Call me a retard...

[idtaminger]

Lol. That is an accomplishment. Congratulations, but don't think you'll be wearing that victory crown for long. I am the queen of overly superfluously verbose posting.

Yes, I can see you've managed to blow my puny few paragraphs straight of the water. Lol.

I don't think the cynical, seriously darkness is an issue. Because there have been plenty of cynical, dark shows on tv. Buffy and Angel for one. Felicity. Dawson's Creek to some extent. X-Files anyone? My So-Called Life (although that only lasted a season). Gilmore Girls, hello! Although that is somewhat less dark, but a good mix of cynical optimism if there ever was such a thing. And then there are newer shows, Alias, Lost, Desperate Housewives, House M.D., Grey's Anatomy, Bones. I think a lot of shows lately have become darker. But then again, I never watched Season 1, so it might be very different.

I think Season 1 was definitely more depressing. In S2 Veronica at least had friends, all friends she made, mind you, throughout the course of S1. So for a long time the only friend she had was Wallace, and then you had the Logan abuse revelation and the potential incestuousness plus all the Lilly baggage, all of which packed a lot more emotional wallop. Plus the whole school hated her guts, she had Clarence Weideman on her ass, *and* she had major mommy issues. Oh, and let's not forget the whole rape drama.

And while lots of shows are dark, I think w/ VM being a essentially high school show, set in a town of the Laguna Beach vein, the darkness doesn't quite mesh well w/ the "intended" demographic. You watch a HS show, frankly, you're expecting One Tree Hill, not noir. And even if you're selling "Nancy Drew in CA!", Nancy Drew never had this much shit to deal w/, I'm sure.

On the other hand, if you watch a show about Vampires, you're not expecting happy-cheery. You watch a show about a secret agent, you expect to see manipulation and shadiness. Crime procedural, you expect to watch rotting corpses and dead pple. Felicity was sooo not dark. Same w/ lots of the other shows too, but a show by show breakdown would be unnecessary. Still, Gilmore Girls, dark? Compared to VM it's about as threatening as a Care Bear.

And speaking of House, he is pretty cynical, but I don't think the show's dark at all. And this season he's really mellowed. He's not as fun now that his leg's better. When he was miserable his wisecracking had a lot more bite.

Anyway, my real point is - the first time I watched it, I was just like, OMG, Pescado as a doctor! The similarities are uncanny, no?

[syberspunk]

Yes, I can see you've managed to blow my puny few paragraphs straight of the water. Lol.

* syberspunk SMASH PUNY POSTS!!!! *SMASH*

Hehe

I think Season 1 was definitely more depressing. In S2 Veronica at least had friends, all friends she made, mind you, throughout the course of S1. So for a long time the only friend she had was Wallace, and then you had the Logan abuse revelation and the potential incestuousness plus all the Lilly baggage, all of which packed a lot more emotional wallop. Plus the whole school hated her guts, she had Clarence Weideman on her ass, *and* she had major mommy issues. Oh, and let's not forget the whole rape drama.

Ahh... see, I missed that. I'll definitely have to watch that season then.

And while lots of shows are dark, I think w/ VM being a essentially high school show, set in a town of the Laguna Beach vein, the darkness doesn't quite mesh well w/ the "intended" demographic. You watch a HS show, frankly, you're expecting One Tree Hill, not noir. And even if you're selling "Nancy Drew in CA!", Nancy Drew never had this much shit to deal w/, I'm sure.

On the other hand, if you watch a show about Vampires, you're not expecting happy-cheery. You watch a show about a secret agent, you expect to see manipulation and shadiness. Crime procedural, you expect to watch rotting corpses and dead pple. Felicity was sooo not dark. Same w/ lots of the other shows too, but a show by show breakdown would be unnecessary. Still, Gilmore Girls, dark? Compared to VM it's about as threatening as a Care Bear.

Yeah, GG isn't really dark, but it's pretty heavy on sarcasm and cynicism at times. Heh. It isn't your average WB show. Felicity wasn't really dark either, but it had shades of grey and again, with the sarcasm and cynicism. I mean, we have like very jaded characters here. I think J.J. Abrams kinda thrives upon that in his characters.

And speaking of House, he is pretty cynical, but I don't think the show's dark at all. And this season he's really mellowed. He's not as fun now that his leg's better. When he was miserable his wisecracking had a lot more bite.

Anyway, my real point is - the first time I watched it, I was just like, OMG, Pescado as a doctor! The similarities are uncanny, no?

Oh yeah, Lol. Dr. Pescado indeed. Hugh Laurie is fanfuckingtastic. He's mellowed a little, but do you mean season 3? I think that's just because of his leg issues and what happened so far with his first case. But I'm sure he'll continue to be his grumpy, cynical self. As for dark... I think the show can be pretty dark. The way he is about himself, and the way Cameron is about her issues with only like being able to be in a relationship where she feels like she's saving someone. That's kinda all kinds of darkly fucked upness, if you ask me. And last season, the whole thing between House and his ex-wife (Sela Ward). Just because things aren't as explicitly open, doesn't mean dark things aren't happen underneath, psychologically and what not. House's whole cynical attitude alone is pretty dark and morbid if you ask me. The way he takes on things super insane cases, and the god-like ego he gets from almost magically pulling a solution out of his ass all the time. The way he gets off on that, it's pretty dark to me. I think he's still pretty miserable. It's very early in the season.

