Indy24LA

Wow, I won something??? I just want to thank the Academy... I mean MinLShaw and Hamilton Books

Here are my choices:

First Choice: THE ADVENTURES OF AQUAMAN: The Complete Collection
Second Choice: THE COMMISH: The Complete Series
Third Choice: SANDBURG'S LINCOLN: The Complete Mini-Series Event

lisadoris

Congrats to the winners and thank you MinLShaw for running the challenge. It was a blast!

LJG765

Thanks to MinLShaw, you did a great job hosting! And Hamilton Books for the prizes! Wish I could've won...I had my eye out for a couple of them, but there's always next year! Congrats to the winners!

I haven't counted the time, but I ended up at 192: Say Yes to the Dress: Randy Knows Best. Hey, it was late and there was nothing else on I wanted to watch! I think I mentioned this before, but I counted one for everything. 30 min show=1, hour show=1, movie=1.

I had 111 first time viewings. 3 movies. Mainly watched DVDs and DVR'd material. I think I like this one the best because for movies, I have to ask myself, do I have 2 hours to watch something? Whereas TV, it's only 20-30 minutes here and there and easy to fit in.

I finished my main goals, and a lot more beside. I got the unwatched pile dropped, though, that pile seems infinite at times! Already have 3 more shows on the way for next year, I guess. I'd say the only thing I didn't get to was the movie Serenity and that was mainly because I forgot I didn't watch it. Whoops. I wanted to watch it after I finished Firefly, but started to skip around and got involved in other shows. Well, I'll get to it soon, maybe...

mrcellophane

What a wonderful time! Got a few things out of my unwatched pile and watched a lot of great television! Thanks, MinLShaw and congratulations to all the winners!

I ended up with 152 entries, mostly Gilmore Girls and Stargate SG-1. I finished up five box sets: Gilmore Girls - Seasons 1-3 ; Josie and the Pussycats - Complete Series ; Green Acres - Season 1. The worst thing I watched was an episode of Starhunter *shudder*. The best thing was Downton Abbey's Christmas Special.

Dimension X

Congrats to all the winners, and thanks again to Hamilton Books for a great set of prizes.
I post a list of participants at the top of the MYOC list thread (Chad does one for the Horror Challenge too) which has the added benefit of excluding double posts. At the end of the month, I just copy the qualifying participants' names into an Excel table and use the numbers there for the random number drawing.

You could also use the "Who Posted?" list that pops up when you click on the number in the Replies column for the list thread. It lists each poster's name once alongside the number of posts, so you can see at a glance if anyone has double-posted (that's what I used to start my list for the last Comedy Challenge).

Not even close.

Travis McClain

Clever, but...that sounds like work.

Don't be too proud. These prizes are for the 2014 TV on DVD* Challenge! Game, set, match, sucker!

Dimension X

Yeah, that's partly why I didn't do it for the November challenge.

Crap. That means I didn't win anything next year either.

Travis McClain

No, but the 2015 Historical Appreciation Challenge is looking good for you...!

BobO'Link

I stand corrected... Wow! 12:37 *AM*. With the current sunset-sunrise methods you'll not do that or the 4:38am again, eh?

shadokitty

I know I have a lot of sci fi cartoons and live action sci fi shows that I plan to watch for the action/adventure/crime challenge myself for that very reason.

Dimension X

I see 1:37 AM. You must be in the Central Time Zone.
Sure, I'll probably do it early like that again, if I'm awake. Since the participants make their own rules, and can begin and end their challenges whenever they like (as I said in the rules section last time - "you can run your May MYOC in September if you want"), I can't let that stand in the way.

ntnon

I watched between 12 and 16 musical episodes (depending on how you count their musicality), because I thought it would make for an interesting experience.

Two - Red Dwarf and 30 Rock - weren't really musical episodes at all, they just featured a single song. (I only found out about 30 Rock from Wikipedia... and disagree with it being a 'musical episode'; RD I knew about and sought out because the Rimmer Song is hysterical.) I still don't really 'get' 30 Rock, but Red Dwarf has held up fairly well. I need to find the money to buy Back to Earth (which I watched when it was on, and was mildly underwhelmed by), and Series X, which I've never seen. I'm looking forward to (re-)watching them, though, to see if the show still has 'It'.

Three - Gilligan's Island, Oz and The Office (U.S.) - were technical musical episodes, featuring songs only because the characters are putting on a musical (or variety show). Those were all very entertaining. I managed to pick up all of Oz a year ago cheaply, but promptly lost it somewhere... now I know I'll enjoy it when it resurfaces! I've seen occasional episodes of the American Office (I've never made it through a complete episode of the U.K. version because Ricky Gervais really annoys me), and every time the characters grow on me a little more, and this one - featuring music from "Sweeney Todd" - was very well done indeed. Gilligan's Island was marvellous! The castaways created a Hamlet musical, and it was hugely entertaining. I may well try and watch the whole show at some point, now that I know there are (at the very least some) great episodes in this classic show.

