What was the last TV show you watched?

[Stearmen]

Sun Records. Funny to see cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and James Baker, before they were infamous! Not sure why, but they portrayed Blue Moon Of Kentucky as Elvis's only song on his first record? It was the B side, That's All Right, (omitting Mama on the label) was the A side. I will say, Blue Moon Of Kentucky is still my favorite, it's just so raw, and that great echo, Rockabilly.

 

[Fading Fast]

The first episode (of three) of the Netflix documentary "Five Came Back," which examines the lives of five famous Hollywood directors - Ford, Wyler, Huston, Capra and Stevens - during WWII and how their personal backgrounds and their war experiences influenced their work.

So far, it is outstanding with several modern directors - Spielberg, Coppola, etc. - contributing analysis. Additional, the narration is insightful and the film footage is incredible (once again, even though I've been watching WWII documentaries for over forty years, every well-done new documentary always seems able to find something you hadn't seen before). Finally, all of this commentary, all of these images and all the film footage is seamlessly put into the broader context of the War, American society and the film industry at the time.

Can't wait until I have time to watch the next two episodes.

 

[AmateisGal]

Finished the first series of Home Fires and am excited for the second (and sadly, final) season which started yesterday.

 

[AmateisGal]

The first episode (of three) of the Netflix documentary "Five Came Back," which examines the lives of five famous Hollywood directors - Ford, Wyler, Huston, Capra and Stevens - during WWII and how their personal backgrounds and their war experiences influenced their work.

So far, it is outstanding with several modern directors - Spielberg, Coppola, etc. - contributing analysis. Additional, the narration is insightful and the film footage is incredible (once again, even though I've been watching WWII documentaries for over forty years, every well-done new documentary always seems able to find something you hadn't seen before). Finally, all of this commentary, all of these images and all the film footage is seamlessly put into the broader context of the War, American society and the film industry at the time.

Can't wait until I have time to watch the next two episodes.

I am looking forward to this!

 

[Fading Fast]

I am looking forward to this!

I believe it was your Tweet that alerted me to it - so thank you. Great so far / I'm sure you're going to love it.

 

[Fading Fast]

Finished the first series of Home Fires and am excited for the second (and sadly, final) season which started yesterday.

How cool was the final scene of the last episode from season 1 when all the planes flew over? Sent chills up my spine.

Wow, season 2 is just starting and they already killed it - seems early for them to have made that call - no?

 

[Benzadmiral]

On DVD, the first episode of Firefly. I'd seen one episode, not the first, when it aired, and was confused by the setting and by not knowing the characters' relationships. Further, I'd always heard it described as a Western in space -- a big no-no to true SF fans, as we've always been told that merely shifting a Western into space, changing six-guns to ray guns, the Texas Rangers to the Space Patrol, etc., doesn't make the piece really science fiction. So I was wary.

All I can say is, as usual with Joss Whedon's projects, that I enjoyed it. I didn't see a strong Western motif in it. Yes, several of the characters carry, and use, various handguns, some of which fire bullets; and yes, some of the landscape on the planet Whitefall, to which the ship Serenity travels, looks like the desert areas of the Old West. But I'm not getting a strong "Western" vibe.

You have to play close attention to any Whedon-written script, though, as he'll introduce plot switches without warning, or have the characters fill in back story while walking or doing other things. I'm glad to have the DVD so I can run it back and rewatch a scene I didn't completely get the first time.

 

[Steve27752]

Indeed Spader makes the show, I also got totally fed up with the baby chasing sorry line. I think a spin off with Reddington in it would have been a much better idea.

 

[MisterCairo]

The season finale of The Walking Dead. Then part of Into The Badlands which is infuriatingly sandwiched between TWD and Talking Dead, then Talking Dead.

 

[Doctor Strange]

On DVD, the first episode of Firefly. I'd seen one episode, not the first, when it aired, and was confused by the setting and by not knowing the characters' relationships. Further, I'd always heard it described as a Western in space -- a big no-no to true SF fans, as we've always been told that merely shifting a Western into space, changing six-guns to ray guns, the Texas Rangers to the Space Patrol, etc., doesn't make the piece really science fiction. So I was wary.

All I can say is, as usual with Joss Whedon's projects, that I enjoyed it. I didn't see a strong Western motif in it. Yes, several of the characters carry, and use, various handguns, some of which fire bullets; and yes, some of the landscape on the planet Whitefall, to which the ship Serenity travels, looks like the desert areas of the Old West. But I'm not getting a strong "Western" vibe.