Oh... and speaking of dark and cynical, how could I even forget Arrested Development. That show is just all kinds of super f'ed upness. Lol. Especially the last season, with so many twists and turns and outlandish stuff. Justine Bateman guesting, and the final two episodes. Just totally sick and wacky and smart and wickedly funny and I loved every last minute of it!

Ste

[KittKitt]

I have little to add here, since I know very little about cloning and modifying objects (as per the OP), and even less about the popular crap on TV these days (I loathe most TV with a fervor that borders very close to outright hatred), but ...

[...]
I am the queen of overly superfluously verbose posting.
[...]

As you may have gathered by some of my postings (in other threads obviously), you two may have to deal with a third contender for that title pretty soon.  I've been deliberately truncating my posts a bit since I've only just started actually posting here and all, but once I get going, and if the topic is something I have much interest and/or knowledge of, whew...  Better get that printer handy.  Some of my posts (on other boards in other lands) have been required by the management to include "Warning!  Anyone who doesn't have unlimited internet access is strongly advised to read this OFFLINE!" 

Heh.  Reminds me of the 'good old days' on the BBS's actually.  Used to use some handy little offline reader that would pack up all new message board postings and you could fiddle around and reply to 'em at your leisure before uploading your little packet.  BlueLine message reader-ma-thingy I think it was.  Geesh.. been ages. 

-Kitt

[KevinTMC]

Heh.  Reminds me of the 'good old days' on the BBS's actually.  Used to use some handy little offline reader that would pack up all new message board postings and you could fiddle around and reply to 'em at your leisure before uploading your little packet.  BlueLine message reader-ma-thingy I think it was.  Geesh.. been ages. 

Ahh...now that takes me back.

For me, it was CompuServe Information Manager running on my Mac LC III that performed that function. A real money (and busy-phone-line) saver. With my speedy 9600 bps modem, CIM could update a whole bunch of threads in very little time.

I had a lot of fun in religion and politics forums on good old CI$ back in the day. I don't suppose those forums are archived anywhere, since that service in its classic form hasn't existed for years now.

[idtaminger]

Just because things aren't as explicitly open, doesn't mean dark things aren't happen underneath, psychologically and what not. House's whole cynical attitude alone is pretty dark and morbid if you ask me.

Well yeah, that's just it. It's not as in your face, so it's not as off-putting, so more pple tune in to watch in the first place, hench higher ratings.

Oh, and Arrested Development was good. I must say though, that I didn't get into that one until towards the very end either. For some reason, it was all pretty boring when I caught snippets, until the one time I managed to catch a full episode (the Sadaam Hussein one? LOL. So weird), and then I loved it.

That's the problem w/ these shows. They're good, but they require invested attention. Just a few glances aren't enough to hook you. And that's both their appeal and their downfall.

I have little to add here, since I know very little about cloning and modifying objects (as per the OP), and even less about the popular crap on TV these days (I loathe most TV with a fervor that borders very close to outright hatred), but ...

Ah, that's b/c you obviously haven't caught Veronica Mars. Watch! Get our ratings up!

[KevinTMC]

That's the problem w/ these shows. They're good, but they require invested attention. Just a few glances aren't enough to hook you. And that's both their appeal and their downfall.

Mark Steyn was talking about this very thing in his Aaron Spelling obit in the September Atlantic Monthly. The second graf from his piece:

Indeed, the more "classic" your show, the more ephemeral it is. Getting in to Ovid or Gregorian chant is a piece of cake next to getting in to thirtysomething 15 years on. Conceivably, one might find oneself in a motel room unable to sleep at four in the morning and surfing the channels come across St Elsewhere. But they made 137 episodes of complex multiple interrelated plotlines all looping back to Episode One: if you've never seen it before and you stumble on Episode 43, who the hell are all these people and what are they on about? By comparison, if you happen to catch, say, an episode of Naked City from the late Fifties, you might not know who the detectives are or recognize Billy May's wailing theme tune and the whole monochrome thing might be a bit of a downer, but you could still pass a pleasant hour with a self-contained one-hour cop drama. The "better" TV got at its art (in the critically-acclaimed best-thing-since-Middlemarch sense) the more transient it became. I doubt The Sopranos will be an exception to this rule. Ninety per cent of all the people who'll ever be into it are already into it. That's not true of Lucia di Lammermoor or "My Funny Valentine".

I'm much more bullish on contemporary "classic tv" than Steyn or Terry Teachout, mostly because DVD sets are now so widespread. Blasting through the set containing the miniseries plus season one of the new Battlestar Galactica was immersive, addictive, a great ride, and did not require me to have tuned in every week at the same time when it first aired. (Then the miracle of TiVo let me get caught up with season two in similar fashion.)

I wonder how much of the new direction in dramatic television series would have been possible in the US without TiVo and DVD sets. (Though complex plotlines and long story arcs were hardly unknown in British television in earlier years...and there was the Dallas moment of prime-time soaps here in the US too...)

[SaraMK]

WTF?

[dusty]

You ignored the necromancy warning guy for that?

[SaraMK]

You ignored the necromancy warning guy for that?

Aw, you missed the funny.

Some idiot came out of lurkdom (seriously, it was his 1st post) just to say he'd gotten the 4th season of Buffy.

[dusty]

Oh, no, my reply was directed at Ashes (?) but I neglected to quote. 

[SaraMK]

I know, I was kicking myself when I saw the post had been deleted. Should have quoted. It was funny.

[Venusy]

I wish I hadn't locked the thread after the post had been deleted (when I clicked on the lock button it was still there).