The Futuramas were a mixed bunch. The show has never been as good as the best Simpsons episodes, despite praise from many quarters, and I still don't think several of the characters are any good at all. Nevertheless, the plots here in the musical episodes were pretty good, and the music tolerable, too.

Fringe was weird. It was an out-of-time episode with occasional singing, and I couldn't quite work out (or be bothered to check) whether the songs were original. I saw a single episode of this show the year it started, and either managed to pick a poor one or just wasn't in the right frame of mind, because I did not enjoy it. This year, I saw the first episode and now the musical one, and it seems infinitely better than I remember. Something else to add to the 'must watch at some point' list - although it's not as high a priority as I'd originally had it down as when I read the pre-air summary.

Two cartoons - Simpsons and South Park - did broad parodies (by which I mean, the Simpsons only took the title; South Park did it straight) of High School Musical under the same title. Both were great in their own way. South Park was, as always, hilarious and lewd; the Simpsons put on a great, star-studded show but wasn't really related to the film the title implied. I discovered that I'd already seen and enjoyed them both, but I'm glad to see them again. Both also reminded me of the highlights of both shows - and now thinking about them, I realise I forgot to watch the Mormon semi-musical episode of South Park...

The Simpsons also did straightforward parodies of My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins, and both of those episodes are almost as good as the films they pastiche. Mary Poppins is one of the greatest films of all time, and Simpsonscalifragilisticexpiali-annoyed grunt-cious takes the spirit, the music and the clever songs and marries it into the Simpsons universe practically perfectly. My Fair Laddy wasn't as good, but very few episodes are.

Scrubs, Daria! and Xena (Bitter Suite) were the three "proper" musicals (bar Simpsons and South Park), with random acts of singing that featured sung plot points. Daria was brilliant, and the singing was very much in keeping with the show; Scrubs was even better, and very cleverly done as well. Xena was a little disappointing, in part because of its near-Operatic score. But my disappointment may have been largely because I watched it after...

Xena: Warrior Princess: "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire" which fed mainly modern songs into a comic plot involving characters that I've read (but haven't seen) are regulars, presumably reunited solely for the amusement of a musical episode. And it was more than amusing. Had I not watched the Buffy musical episode for the Horror/Comedy crossover time, this would easily slide in at the top of my all-time favourite musical episodes. As it is, I think it's close to a tie. (N.B. Maid Marian and Her Merry Men has a free pass as being always THE best musical-episode show, but as this is a semi-review of occasional episodes, doesn't count. But needs mentioning, because it's brilliant.)

ntnon

I saw episodes from several shows I'd never seen before - and many I hadn't seen in ten or twenty years - and they were almost-all excellent. Most were shows I'd always meant to watch but never had the time, opportunity or ability to see.

For instance, I finally had the opportunity (Amazon) - and impetus (Challenge) - to finally watch a full episode, or six, of Quantum Leap. I was distinctly unsurprised to find it every bit as good as I'd been expecting. Better, even. Definitely a show I need to own and watch in its entirety.

Having picked it up cheaply, I finally had time to watch the Filmation cartoon version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and was most surprised to learn (even knowing it was based on an Archie-published comic) quite how prominently the Archie characters were in it. And how little a role her boyfriend Harvey played! The semi-sequel series included on the Complete DVDs - Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies - was exceedingly odd, but entertaining. The voice for the Frankenstein monster seemed interestingly similar to Karloff's, which I liked. Their prominence was odd, but the episodes and plots weren't awful. Watching so many episodes back-to-back though, really highlights the stupidity and studied-ignorance of the main characters, who (TV convention alert!) pointedly forget everything they learn or suspect week-on-week, and remain newly semi-suspicious and oblivious in remarkably similar circumstances! "I did not see that! I did NOT see that!," indeed...!

I was also able to watch Season 1 of the Sabrina I remember watching. And while I didn't remember most of the specific episodes, the positive memories and enjoyment came flooding back. This was a great show, and holds up really well - as does the show it was, apparently, pointedly modeled on: Bewitched, which is also fresh and interesting after fifty-odd years. (Tabitha did not jump out as being worth watching in its stunted entirety, however. Not awful, but not great. Easy to see why it wasn't popular - and fascinating to compare Tabatha to Tabitha. The first pilot didn't mention Bewitched hardly at all, but the child characters were similar; the second took great pains to set out the continuity, but then ignored the witchiness of Tabitha's brother! Not to mention the super-ageing that was glossed over entirely...)

