Shall we anticipate the FIFTH SEASON of the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

what happened in the finale of the wire i dont even remember

mock funeral wake for mcnutty was the big scene i remember

anyone still rate Homicide?

what happened in the finale of the wire i dont even remember

― lag∞n,

Omar blows up Baltimore Sun.

Mad Men seems to have less invested in a definitive ending than most of these - lacks the kind of central conflict of a crime show (ie, who will be punished/who will survive) and has been way more open-ended and just altogether different in tone from all of these others

funny how far Lost and Dexter's stock fell, remember when everyone was batshit for those shows?

“Interesting fact,” Cranston pointed out, the series “started on [Walt’s] 50th birthday,” with Walt’s cancer diagnosis, “and ended on his 52nd birthday. So he died on his birthday. What a way to go.”

Oh, so all that stuff happened in one day? He's at the diner and then later that day he's dead? Huh

1st day: goes to gretchen and whats his names place 2nd day: dennys and everything else

yeah that was made clear from Marie's phonecall

the seasonal difference between NH and NM seems like a fuckup though, or has this been handwaved away...?

xpost Same with BSG and Buffy

mad men was cool, and in places was the most subtle of all the shows, but it stagnated went off the rails lost its best qualities and was relegated

― lag∞n, 30. september 2013 20:09 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I disagree. Man Men has been the first show since The Wire to become better through acumulation. While almost every show with a natural ending would have been better if shorter - Breaking Bad included - these two shows work by knitting together these vast webs of characters and themes, and playing new stuff directly against the older stuff.

gretchen didnt even remember his upcoming b-day, ice cold

also - in defence of The Wire's ending relative to a big pay-off like BB - the whole show was about how the system perpetuates itself, so it would have betrayed itself if it had a big dramatic ending - and also it got cancelled, right? still, it did run out of steam in the last season

it wasnt cancelled

Frederik OTM re Mad Men

funniest part of Elliot and Gretchen *shocked* at laser pointers is "omg I can feel something on my torso I will look down at it"

ive been hearing about these bar screenings of BrBa and i cant think of an environment i'd like to watch the show in less than that... glad u liked it tho

I've been watching this last half-season on a tiny laptop in hostel bunks, but went to a bar for the final ep and it was great. watching things with an audience is usually a positive, and no-one was hooting for dumb moments of ~triumph~, just quiet or gasping and enthralled. there was a burst of oohs and lols into the commercial when Lydia tipped the ristevia into her tea though.

x-posts

Gretchen probably felt bad that they didn't have anything to give Walt as a birthday present. This is why it's good to keep a stock of birthday cards in a drawer (or even little gifts - come on, Gretchen, you can afford it) in case of an emergency.

funniest part of Elliot and Gretchen *shocked* at laser pointers is "omg I can feel something on my torso I will look down at it"

― I'm not a rockist, I just hate Rap-A-Lot (sic), Monday, September 30, 2013 2:32 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw they could see the lights w their eyes through the windows

oh and/but we were still there during the beginning of the embarrasing Talking Bad afterwards, and when Hardwick stammered an incoherent, fulsome, run-on non-sentence about how Gilligan is a genius bcz every single loose end was wrapped up in this one episode, I called out "Huell!" and people cheered & applauded </disgusting savage>

the ricined cup of tea must've tasted like crap, poor lydia didn't even get a nice cuppa to go out on.

idk man it's a long distance and the li'l end of the pointers is p tiny, but admittedly I don't get a lot of real or fake assassins pointing red lights at me either

Pretty irresponsible to give that money to Flynn when he'll likely use it to overdose on breakfast

"Give me all the bacon."

I'd include Larry Sanders and the UK Office in the GOAT dram showlist, inasmuch as they were dramedy-ish and GOAT.

I wouldn't have included L O S T in that list even when it was super fun and I was addicted to watching it. It was always pretty trashy. And then eventually just trash.

The Wire, Sopranos, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad seem pretty solidly all first-tier - at least limited to the current era of TV... Everything else feels like it doesn't quite feel like it fits - even brilliant stuff like Larry Sanders (a half hour) or Freaks and Geeks (one season).

Sanders is so much better than FNL though

list of shows

yeah - Sanders was amazing... I guess it just feels really different to me, but maybe that's a good thing

I have a feeling that Mad Men is not going to age well and will feel very of it's time. Like Dallas or something.

