Travis McClain

Having finished off House, M.D. Season Five and Psych The Complete Fourth Season, I'm alternating my way through Star Trek Fan Collective - Borg and She-Ra Princess of Power Season One, Volume One. I just finished Disc 2 of Borg and have completed Disc 1 of She-Ra. It's interesting to revisit these older shows and seeing what has aged well and what hasn't.

I will always rank TNG over Voyager, but I have to say that for my money, "Scorpion" is the strongest episode yet outside of "The Best of Both Worlds." I was never a fan of the "Descent" 2-parter; I could buy the whole cult storyline just fine, but Picard leaving Crusher in charge of a skeleton crew? Too contrived to explain why the good captain would be in harm's way.

As for the Princess of Power, some of the humor has held up quite well. John Erwin did a better job giving He-Man a sense of humor than I'd remembered, and I totally dig the character designs. It's part Lord of the Rings, part Star Wars. The recycled animation and music become a bit tedious, but that's something you have to accept when watching animated shows from that era. They're part of the aesthetic, even if they were dictated by budgets instead of artistic intent. This is one of those areas where, as we've discussed, I think a show really benefits from binge viewing. After two or three episodes, it becomes tiresome, but after five or six episodes, I found myself more or less inoculated against the repetition. Now I just want to know where I can find that music as a ringtone.

Fist of Doom

I'm enjoying this challenge more than I thought I would. Going through Carnivale for the first time and really liking it. I've also revisited Star Trek: TNG, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and The Honeymooners - all great shows in their own way.

davidh777

I appreciate everyone's discussion about how they make time to watch. I've complained in other challenges about my own poor tallies because with work and family I have very little time to watch anything extra--my best chance is to trick my kids into watching something that qualifies

Since I regularly watch a number of shows, I'm just doing my thing and taking credit But I have been squeezing in some Mad Men season 2. Fortunately the wife likes it; otherwise it'd have to be in my after-hours pile with True Blood, Buffy, Justice League Unlimited, etc. The frustrating thing is that there are so many shows I'd like to finally watch but just don't have the time. After hours is just too hard to watch much of anything more than an episode at a time.

Life happens, and circumstances change. I still miss Trevor and his crazy totals.

Travis McClain

Okay, I just finished seven consecutive episodes of She-Ra Princess of Power (plus I re-watched one episode with a commentary track). This is beginning to feel like a psychedelic experience because so much of this show is insane. I can't imagine watching it, high. Madame Razz and Broom belong in Lewis Carroll's imagination. The strangest thing is that the show is both anti-establishment and feminist, two fairly bold traits for a show often dismissed as a toy commercial for girls. There's at least two fascinating college term papers to be written about this show for those of you who might be enrolled and looking for inspiration.

Undeadcow

It's the 2010 TV on DVD Challenge... you no longer have an excuse not to watch Matlock!

MrTerrific

Thanks to this challenge I've finally started watching BLACK BOOKS. It's a British comedy created by Graham Linehan (the creator of The IT Crowd). This show is a blast! Will probably finish up Season 3 (the final season) today!

Travis McClain

And your randomly selected winner of Tales from the Darkside - The First Season is....

That'sAllFolks! Congratulations. Look for Round Four questions to go live sometime tomorrow with a drawing early on Monday.

pagefrance

Before the challenge started I would have said YES, I want a checklist or some kind of order, but NOT the highly specific one of the Horror Challenge (now THAT was a Challenge! Some of the categories were just too difficult).
But now during the challenge I say NO since I'm enjoying just watching whatever I want. Perhaps some loose guidelines would suffice that were not time-specific. For instance, watch an episode from the 70's but you can watch it whenever you want during the month.

pagefrance

I'm employed full time but am not married so my free time is my own. After work I watch 2-4 hour long episodes or 2 hour long and 3-4 half hour ones depending on how sleepy I get. At work I've managed to sneek in a couple of made-for-TV movies that I've seen online.
As for getting bored with watching multiple concurrent episodes of the same series - no, I don't get bored nor does it detract from my enjoyment of the series. In fact I enjoy it more since I see the evolution of the series from episode to episode.
And by the way, am I the ONLY one watching The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries?

