that I missed in the beginning.  A couple of things dawned on me.  Mad Men is, like Sopranos was, a soap opera for men.  I was caught up in the historical narrative and the business aspect of the show.  As I watched those 3 1/2 seasons, I found myself fast forwarding through all of Don's romantic, no, sexual interludes.  The other thing that sunk in was the Forest Gump quality of the historic narrative.  Don meets Nixon, Don meets Rockefeller, Don meets Kennedy, Don meets Martin Luther King, Don meets Cassius Clay, Goldwater, Conrad Hilton, John Lindsay, and on and on.  No, he's not in the frame with them grinning at the camera like Forrest, but all put together the impact is the same.   I think I ruined the show for myself.  Well, I've got three of the new season stacked up on DVR now that I've caught up.  Just not anxious to watch. 

[glduck]

outside of conrad hilton, none of those encounters, if one can even call them encounters since most of them never happened, really mattered, or played into the story. i wouldn't call it 'forest gump'-like it all. something like marilyn monroe's death is mentioned, but it's not like don went out and slept with her. it was just a major event of the 1960s, and we got a genuine reaction out of the characters. 

 

mad men is a character study, and perhaps the best character study a television show has ever done. you seem like you watch mad men like my mom does, she 'remembers the outfits', the events, and the general social tone of the sixties. it's much, much more than a nostalgia trip, though. 

 

[KUGRDON]

I said he wasn't in the frame with the ones I mentioned, you seem as though you ignored that.  Yes, the effect is the same as Forrest Gump because the characters' response to the events and people are not genuine, they are cliche.

 

Yes, soap operas are character studies, though hardly good or revealing.  More like a study in caricatures.  Don is like Luke and Laura and Erica Kane reeling from one personal crisis to the next.

 

As the guy wrote in the New York Times:

 

The plot is cheesy, with a soap-like dependence upon "successive personal crises... adulteries, abortions, premarital pregnancies, interracial affairs, alcoholism and drug addiction," and so on, and it meanders from episode to episode, rarely developing in a determined way. Its central drama revolves around a "rusty" man-with-a-hidden-past storyline; the acting is wooden, with actors "acting the atmosphere" and playing "Sixties people," rather than real human beings. And Mad Men's treatment of 'issues' is also shallow: an issue (gay rights, say, or racism) pops up here or there, like "an advertisement in a magazine," then disappears again, without ever being substantively explored.

 

Your opinion is shared by many if not most.  Or, it may just be that the guys don't want to be caught talking about their "soap."

[Orange]

As usual, Don exists in some kind of bizarre, parallel universe where being a contrarian is rewarded with a blue ribbon.

[glduck]

I said he wasn't in the frame with the ones I mentioned, you seem as though you ignored that.  Yes, the effect is the same as Forrest Gump because the characters' response to the events and people are not genuine, they are cliche.

 

Yes, soap operas are character studies, though hardly good or revealing.  More like a study in caricatures.  Don is like Luke and Laura and Erica Kane reeling from one personal crisis to the next.

 

As the guy wrote in the New York Times:

 

The plot is cheesy, with a soap-like dependence upon "successive personal crises... adulteries, abortions, premarital pregnancies, interracial affairs, alcoholism and drug addiction," and so on, and it meanders from episode to episode, rarely developing in a determined way. Its central drama revolves around a "rusty" man-with-a-hidden-past storyline; the acting is wooden, with actors "acting the atmosphere" and playing "Sixties people," rather than real human beings. And Mad Men's treatment of 'issues' is also shallow: an issue (gay rights, say, or racism) pops up here or there, like "an advertisement in a magazine," then disappears again, without ever being substantively explored.

 

Your opinion is shared by many if not most.  Or, it may just be that the guys don't want to be caught talking about their "soap."

 

 

this whole post merely confirms what i said originally, you watch mad men like most older people do. it's a cute little nostalgia trip, nothing more. if you ever felt like paying attention during a re-watch of the series, you'd realize it's a whole lot deeper than you picked up on at first glance. 