YouTube found me an episode of an obscure Anglo-French-Other cartoon called Walter Melon which is easily one of the most bizarre shows I remember watching in England a couple of decades ago. And there are many bizarre British shows! It's based on French comics - Achille Talon - which I've never read - or seen - but sincerely hope eventually get translated and published somewhere, not least so that I can see just how much of the comics made it into the show. The hero "fills in" for VERY famous genre heroes, a different one (or two) each episode who are indisposed. The one I remember watching however-many years ago was the one in which Walter took the place of Luke Skywalker. And even then, being reasonably-young, I can remember wondering how on earth they were allowed to get away with using and mocking such a high-profile licenced property! Subsequently, I presume it falls under fair-use parody laws, but even so... it really is bafflingly brazen! (Not to mention surely over the heads of most youngsters.) The one I saw this month had Walter fill in for Tarzan and James Bond. Not as great as my rose-tinted memory of the Star Wars one, but still great.

Voyagers! popped up when I was searching Amazon for Star Trek: Voyager, and I thought I'd give it a go. The acting almost put me off, but the interesting time travel plot made me stick with it right up to the final credits. And then the voiceover to the credits telling viewers to head to their local library and seek out further information about the topics and history featured in the show really made me sit up and give it another chance. And I'm glad I did! It's not the best show ever, and the acting ability on show isn't great, but it's very well plotted and enjoyable. I will definitely be finding time to watch the rest of it before too long. Hopefully.

I borrowed the first season of Justified and part of the fifth of Gunsmoke from the local library in part because I wanted to watch a Western, and in part because I'd heard occasional good things about them both. And now I'm adding Justified to the middle of my ludicrously-lengthy 'must watch TV' list. It's really good. Gunsmoke also goes onto one of my thousands of 'must buy/watch at some point' lists, because it held up in plot and acting extremely well indeed. The hour long episode I saw on TV dragged a little, but the half-hour DVD offering was very well done.

Kids in the Hall caught my eye when I was browsing Amazon, and rung a bell as being one of the thousand shows I'd heard about but never seen. And I really wish it had stayed that way. Admittedly, it was the first episode that I watched, and many shows have rocky starts, but this was not funny in part or whole. To each their own, of course, but I will not be seeking this out again unless I hear some very good words in its favour.

Dragnet and Hot in Cleveland (surely the first time those two shows have been paired together!) were both shows I'd seen one or two episodes of before, but have now gone up in my estimation. Dragnet was, as before, extremely eye-opening in its (surprisingly modern) take on events that I'd never even thought made it onto TV that long ago. I know there were true crime comics and radio shows, so I suppose I'd always known there were TV shows, too, but I didn't expect them to be this good! And HiC strikes me as being definitely not aimed at a male audience, but... turns out to be pretty funny.

Tied into Sabrina the Teenage Witch via a convenient plot device for a one night semi-crossover, the out-of-time episodes of Boy Meets World and Teen Angel (couldn't find You Wish) did a lot to make me think that the stereotype we were always fed about how awful American 90s children's TV was might not be true. Neither jumped out - as Sabrina continues to - as being brilliant and worth seeking out (in any case, I believe only BMW is readily available), but they definitely did a good job with the plots they had.

I'm not sure why the Red Dwarf US pilots get so much flak. They weren't great, they weren't awful. Watching them shortly after watching the original, they are very derivative and 'not as good' - but that seems largely because they utilised a near-identical similar script and are plainly British in style and content. Plus, the UK show is so well cast, anyone else would always be seen as a pretender, however good or bad they were. The American actors weren't great, but they certainly weren't awful. And Terry Farrell was excellent.

I watched the entire original Yes, (Prime) Minister, forgot to watch the Comedy Connections and Best Sitcom episodes, but did watch documentaries about both the main cast members. Those were distinctly bittersweet, as it brought home just how good in their roles they were, not that that wasn't obvious after seeing the episodes themselves. The accuracy of the bureaucracy, the hypocrisy and the secrecy... sublime. I wonder if the revived series will come even close to touching this classic. (And how odd is that the American semi-spin-off of Thick of It, Veep, the revived UK Yes, PM AND an American House of Cards should all show up in such quick succession?!)

For a reality show, I selected Auction Kings, and... good grief. Talk about lowest common denominator. The baffling, and near-celebrated ignorance on display was worrying; the audience patronising and slow explanations (bordering on 'this is a book. It has words in it') were annoying, but worst of all was the attitude of the seller of his grandfather's ceremonial Masonic items. He feigned sadness about parting with them, claimed bashfulness and contrition in selling such personal - and secret! - items that belonged to his beloved grandfather, and then said he hoped to make 'at least $100' to 'pay some bills'. Yes, he may have been really hard up. Yes, he may have had no interest or space to store these clearly interesting and valuable items. But, really. His attitude bothered me quite a bit for reasons I can't really explain on the page.

