The Dudeism Forum

For me it is "Grey's Anatomy".
Oh my God! My wife loves it and she'll sit for hours and watch episodes on Hulu or Netflix.

Personally I find it to be an unbelievably vacant, pool of luke warn Yuppie narcissism.
Basically this generations version of a soap opera.
It makes the show Friends look positively soulful.
What complete white bread, bland self absorbed wankery!

But then she put up with me watching 4 hours of Top Gear this morning.
Even though Clarkson is an absolute twit.

Where to start, yes all the CSI variants, House (same thing each week he's a knob and he's always right), this weeks top model (Australia, UK, USA, who cares), Big Brother (shite in every variety), anything which is just a camera following some bunch of twats around (I'm a teenage drug addict dole cheating sex addict type thing).

OK, I may be draconian about this, but the worse show on TV? Simple....every piece of shit on cable in damn near every country on planet earth! 99.99999% of the puke run on cable TV is absolute piles of bottled fermented sewage manufactured for zombies!


....with exception of The Big Bang Theory, of course

I liked Deadwood...but that was HBO...and it's over.
Breaking Bad is good...I guess that's about it for TV.
Oooh...Weeds...I like Weeds...that's coming out on dvd in Feb.
Everything else pretty much sucks....bunch of assholes.

Quote from: DigitalBuddha on January 21, 2012, 05:40:00 PM
OK, I may be draconian about this, but the worse show on TV? Simple....every piece of shit on cable in damn near every country on planet earth! 99.99999% of the puke run on cable TV is absolute piles of bottled fermented sewage manufactured for zombies!


....with exception of The Big Bang Theory, of course

Not too sure what you're saying there DB. Why don't you get off the fence and clarify your position!

Quote from: cckeiser on January 21, 2012, 05:49:29 PM
I liked Deadwood...but that was HBO...and it's over.
Breaking Bad is good...I guess that's about it for TV.
Oooh...Weeds...I like Weeds...that's coming out on dvd in Feb.
Everything else pretty much sucks....bunch of assholes.

I like your tack on this problem CC sod trying to list what you don't like, the easier list is what you do like.

Quote from: DigitalBuddha on January 21, 2012, 05:40:00 PM
OK, I may be draconian about this, but the worse show on TV? Simple....every piece of shit on cable in damn near every country on planet earth! 99.99999% of the puke run on cable TV is absolute piles of bottled fermented sewage manufactured for zombies!
....with exception of The Big Bang Theory, of course

I have to agree with Caesar here DB if your going to be none committal why even bother posting ().

(and can't disagree at all).

And I do have to add this Orwell vs Huxley:


or in picture form for the hard of thinking (no insult meant specifically there but if the hat fits )


It's the classic early experiments where they wired rats up with electrodes to the pleasure centers of their brains. then attached the wires to a switch in the rats cage. Given the choice of two levers, one for a food dispenser, one to stimulate the pleasure center, the rats of course all starved to death, but all died with a smile on their faces.

Quote from: meekon5 on January 21, 2012, 06:09:40 PM

Quote from: cckeiser on January 21, 2012, 05:49:29 PM
I liked Deadwood...but that was HBO...and it's over.
Breaking Bad is good...I guess that's about it for TV.
Oooh...Weeds...I like Weeds...that's coming out on dvd in Feb.
Everything else pretty much sucks....bunch of assholes.

I like your tack on this problem CC sod trying to list what you don't like, the easier list is what you do like.

Quote from: DigitalBuddha on January 21, 2012, 05:40:00 PM
OK, I may be draconian about this, but the worse show on TV? Simple....every piece of shit on cable in damn near every country on planet earth! 99.99999% of the puke run on cable TV is absolute piles of bottled fermented sewage manufactured for zombies!
....with exception of The Big Bang Theory, of course

I have to agree with Caesar here DB if your going to be none committal why even bother posting ().

And this is my point, dudes; I did commit, witness "....with exception of The Big Bang Theory, of course"

OK then, I'll give you notes.......

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.

  - Alfred Hitchcock

Worse show? All reality TV

@meekon5 That Orwell / Huxley chart is very interesting. The powers that be are using both sides and both strategies in my estimation (and a lot more). As a side note; I have read both books (Brave New World and 1984) and I wish they would be required reading for everyone, at least while in high school.

