I also didn't like Breaking Bad because a terminal cancer diagnosis does not morally allow one to become a murderous drug lord

That’s not the plot at all. His terminal cancer diagnosis had him confront the fact that his family was in dire trouble with him gone. He used his knowledge of chemistry (as a teacher) to produce and sell a little meth, as this was his only means of helping his family. The modern equivalent of “stealing a loaf of bread”, and all that.

His whole life, he was a bit of a square loser. Society didn’t respect him or his disabled son. Once he realized what this new world allowed, he slowly was consumed by the power it gave him. This corrupted him and snowballed gradually into a murderous drug lord.

The point is, we all have the potential to become that. You see it in rich people (especially billionaires). You see it in politicians. It’s a classic tale of power corrupting, coming from a slightly different angle. The writers and cast also corrupt the viewer by slowly making them root for the anti-hero, which ought to be a reality check for those watching.

West Wing is still amazing. It continues to upset when compared to reality.

Watching Friends without the laugh track Is fucking surreal. There’s so much dead time. So many frames of actors just staring at each other lol

Honestly what killed that show for me was in the like second episode or whatever when his rich friend offered to just pay for the cancer treatment and Walter refused because he was too proud.

I get that that’s the point of the story, to show that he chose all of this. But it made his character just too deeply unsympathetic for me. Just take your rich friend’s money, ya jackass.

I guess when I responded to the original question, I was thinking about the 2000's era COPS show and how it seemed to celebrate violence against others. So, by current standards, the old episodes really don't hold up well in that it's really not OK to be promoting this.

I've noticed similar changes to other police drama shows, like NCIS vs something like Tracker. In NCIS, the bad guy is usually taken down in a shootout. In newer shows, like Tracker, most of the time the bad guy is arrested. Hopefully this is a reflection on society changing.

Fair, and I guess it depends on how you view the world. Me? Yeah I’m not proud, I’ll take the money. But I also know people who absolutely would not. I think it comes back to him always being disrespected by society and thinking that charity would continue that disrespect.

I can confirm I re watched it two years ago

Yeah, SaTC is definitely one of those shows that farms the relatibility of its characters and errs on the side of protecting that identification over condemning the characters. It also can't go too far in that direction because there is a political project to bring independent, liberated women to the screen--though of course, centering every story around chasing men absolutely undercuts the whole thing. I agree it is flawed, but wouldn't characterize it as vapid; it's pretty sharp IMO.

I couldn't put up with BB, too intense! But I think you're probably missing out on a lot of good shows if you don't watch them because of some simplistic moral judgment you overheard, I understand the show is quite a bit more complex than "here's your free pass to be a bad guy and let's celebrate together", though ANY time violence is involved, you get chuds with no emotional depth and desperate power-craving fantasies who fall in love it with for the wrong reasons; just like there is an argument that no truly-anti-war movie has ever been made.

His on-set abuse was still awful

Did he diddle kids? No.

Did he script some things that adults would interpret as inappropriate sexually, but kids wouldn't even notice? Yes.

Had that writing technique been used in children's programming for decades? Yes. Even The Flintstones had sexually inappropriate double-entendres meant to make adults giggle but children wouldn't even notice.

Dan Schneider's Nickelodeon TV shows had excellent writing, acting, and music.

I'm not defending him but I don't understand why people continually lambaste him more than Brian Peck & others who actually DID rape kids?? It makes me sick to think about & talk about but it's all in that documentary An Open Secret.

If you mute the sound of the laughter, you also need to delete the long awkward pauses that creates.

autistic son who is a savant and they talk about hopefully finding a cure for autism someday

Dude this is the most nails on chalkboard trope of TV. I can't stand the autistic savant trope

Married with Children is really hilarious for this because the live audience would just go nuts when the main cast would first appear in an episode. Especially Ed O’Neil and Christina Applegate. So many scenes where they come through a door and then just stand there for 30+ seconds holding a pose and making cute faces.

Maybe not but the TvTropes wild mass guessing page is huge. Full of people trying to figure out all sorts of stuff. A lot of the fun in the show seems to be figuring out they’ll get from late 2000’s stuff to the end game in 2030.

The Dollhouse.

A bunch of hyper-sexualized women held in coffins against their will in a state of childlike innocence. Intermittently, they have personalities downloaded into them, using computer technology, making them Alpha-powered super-assassins.

When one of them gets too woke, she is suppressed, coerced, and gaslit into buying back into the fascist agenda of the faceless corporation running the Dollhouse.

well, there was this

If there was a live audience that makes more acceptable for me, I just think of it like a stage play.