Lastly, in this very brief debrief, Xena. Xena is one of those shows - like Quantum Leap - that I have 'KNOWN' for years I will enjoy when I have the time to watch it, but never have. Seeking out the musical and clip show episodes, I was pleased - and a little smug! - to see just how right that opinion is!

shadokitty

Congrats to all the winners.

Ash Ketchum

Well, the Challenge is over, but today marked the premieres of the new seasons of both Pokémon and Power Rangers, so I watched those episodes:

Pokémon Black and White: Adventures in Unova - “Beauties Battling for Pride and Prestige!” on Cartoon Network-HD

Power Rangers Megaforce #1: “Mega Mission” on Nickelodeon-HD

PR Megaforce is based on the 2010 Japanese series, Tenso Sentai Goseija, and uses action footage from it. I watched the first four Goseija episodes last week for this challenge.

Great stuff all.

Ash and Cilan cross-dress to sneak into a theater housing an all-female performance troupe in the newest episode of Pokemon:


Power Rangers Megaforce:


In contrast, tackling my first film for the Academy Awards Challenge last night proved quite a challenge. I started one last night, fell asleep and forced myself to finish it this morning, in between Pokémon and Power Rangers. It was CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958), based on the Tennessee Williams play that’s currently being revived on Broadway. I really can’t stand that kind of overwrought theatrical drama filled with whining, groveling self-absorbed people. But it’s got an iconic Liz Taylor performance and I felt I needed to see it. (And she IS gorgeous!) The best thing about it is Burl Ives’ no-nonsense Big Daddy who blusters his way through the petty bickering of everybody else. He was the only one I felt any sympathy for and Ives wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar for it! Paul Newman’s Brick is the most miserable, sniveling, self-pitying ungrateful wretch I’ve seen as a major character in a long time. I don't mind people like that in a movie, but only if they're the villains!

I need to pick better films for the Oscar Challenge or go back to my pile of unwatched TV DVDs!

Whaddaya say, Liz?

Do you lighten up at all in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

BobO'Link

Thanks to your post I got out my Mill Creek Sherlock Holmes set to check. Sadly, I didn't even make it through the first disk/episode before it began to stutter/skip/hang. I was going to contact MC to see if they would replace the set but before I did I stumbled across one of the newer sets that includes the movies at Hastings for just over $2. I just picked that up instead. So far I've had no problems.

It's a very good series and absolutely amazing with the amount of content included in those 27(!) minutes. Like other early half-hour dramatic series they don't feel rushed in spite of the amount of content. I was surprised to see Paulette Goddard in the second episode, The Case of Lady Beryl.

Travis McClain

Just wait till you see who's in "The Case of the Perfect Husband"!

EdTheRipper

Even though the challenge has been over for a couple of days, I'm still finding myself watching tv shows. I need to finish Harper's Island with the wife at some point soon too.

shadokitty

I'm also still watching some tv shows as well, even though the Challenge is over.

BobO'Link

Same here although I *did* watch 4 movies yesterday. I've purchased lots of used stuff from Hastings the past couple of months and really need to watch some of it to make sure there are no problems. As it happens, 2 of those titles I watched got nominated for Academy Awards.

Travis McClain

Alright, the first few prizes are claimed:

HyperWeather has selected Aquaman: The Complete Series

KaBluie has selected Route 66: The Complete Series

Indy24 has selected The Commish: The Complete Series

That leaves four prizes on the table for:

InnocentBlood

pagefrance

Tarfrimmer

and...I'm an idiot who only drew six winners for seven prizes! Back to the randomizer in a minute!

Travis McClain

PRIZE (FINAL DRAWING)

Due to the aforementioned oversight on my part, I forgot to draw a winner for all seven prizes. I just generated a seventh winner and thankfully, it's not someone who was ineligible to win so I don't have to do this again.



Congratulations, #24: LJG765! Unfortunately, being drawn last you won't get a say in which prize you get but...it's a prize!

LJG765

Thanks! Wow, I almost didn't check this thread again...figured the challenge was over, the prizes drawn...Glad I did! Whoo hoo!

ntnon

Likewise! I'd forgotten just how good New Girl was/is, so in-between (and 'instead of') Oscar material, I've been watching myself up-to-date. And the "conversational Hindi" minilogue in Season 2, Episode 16 ("Marriage") has just become one of the funniest things I've seen in years!

Travis McClain

Still haven't heard back from a few prize winners and it's been more than a week. How long should we go before I re-draw?