The reason I dislike Glee is because all the characters are just based off stereotypes.

I don’t like Glee because the characters and story just don’t keep my attention. Oh boy, another stereotypical high school, expcet this time there’s a choir made up of hilariously mismatched archetypes singing other people’s songs! It’s like The Breakfast (Radio) Club for the modern age!

Guh.

There again, I don’t watch much TV, so it might be better than most of what’s on? I wouldn’t know. If it is, that’s sad.

I don’t like their voices. I’m a singer and I used to be in choir, so I know a bit about this stuff, and they all tend to have a very manufactured kind of sound, especially Rachel.

Then again, I’m ridiculously picky about that kind of thing. I didn’t like the voices of 90% of people in choir, and they got solos, while I didn’t. Yes, I’m slightly bitter about choir, why do you ask?

It’s my one and only guilty pleasure. Like watching the one million and fourteen variations of the nyahnyah cat on YouTube. And then watching Kids React to NyahNyah cat. And then watching Kids React until three in the morning.
Steph: I’m shocked. Really. Really. Shocked. You liked Red Riding Hood? Reasons, now, so I can start a debate, please.

Steph: I’m shocked. Really. Really. Shocked. You liked Red Riding Hood? Reasons, now, so I can start a debate, please.

Ignoring the whole ‘well you like Glee so nyah!’ argument, here are my reasons:

1. Fairytale. I am a HUGE fan of fairytale retellings.
2. Romance. I can pretend it was realistic. This is something my suspension of belief will hold if I go into it with my eyes open. Believe me, I read a tonne of bad reviews before I went and saw it.
3. Hot guys. Who were hot. And there were moments where you could imagine they were more fleshed-out as characters than they actually were in-movie. For a movie you’re not expecting too much of, that’s kind of enough.
4. Funny OTT soap opera-y cheesiness and stereotypical characters, some of whom I cared about nonetheless. Also, I liked the main character Valerie.
5. Yelling ‘this doesn’t make sense!’ at the screen and criticising the heck out of it was fun.
6. SHE IS WEARING AN ARMADILLO ON HER HEAD.
7. Atmosphere/music/visuals were good. This was actually a big one for me. If movies get these things right, I will forgive a lot.
8. A bit of suspense, which I like, but I wasn’t too emotionally invested in the movie as a whole, so I wasn’t too uptight the whole time, which I like too.
9. Some good acting here and there.
10. I like Catherine Hardwicke, and I like her direction style.
11. Amanda Seyfried is always good.
12. It’s all played so straight it crosses the line from painful to hilarious.

In conclusion: It’s one of those lame movies that I liked in part because it was lame.

Like I said, it’s a twinkie.

Also, the one episode I saw of it, this girl was basing her choice between two guys off of how good their performance of Justin Beiber was. And there are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t know where to begin.

I have no words.

I am a HUGE fan of fairytale retellings.

Me too, but they’re horribly easy to screw up.

It’s all played so straight it crosses the line from painful to hilarious

I could see that just by watching the trailer.
I also suddenly had a flashback to a (former) neighbour walking up to my flat late at night after seeing it, just so she could complain about how it was “too much like Twilight”.
Poor girl.
I almost patted her head.

So Once Upon a Time is auto recording on our dvr, despite the fact that when we first saw the first few minutes we had to change the channel from sheer badness, but inertia meant that the first 4 episodes recorded.

And for the record, I agree with all of Apep’s comments.

But in addition, I found it hideously misogynistic (even more so than the usual tv show levels) and has an extremely skewed look at adoption. 1) If you are adopting kids, you are evil 2) if you gave your kid up for adoption, you just didn’t know better [ possibly 3) if you disciple your kid, you’re evil]. I’m not adopted myself, nor do I have any personal experience, but one of my friends has several adopted siblings and after learning all that they’ve had to go through, including how much they do to make sure the kids knew how much they were loved and part of the family—including celebrating their ‘adoption day’, I can’t help but see this as anything but harmful.

Also, you can, not justify, but understand the ‘danger’ of the step-mother, or even birth mother in the original fairy tales, in fact there’s quite a lot of interesting scholarship on the subject. But even they had more subtleties than the evil mayor in the show. Who is EVIL, btw. It did seem in the first episode that there would be some complexity to the character, given the dialogue, especially since the curse supposedly wiped everyone’s memory. But it didn’t to her, and she’s effectively the big bad of the quest story line, and nothing else. She’s ‘damaged’ and has ‘excuses’ but they really don’t work. If the show just reveled in her evilness, it might be little better…but I’m thinking of a spoiler.

Rumpelstiltskin, though, is a fun villain, who also commits proper villainy.

And I may have to blog about it, given how wordy I want to be.

Watching the pilot for The Shield. Seems fairly interesting so far, and it’s got a bunch of familiar actors. Also, this exchange:

“What, is it your turn to play Bad Cop?”

“Nah. Good Cop and Bad Cop left for the day.”

@ Puppet

The last few episodes have been very good, IMO. Bit of an emotional rollercoaster, too.

Why is Revenge so ridiculously good? I mean, why? It started out so eh, and now it’s just amazing (well, amazing in context of what it is).

And how come Happy Endings makes me laugh even though half of the time I don’t even know why I’m laughing?

Mythbusters was better before they were popular.

/puts on hipster glasses

‘Mythbusters was better before they were popular.’

You hipster, you.
I haven’t watched it in forever. All I can remember is them doing an experiment with tight jeans, and me having a nightmare that night.

What won?

I see.
{hidden in case of rocks being thrown at me}

But what did Roks Any’wy do to you to deserve being thrown?

And rewatching Justice League. Actually like War World a bit.

