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TBH I don't think Big Love should be directly compared to Breaking Bad. If it is, I still think Breaking Bad wins... WHile BL is good, it still, to me at least, doesn't feel like it's really hit its peak yet. Sure that's a good thing, but BB keeps feeling like it can't get any better, and then it does.

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TBH I don't think Big Love should be directly compared to Breaking Bad. If it is, I still think Breaking Bad wins... WHile BL is good, it still, to me at least, doesn't feel like it's really hit its peak yet. Sure that's a good thing, but BB keeps feeling like it can't get any better, and then it does.

 

Big Love is a fascinating insight into the subjugation of women in contemporary society (compared to Mad Men which is about the 60's where it was still more acceptable). I find that more compelling than someone is selling drugs. I intend to watch it still but the pilot didn't grab me.

 

Did you watch season three? Its intense. The showrunners stated that they had six years of storylines planned and have already used them up. Its less 'bang bang bang' shocking then Dexter, its more permeable.

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Yeah I'm fully up-to-date with Big Love, and I've never cared much for the gender debates (they always boil down to inequality, which is dull).

 

Breaking Bad isn't just about selling drugs :P It's more a commentary on how ones morality can slowly be bent entirely out of shape, especially when, given we are unable to precisely evaluate a future that hasn't happened yet, we try to live in a utilitarian way.

 

In Breaking Bad we follow Walter (played by Hal from MITM) as his public and private life are interrupted by a third personal life. We see how his various facades, like overlapping plates building up to an earthquake, scrape and shudder against each other.

 

I think BB delves deeper into the psyche than BL.

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Yeah I'm fully up-to-date with Big Love, and I've never cared much for the gender debates (they always boil down to inequality, which is dull).

 

Breaking Bad isn't just about selling drugs :P It's more a commentary on how ones morality can slowly be bent entirely out of shape, especially when, given we are unable to precisely evaluate a future that hasn't happened yet, we try to live in a utilitarian way.

 

In Breaking Bad we follow Walter (played by Hal from MITM) as his public and private life are interrupted by a third personal life. We see how his various facades, like overlapping plates building up to an earthquake, scrape and shudder against each other.

 

I think BB delves deeper into the psyche than BL.

 

Inequality is a big part of it, but its about inequality at personal, family, social, religious and governmental levels. And its about 'natural' inequality and imposed inequality, and how both genders work within this. Nikki is aware that her beliefs subjugate her but she plays within this to get what she wants.

 

The rest of what you said can be applied to Big Love :heh:

 

A lot of people's morality are constantly being tested. Bill's is tested through the way he is played by society, legal rules, Roman (who is the creepiest villain ever, as evidenced by that text I sent a while ago :heh:) and his works. He makes some dubious choices which really test him. Similarly with everyone else, particularly Sarah's in regards to her family, college and the things she went to in season three. I think a lot of it comes down to character. There's not one who I don't like in Big Love (well, theres people I dislike as people, but as characters its interesting). Breaking Bad didn't grab me in that regards.

 

Again. Bill's public family life (his marriage to Barb), his personal family life (his whole marriages), his Weiber Gaming family life (in which Marge is his wife), his compound family life (both him and his wives and the legacy of his father, his mother and brother and also his marriage to the prophet's daughter), his public business life and his private business life (mostly Don but also that woman who found out). And apparently in the next season they're adding a whole new one. They quite often clash. That scene at the end of season one where Barb is found out. That really...grabbed me.

 

BB may delve deeper into the pysche, but BL delves more into the social.

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I like that the second one looks like a tall Roomba.

 

Clip from The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.

 

 

The whole episode can be watched here/4OD.

 

Will watch tomorrow.

 

A UK show I'm interested in? SHOCKER. Oh wait it has Will Arnett and David Cross in. That's why. You can shove your Ricky Gervais up your arse :p

 

Oh and Better Off Ted returns next week :D

 

Somehow I only saw this post yesterday. I watched the first half (before it fucked up somehow, so will watch rest later) but it is of course amazing.

 

Loved all the funny Brit people (Super Hans, Fonejacker, really hot chick from Free Agents/Pulling)

 

But yeah, loving it big style. Do you know when it starts properly?

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Ash; As I was writing the reply I could sense that you'd say that. Yes, big love deals with morality massively! I suppose I need to look closer at my evaluations of both shows.

 

I suppose ultimately I find BL harder to closely connect with, in the sense that my morals are not at all entwined with religion, and thus my logic is not ever pressured to adhere to alien principles. While BL deals with that secret life element, you can argue that Bill's 'secret life' is his private life, which is what I'm focusing on when I describe BB -- the focus is on something other than the public or private life. Walter doesn't have this family to fall back on, to share the general bemusement with a backwards society. Instead he essentially has another fallout victim who, himself, has made ill-measured choices.

 

Hard for me to ionise the precise parts of the show I prefer. With Breaking Bad there's also the way each episode happens. Generally there's a slow, you're-aware-something's-happening-but-you're-not-sure-what vibe followed by a massive shock to the system. Big Love tends to prefer the dramatic irony approach, which I personally prefer a lot less. BL has less mystery and a lot more "how's this going to turn out?" and I think ultimately it's a personal preferance as to what type of show you like.

 

Lost is the best example of this. A show where essentially you're watching a mystery that presents you the clues in the wrong order, and never has you ahead of the characters. I prefer this.

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Surely "how's this going to turn out?" is a mystery.

