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What Spring TV shows will you be watching? - 2014 Edition -

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C

Cornballer

Member
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver debuts April 27.
HBO Press Release said:
NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2014 – HBO has confirmed the title and launch date for John Oliver’s topical half-hour comedy series. Presenting a satirical look at the week in news, politics and current events, LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER will debut SUNDAY, APRIL 27 (11:00-11:30 p.m. ET/PT), with other weekly editions debuting subsequent Sundays at the same time on HBO.

The show will be produced for HBO by Avalon Television, with John Oliver, Tim Carvell, James Taylor and Jon Thoday serving as executive producers, and Liz Stanton producing.

An Emmy®- and Writer’s Guild Award-winning writer, John Oliver was previously a correspondent for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” joining the show in 2006. He first came to prominence as a cutting-edge political stand-up performer in the UK with a string of TV appearances and sold-out solo shows at the Edinburgh Festival. Oliver won the Breakout Award at the Aspen Comedy Festival in 2007 and went on to write and star in the Comedy Central stand-up special “John Oliver: Terrifying Times,” followed by the series “John Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show,” which he has hosted for four seasons. With longtime collaborator Andy Zaltzman, Oliver co-writes and co-presents the popular weekly satirical podcast The Bugle, which currently receives more than 500,000 downloads a month. He also has a recurring role on the comedy series “Community.”

Oliver’s tenure as guest host on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” in summer 2013 prompted critical raves. The New York Times called him “clever and winning,” while TV Guide proclaimed, “John Oliver shines.” The Los Angeles Times described him as “instantly memorable,” and said, “John Oliver has proven himself funny in many venues.”
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S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
RE: Amazon's second batch of pilots:

Transparent is both an excellent pilot and a very interesting premise for a show. The cast are all well chosen, all the performances seem pretty subtle and lived-in so far. I feel like it has a lot of potential. Easily the best pilot of Amazon's two batches. I don't really want to discuss the content, I think it works better if you don't know what you're in for. It's a family comedy (maybe dramedy), Jeffrey Tambor is the father. If you like human and humane programming, if you're interested in human themes, if you've liked past shows like HBO's Tell Me You Love Me, Parenthood, Orange is the New Black, The Season of Girls That Didn't Suck... I think you'll like this. It's also a very rare good pilot for a comedy.

The Rebels is kind of a misfire. It's a sports comedy about a former football cheerleader who inherits her husband's team, dead last in the league, when he dies. She's offered 700 million to sell it back to the league, but she decides to run it. Josh Peck (a really underrated actor who deserves a good break) plays the former owner's assistant who is thrust into a General Manager role. There are random cuts to the FOX Sports panel commentating on how fucked the team is. It's sort of weird--a little bit The League in how it blends sports and non-sports stuff, a little bit raunch comedy. I don't think the pilot works as is, it definitely requires some reshoots for tone (an extended scene about a monkey doing cocaine and shooting a football player is totally out of place with the rest of the pilot).

Mozart in the Jungle is a totally bizarre 20-something finding-my-place-in-the-world light dramedy centered around a woman who plays oboe and the orchestra she wants to join. It's a little existential, a little coming of age, a little cerebral, a little sexy. I literally have no clue how this got greenlit, but I'm very grateful someone gave it a shot. I'd like to see more of this.
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
The event of the spring, Drop Dead Diva, has a two hour premiere on March 23rd. Lives will be changes. Secrets revealed. Obvious fat joke etc etc.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
The After is uneven but intriguing. It's a Chris Carter show built around a group of people trapped in an elevator together. When they get out, there's no power in the building and they're locked in the building's parking floor. One eventually gets out only to find out that shit has hit the fan. The show never makes it clear quite what is going on, only that things are going south quickly. As with a lot of horror--I'm not sure I'd call this horror, really, but it's close--it's maddening and frustrating to watch characters do stupid things and having to tolerate it. The show wastes maybe 10-15 minutes in the parking floor because one of those flimsy metal shutter things has closed. Err, you you guys have access to several cars in the garage? You can smash through the gate? There's another scene where a mob tries to flip an ambulance. The tension of a riot situation is obviously great material, but it's poorly executed in part because no one involved seems like a believable human. It's an ensemble cast; a French actress trying to make it in LA; a hispanic female cop; an escaped convict who swears he's innocent; a drunk Englishman; a skeezy lawyer; his personal assistant / prostitute sex kitten (also, gratuitous nudity alert as she randomly goes for a nude swim in plain view of the other characters and then acts creeped out when the drunk guy offers her a towel???) who is also apparently a southern belle and highly religious; a near-senile and absolutely fucking obnoxious older woman; and a sad clown. I think it's the job of a good pilot to set up the characters and character dynamics. I think the capacity for this to become a full-length series is going to depend a lot on whether they can build a believable world with believable people, and whether the mythology ends up causing eye-rolls.

Bosch is a hardboiled tough-as-nails cop show. The lead is a homicide cop on civil trial for shooting a suspect dead in a dark alley. While not in trial he's apparently still on duty (!) and the case of the week involves the discovery of a young child's bones in the Hollywood Hills. The show doesn't work when it's your standard gravel-voiced chewing-on-cartilage tough guy dialogue. I didn't like most of the court scenes either. But the scenes of Bosch investigating the bones were good, and the guy they cast as the coroner gives an excellent and extremely well written performance. I would love to see a cop show with longer, lingering scenes that really get down and dirty in explaining forensics and stuff instead of CSI level crime puzzles for dummies stuff. I'm also very glad that the pilot didn't solve the case so they're clearly going to aim for multi-episode arcs rather than cases-of-the-week.