Er, that’s to sansa, that is. Marquis, lol.

shield season 2 was good

So you’re having dreams of the Doctor in automail having to stop pretty-boy manifestations of each country who bring people back to life?

fma or fmab? theres a differene

hard to say. plotting tighter in fmab, but i feel fma has strongest individual senes

Which part of the arc are you at?

Yusuke just defeated Chu. Chuu?. Drunk Australian guy? WHATEVER, I CAN’T SPELL IT.

Drunk Australian guy

So, pretty much, an Australian guy?

badum-tish.

oh god dont tell me you didnt see that twist coming either spanman

it took all my will not to yell at people for not seeing it by episode 2

on the avclub(where we hate dexter) we have been hoping that the twist would be that

it just makes every preceding scene with him stupid

every scene in the show is stupid

i hate dexter

i just assumed everybody knew pretty much from the start

anyway in news of shows i dont hate SHIELD SEASON 4 GO GO GO

i hate dexter

I seem to recall that you used to like it…. But it has gotten fairly predictable lately and isn’t as exciting because no one important ever seems to be in real danger. And Dexter does things that seems really reckless lately and never gets caught. But I didn’t see this particular twist coming either, so….

I think that seasons 1-4 were really good, and it started going downhill a bit last season, but that’s just me. I think they need to end it soon before it becomes really stupid. It’s not right now (in my opinion), but it seems to be heading that way. That said, I still really enjoy it.

I seem to recall that you used to like it….

i did

it got worse

it got worse

When did you stop liking it… out of curiosity?

I really miss Steve Carrel.

I didn’t even watch it regularly, but I think they should have canceled it after he left the show.

Glenn

walking dead characters have names now?

i thought they were a motley crew of random cardboard cutouts and also a crossbow

lol vatos and old people

sometimes i think that rather than having an eye for quality, amc just won the lottery twice in a row

T-dog!

Is it bad that I can’t remember who that is?

For some reason I have the first 4 seasons of Numb3rs and I don’t really like it all that much. For example, there are a number of shows I like much better that I don’t have the dvds for. I must have been in a more profligate* time in my life, then. :(

*

Part of that might have to do with their budget being cut. Can’t do many outdoor shots without paying to use them.

wait you mean to say computers DONT have giant flashing buttons and cartoon looking guis

i need to reevaluate some things

also obligatory plug about how the wire is widely beloved by both law enforcement officials and drug dealers

Yeah I hate it when they do that kind of thing with computers, phones and videogames. As bad as Dexter has become, to top it all off there’s a guy making a videogame of the Miami forensics department and it’s so bad.

As for medical things I think Scrubs is usually pretty accurate but take the singing episode for example I imagine in real life someone will only hear people saying what they’re saying with different tones while Scrubs made it an actual musical. And there was one episode where Turk healed someone’s paralyzed back with extreme cold or something which apparently worked in real life but I think they did it immediately while in Scrubs he did it well after the injury. Yeah…

sansafro with your apparent keen eye and high standards for quality in storytelling, I dunno if I can trust your opinion of The Wire when you like Fairy Tail. Oh god it’s so bad.

Totally realistic, guyz.

I dunno if I can trust your opinion of The Wire when you like Fairy Tail

its fun to read because its all the stuff i like about shonen fighting as a genre and none of the stuff i dislike, bloat and bad pacing and such

i wont call it great fiction but its lean and tight and doesnt take itself too seriously which i think is important for braincandy

anyway, yes, watch the wire, it is great and you will get the hang of it if you dont give up pointlessly early

anyway, i am not gonna worry if tonights episode of community will be the last episode they ever have. greendale is a special place and we should just enjoy the time we have there for as long as we have it

the whole finding ways for natsu to win aside from unlocking hidden power is one of the things that i like about it its just that too often it ends up being natsu eating some kind of special fire or whatever now

also they need to invent something beyond marriage so i can do that with alison brie

Oh man, that NCIS example is so hilarious, it parodies itself.

I don’t think she’ll be too happy about it. lololol that episode of Community was amazing. I don’t understand why I find some episodes really funny and others not. My sense of humor is so out of whack. Because I laughed a lot at that episode. You are right Alison Brie (and Annie) is awesome.
I really enjoyed seeing Jeff and Shirley being good friends again because I loved their friendship in the episode where they gossiped and joked about the tiny nipple dude. And Shirley hasn’t been well treated lately. Their history was a little too convenient but whatever it worked.
You’re right every episode is so full of character development. And the show isn’t afraid to not use some characters in episodes.

I actually watched Community last night (I don’t normally). For a show that is supposedly pretty subversive of cliches, that episode was a cliche-fest. The stories themselves… felt kind of bland and typical, but some of the gags were pretty good. Annie’s glare at Troy towards beginning was amazing.

the point is to play with the cliches and use them to illustrate things about the characters

the annie/troy/abed plot wasnt just about annie breaking the dvd and having to escalate her lies, at least not once it got rolling. it was really more about abed feeling betrayed and being unable to confront that so he dresses up like batman to work through it

the main purpose of the jeff/shirley plot was also to tell you more things about the characters. weve seen jeffs loneliness and shirleys inner darkness before but weve never really gone that far back and seen jeff completely powerless or seen shirley behave with outright cruelty

but yeah i suppose it didnt have the obvious ambition of the season 2 genre episodes

Hah. Anyone else catch the thefoodreviewer reference?

oh i didnt realize this was a reference to anything but goddamn if the gangsta rap blaring at the end of leonards clip wasnt the biggest laugh of the night for me

Detective Conan 305-306. This show just gets better and better.

Oh lordy. HIMYM tonight… yikes.

And as usual, here’s my review