[KUGRDON]

lol, if you've watched Sopranos you've got the characters and plotline for Mad Men.  Weiner was a writer on Sopranos and he is cashing in on that success with Mad Men in an almost formulaic manner right down to the one-legged woman.  Professionally successful but personally dysfunctional male lead with flashbacks to a childhood filled with anxiety, abandonment, rejection and Daddy/Momma attachment issues and traumatic sexual revelations inappropriate to the age of the character which together lead to an emotional outpouring to a female confidant and a series of unfulfilling familial, professional and romantic relationships.  Action supplied by professional dueling with mentors, rivals and once trusted proteges on the job.  Surround with tantalizing sexual sub plots and interludes with lesser characters dealing with race, gender, sexual orientation, religious and political issues.  When Tony looks in a mirror he sees Don and vice versa.   Real deep.     I wonder which of Roger, Pete or Peggy will find themselves tits up in a field, metaphorically speaking.  I'm not saying that its not entertaining at times, soap operas are the most enduring television genre, but its not exactly The Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye when it comes to character studies.  The only genius involved was the marketing of soap operas to males, as well as females, so that it could occupy prime time.

 

It might be an interesting discussion if you put a little meat on your argument.  Seriously.  It might be fun.

 

On a side note, has anyone else noticed a Film Noir/German Expressionist look to the first episodes of this season?  The lighting seems purposefully darker than in prior seasons.

[glduck]

it probably wouldn't be, the subject matter is lost on you. 

[KUGRDON]

Thats what I thought.

[Mano]

Both Sopranos and Mad Men are extremely well done. If you don't think there is a difference between the characters developed in these programs and the 2 demensional characters you find on daytime television, I don't think you are paying attention. The way they contrast Don's life, which is basically a lie, with his proffession, which is selling lies to the american public to feed the lie of the american dream is compelling, at least for me.

 

I can see it not being everyone's cup of tea, and that is fine. To me, Mad Men is probably the second best drama currently on television ( Breaking Bad is #1 - final 8 episodes starting this summer ), while the Soprano's is one of the three best dramas ever, along with Breaking Bad and the Wire.

[KUGRDON]

Now, at least you are adding some new ground.  I'd agree that both Mad Men and Sopranos were well done and very entertaining.  I like your take on the lies, but would comment that the lie of Don's life is consistent with, rather than in contrast with, the lies of the ad business.

 

I don't find any of that inconsistent with the comparison of Tony and Don that I stated above, in fact, you've added a new layer of similarity.  Tony's life is also a lie, with children, neighbors and others around him ignorant of his profession and almost everybody around him ignorant of the depth of depravity and violence he engages in.  Lie might be the wrong word for either of Don or Tony, compartmentalized beyond belief might be a better description.  Don has revealed much of his upbringing on the farm to some of those around him, the darkest and least known secret being the events in Korea.

[glduck]

Now, at least you are adding some new ground.  I'd agree that both Mad Men and Sopranos were well done and very entertaining.  I like your take on the lies, but would comment that the lie of Don's life is consistent with, rather than in contrast with, the lies of the ad business.

 

I don't find any of that inconsistent with the comparison of Tony and Don that I stated above, in fact, you've added a new layer of similarity.  Tony's life is also a lie, with children, neighbors and others around him ignorant of his profession.  Lie might be the wrong word for either of Don or Tony, compartmentalized beyond belief might be a better description.  Don has revealed much of his upbringing on the farm to some of those around him, the darkest and least known secret being the events in Korea.

 

 

have you ever seen the sopranos?

 

linking don draper and tony soprano by their "lies" is lazy. if i were an english lit professor i'd stop reading your paper right there and just give you a C as to not waste any more of my time. tony wasn't defined by his lies, he was defined by the urgency and desperation he felt as his world was slipping farther and farther away from him. if you want to link the two together, it's not hard to see don is a product of unfamiliarity with his own surroundings. he's a clean cut, unflinching, throwback prick in an era where the rest of the world is becoming increasingly informal and stoned out of its goddamn mind. he both does and does not 'get' the sixties at all. he refuses to accept most of the new social norms, but he clearly doesn't want what even he would consider normal, as we saw for three seasons until his marriage to betty finally imploded, so in turn he both does and does not embody exactly what he's rebelling against.

 

don draper and tony soprano are/were wounded animals who lash out in very different ways. what they do ("lying" or, you know, all the other stuff) isn't half as layered or interesting as why they do it. 

[Mano]

Contrast was a poor choice of words, I should have said mirror. And yes, there is a similar theme in the Sopranos, in that corruption permeates throughout Tony's life, his work and his relationships. The fact that there are some similar themes in the two programs does not make them bad, nor is it surprising. There are many unique and interesting characters in both programs. The events of the time are used as a device in Mad Men, but the characters situations and behaviors are still interesting and relevant.