 

Regardless I think we both enjoy the same things essentially, but there's different aspects (present within the shows) that we connect to.

 

And of course there's the overlapping cast.

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haha - yes :P I agree on both parts.

 

Perhaps unrelated - but I tend to find that Big Love frustrates me, that the characters act in ways I wouldn't do, in ways I suppose stem from their beliefs. In BB Walter reacts to a situation fairly humanly, and once he's dug his whole you can understand why he can't just turn around and do the best possible option.

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To me his main act in the pilot (that obviously fuels the whole show) felt cowardly. I couldn't get behind it.

 

And yeah the characters of Big Love are fueled by their beliefs, but beliefs don't have to be religious. Perhaps theirs are but I think it can be relateable. We all do stuff because we believe it is the right thing to do (or we know its not but for whatever reason choose to anyway).

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Felt more like posting this in Funny Shit but I suppose it belongs here;

 

Hollyoaks to 'Flashforward'

 

Apparently they will show a flashforward of six months time and over the next six months build towards a "whodunnit". But I just loved this quote;

 

"It's a very clever idea - it's the first of its kind that I know of. Hollyoaks doesn't think inside the box - and I think this is just another example and why I'm proud to be part of it."

 

Nope, never heard of a show doing a FlashForward six months before...

 

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/news/a191468/shock-death-for-hollyoaks-flashforward.html

 

(note, I don't watch Holloyaks but I do read DS :p)

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The Times Top 50 of 00's.

 

20: Wit (2001)

19: The West Wing (2000-06)

18: Mad Men (2007-)

17: State of Play (2003)

16: Marion & Geoff (2000)

15: Peep Show (2003-)

14: Band of Brothers (2001)

13: The Blue Planet (2001)

12: Six Feet Under (2002-2006)

11: The Night Garden (2007-)

10: TV Burp (2002-)

9: Bodies (2004-2005)

8: 9/11 (2002)

7: The Apprentice (2004-)

6: The Thick of It (2005-)

5: Doctor Who (2005-)

4: The Office (2001-03)

3: The Wire (2005-09)

2: Big Brother (2000-)

1: The Sopranos (1999-2007)

 

 

According to ABC Lost is all about sex in these promos.

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Actually the link does contain the criteria;

 

On the criteria . . .

 

CM: The criteria for the stuff I chose was what did I actually bloody watch, which was consistently Gardeners’ World, Grand Designs, Big Brother, The Apprentice, the fun stuff. Nothing fibrous passed through my entertainment digestive system very easily.

 

DC: [exasperated] No, I think it’s anything that enriches, or that makes you happier, wiser or better. Anything that rearranges the furniture in your brain. Programmes whose sole purpose is to entertain usually just sap the will to live.

 

CM: I come at it from a Dionysusistic point of view rather than it doing me any good at all.

 

I love this quote:

 

Oh, Lost, God that was tedious. The point there is that it’s conspiracy stoner porn, it’s like, every week, “Yeah, you don’t even know what’s going on!”

 

I can't be bothered to do my own sort of list but no doubt it would include the following in some form of order that probably isn't this;

 

Veronica Mars

Dexter

Big Love

Arrested Development

30 Rock

HIMYM

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

The Comeback (massively underrated)

Nip/Tuck

Pushing Daisies

Have I Got News For You

NM The Buzzcocks

BSG

 

Party Down is teetering on the border. Brilliant show and I'm sure it can and will get better. I dunno, suppose it depends how many I'd allow myself to choose.

 

Keep meaning to watch Red Riding actually (its on that list).

Edited by Ashley
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  • 2 weeks later...

I forgot that was on this month. Personally I'm all hyped for Big Love and Chuck (next week! :D!)

 

Ah frak it starts Jan 22nd and I'm in Sheff. Maybe Dan'll acquire it and I can go to his house to watch it and the Dollhouse finale :heh:

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My childhood is ruined. :(

 

The first aesthetic horror of the decade has arrived and it’s not David Cameron’s Hollywood-style election poster. A revived version of the deliciously subversive cult TV show The Crystal Maze is to be presented by… Amanda Holden, the babe from Wild at Heart who was once married to Les Dennis.

 

Twitter is teeming with disgusted fans. “The biggest WTF of the year so far,” says one. “I have a sudden urge to want to burn things,” says another.

 

The delight of the original series, you will remember, was “your mellifluous maître d’” Richard O’ Brien, legend of The Rocky Horror Show. As Sheena Ford, aged 18 from Bracknell, sped around the Aztec Zone trying to feed a plastic model of Moctezuma with a leaky bucket, Richard O Brien would deliver his commentary – dry, pithy, hilarious – and pretend to look really interested.

 

His replacement was the equally wry Ed Tudor-Pole. Viewers felt a mixture of frustration at the risible efforts of teams to complete tasks and shared amusement with the presenters. And do you remember the finale? When the team members would stand in an enormous crystal grabbing fake money blustered around by a fan? Chortle.

 

And now this. Not since Vernon Kay managed to ruin eight game shows (The Price Is Right, Blockbusters, Blankety Blank, The Golden Shot, Name That Tune, Mr & Mrs, Bullseye and Play Your Cards Right ) by presenting Gameshow Marathon in 2007 has our legacy of light entertainment been so traduced.

 

I shall have to make do with this.

 

ITV1.

AMANDA HOLDEN.

CELEBRITY CONTESTANTS.

= :sad: :sad: :sad:

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