Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

One thing I enjoy about the Fox Sports channels is the abundance of UFC programming on them. I just finished watching an episode of UFC Unleashed on FS2 for example.

On another note I'm set on Hulu for a long time, as I bought a 6 month Hulu gift card on EBay yesterday. I'm also really enjoying this challenge, and I want to thank Travis for running it.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Yep. According to NBC estimates, in January 1968 (mid-way in season 2) only ~25% of the viewing audience had a color set. By January 1969 it had grown to ~33%. Let those numbers sink in a bit as by this time all prime time programming was in color and daytime was quickly transitioning. Even as "late" as July 1971 there was only ~48% color TV penetration.

Knowing just *who* was watching *what* program in color was significant in attracting sponsors. Star Trek had a more affluent, and generally better educated, audience. A group that also had a higher percentage of color sets. IIRC that is also what helped keep it on the air for the 2nd season.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

The series was cut to a single 30 minute episode a week to save costs. Ratings were declining ratings as bored adults bailed on the series (kids still watched but they don't buy stuff). They also cut costs by using cheaper sets which became mostly two-dimensional cut-outs against a stark black stage (much like was done with Star Trek in S3). Batgirl was introduced to help bolster those flagging ratings. The producers hoped to gain the attention of more male adult viewers and also young girls. It didn't work and the show was cancelled but it *almost* had a fourth season.

As Yvonne Craig puts it:
I liked the Batgirl character as a kid but in watching the series again last year (first time for S3 since it originally aired) I found she's pretty useless in the series, getting in the way as much as she helps. Many of her appearances do nothing but fill out (with mostly fluff) those shortened stories.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

The "generally better educated" observation is one that sometimes makes me uncomfortable, but it has certainly been noted that a key demographic of the show's reruns were college kids, and that it was the success of the reruns that kept the series seemingly viable throughout the 70's.

NBC's hope was to create a bloc of Star Trek and Batman. What a shame they didn't act until after the Batcave had been torn down! One has to wonder what both series might have been like with the kind of network support that they would certainly have enjoyed at that point.

Oh, and as for "Spock's Brain", as stupid as that episode is, when I created my ranked list of the original series (including animated series, movies, and spinoff show episodes that directly connected), it placed at #114/122, ahead of:

• "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" [The Animated Series]
• "A Private Little War"
• "And the Children Shall Lead"
• "The Omega Glory"
• "The Way to Eden"
• "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
• "The Paradise Syndrome"
• "The Alternative Factor"

That's right; my absolute lowest-ranked Star Trek story is "The Alternative Factor". It bores the hell out of me. I'll take goofy and stupid over boring, and "The Alternative Factor" is the epitome of boring Trek. It's boring from start to finish and I don't care in the least what becomes of Lazarus. Antiuniverse, mass destruction, blah, blah, blah. Booooorrrrrinnnnnnng.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I agree with this. Favorite shows I'll watch the bonus content.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I was outside that demographic as I was 11 when Star Trek first aired and loved the series from the first episode (still do). None of my friends watched the show but I never missed a episode if I could help it. But I was the only person I knew of who read SF/Fantasy and regularly searched out that type program and movie. Most of my friends just didn't understand my love for the genre. I've loved fantasy films (watched lots of Harryhausen as a kid) and got my love of "hard" SF from my dad when I "stumbling" on his collection of SF novels when i was ~10. The first thing I remember reading from his collection was Asimov's I Robot followed by a collection of short stories from Heinlein. Star Trek was wonderful and simply the best thing on TV.
Interesting. That would have been a fantastic pairing, especially if they could have put a bit more serious tone in Batman. I absolutely *love* the "camp" style of the show but feel that's what really hurt its long term chances. Most people seemingly won't put up with that style very long.
Finally someone who feels the same about The Alternative Factor as do I! I generally skip that one if I'm going through the series. I also very much agree with your placement of those other episodes below Spock's Brain. They, too, are mostly skipped episodes. Sure, Spock's Brain is a lame episode, but it at least is fun and more interesting than any of those you rank below it. In spite of the truly bad ones in S3 I like many of the S3 episodes and count a few top 10 favorites in that season. There are some truly great ones amid the dross of that season.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I totally agree. "Spock's Brain" is bad but it's not the worst of the TOS episodes in my humble opinion. I swore I was going to give every episode my undivided attention but episodes like "The Alternative Factor" had me running to Facebook because I was so freaking bored. I don't know if that one is my least favorite episode mostly because I tend to forget the boring episodes the minute they're finished. Of course, my vote for the absolute worst episode of Trek is from TNG and I'm not looking forward to that viewing (damn first season).