All in all I think all 5 Amazon drama pilots this round could be made into good shows. Transparent is clearly the standout, but I'd watch more episodes of any of them. In contrast to the middling offerings from last time, they've really stepped their game up.
 
R

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
Premiering today:

Star-Crossed - The CW - 8/7c

Reviews:

NY Daily News - 'Star-Crossed,' TV review

Some of Star-Crossed falls into the CW’s well-trod comfort zone: young-adult romantic drama with a sci-fi twist. It shows extra ambition, though, by putting its outsiders so constantly and viscerally close to those who suspect and fear them. Add forbidden love, which can never escape the shadow of potential doom, and Star-Crossed could become both provocative and entertaining.
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NY Post - ‘ET’ meets ‘Romeo & Juliet’ in CW’s ‘Star-Crossed’

All in all, Star-Crossed tries hard to differentiate itself, at least in its plotline, from its network stablemates. And in the CW’s world of homogenized TV, that’s enough of a reason to applaud the effort.
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SF Gate - 'Star-Crossed' review: Love, minus the poetry, for tweens

The dialogue is so awful, it probably doesn't matter that most of the performances are inauthentic.
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S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Star-Crossed could become both provocative and entertaining.
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I can't believe a professional writer said, with a straight face, that a CW show called Star-Crossed has the potential to be provocative
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
Star-Crossed was my least favorite pilot from this past broadcast season. Simultaneously bland and offensive its appropriations.

enjoy!!!!!!!
 
Vert boil

Vert boil

Member
First episode of Review is available on the Comedy Central site.

branding_review_about_600x400.jpg
 
C

Cornballer

Member
It should be busy with the Olympics finishing up and a bunch of shows launching in the next couple weeks. The Americans, The Red Road, Hannibal, About a Boy, Scandal, etc... are all premiering soon.
 
beat

beat

Member
Cornballer said:
It should be busy with the Olympics finishing up and a bunch of shows launching in the next couple weeks. The Americans, The Red Road, Hannibal, About a Boy, Scandal, etc... are all premiering soon.
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For no good reason, I ended up not watching The Americans' last three episodes for months. I just caught up this week and I'm glad I did. Can't wait for next season.
 
R

Reckless Onion

Member
So what's the next Lost/Fringe like show i should keep my eyes on?

It's been a while since i followed some shows and i'm in the mood. Only thing i followed lately was Walking dead
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Reckless Onion said:
So what's the next Lost/Fringe like show i should keep my eyes on?
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So I'm guessing you mean character-driven shows that also have a mythology/mystery/supernatural/sci-fi element? I guess the best answer currently would be Under the Dome, but it's a truly terrible show. Some people like Falling Skies. Person of Interest has a little bit of a mythology element. Orphan Black is pretty good. Some people like Continuum. I haven't been keeping up with Almost Human, that might be a match?
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Orphan Black is a good choice. I haven't watched Person of Interest, but people seem to like that one, and Continuum has its moments. Sleepy Hollow is a fun ride if you embrace the campiness, as well.
 
R

Reckless Onion

Member
Cornballer said:
Orphan Black is a good choice. I haven't watched Person of Interest, but people seem to like that one, and Continuum has its moments. Sleepy Hollow is a fun ride if you embrace the campiness, as well.
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I'm gonna check out Orphan Black, thanks.

I watched a little bit of person of interest yesterday on TV and i was surprised to see Ben Linus :). But it seemed like a normal detective show so i changed the channel.

I really liked fringe though, my friend also said to give Supernatural a go.
 
R

RatskyWatsky

Hunky Nostradamus
Premiering today:

Ripper Street - BBC America - 9/8c

About a Boy - NBC - After the Olympics

Reviews:

USA Today - 'About a Boy' will grow on you

There's so much here to build on, from the strong performances to the chemistry between the stars to the sweet central story of two people helping each other mature.
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Variety - TV Review: ‘About a Boy’

About a Boy is an utterly charming pilot, and almost certainly the most endearing half-hour NBC has developed in some time.
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Washington Post - ‘About a Boy’: Late-winter slush

Once you strip down the predictable jokes (Will teaching Marcus about “the bro code of silence”; letting Marcus eat forbidden barbecue ribs), you’re left with a banal arrangement of gender and social stereotypes.
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L

Linius

Member
Reckless Onion said:
I'm gonna check out Orphan Black, thanks.

I watched a little bit of person of interest yesterday on TV and i was surprised to see Ben Linus :). But it seemed like a normal detective show so i changed the channel.

I really liked fringe though, my friend also said to give Supernatural a go.
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It's not. But you have to give it some time for the bigger story to unfold. And even now in the third season they do procedural episodes every now and then but it's heavy serialized otherwise.

Orphan Black is also a great choice. Almost Human I wouldn't recommend yet at this point. There's been like one or two signs of something bigger but all the rest was just procedural.
 
A

AngmarsKing701

Member
This week is going to be crazy. Almost everything is coming back after the Olympics and then we've got S2 for things like Vikings, The Americans, etc. Just a ton of TV firing up this week.
 
H

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
Modern Family
Almost Human
Once Upon a Time
Castle
Sherlock
House of Cards
Vikings
The Americans
Game of Thrones
 
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