Travis McClain

This is really part of the logistical problem I see with a theme or checklist, though; does anyone really want to hop around from season to season, or even series to series, to watch specific episodes? Taking your 1970s example, I've been watching House, M.D., Psych, She-Ra Princess of Power and the Star Trek Fan Collective - Borg box set that compiles 14 Borg-centric episodes from three of the various Trek series. Nothing from the 70s. Should I squeeze in an episode of something just for the sake of getting that check mark, would it actually be rewarding?

I looked through the list thread yesterday and it seemed to me that almost everyone has been making their way through a season of a given series. Some are viewing more than one season/series concurrently, but I only saw one post that was a complete jumble of isolated episodes from various shows. And in that instance, the participant was actually going through a DVD box set, so even though the episodes and series had nothing to do with one another, his selection of them still made obvious sense.

Still, I'm open to finding a way of adding some kind of structural objectives to this challenge. I think it's just difficult to do with the TV medium because of its episodic nature. A TV season is a lot more demanding than a movie, and I appreciate all the feedback so far in helping give this challenge its form.

One last note, pagefrance. I see you're new to the forum (welcome, by the way!) and that your last two posts each quoted previous posts. You can Multi-Quote more than one post and then reply to each in a singular post. It's helpful in an ongoing discussion thread to sometimes direct your responses to various side conversations all at once. All you have to do is click the little icon next to Quote that has the " icon on any post to which you would like to respond. Then, when you hit "Reply," all selected posts will appear in one window for you. (I was here about a year before I learned about this handy feature.)

BobO'Link

Rewarding? That depends. If you're squeezing something in *just* for a checklist I'd think not. I've compiled and put a checklist in my list but have yet to check anything off. I really don't know if I will and will do so only to see if it's at all feasible. Overall, I think one *could* work but only for someone who's not concentrating on only a few series/sets. At this point I think I'd only concentrate on completing a complex one only if I had *nothing* in my unwatched pile.

And that would be me. As you stated the connection is their inclusion in that "Sci-Fi TV - 150 Episodes" box set. Now that I've completed that set (which was very fun) I'll be settling down to a more concise schedule and it shows in my list.

If you've not done so, take a look at the test checklist I compiled. It's a combination of yours and Ash Ketchum's prior lists with some stuff I added. While I *do* believe it's too complex and large for dealing with watching full series/sets I feel it could possibly be pared down to something managable that could help provide a brief intermission between larger chunks of viewing. One of the things I added is "Character Actors". With the right grouping it's possible to fill in several from a single series.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I came up with a similar idea for a previous challenge but TV shows tend to do the same sort of things over and over. Do checklists based on those types of things(new character introduced, old character leaves, etc.)

BobO'Link

I finished off "Seinfeld" S9 this week and started "Birds of Prey".

I still do not like the "Seinfeld" finale although it fits the characters and is somewhat a "just desert" ending for them.

"Birds of Prey" is much better than I remembered. I'm one of a very small handful oe people I know who watched and enjoyed the series when it aired. Watching it in blocks shows that it still holds up fairly well within the mythos as it was presented. I actually don't mind the changes as much this time around as I did initially. Mostly because I've since learned the series was based more on an Elseworlds tale than then current continuity.

adrenaline78

I just watched The Pacific almost straight through. Had about a 5 hour nap inbetween episode 4 and 5.. Great show.

kstublen

Haha, I did the same thing except I took the nap between parts 8 and 9. I think I enjoyed Band Of Brothers more, but this one was really great. It was pretty interesting to see what was going on in the Pacific during WW2, because most everything focuses on the War in Europe.

Travis McClain

I'm still poring over the checklist suggestions. I read them when they were initially submitted, but when there was so little response I took that to mean that most participants chose to ignore the idea of a checklist altogether. Thanks for all the thought that went into these ideas, and thanks to all of you for bearing with me in my first hosting attempt. I promise, I'm learning as we go and I hope to incorporate all this feedback into the planning.