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I finished S1 of Grace Under Fire and enjoyed it just as much as I did during the original airings. I've not seen the series since then and was surprised at just how many episodes there were from which I actually recalled bits. I'm not sure if I'll move on to S2 as I have lots of other stuff I'd like to at least sample this month but it's calling...

I started S4 of Chuck - another first time viewing. It's just as good as S1-S3 and I'm really enjoying the series. I'd thought it might get bogged down in "relationship" stuff with Chuck and Sarah but the writers have managed to keep it fresh and surprising.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

For me, watching it out out of order and under awkward conditions, the absolute highlight of Chuck was the finale of Season 2, which was just superb. What followed was still excellent, but nothing beats that episode.

Season 4 was very enjoyable, and the guest stars are fantastic. Is it S3 or S4 with Vinnie Jones for some reason..?! I did feel the show ended on a lesser note, though, so I'll be curious of your thoughts there when that time comes.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I had to look up Vinnie Jones (name is not recognizable for me). According to IMDB, that appearance was Season 3, Episode 2.

I'm not sure I'll get to S5 this month. Much like the "issue" with Grace Under Fire I have lots of stuff I want to sample so it may get put off a bit. I *will* post thoughts (here? hmmm... depends on just when and if it fits the then current challenge) whenever that viewing happens to take place.

I'm somewhat apprehensive about the finale as many series I've seen which have actual "endings" didn't do it well. Two that stick out are M*A*S*H - didn't like, but by that time it'd gotten rather preachy and I didn't much care for the series any longer, and Jerry Seinfeld - didn't like because it was nothing more than a lame fill-in flash-back episode. I know there're others but I can't think of them off the top of my head. I believe I'm one of a dozen or so people who actually liked the ending of the revamped Battlestar Galactice, even though I saw it coming long before it happened.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Just Finished Making a Murderer. Very depressing but riveting show. Also finished S15 of Gunsmoke and am working my way through S3 of Good Wife.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I stopped keeping track of time long ago, but I just hit 200 entries with a show about a turkey hunting competition on the Sportsman Channel. It makes me long for spring as I didn't get a chance to get my turkey stamp last fall.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I recently bought a disc worth of old Nickelodeon game shows. I admit to be sort of disappointed about them. While it does have the game shows I watched, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Double Dare, Nick Guts and so on, the ones they chose didn't make a lot of sense. For instance, in at least 3 or 4 out of the 8, the kids totally lost. I find that they would pick those a bit odd. And at least one of the episodes is one that has been aired at night on Nick within the last few months. You'd think they would have picked ones that aren't in circulation. Oh well...it was fun to watch them anyway, but I doubt I'll return to them anytime soon.

I also started watched ST:TNG: Season one again. I'm on disc 3, have one more to go. I'm not sure if it's because I'm watching in high def or not, but they do seem very very basic in design and costuming. Also, watching "Haven" it was almost a flash back to TOS when they showed the plague ship. Still, fun to watch even though they are a bit more cheesy than I remember!

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I need to binge my way through Chuck. I've watched chunks of it, but not the whole series. The great thing about the show is that it will also fit into the action and comedy challenges. There is a dedicated Chuck thread in TV talk that you could record in as well.

Seinfeld is one of my most disappointing series finales of all time, and it might be alone on that perch. I thought BSG was pretty good, especially since the series itself was a little hit and miss toward the end.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

At long last, I've finished Homicide: Life on the Street! There are some brilliant episodes in each season, but the last two seasons had an increasing ratio of clunkers to gems. Six of the bottom ten episodes on my ranked list came from that last season, including my two lowest-ranked: "La Famiglia" (#125) and "Wanted Dead or Alive (Part 2)" (#126). It's easy enough to say that one of the biggest problems was the departure of Andre Braugher at the end of the sixth season; his absence was sorely felt throughout that final season, and not just because of his commanding screen presence. The writers no longer had a deliverer for their most brilliant material, and no matter how they tried to shape it to fit any of the other cast members, there's a sense that something was lost in translation.

