Television Entertainment: What's your poison?

[jrs]

Six Feet Under  It's long over, but I'm thinking of knuckling under and buying it on DVD.
Greg the Bunny  I was barely able to catch the aired episodes before it was pulled.  We do own the one season on DVD and watch it (and inflict it on others) regularly.
The Shield  Gobbled up the first 4 seasons on borrowed DVDs while the 5th season was airing, now I'll have to wait to watch season 5.
Rome  I was surprised how quickly I got sucked into this show; I can't wait for the next season.
Scrubs  Current tv fare.
Father Ted  Recently finished watching this (again on borrowed DVDs).
Law & Order  Usually as re-runs.
Project Runway  Egad! I can't believe I just admitted that I watch a reality show.

Julie

For once I'm able to edit for my wretched spelling!

[Ron Edwards]

I filter-feed and wait for my friends to find the good stuff, then rent or buy DVDs. So some of these are kind of old, some aren't.

Cowboy Bebop
Foyle's War
The Forsyte Saga
The Shield
MI-5 (Spooks)
Chef
Father Ted
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries

As you can see, I like my episodes very punchy, no matter whether they're short or long. Firefly and Deadwood are waaaaay too slow, per episode and per storyline, for me to invest an hour per unit "event."

Best, Ron

[Alex F]

Ron, if you like Father Ted then Black Books may appeal, as they share a co-writer. Good sumamry of the show here - link

[Bryan Hansel]

We don't get cable and didn't want to spend the money for Direct TV, so we get PBS, NBC, CBS, ABC.  The shows we (SO and I) watch are:

Trump
My Name is Earl
The Office
Boston Legal
Nova
Sienfeld

Shows I love that Ilena doesn't:

McLaughlin Group
Smallville reruns late night
SG-1 reruns late night

On DVD:

Northern Exposure !!!!!
Clerks the cartoon

I'm very jealous about everyone that has seen the new Dr. Who.  I love the old ones and have probably seen 80 to 90% of all the old episodes, and I really want to see the new episodes.  Hopefully, they haven't screwed it up.

[Warren]

My wife & I are huge CSI fans (but not Miami; David Caruso makes me want to punch the TV). Other notables stuff:

* Battlestar Galactica
* Lost
* Deperate Housewives
* Medium
* 24
* Deadwood
* My Name is Earl

We also enjoyed Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Spaced & Family Guy when they were on too.

[Per Fischer]

Invader Zim
Six Feet Under
Oz
Riget (The Kingdom)
The Crow Road
Firefly

And I have to reconsider The Shield since Ron a.o. are recommending it so strongl :)
(but Spooks? I don't get it.)

Per

[talysman]

I have no cable (and no cellphone! I know what you're thinking!) And because of interference, barely any broadcast reception, so some of the tv I watch is borrowed: new Dr Who and Battlestar Galactica are the best. Who is better, and not just because I'm an old Who fan; it just has a really powerful consistence message, whereas sometimes BSG becomes "who can we kill/threaten/pair up for sex next?" especially in the middle of the second season, which started to piss me off. (The last couple BSGs redeemed it for me, though.)

I've been watching Smallville, another show that started to piss me off, although it's starting to look promising again. I'm not really much of a comic fan and was never that into Superman, but I like the reimagining of the mythos here, until they started becoming lazy.

I've been watching Supernatural from the get-go, but it's just entertainment right now. I can't say there's anything that special about it; hell, they keep changing the characterization. And really, there needed to be two more regular characters so that they could kill one.

Even though I'm not normally into relationship dramedy, I've been watching Related and Gilmore Girls regularly now. Funny, this started *after* I wrote Darling Grove. I actually tried to watch Gilmore Girls one or two times over the past couple years and couldn't get it, but now I'm enjoying it.

[Judd]

The Wire: My favorite television show of all time and I don't even really like cop shows.

Sopranos:  It thas its ups and downs but all in all, a great show.

Deadwood:  I really loved and own the first season but couldn't get into what I saw of the second season. 

Veronica Mars:  Fun, not great but great fun, if that makes sense.

BSG:  I get my TV fix from DVD's, so I haven't seen the last bits of the most recent season but I'm sold on this show.  It stands as my favorite sci-fi show ever at this point.