I've read and re-read them countless times...they scare me more now than when I first opened them!

HBO does some good stuff. Deadwood was brilliant.
FX now has some good stuff. Justified season opener was real great.
And there are some reality shows that I do watch.
Gold Rush, Moonshiners, Weed Wars and Full Throttle Saloon for a few.
Stuff like Big Brother and some of the MTV crap doesn't even merit mention.
It is a complete waste of electricity.

Sadly I do like some of the shows about people doing dumb stuff.
Jackass, Ridiculousness, Tosh O.
But I feel bad about liking them. That has to count for something.

When it comes to Grey's Anatomy there is something so ..... intellectually disgusting about it.
Friends had the same effect. It's kind of difficult to put into words.
A specific type of phony "aren't we all such a wonderful complex quirky bunch" when they
really are just phonies.

Quote from: Caesar dude on January 21, 2012, 07:04:12 PM
I've read and re-read them countless times...they scare me more now than when I first opened them!

Fuckin' eh!

Quote from: BikerDude on January 21, 2012, 07:16:30 PM
HBO does some good stuff. Deadwood was brilliant.
FX now has some good stuff. Justified season opener was real great.
And there are some reality shows that I do watch.
Gold Rush, Moonshiners, Weed Wars and Full Throttle Saloon for a few.
Stuff like Big Brother and some of the MTV crap doesn't even merit mention.
It is a complete waste of electricity.

Sadly I do like some of the shows about people doing dumb stuff.
Jackass, Ridiculousness, Tosh O.
But I feel bad about liking them. That has to count for something.

When it comes to Grey's Anatomy there is something so ..... intellectually disgusting about it.
Friends had the same effect. It's kind of difficult to put into words.
A specific type of phony "aren't we all such a wonderful complex quirky bunch" when they
really are just phonies.

HBO has it's moments, but like many media corporations, the bottom line is the bottom line. I was amazed at the cheap shot they took when producing Game of Thrones, cheap in the sense of including worthless porno scenes just to appease the public's baser instincts. The sex scenes don't necessarily bother me, it was the fact that they added absolutely nothing to an already interesting story line and were there ONLY to attract interest. The story line was a great epic and didn't need the cheap shot sex scenes. If I wanted to watch cheap porno, there is plenty of that around. J.R.R.Tolkien didn't need to depict shots of some blond strumpet getting her ass banged by a mindless grunting loath to write a good story. IMHO.



Grey's Anatomy? Yup, I agree...boring yuppy slop.

IMDO, these are great:

Flight of the Conchords
Spaced
Breaking Bad
Parks and Recreation
The Mighty Boosh
Archer
Freaks and Geeks
The Larry Sanders Show
The Sarah Silverman Program
Dexter
The Riches
Peep Show
The Office (UK version)

Personally, I enjoy good TV series more than most movies. Though the worst of them (and yes, Grey's Anatomy is in that list) are brain poison, they are still not as toxic as most of the cookie-cutter car chase by the numbers shallow Hollywood films out there. Although the commercials you're forced to watch more than close that gap. One must download, or netflix them to avoid damaging the frontal lobe.

However, I think the best of them (such as those I've listed above) border on timeless and provocative literature with long, sweeping character arcs and the depth and complexity of great comic novels. Again, IMDO of course. I prefer the comedies as well as they're implicitly more creative than dramas and there are so many more directions they can take.

In regards to this topic, though, I'd say that any number of half hour situation comedies are worse than Grey's Anatomy. Shows like "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Home Improvement" or the like. I don't even know any of the new ones. They are written by committees of highly paid robots. At the very least you might learn a bit about medicine by watching Grey's Anatomy.

oops, forgot a few goodies:

Nathan Barley
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Black Adder
Six Feet Under (grows on you if you stick with it)
30 Rock
Fawlty Towers
Damages
The Wire
....

Terrible:
Desperate Housewives (eviler than Grey's Anatomy)
Nearly every single crime or legal drama, including Bones, CSI, Boston Legal, etc. All mindless, numbing, safe and repetitive.