Even throughout that sixth season with Braugher, though, the show had become overtaken by a series of ongoing character arcs that bogged down things too often. Mike Kellerman goes through most of the fifth season under investigation for corruption charges related to his time in arson before joining the show, and no sooner is that dark cloud dispersed than along comes the sixth season's arc of the fallout over his involvement in the Luther Mahoney shooting. Admittedly, the crescendo to that arc, the two-part season 6 finale, "Fallen Heroes", placed atop my ranked list so it did have a tremendous payoff, but it was just tedious at times getting to it.

When the series began, the focus was on working and closing cases. The detectives had their own lives, which were explored in depth, but it felt organic and real. By the time of the seventh season, the cast had been overhauled with several younger members and their relationships with one another were often more central to a given episode than were cases. Sometimes it seemed that a case was invented just to give characters something to do while they talked about their relationships. The series also became increasingly about gun-drawn raids and car chases, which are perfectly legitimate storytelling subjects but they're antithetical to what Homicide was created to explore.

Still, just when I seemed to reach a point where I all I wanted to do was finish the show, along would come an episode like "Shades of Gray", which placed #4 on my ranked list. (Think: investigators contending with the aftermath of Do the Right Thing.) Or "Lines of Fire" (my #10), an episode with just one plot: Mike Giardello negotiating with a guy who has snapped and taken his son and stepdaughter hostage in his ex-wife's apartment. It's as suspenseful and agonizing as anything by Hitchcock that I've seen so far.

One of the greatest things about Homicide was its willingness to let its characters not just be flawed, but to be outright ugly about things, whether Gharty's casual racism or Lewis's misogynistic streak. As easy as it would be to say, "I won't have anything to do with ugly people", the truth is that we have to live, work, study, or otherwise exist in the company of ugly people. (If we're being completely truthful, we're sometimes the ugly ones ourselves.) This show is as much about that as it is about crime or socio-political issues.

In the commentary to the series finale, I learned that NBC offered to grant an eighth season on the basis that they fire everyone except for Richard Belzer, Michael Michele, and Callie Thorne, and then move the three of them to Miami Beach where they would open a private detective agency. Tom Fontana said that meeting lasted all of five minutes because he refused to even consider it, and apparently the NBC execs were all stunned that he balked at what they thought was a gimme.

In all, I watched 105:44:00 of content, including 125 episodes, 1 movie, 6 commentary tracks and other bonus features. I awarded 23 5-star ratings, and now I think I need to take at least a full day of not watching anything to decompress! I've never watched an entire series for one of our challenges like I have this time. Part of me feels like this is what the challenge should be like, and part of me thinks I favor my previous approach, which has been to watch an entire season of one show, then an entire season of another, etc.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Bravo on re-watching Homicide. I agree that most of the later cast additions weren't particularly interesting. I think Mike Giardello was the only "new" character I liked and part of that is because the actor is awesome. I think if the writers had done more for that character the last season wouldn't have been so uneven (that would also give Yaphet Kotto more to do if there was more discussion about their relationship).

I will say that one of my favorite episodes is "Mercy" (Which is on your favorite list as well). The scene with Braugher and Alfre Woodard in The Box is just iconic. Two amazing actors going toe-to-toe and the assisted suicide issue was handled well. I show that clip to my class when we discuss the show (we watch "Black and Blue," "Every Mother's Son," and "The Why Chromosome").

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

So the Shaun the Sheep movie qualifies for double-counting with the Oscar pre-challenge, yes?

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Yes, I would say Shaun the Sheep qualifies for double dipping.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

"Long last"..?! Less than two weeks into January...!

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I just finished revisiting the first GI Joe miniseries, The MASS Device and really enjoyed it. It reminded me of a time before I knew that Chris Latta did the voice of both Starscream and Cobra Commander, but at the same time I remember thinking, 'They sound like the same person.'