Out of the shows people are listing, it seems like BB & MM have the most original premises. The thing that makes the Wire less impressive to me is that it feels like a refinement and almost like a logical culmination of 20 years of cop shows since Hill St. Blues. They increased the scope, the detail, and the realism, but it's still a police procedural, which to me is a much bigger knock against it than saying BB is just pulp. I guess it's why I've never watched the Sopranos. I'm sure yet another mobster story is good and adds something to the genre, but meh.

don't watch The Sopranos, it's a trap

God damn all you revealing wire spoilers on a breaking bad thread. I'll remember this.

lost? meh just another stuck on a mysterious island show

I don't think anyone revealed any Wire spoilers that matter, half the comments were jokes

It'll be interesting to see how time treats the show, but I think BB stuck the landing. There's been a lot more moments and plot threads that hinged upon suspension of disbelief since the S4 finale, but I have zero complaints beyond that. And that's a pretty minimal complaint.

But it's a big deal that it did stick the landing. I try not to let disappointing final acts affect my opinion of otherwise stellar shows, but it happens. I didn't think the final Sopranos episode was nearly as problematic as much of the rest of season 6.2 where Chase decided to focus on minutia and release much of the head of steam he'd built up. Deadwood, as mentioned, was unfairly hobbled with a non-ending. And my reaction to The Wire's serial killer plot pretty much mirrored Bunk's as he watched McNulty strangle a corpse. I still love all of those shows despite their whimpery endings. But it's nice to have a piece of really great serial fiction wrap up in a satisfactory fashion (I kinda feel like SFU managed to do likewise, but I may be in the minority mentioned above. And Larry Sanders definitely pulled it off, if we're counting it as part of this particular pantheon).

lost? meh just another stuck on a mysterious island show

Did anyone rate Lost in "tier 1" itt?

xpost Oops (Wire spoiler). Ha ha.

ok well NOW there are a lot of Wire spoilers itt

Lost brought me some of the funnest times of any tv show

Lost was amazing until the last maybe season and a half

xps i loved Sopranos 6.2. imo 6.1 was the only dip in the entire series

I wish I could put Lost in tier 1, but it screwed up the last season so badly (and various runs during the series, i.e. early season 3). There's still plenty of gold in it to make it an all-time great show though. Same deal with BSG

I would've been pretty pleased if Lost had ended after Season 5. I liked that as an ending to the show.

I can't count L O S T among the shows I'm able to forgive for ending badly (or really shittily). It was a lot of fun for a long time, but that last season undermined everything that came before. As much as they paid lip service to the notion, it wasn't in any way a show about the characters (who were mostly little more than gears in a giant Rube Goldberg machine). It was about plot mechanics, and when it became clear that all the plots and planning were part of a big, stupid shaggy dog story, the whole thing fell apart for me.

imo 6.1 was the only dip in the entire series

p much agree with that. same with 6 Feet Under, it had some low points but got good again at the end.

I would've been pretty pleased if Lost had ended after Season 5. I liked that as an ending to the show.

OTMFM. I suggest watching just to the end of S5 to everyone I know who's expressed an interest in checking it out now.

In any case, Wire is hardly such a spoiler-adverse show. I mean, most of the time you will know who did it many episodes in advance. Also, I don't think BB gets bonus points for the originality of it's premise in a world where Weeds exists...

I'm sure yet another mobster story is good and adds something to the genre, but meh.

this is exactly why I avoided the Sopranos while it was on the air and came to it late and holy shit was I wrong. it goes way beyond the scope of other mob stuff, and goes much deeper imho.

xp

LOST was the first show of the DVR era, hiding little clues etc

Kinda feel like there should be a thread for recommendations of when to stop watching shows before they turf out. Like Roseanne through season 5 or 6 is one of the best shows ever made, and by season 9 is became of the worst.

I guess what I wonder is whether the flash-forwards hurt a show's re-viewing potential--when I called it "well-made pulp" yesterday, it was along the lines of something like Stephen King, where the suspense and thrill ride are second to none in a first read/viewing without a need to experience more than once. Certainly that seems the case with Lost.

xp: www.jumpedtheshark.co.uk