TV Shows Discussion

[fragger]

 :)

Excellent show, way better than I was expecting :-X Perfect casting, great performances, very high production values, fantastic visuals, and lots of neat twists. Despite my minor gripes with it, I enjoyed it very much and will definitely watch it again sometime.

[Art Blade]

I loved Baltar for his undeniable British origins and all the snobbish comments that arose out of that background :-X

[mandru]

James Gordon, the name ring a bell?  No?

Tonight Fox TV is launching a new series that from what I've been able to discern from the promotional commercial spots has a very high production quality.  Quality so high in fact I first thought it was a movie that was being released.  I don't go to new movies.  Rather I await their release on DVD or BluRay so I'd probably seen the ads fifteen or possibly more times before it sank in that it was going to be a TV series.

I've not watched a series on TV in over 15 years but this one has put a hook in me that is crumbling my resolve.



A quick description:

A young detective transfers into a city that has a reputation for being very rough on anyone in that field of w@&k who's an honest man.  His first night out in the field he's called to investigate a shooting.  When he arrives at the scene two bodies are covered with sheets in an alleyway.  A young boy sits alone nearby on the metal stairs of a loading dock wrapped in a blanket shivering from shock and the cold rain.

The detective asks the boy his name then says "My name is James Gordon and I swear to you I will find the man who did this.  You have just one job and that's to be strong! "

Oh yeah, by the way the boy's name was Bruce Wayne.  Now does the name Gordon sound familiar?



A too familiar story domain seen through an entirely different set of eyes with a whole new spectrum of really bad guys instead of the tired old clichés.  Whew!  Talk about a hook.

Wait a sec... Villains at the start of this story (set quite a long ago) are the new ones, while the familiar modern day bad guys are the old tired ones?  ????  At times like this I am painfully aware that English falls terribly short when it comes to being able to cope with time travel and related subjects.  :-D


Edit additional: I neglected to say that the series is named Gotham.

[Art Blade]

thanks for the edit. NOW it starts to make sense  :-()

[fragger]

Sounds interesting, haven't seen anything about that one here yet. Possibly one of the networks here is sitting on it until the start of the next ratings period.

[Art Blade]

the next ratings period.

for some reason I read "rantings" instead of "ratings." 

[mandru]

Sorry no rant here.  Well maybe a minor one but I'll toss it on the end.  :-D

I watched the first episode of Gotham and as  I'd gathered from the trailers the production quality was consistent throughout the episode.  The various actors portrayed their roles solidly and there was not a moment of cheesiness.  Yes that's a technical term.  ;)

I will not leak any spoilers on key content.  That is other than one particular observation (unresolved as to how it fits in to the storyline but I was very touched by the significance behind this detail ) the undetected sole witness to the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents and Bruce's scream of grief and realization was someone with a deep soft spot for lost and abandoned kittens.  The preview for the next episode showed that sole witness (though they had vanished after the murder scene for the rest of the entire episode) they have found their way to Wayne manor and is seen (by the viewer) sizing things up from atop the stone buttresses of the front gate.

Though the concept for this series is something that happened thirty or so odd years in the past (or even longer if you run the clock back on the original Batman comic) the producers have decided to set it in modern time where everyone has cellphones so it is definitely not a retro period piece but that was not as disturbing as I'd initially first thought it might be.  We know what this story arc leads up to but it is forging through previously uncharted territory and it really appears that it's going to be quite a ride.

I don't know if it was because it was the first episode and they had to pack a lot into the hour to establish the overall feel of the city, the plot foundations, tone and storyline tension (which they achieved very convincingly) but I noticed that none of the commercial breaks exceeded three 60 second ads which for me was a bit tough as I couldn't sneak out for a quick smoke.

I tried to convince Mrs. mandru to wait until it came out on BluRay to watch the rest of it so that we could pause it, pick it apart, discuss what has just happened and resume when ready (like when I come back in from outside  ).

But she is too solidly hooked and isn't having any of that.  ::)

[Dweller_Benthos]

It's on against Big Bang Theory, so they must have confidence in it, as BBT is very popular considering they are paying the cast upwards of 5 million PER EPISODE, and that's just the cast salary. Three million for the three main stars and I expect the rest of the cast are making enough to cover the rest, don't know for sure. But at least 4 million anyway.

Didn't watch it though, and it seems the networks have crammed all the good shows on Monday night for some reason, so some will be skipped. Or wait for reruns. Scorpion against Sleepy Hollow, for instance.

[mandru]

I don't know if international viewers are blocked but fox.com has the option to watch full episodes of Gotham as well as other current series on Fox at no charge.

Gotham episode 2 had a few cheesier moments but not distractingly bad. Production quality is still high though the commercial slots are a bit longer than were allowed in episode 1 which would be good for me to slip out for on a smoke break when needed.

But Mrs. mandru's become so enthralled that she wants me to spend the ad slot time explaining details in the plot that have eluded her or she has questions about because she has zero personal data base on the Batman legacy to draw from.  ::)

[Art Blade]

:)

[fragger]

They just started advertising this on telly here in the last few days with a "Coming Soon". No doubt that means when the next ratings season begins.