You have to play close attention to any Whedon-written script, though, as he'll introduce plot switches without warning, or have the characters fill in back story while walking or doing other things. I'm glad to have the DVD so I can run it back and rewatch a scene I didn't completely get the first time.

Paul, I can't tell you how much I envy you still having the remaining episodes of Firefly ahead of you! The show is absolutely unique, continually surprising, and wonderfully entertaining. I'm no fawning Joss Whedon fan - I've never watched a single episode of his other shows - but Firefly is flat-out brilliant.

The only "western" aspects about it are: it's a Stagecoach-ish mixed group of travelers whose ideas/personality bounce off one another, its protagonists are the noble losers of a lost-cause civil war, and much of it takes place on the lawless frontier. It's more the anti-Trek: a libertarian-leaning study of life on the fringes, where the Alliance (Federation?) represents repression and control, not altruism. And there's no faster than light travel, no alien species, and hardly any ray guns... And most significantly, mankind has not "matured" a la the Roddenberry universe - people are still just as selfish and nasty 500 years from now.

A GREAT show, killed much too soon!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Oh, and re Five Came Back, I'm also REALLY looking forward to watching it... but I'm so drowning in "content" at the moment that it's gonna have to wait a bit.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Paul, I can't tell you how much I envy you still having the remaining episodes of Firefly ahead of you! The show is absolutely unique, continually surprising, and wonderfully entertaining. I'm no fawning Joss Whedon fan - I've never watched a single episode of his other shows - but Firefly is flat-out brilliant.

The only "western" aspects about it are: it's a Stagecoach-ish mixed group of travelers whose ideas/personality bounce off one another, its protagonists are the noble losers of a lost-cause civil war, and much of it takes place on the lawless frontier. It's more the anti-Trek: a libertarian-leaning study of life on the fringes, where the Alliance (Federation?) represents repression and control, not altruism. And there's no faster than light travel, no alien species, and hardly any ray guns... And most significantly, mankind has not "matured" a la the Roddenberry universe - people are still just as selfish and nasty 500 years from now.

A GREAT show, killed much too soon!

I didn't get the impression that their 'verse (to use their term) lacked FTL travel, but that the distances they were traveling (in this story anyway) were mostly within one or two closely-located solar systems, so they didn't need to use FTL much. (Larry Niven's Known Space is something like that -- his FTL drive won't work within the "singularity" of a star, so ships come out of hyperdrive on the fringe of a solar system, and have to use fusion drives to maneuver to that system's habitable planet.) Perhaps Joss and his stable of writers will make that clearer as the epic goes along.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Actually, it's one of the things that's never well explained. (And frankly, that the show doesn't feel it has to continually put us through endless exposition to explain everything is one of the nice things about it.) The Verse is a whole bunch of planets and moons within a single complex system, mostly within just days of flight time... but it took long enough to get there for several generations to live and die in a colony ship from Earth-That-Was.

In case it hasn't been pointed out to you, there's a follow-up theatrical feature (*) that was made several years after the show was canceled, Serenity. (Not to be confused with the same-titled pilot episode or the ship itself!) Be sure to watch it AFTER the 14 episodes.

(* Lot of successful TV shows have spawned follow-up movies, but it's one of the unique aspects of Firefly that it got a feature film after it failed!)

 

[Zombie_61]

On DVD, the first episode of Firefly. I'd seen one episode, not the first, when it aired, and was confused by the setting and by not knowing the characters' relationships...

...(* Lot of successful TV shows have spawned follow-up movies, but it's one of the unique aspects of Firefly that it got a feature film after it failed!)

It's fairly common knowledge among people who have even a casual interest in Firefly, but Fox seemed to have intentionally sabotaged the show by airing the episodes out of order (the pilot episode was the 11th episode aired ) and/or pre-empting them if they thought a particular sports event would draw more viewers. I wouldn't say it "failed" because it was never really given a proper chance to succeed; it's a bit of a miracle that it caught on at all.

 

[Benzadmiral]

It's fairly common knowledge among people who have even a casual interest in Firefly, but Fox seemed to have intentionally sabotaged the show by airing the episodes out of order (the pilot episode was the 11th episode aired ) and/or pre-empting them if they thought a particular sports event would draw more viewers. I wouldn't say it "failed" because it was never really given a proper chance to succeed; it's a bit of a miracle that it caught on at all.