As for me, late last night we killed off the Borg box set. I was surprised at how much I found myself actually liking the Voyager episodes. Yes, there are all kinds of continuity issues (like Seven of Nine's parents not knowing about Borg children, when that was something that was clearly shown in "Q Who" and should have made its way into the Enterprise's report) and even some retconning, but I found those things bugged me a lot less this go round.

"Unimatrix Zero" is an especially interesting episode to watch now. Living in the era of Facebook and social networks--and particularly, having my experience connecting with other people with Crohn's around the world to offset how alone I really am in my daily life--that premise resonated a lot more with me now than it did when it aired in 1999. Definitely worth another look for those who might have not responded well to it previously.

I still wish the Voyager series finale had been more original. Being a hybrid of "All Good Things..." and First Contact it just feels like a TNG homage more than an episode to wrap up Voyager. Still, given that they decided to the route they did, I think it turned out well enough. At least their crew got a better wrap-up than the TNG crew got with Nemesis.

davidh777

I don't recall if I went through all the checklist suggestions but at one point checked the rules post to see if there was one. I did do a checklist for a couple challenges but due to limited time in the later ones just watched what I felt like watching. Your efforts are appreciated, though!

Sorry, MinLShaw. You do have us to complain to if that helps at all.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I've been working through my set but I've already seen it and agree. It's pretty much a clip show, and clip shows suck, so when it's done for a series finale, it's pretty lackluster.

BobO'Link

^Not only that but the penultimate episode was *completely* a clip episode. I truly felt like I wasted ~2 hours on those last 2 episodes. I doubt I'll ever watch those 2 again, even when I revisit the series.

Travis McClain

Thanks. I wasn't fishing for affection so much as noting how the world in which I live now is different from the one in which I lived when the episode was made, changing my perception of it. Normally, that's relegated to things like noticing people smoking in hospitals but this was one where I just didn't "get" the concept then like I can now.

Which brings me to a prompt for those who have been watching older TV shows: Have you found yourself seeing things in a different light because of changes in our society or your own personal growth?

Travis McClain

A note regarding the end of the month, when this challenge will briefly overlap with the Academy Awards Challenge. There are two titles you can watch that are eligible for both challenges: the television cut of Fanny and Alexander (the Academy recognized the theatrical cut) and The Twilight Zone episode, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek" which was produced as a French short film and was licensed for inclusion in Rod Serling's anthology series. So, if either of these are on your To Watch lists, you might want to wait until the 27th and get credit for both challenges.

The Monkees

Would it be an acceptable entry to watch the Golden Globes?

Travis McClain

Without television the only way to see these awards would be to actually attend them. Plus, they're clearly produced with a television audience in mind. As far as I'm concerned this is a good example of the television specialty field.

JOKipper

A few of my thoughts about Mad Men Season 1, which I FTV'd for this challenge.

As I watched it, it became clear that this show is purely a soap opera. According to Wiki, a soap opera can by characterized by "an emphasis on family life, personal relationships, sexual dramas, emotional and moral conflicts; some coverage of topical issues; set in familiar domestic interiors with only occasional excursions into new locations". That's pretty much all that happens in this first season. Now, I've never been a fan of soaps, and I do appreciate when these elements are properly utilized in shows of all genres. But a pure soap opera...it's hard for me to take too seriously.

The characters were mostly interesting, but unlikable...I don't have a problem with that, as it works very well on shows like Dexter. I found the acting to be very excellent, and the scripts were good (but not great).

I didn't really get into the nostalgia aspect of the show, since I watch a lot of shows that were actually made in the '60s. Sometimes even a futuristic show like Star Trek shows more what the '60s were like than any recent show made to look back at the era with modern hindsight.

All that being said, I did enjoy the first season on a certain level, and I'll move on the the second season...hopefully before this challenge ends.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Oh yeah. I guess the only way a clip show can get worse is if it's a two parter.