Six Feet Under:  I only saw the first two seasons but would like to continue.  I thought it was a classy show, particularly the first season.

[Mike Holmes]

HBO shows. They are allowed to be artistic, and not cater to the least common denominator. And, lo, it sells. This is about the most healthy thing I've seen I've seen in our culture in past memory. I mean Six Feet Under is about death in a completely unadulterated way. That's supposed to be one of the things you stay away from in TV like the plague.

The difference between Ron's preferences in RPGs and mine can be summed up by the fact that I love Deadwood, and he finds it too slow. I just can't get enough of watching the language roll on by. Being brain damaged and all. There's a plot to Deadwood? Darned if I can figure out what it is. But it sure is purty.

I've watched a lot of Dr. Who. For the moment, I'm watching to see if the new show captures the magic of the old one. Right now, I have this feeling that the low budget effects are an homage to the original show - but that would be missing the point. Then at times they do turn on the new effects, and concentrate on fun twists. So I have hope for it. Just not sure you can make lightning, mostly you just have to wait for it to strike. Nostalgia alone certainly won't cut it.

Mike

[Meguey]

LOST, totally.
We watched Season 1 on DVD, then, thanks to the glory of the internet, downloaded this season. Sun, Jin and Mr. Eko are my favorites.

House was good on DVD, I'll rent the next season too.
Veronica Mars, ditto.
The Job is really funny, and Arrested Development is hilarious!
Coupling is a Brit-com that is a must-see, IMO.

[joshua neff]

I've watched a lot of Dr. Who. For the moment, I'm watching to see if the new show captures the magic of the old one. Right now, I have this feeling that the low budget effects are an homage to the original show - but that would be missing the point. Then at times they do turn on the new effects, and concentrate on fun twists. So I have hope for it. Just not sure you can make lightning, mostly you just have to wait for it to strike. Nostalgia alone certainly won't cut it.

I've got this feeling you just made a really significant comment about gaming in established settings (Middle-earth, Star Wars, etc), but this isn't really the thread to continue on that train of thought.

[Judd]

LOST, totally.

I forgot Lost on my list.  I was skeptical because its network TV but the show grabbed me by the throat, no doubt.

[talysman]

I've watched a lot of Dr. Who. For the moment, I'm watching to see if the new show captures the magic of the old one. Right now, I have this feeling that the low budget effects are an homage to the original show - but that would be missing the point. Then at times they do turn on the new effects, and concentrate on fun twists. So I have hope for it. Just not sure you can make lightning, mostly you just have to wait for it to strike. Nostalgia alone certainly won't cut it.

I take it you've just started the 2005 series.

The first three episodes of the 2005 Dr Who are competent, but probably nothing special. The first two-parter (episodes 4 and 5) are about the same, but there are a few special moments... and one short, fantastic speech where the Doctor explains what he's all about and puts all the conflicts into a meaningful context (and incidentally marks the difference between Dr Who and other standard sci-fi series.)

Episode 6 is powerful. So is episode 8. And it just keeps getting better from there.

[Walt Freitag]

I was interested in Lost for much of the first season. But then it became obvious that they're just making the plot up as they go along. It's no-myth TV writing. Real easy to recognize, when you've done the same thing yourself as a GM. At that point I lost interest in the plot per se -- I no longer care about the characters'  fates or whether I can spot the clues and figure out what's "really" going on. But I remain interested on the technical level, just catching an episode from time to time to see how they're keeping the plot going. (Which they can do indefinitely, just don't expect everything -- or much of anything -- to be resolved coherently. Remember X-Files?)

I'll fess to reality shows in which the contestants are doing something skillful: Top Chef, Project Runway, even The Biggest Loser. (I miss Junkyard Wars.) The Apprentice should fall into that category but the social evil of it is just too painful to watch. I'd watch America's Next Top Torturer or Project Hooker if someone were to produce them, but The Apprentice fails my morality filter.

Monk
House
Turner Classic Movies

- Walt

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Most of what I like is not popular:
24
Joey (RIP)
My Name is Earl
Teen Titans
Simpsons (OK, that's popular enough)
Next Food Network Star
Ellen DeGeneres
Venture Brothers
FarScape
Family Guy