Month: October 2013

Email Roundtable #34 – Twin Peaks

/ Katie Man / Leave a comment

Lucy

Jane: This week on the roundtable we continue with our Fall Television Secret Santa. Jane gifted Katie the first Season of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks is about a lot of things, but basically, it is the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer.

Katie, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your viewing experience.

Katie: Well, let me start off by saying that I respect that Twin Peaks is a favourite of yours and Kerri’s but I just hated it. The pilot took me a week to watch (in 5 minute increments.) Continue reading →

This is 30 (for 30)

/ GoldenAgeGuest / Leave a comment

Just a little peek behind the curtain/a bit of fourth wall breakage to let you know how the blognificent elves and fairies of blogsburgh blog it up, bloggy style. Basically it’s a big smoke filled room with lots of clunky desks. Lots of coffee-stained mugs next to half eaten halves of coffee cake. Katie is dry for ideas and chugging a bottle of liquid antacid. Jane is scurrying around taking orders for the midnight run at the delicatessen that sits across the six lane highway. I sit with my cowboy boots on the desk trying to recall the two night stand Trapper John had in the Adam’s Rib episode of MASH (Merideth… Margie… Mildred…Mildred!) with a bank of clocks set to the times of world capitals behind me. Kerri stews in the big corner office chewing out an intern, who leaves weeping and is replaced with the indispensability and efficiency of a Kleenex box. Jane returns telling Katie that a turkey Reuben is not a Reuben and is just “pregnant lady food”; my veal parmesan has somehow become an eggplant parm. Kerri is furious – “I said a chicken salad, not chicken salad, oyoyoy”. Kerri calls me into her office (aka Kerri’s Lair-ee) to tell me she’s spiking my tribute to Yasmine Bleeth article. “She ruined seasons 4 and 5 of Nash Bridges and she’s not going to ruin me. Write what you know! In an hour….” This process happens constantly with ulcers for all and justice for none. Continue reading →

Susan 313

/ Katie Man / Leave a comment

Yesterday, Sarah Silverman posted the pilot episode of Susan 313 to her Youtube page. The pilot was made for NBC, but they didn’t pick it up. I was a big fan of The Sarah Silverman Program, so I may be biased but I was quite impressed by Susan 313. The show would have been about a woman in her late ’30s, who returns to her old apartment when she leaves an extremely codependent relationship. The big triumph in the episodes occurs when Susan figures out how to fix the water at her place (by calling the super.) Continue reading →

Email Roundtable #33 – Spaced

/ Katie Man / 2 Comments

This week on the roundtable we continue with our Fall Television Secret Santa. Katie gifted Kerri the British comedy from 1999, Spaced. Below is their conversation about the show.

SpacedKatie: Well Kerri, was I right or was I right? Daisy is the best.

Kerri: You were so, so, so right. Not only is Daisy the best character on Spaced but she’s also now one of my favourite female TV characters of all time. She’s right up there with Liz Lemon in my books.

Katie: And Peggy Olson!

Before we get too far into details, want to give a brief description of Spaced for our lovely readers?

Kerri: Spaced is a show about two friends, Tim Bisley (Simon Pegg) and Daisy Steiner (Jessica Hynes, nee Stevenson), that pretend to be a couple in order to rent a flat. Once they successfully rent the apartment, they find that it is populated by a hilarious mishmash of characters, like the constantly drunk building owner, Marsha, and the disturbed artist, Brian. The show plays around with genre convention and there are an abundance of pop-culture references.

Continue reading →

I was wrong, It’s Freaks and Geeks and The Wire.

/ Jane Walker / Leave a comment

freeks and geeks and mcnulty

A few months ago at the height of my love affair with Damages I proclaimed that “the first five minutes of [its] pilot episode are as good as any television pilot I’ve seen.” While Damages is darn good TV and its opening is stylish and well shot, I was completely wrong. After some distance and an obviously much needed cooling off period, I came back to my senses. I now proclaim that the first five minutes of Freaks and Geeks and The Wire are the among very best minutes that TV has to offer. For real this time. Continue reading →

Your Next Show Should Be Masters of Sex

/ kwoloszyn / 1 Comment

So, Breaking Bad has been over for more than a week now and you are still huddled in the fetal position in some corner somewhere, blinds closed, shut out to the rest of the world, quietly sobbing, pondering if you will ever find a show that made you feel so much ever again. I am not going to pretend to have the miracle cure for what ails you but perhaps as a salve I can suggest a show that has some similarities so Breaking Bad, albeit with a lot less violence and a lot more sex: That show is Masters of Sex on Showtime, the true story of the revolutionary sex study by Masters and Johnson in the 1950s.

Continue reading →

Breaking Bad, One Last Time

/ kwoloszyn / 1 Comment

By this point you’ve seen the finale of Breaking Bad. Maybe you’ve watched it twice. By this point you’ve read everything about it too and have had a full week to process it. We’ve already done a piece on the last episode. By this point the people who love the finale have made their love known and people who didn’t like it so much have done the same. Everything has been said that needs to be said and said well. You are probably exhausted from all of this Breaking Bad content. But how ’bout one more kick at the giant barrel full of cash for old times sake?

Continue reading →

Email Roundtable #31 – Fall Television Secret Santa

/ kwoloszyn / 3 Comments

This week, and for a number of the weeks to follow, we will be doing Fall Television Secret Santa. We each “randomly” chose a name and were given the job of gifting a television show to that person. This week we will be discussing the person we drew, the show we chose for them and why. In the coming weeks we will be pairing down our roundtable to two and interviewing our Secret Santa about the show they were gifted (or forced) to watch. The rules state that you may watch as much or as little of the show as you like and that the gift giver must have seen at least a portion of the show as well. 

Continue reading →

Best Cooking Show Ever.

/ GoldenAgeGuest / 1 Comment

The blog rotation has fallen on me this week and, as fate should have it, Breaking Bad wrapped. I was going to pontificate about my latest passion which has become mid-nineties Australian sitcoms – but the timing isn’t proper. The fine folks at AMC decided to thumb its nose at the Netflix enthusiasts and DVD buyers of world. They put one of their franchise shows, Breaking Bad, on in marathon form in a build up to this season. Friday nights were marathon sessions. I missed it during the first run and was very miffed when Bryan Cranston would beat out Don Draper at the Emmys. To me, Cranston will always be Malcolm’s dad. I hated Malcolm in the Middle. He was Tim Whatley, Jerry Seinfeld’s lecherous dentist. I knew him on the pilot episode of the Pam Anderson action series VIP -but his work as meth master Walter White must be celebrated. As he moved from sheepish milquetoast to evil drug lord, he turned into having the traits of a great wrestling champion. He started off as a good guy, with tag team partners like Hank and his wife. He had a protégé to mentor and bail him out in Jesse. Then he got a manager, in lawyer Saul. He battled in feuds with the likes of contenders to his meth title with the likes of Tuco, the grizzled Mike, and Gus. Like the great wrestler he became a villain. The bad guy. He turned on his wife, Hank, and his son. He put on his literal black hat with greed and power taking over for family loyalty. And in ultimate wrestling fashion, left to go to do movies. Continue reading →