No wonder I was confused by the one I saw. It certainly wasn't the 11th episode.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's unclear why Fox even greenlit Firefly in the first place. It was an oddball show that was a tough sell, and it was clearly too smart for its own good. And at that very moment (2002 or so) Fox and the rest of the networks realized something major: they could produce SEVERAL "reality shows" - the hot new idea - for less than one scripted series. Especially an expensive SF series with all kind of major sets (*) and visual effects. So it's clear that Fox wanted Firefly to fail, as you said, not airing the pilot first (instead weakening "The Train Job" by making it include all kinds of redundant exposition) and preempting the show at the slightest provocation. They had no faith and wanted it to fail so they could replace it with more cost-effective programming.

(* Contiguous sets of the entire upper level and lower level of Serenity were built on different soundstages so the actors could walk through them as the camera followed, giving a real sense of size and how the parts of the ship related. Watch for Steadicam shots that do this in the series and the Serenity feature... for which the sets were rebuilt from scratch.)

And I have to say that even I - a consumer of SF since the early sixties, spending too much time in conversations about Trek/SF/fantasy at the Trek BBS everyday at that point - didn't watch the show during its original run. I was vaguely aware of it, but I wasn't a Whedonite, and it was hard to find and then disappeared so quickly. I watched a couple of years later when it ran on the Sci-Fi Channel shortly before the feature opened. (Then I immediately got the DVD set... which has the eps in the intended order.)

 

[Doctor Strange]

No wonder I was confused by the one I saw. It certainly wasn't the 11th episode.

But you still saw it first. If you'd seen it eleventh, you'd be even more confused! ("Wait... Shepherd Book, Simon, and River have already been on the ship all along. Wha?!?") There is an outstanding flashback episode later in the series that fills in backstory ("Out of Gas"), but it's very clear in that one that they're flashbacks.

Speaking of the pilot "Serenity"... It's a GREAT pilot, but I think it was a mistake to cold-open with the Battle of Serenity Valley. Not that establishing Mal and Zoe's combat relationship and synergy, and the crushing loss of being on the losing side, isn't important, it's critical... but I've had folks that I've introduced to the show - telling them beforehand how smart and unique it is - glaze over at the rather generic, Starship Troopers-ish action sequence. (Coincidentally, costumes and props from that film were re-used for Alliance troops more than once in Firefly.)

 

[Zombie_61]

No wonder I was confused by the one I saw. It certainly wasn't the 11th episode.

It has always been a common problem among television series'--if you don't know the premise, the stories and character actions don't seem to make much sense. And Firefly had a fairly complex set-up--it's approximately 500 years in Earth's future, Earth's natural resources have been used up, and the human race has moved to a new star system in order to survive. The United States and China have *combined to create a new and oppressive central government called The Alliance , but humanity is still dealing with many of the problems we have today--class separation, an "Us vs. Them" clash between the rich and the poor, war, poverty, starvation, and so on. Some technologies have advanced, but they don't spend a lot of time explaining how any of it works. The show uses Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds and his crew to explore this new way of life for humanity because they're part of the working class, and are therefore able to travel from place to place while trying to earn a living.

*This is why the characters often use a combination of English and poorly pronounced Mandarin Chinese. In reality, this was nothing more than a way to allow the characters to curse without the show's producers having to answer to the FCC.

...And I have to say that even I - a consumer of SF since the early sixties, spending too much time in conversations about Trek/SF/fantasy at the Trek BBS everyday at that point - didn't watch the show during its original run. I was vaguely aware of it, but I wasn't a Whedonite, and it was hard to find and then disappeared so quickly. I watched a couple of years later when it ran on the Sci-Fi Channel shortly before the feature opened. (Then I immediately got the DVD set... which has the eps in the intended order.)

You and I came to Firefly the same way. I had heard about it when it was first-run, but could never find it on Fox's lineup. I finally saw it a couple of years after it had been cancelled when the Sci-Fi Channel aired their marathon in order to generate interest in the theatrical sequel Serenity. I stumbled across it while channel surfing so I had missed the first three episodes, but five minutes into "Shindig" I was online looking for the DVD box set.

 

[Touchofevil]

The final two episodes of Sneaky Pete. I look forward to the next season.

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Watched the recording of Thursday's Blacklist spinoff. Sort of like the old tv Mission:Impossible, but with ethically amorphous team members.

Then, Blue Bloods, again recorded and watched later. Now, I admit I'm stretching possibilities here, but some of the characters are Jamaican and speak with the distinctive accent of the (broadly speaking) West Indies. The police get a lead on a character who lives on Walcott Street. I'm wondering if that's a tip of the hat to Derek Walcott?

Now this is really a stretch, but when a character retires (I hope this isn't a spoiler for anybody out there) the officers line the hall way, salute and then shake the retiree's hand as he makes his way down the hall. I could not help but think of those scenes of White Christmas with General Waverly; both used a cane.