TV Forum AMA - boneyarsebogman

squonk wrote: »

1. What show promised so much but ultimately delivered so little?

2. Do you hatewatch? If you do, what show is your favourite hatewatch? What's dumb/crap/annoying that just keeps you tuning in?

Shows that promised so much and failed to deliver, well that's a long list. Heroes is one that instantly comes to mind, they had a great set up but squandered it on one of the blandest shows of all time. Lost is another one, I gave up pretty early when it was evident that the writers were making it up as they went along. Most recently The Following has taken an interesting premise and rather than do or say anything interesting resorted to the lowest common denominator gratuitous sex and violence.

I don't really hate watch all that much, well I did watch all of The Walking Dead over the past weeks and found it incredibly frustrating. It's a soap opera with zombies and is 80% poor writing, 10% doing the same things time after time and then you have 10% of actual quality.

The Black Oil wrote: »

If you had the opportunity to talk a few network executives (incl. cable) what would you say to them?

I think that I'd try to hammer home the point that they need to start giving shows a chance and not cancelling them before they have an opportunity to show what they can do. When you look at a show like Allegiance you can recogise one which had the potential to become something a little special, it had a game cast, decent writing and a set up which lent itself to telling a multi series story but ratings weren't great and as such it was cancelled.

The whole concept of ratings and demographics is a ridiculously outdated system and one which is no longer relevant given how we obtain our TV in this day and age. Longmire, one of the most adult and interesting shows of the past decade did great numbers but sadly they weren't in the coveted 18-whatever age bracket and as such it was cancelled. Thankfully it was picked up by Netflix but the fact that a show which was a network's second most popular averaging just under 6 million viewers a week gets unceremoniously dumped just makes no sense to me. Longmire had better ratings than Mad Men or Justified and one would expect that it be celebrated by it's network and not penalized for appealing to an older audience.

I'd also like to sit down with many of the cable executives and try to hammer home the point that gratuitous sex and violence does not equal adult. Far too many shows airing at the minute stuff their run time with scene after scene of both and most times it comes across as being there simply for the sake of it. And now that I think of it, I'd also like to point out that basing your show around obscene acts of violence against women is not something that appeals to most. Shows such as Criminal Minds are just distasteful and relish in grotesque acts of violence, often sexualised and free from context it's there simply to titillate.

The Black Oil wrote: »

Has a family member/friend ever surprised you with their viewing habits, e.g. that uncle you don't see often banging on about The Wire?

I'm more often surprised by what terrible things family and friends watch. My Dad would have quite similar tastes to myself, he loves Bosch and Longmire and a lot of my friends would be into them too, mostly because I force them to sit down and watch shows like The Wire, Longmire, Bosch, The Red Road, Rectify, etc.

ixoy wrote: »

From previous posts, I recall you're a bit of a binge watcher. What's the most number of episodes of any show that you've binged on in order to catch up? I'm wondering if it's 'Supernatural'.
Did you feel the binging was worth it or did it feel like a bit of a slog ?

I think that the most I've binged watched is The Walking Dead, I started series 1 on the 15th of this month and finished episode 15 of series 5 on Sunday past. I also did all 10 episodes of Bosh in a day and raced through The Strain over the past two days. Generally if I'm under the weather I'll find something easy to watch and work through it, I find it helps a lot when I have a migraine to find something like The Strain. I know I won't sleep and I don't want anything too hard to follow so opt for something light. A couple of months back I went through a bad few weeks and binged a lot, watched all of Fringe, Alphas, Awake and The Following over the course of about 2-3 weeks.

I think that binge watching all depends on the show, when I did Supernatural I think that around the mid point of series 5 I took a break and didn't return to it for a few months. It's beneficial for a show like Bosch or The Wire to get through it over a short period of time as these are shows which lend themselves to binging but for something like Elementary or other procedurals spacing them out over a few weeks/months is often easier as the very nature of these shows mean that they can get rather repetitive.

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

If you could recast lead role in any tv show, who and why etc.,?

I'd recast the role of Sam in Supernatural, Jared Padalecki really isn't all that charismatic or interesting in the role and always comes across poorly when compared to his.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I don't know how you can watch anything when you have a migraine. I have to sit in the dark for days when I have a migraine :cool:

Depends on severity of migraine, if it's bad then all I can do is hide beneath the covers and beg for death. After the worst has passed I'll not be able to do much beyond stare blankly at a screen so at those times having something easy to stare at helps.

Also Starring LeVar Burton wrote: »

What were your favourite shows as a kid, when you were back in primary school?

Is there any particular actor/actress who would put you off watching a series if they were in it?

Back as a kid it would properly have been Batman the Animated series, a show which is just as good now as when I was 6.

Robin Williams instantly puts me off watching something, he just annoys me and whenever I saw him on screen I would roll my eyes and hope someone punched him. Same goes for Colm Meaney, James Nesbitt, David Caruso and Mila Kunis who should never be allowed to be the lead in anything.

Kirby wrote: »

Who is your favourite "bad guy" character on tv? Past or present.

Pretty much any villain from either Legend of Aang and Legend of Korra. What I loved about them is that you they weren't bad for the sake of being bad, they had honourable, if skewed, reasons for their actions and you can associate with them easier.

Kilkenny14 wrote: »

What is the first TV show you bought on DVD?

I believe it was season one to three of the US Office. Still own them too, though they're currently being used to prop up my TV.

Also Starring LeVar Burton wrote: »

Who was your first ever TV crush and who's your current TV crush?

What was your favourite TV show or shows when you were a kid?

First crush? Probably Diana Troy from Star Trek TNG. Not sure if that's her name, but I'm sure you know who I mean. She was a stone cold fox!

Favourite TV show? Pretty much everything that the Den showed. Rugrats, power rangers, Digimon. You can tell I was a 90s kid.

squonk wrote: »

1. What show looked to promise so much but ultimately ended up delivering so little?

2. What is your standout show of the 2014/15 season so far?

Most disappointing show in recent memory is probably Under the Dome. It just had so much promise and turned into a turd.

Standout show so far is The Flash. It could have been terrible, but it's actually quite enjoyable. Though I'm thinking that the Netflix Daredevil could potentially blow it away.