On another note, I seem to be on a natural high tonight and my mood is so great, I plan to stay up as late as possible to work on the challenge. Does anyone else do that when their mood hits a certain point?

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I finished Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and absolutely loved it. I'm still sorting out my feelings about the conclusion and a lot of the character beats and plot points, but it's jumped to the top of my favorite television series list. It's so good, you guys.

After all the sci-fi tension, I needed a funny palate cleanser so I watched The Spoils Before Dying. It's actually better than Babylon and explores some interesting points about art, context, and author.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I still need to watch the final two seasons of DS9. I watched an episode for the July challenge but that's as far as I got. I really like the series and burned through five seasons when they first came out on DVD, then moved on to other things and have always meant to finish.

I'm watching Friends for the first time. I didn't really like the episode or two I saw back in the day, but my kids started watching it, and everyone I know has seen it, so I figured I'd join the 20th century now that we're in the 21st. I started during the November challenge, took December off, and am now into season 8. I enjoy the characters and am glad I'm finaly ticking this off my never-watched list.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I finished S4 of Chuck. I have very mixed feelings about the way the season ended, especially with what happened with Sarah. Frankly the Sarah incident felt very much like a cheat. Plus those last two episodes also felt very padded with wedding stuff which mostly bored me. I cheated somewhat and read the synopsis of the first few S5 episodes and am not looking forward to the viewing as that, coupled with the last minute or so of the last S4 episode, makes it look like they changed the whole premise of the show for S5.

So... My daughter gave me a new TV for Christmas and I finally hooked it up. I've now joined the "digital" age with a 40" WS set (had a 32" CRT). Doing this prompted me to start S2 of ST:TOS on BR as I wasn't happy with the presentation on a CRT (the episodes show up window boxed that way). I can now see them properly and only pillar boxed, plus the 4x3 image size is the same as on my old CRT. I'm still mostly liking the remastered effects. My main issue is that the CGI "Enterprise" frequently looks fake and not nearly as good as that original model. I'd have rather seen them keep, and clean up, the old shots of the ship and overlayed that on new CGI space and planets. I also do not like the new 7.1 audio mix - it's lacking in lower end and sounds "off." Fortunately they kept the mono mix so I can listen to that. I'm also not fully sold on the re-recorded open theme. It's good, but there are a few things that are a bit "off" so that older audio mix fixes that, too.

And a coworker brought me her copy of S1 of American Horror Story in spite of me telling her I've way too much TVonDVD content already lined up to watch this month! So I took it to make her happy and watched the first 3 episodes last night. It surprised me by being done so well. I'm generally not much of a fan of horror stuff on TV as the majority seems to be created for the 8-10 year old age group. So far this one is quite adult, frequently scary, with good actors, direction, lighting, and scripting. I plan to finish it over the weekend so I can get back to what I've already lined up.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

That's one of my favorite Trek series. I'd originally bailed on it during first run syndication when Worf joined the cast but when I made myself catch up later found my reservations were mostly unfounded. Overall he becomes a fairly good fit in spite of other issues I have with some of the storylines in which he's involved.

Between and during other challenges last year I watched the last few seasons and thought it ended OK, certainly better than Enterprise. During that extended period I watched S4-7 but had the feeling something was missing. While looking for another program a couple of months ago I discovered why. I'd totally skipped S5. There'd been a long enough lapse after S4 when I picked it back up that I'd forgotten S5 was in a different storage location than S6-S7 so when S6 was the earliest... I may try to remedy that sometime this month.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I finished season 3 of Charlie's Angels. Since I knew I'd still have a couple of weeks left in the month after I finished it, I was thinking about watching season 4 also, but the episodes I watched a couple days ago were pretty bad, and the four I watched today went from really goofy, to not too bad, to okay, to a crappy clip show, so I think I'll wait until next January for season 4. Plus, since season 5 was a short season (due to an actors' strike that year), I can go ahead and watch it too, and finish up the series.

I started the final season of Sons of Anarchy yesterday, and I know I'll be done with it in a few days, so I think I'll watch (and list) the first season of Fear the Walking Dead and then I'll probably be done for the month. After that, I plan on finally catching up on the current shows that I've been putting off watching for the last few months.