Oprah was always shit for losers

Big Bang Theory rapidly became a show about making fun of geeks and nerds

Not a show, but there's an absolutely wild rom-com christmas movie that came out in 2007 called Holiday in Handcuffs where a this young woman after getting broken up with again decides to just abduct a dude and drag him to the family's cabin they rented up in the mountains, an they fall in love over the course of it and eventually he calls of his engagement to be with her. The premise is terrible, but it kinda circles all the way around into being so bad its good (and at points seems self-aware of how fucked up the whole premise is) and if you're like my family, its worth tracking down to keep in the rotation of terrible holiday movies since it breaks up the malaise of Hallmark movies

The progression of COPS was really wild. It technically started in 1989 but the early episodes were a pretty far departure from the version you’re correctly calling out. They were a lot more visceral - I remember one episode where the officers showed up to a suicide. The guy used a shotgun in a pickup truck and the back windshield was blown out with blood and brains like dripping from it, and this is what the cameraman zooms in on for a solid 30 seconds.

It was just a lot more gritty and unrefined. That’s the interesting part for me, this show changed to the version you described where they only showed DV and beating up crackheads. They chose that; they went in that direction on purpose.

Did you not finish the show? There's an entire apocalypse and redemption arc you're just glossing over.

As someone who's never seen this, this sounds like a good premise for something horribly dystopian. Unless the series isn't about how terrible this is...

But he is a bigot. And an asshole. I've never felt like the series was trying to represent House as a role model. He gets the consequences of his behaviour all the time, but never learns. People keep him around because he's good at his job, and that's it. Otherwise everyone gets tired of his shit real quick.

Veep still holds.

It ends with

Nah, watched it only a year or two ago and it's a mediocre show. Nothing terrible.

She became a total asshole in her teenage years.

I thinl he is funny but some people don't like the fact that he is no pc

That's not pride, that's deep insecurity and weakness turning into sociopathic selfishness and rage. That's not a protagonist for me, but hey my wife liked the show so you know, it's just a matter of sensibilities I guess. 🤷‍♂️👍

Drawn Together. - _-

Are we living through the same maddening decline of civilization? I’ve both seen and posted this absurdity numerous times on Lemmy…

naive is quite generous, they knew exactly what they were doing

I watched WW before my political conversion, so most of that went over my head; but I think Nima Shirazi and his buddy on the CitationS Needed podcast properly dragged the show for an episode.

Thanks for the playlist.

I understand it can be grating for parents, but it's quite good at soliciting speech. Also the original seasons are now quite nostalgic feeling with it's point and click PC game theme

¿Por qué Dora?

The problem with The West Wing is external.

Also the continuity is just garbage. Sets change for no reason, characters just fucking disappear, I gave up when Degree For Men saved the day.

I started to really dislike him when I saw the special features on Extras and he led the charge being a complete piece shit to some production assistant.

Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe wasn't dumb, she was hippy-dippy. She was Jenna Elfman's Dharma with added daddy issues. Rachel has a certain rich girl naivete to her especially in early seasons, but the outright stupid one is Joey. Phoebe is a functioning adult that holds down a job and pays her bills, Chandler tries to teach Joey how to pay a phone bill.

The show didn't have ten seasons in it; hell season ten is short, and by season six I swear there are episodes that are almost entirely catch phrases. "Nooooo." "I know" "WE WERE ON A BREAK!" then Janice walks in and nasals out "OH. MY. GOD." I bet you could cut together a coherent episode like that, The One With All The Catchphrases.

I did.

Do you me the Apocalypse wherein anyone ::: spoiler spoiler
could be reprogrammed over a loudspeaker, or a telephone call
::: ?

As we lurch toward our own Apocalypse — take your pick between environmental, economic, technological, political, nuclear, or any combination thereof — it seems that Epstein-island espionage elicits ick in every instance.

That's most of the series.

To Stephen or to Karl? Are we okay with the idea that UK pisstakes are a little more harsh than our delicate American ears are accustomed to?

Yes, they wind it down.

And the good guys pull off a very Pyrrhic victory. Closing the Dollhouse before they figured out how to make scenario: techno-nightmare happen would have made the series shorter. But, I'm pretty sick of the "we can't put the tech genie back in the bottle" defense. Under this ideal, every tech needs to grow to Godzilla size or fade into obsolescence.

the amount of cringe i experience from watching that show should be examined in the NIH or MIT!

I don't remember that level of detail and it is possible there's some context I missed. But it really came across as the show's A-lister bullying some kid who would be out on his ass if he tried to stand up for himself and it didn't sit right with me.

Ashley Jensen did step in at one point and help the guy out, so I liked her

Supernatural, younger me had bad taste

It's just called Dollhouse

They also have men not just women.

And it's basically like Westworld except they have more personalities vs just western.

Its actually a very good show and is anti capitalist/ rich crazies

yes, thank you. OP really delivered a bad-faith description of the show. you've represented it more accurately.

aged? i hated it then. i guess I'm just glad more of society has caught up.

but the jackal?

There are exceptions to every rule.

i also love it (obv), but the last watch thru i found a lot more cringe than i remembered.