Am I the only one that hates TV dramas? (movies, film, television)
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Obviously there are a few I like, but while I know prefer TV over movies for comedy, I can basically only stand film dramas. My main gripes:
- The acting and writing on these shows are both horrendous, to the point of being melodrama.
- The episodic nature of conflicts and resolutions make the events of the show seem contrived and farcical
- 95% of them are about cops, hospitals, or lawyers. Not really a fan of any of these things (Yeah hospitals are necessary, but have you been to one recently? Mad creepy.)
- Who wants to watch something all tense and morbid at the end of the day anyway? You'd think with how stressed out everyone is all the time, they'd want something light and fun. Sometimes I think most people are masochists or something.
While I'm at it let me also say: CSI Miami is an affront to human dignity. How this tripe got so popular is beyond me.
Coroner: This is the second body we've found outside of that Foot Locker this week. Very unusual.
Horatio Caine: Looks like the shoe's on ... (removes sunglasses) the other foot now.
Are you talking about procedurals? Because all those case-of-the-week shows on the big networks, I hate those. But shows like Homeland, Dexter, Breaking Bad, etc. are great. The shows on HBO, Showtime, FX, and AMC are actually shows with great acting and writing.
Netflix has got me completely enamored with British Comedy. Peep Show, Mitchell & Webb, Spaced, and the Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Maargaret are my favorites.
I think 2007 will probably eventually be acknowledged as the best year for television dramas, at least in my lifetime, but having said that, the decline from 2007 to 2013 hasn't been that large. If you want to see how crappy drama could be on television, go back before 1987. Hill Street Blues changed the nature of television drama, and some of the very best drama series ever have been presented within the last ten years (The Shield, The Sopranos, The Wire, Sleeper Cell, Six Feet Under, Lost, etc.), and some are still in production today (Homeland, The Americans, Sons of Anarchy, Mad Men, etc.)
I don't really care for dramas either. They're too over-the-top for me in their situations. And your points are exactly what I would say. There are very few that I watch and most of the shows I watch were either already on or shows that are still on that I'm catching up on. Rather than watch CSI or any of the other five hundred shows like that, I'd rather watch real stories like those on The First 48 (one of my favorite shows) or Forensic Files.
I do watch comedies but not most of them. Funny that Jukes mentions MASH, which I find pretty boring and painful to sit through most of the time, but I also don't like a lot of popular comedies---Mike & Molly, Friends, Two and a Half Men, etc. (Community is insanely overrated by the minority that really push for it.) I don't really care for most English comedies either.
I'm not sure there is anything on right now that I am totally enamored by. I don't have much of an attention span so my husband and I are still trying to make our way through Lost. (We started watching it on Netflix probably two or three years ago and we're not even halfway through season four. )
Funny how people are mentioning Homeland as an example of a good drama...I watched all of S1 and thought it was over-the-top, contrived, totally implausible and took itself way too seriously. Plus, I hated all the characters. If Brody blew them all up, including himself, it would be no big loss.
Funny how people are mentioning Homeland as an example of a good drama...I watched all of S1 and thought it was over-the-top, contrived, totally implausible and took itself way too seriously. Plus, I hated all the characters. If Brody blew them all up, including himself, it would be no big loss.
It's not for everyone. The show has a certain style to it. Pretty much incorporates all the elements from 24, just more character-based.
I watch dramas more than anything. I tend to actually like procedural because they're pretty mindless, and you only have to commit to one episode. There may be overarching story arcs, but if you tune in once you see them solve the mystery or cure the sick or whatever in 42 minutes and you can get on with your day. The few comedies I watch aren't the laugh track variety. I like the aforementioned Community, Parks and Rec, New Girl, that sort of thing.
One show that makes me laugh SOMETIMES is Big Bang Theory, especially when Mayim Bialik's character is on. She is the funniest lovesick neurobiologist ever. The episode when she gets sick and makes Sheldon take care of her is so funny.
Another show that makes me laugh is The Middle. The teenage daughter, Sue, is endlessly optimistic no matter what. She cracks me up. Since we had a bunch of kids, back in the day, some of the situations are painfully true.
Big Bang definitely has a laugh track, which is awful, but I'm not sure about the Middle.
If the focus is on any of the legions of clone cop shows, I agree that there is no valid reason for watching any of them unless you are the sort who enjoys seeing the same formula again and again and again.
We should construct a guidebook which codifies the rules for tv cop/detective programs. For example, all paired cops must have opposite personalities. They should probably just name the shows after the selected personalities traits rather than the names of the cops like "Starsky and Hutch" or "Rizzoli and Isles." The shows could be "Calculating and Hunch Playing", or "Methodical and Mercurial" or "Sloppy Grump and Bon Vivant Dandy".....like that.
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