Things that keep good shows from being great

TELEVISION Television Miscellany
1

I like Modern Family a lot. I think it should be retired from winning so many Emmy’s by now, but I almost always concede that they were earned.

However…

The portrayal of Cameron and Mitchell pisses me off. While it’s progressive enough to earn some kudos, the humor sometimes (enough times to be bothersome) relies on gay stereotypes like shrieking and for a deeply committed couple who have been together for years, it’s a disgrace that they never ever kiss, let alone touch each other. How often do they even hug? I can understand this for a season or so when they were testing the waters of the show and they had a young Lily to adopt and raise, but it got massively popular fast and has been on for four seasons. Time for that couple to show that they’re more than roommates like Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie and are very fond of each other and raising a kid. This is a world that embraced Glee, which has two very popular and usually well written gay characters and talks about sensitive gay issues on a regular basis.

Progressive enough to get nodding approval from liberals and sane republicans (and before anyone makes a stupid and obvious joke, my dad is pretty conservative and campaigned and voted against Prop 8. He’s a cool and very kind guy), but not too “Icky” for social conservatives and fly-over country.

Also, none of the women work, I can totally see Claire giving up her job when the kids were little, but stay at home now? No way. Gloria is funny and is usually written as a strong woman who survived for years as a single mom, but also exists to be sexy and have a funny accent and be a fiery Latina. It’s a really conservative show that people think is progressive.

Edit: I know they had a kiss in The Kiss, but it was background and a blink and miss it thing

2

While it’s a really good show, I think what keeps BOARDWALK EMPIRE from being great is that it often has no idea what to do with their women characters.

3

The Walking Dead is good, in a disposable way. I mean, who doesn’t love “end of the world” zombie action and such…?

The show’s writing is all over the map though. These are good actors, if they’re given good material to work with. The “Nebraska” episode last season, which culminated in a great verbal showdown in a bar, was riveting, as has been a good number of the episodes since.

However, it never seems as though the show can sustain any level of greatness. The writing dips back into cliches and silliness, and then it’ll surprise you again with a well-thought out character/situation.

Then, back down again…

I don’t know if it’s the constant turnover of the showrunners, or (creator) Kirkman’s insistence on getting his comic book vision to the screen, but the inconsistency in the writing keeps the show from going to that next level, the one that we’re teased with from time to time.

4

I think the easy answer to this thread is “Jon Lovitz”.

5

Torchwood. I like the idea of an adult Dr Who and with more Capt Jack. What I mean about adult is more mature, as oppossed to Torchwood, which meant swearing and shagging. That and the characters sucked. Tosh and Ihanto where boring and Owen was a dick. The show had none of the charm of Dr Who.

6

You’ve summed up the key distinction that turned me off of Torchwood after the first season. Their idea of “mature” produced the most immature and unlikeable characters. It felt so dumbed down. By comparison, Doctor Who, which is regarded as a more kid-friendly/family affair, still felt way more mature with its storylines and characters than Torchwood, by far.

I’ve heard that the later seasons of Torchwood are actually good. In my thinking, they could only go up after the first campaign.

7

Torchwood: Children Of Earth is fucking grand. It’s a shame that every other episode is nigh-unwatchable.

8

Torchwood has always been hit and miss for me. A Unit series would have been waaay better.

9

Absolutely-- with Capaldi responsible for much of that.

I’m not a big Who fan, I watch it with my wife now and again. She showed me the first season of Torchwood before I’d ever seen the character of Jack Harkness in a Who episode, and when I finally did, I wondered what the fuck had happened to that sly interstellar smartass? The Torchwood version of the character broods worse than Angel, to far less point, and the dourness of the proceedings is offputting (I do recall enjoying an episode here or there, but gave up on the most recent series about halfway in).

The inevitable ossification of the formula is what got me to drop Burn Notice a few seasons back, but when the formula was fresh, it was fantastically entertaining.

10

I am going to submit Burn Notice. I don’t have a justification for its inclusion yet; as I am not sure there’s a great show there (or ever was). I just want to be part of the conversation. I desire acceptance.

In all seriousness, I rarely ever consider a show great. I watch a bunch of TV - more than I should, and I only consider the currently running; Justified, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and Mad Men to be truly great, transcendent television. Everything else is just good, and I am fine with that. I am not even sure it would be possible to make the rest great. I really, really like shows like Top Gear, Parks and Rec or Fringe, but to me, they aren’t great. Good topic though, and perhaps something I would change my opinion on after thinking it over some more.

11

The use of “Flagpole Sitta” over the opening and closing credits on Peep Show significantly diminishes my enjoyment of an otherwise terrific show. I wish I were joking, but I’m not.

12

You mean you don’t love when he sings “PARANOIA PARANOIA, EVERBODY’S COMIN’ TO GET MEEEE!”

God, I hate theat fucking song.

13

Script obligations of 20 or more per season have dulled my appreciation for countless shows.

14

Community.

This show has had moments of pure genius, episodes where it was one of the funniest, most creative sitcoms ever made. However, even during its peak, I’ve always found it too inconsistent, with greatness followed by episodes that were just okay. With or without Dan Harmon, I’ve never found this show consistently funny enough to hold in as high esteem as others.

15

Brave man for saying this. I think the first two seasons are great and the third season really goes up its own ass. I swear, I might break the TV if I see Inspector Space-Time or the Imaginarium again.

16

I’m kind of in the same boat. From “Advanced Criminal Law” all the way through the end of the second season, I think the show is sheer genius. The third season certainly has its fair share of highlights (“Remedial Chaos Theory”, “Pillows and Blankets”, “Basic Lupine Urology”), but a lot of the time it just feels like they’re trying too hard. I still enjoyed most of season 3, but it didn’t connect with me quite like the first two seasons did.

17

I prefer the third to the first. I think the second season is definitely the best, but the first season had at least five or six “we’re still trying to figure this out” episodes and a few flat ones later in the season where they still hadn’t figured out the strengths of the show completely. looking over the first season, while there’s a few extremely high highlights, and a few other quite good episodes, there’s also close to half the season that a fairly week episode partially redeemed by a single good scene.

18

The Critic would like to have a word with you, sirrah.

19

Yep, Community is all over the map. The truly brilliant episodes more than make up for the pandering geek stuff and the cartoonish, high-pitched weirdness. Honestly, as much as everyone has a problem with Chang, I feel like the Dean is the one character they could ditch that would really help drag things back to planet Earth. And I like Jim Rash, but the schtick they’ve found for him is pretty lousy to me–he can sometimes startle a laugh out of me through sheer enthusiasm and weirdness, but mostly it feels kind of desperate. That style of “wackiness” is what tends to derail the show for me, though it’s a fine line–“Remedial Chaos Theory” is arguably over-the-top but it’s brilliant, and there are some other off-the-wall bits that have worked terrifically, like “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design”. Usually, though, the show is better served by not flying off into cartoon-land. I think that’s what lets them rationalize some of the other issues, like the constant reset buttons on character development, so they’d be better off without it.

At the risk of courting blasphemy, I’ve had some problems with Game of Thrones, and I think it boils down to the fact that they’re mostly treating the story as a series of 10-hour movies rather than a TV series. The reason “Blackwater” worked so well was that it was written as a discrete episode–by Martin himself, no less. Ironic that he’s less obsessed with capturing the structure of the novels than Benioff and Weiss. I actually think they should take that further, devote most of an episode to a single character or location when possible, with the others just getting a scene or two, and only the occasional “moving the pieces into position” episode (like the premieres and finales). For instance (SPOILERS FROM THE PAST SEASON FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET):

Dany’s plotline last season was a bit of a mess, and it seemed to be mostly because they wanted to move her story along inch by inch over the course of 10 episodes. I think they should have ditched some of the pointless intrigue and MY DRAGONS stuff and devoted most of an episode–maybe the one right before “Blackwater”–to the dragon-napping and the House of the Undying. That would have given them way more room to have fun with it and focus everything about that storyline instead of having Dany flail around ineffectively for weeks. Likewise, parts of Jon Snow’s storyline felt padded. Arya’s storyline was great, but the key beats–the “Ghost of Harrenhal”, three wishes bit–felt like the structure of a single episode as well.

It might end up as a slightly odd structure, but the show has an odd structure anyway.

I’d also like to see less of the characters mindlessly threatening each other and reciting exposition at each other and more careful characterization and atmosphere. Let some stuff remain unsaid. In particular, Dany annoyed a lot of people last year with her pointless bluster, and Littlefinger came off as a douche rather than a master manipulator. I think part of the problem here is Benioff and Weiss writing almost every episode themselves–I’d like to see them bring in other writers, get Espenson to do more, etc. There’s a definite sense that D&D are scrambling to pack everything in, plot-wise, and don’t always have time to polish the dialogue as much as they should.

20

A[quote name=“Chris Spider” url=“/community/t/146814/things-that-keep-good-shows-from-being-great#post_3470533”]
The Critic would like to have a word with you, sirrah.
[/quote]

It stinks!