The Smiley Smile Message Board

I figured The Sandbox could use a lighter topic. 

Are there any particular new or returning shows that people are looking forward to seeing this Fall? 

Personally, I'm intrigued by the 2nd season of Gotham.  The first season was somewhat uneven.  But it looks like they're going to focus more on the villains in the new season, which IMO is the most interesting part of the Batman story anyway. 

Also, I'm interested to see how Sleepy Hollow's third season goes with new showrunners.  I thought the first season was top notch.  There were some fumbles in Season 2 (maybe 22 episodes instead of 13 was a bad idea), so I'm hoping for a bit of a return to form in Season 3. 

Hi all,

New shows I will watch:

Blood & Oil
Life In Pieces
Grandfathered
The Grinder
Limitless
The Player


Returning shows I will watch:

Madame Secretary
CSI: Cyber
Scorpion
Castle
NCIS: New Orleans
Nashville
Grey's Anatomy
Scandal

Is The Grinder the one with Rob Lowe and Fred Savage?  I might check that one out. 

Not really a fall show, but I'm really enjoying Sex & Drugs & Rock N Roll on FX with Denis Leary.  It premiered about six weeks ago. 

Hi all,

Another returning show I will watch:

The Big Bang Theory

Hi all,

Yes, The Grinder is the show with Rob Lowe and Fred Savage in it. 

OK.  I might check that out. 

I'll likely check out American Horror Story: Hotel.  This is the 5th season, and I don't think AHS ever regained their Season 1 form.  So, if the first three episodes are "meh," I'll likely check out of this hotel.  Especially since the lead will be Lady Ga Ga instead of Jessica Lange. 

And of course, Season 6 of The Walking Dead starts next month.   ;D

I've enjoyed all of American Horror Story so far but have reservations about Season 5 mainly down to no Jessica Lange and casting Lady Gaga in a main role.
Season 6 of The Walking Dead cannot come fast enough for me. I don't have the channel that screens the spin off show but from what I've read I'm not missing much.
Anyone excited for Ash Vs The Evil Dead? 

I'm also looking forward to Ash Vs The Evil Dead.

I've watched the first two episodes of Fear the Walking Dead, and I like it a lot.  I like the idea of showing the beginning of the epidemic, which the original Walking Dead was not able to.  However, I feel like once everything breaks down, and the walkers have overrun humanity, it'll feel more like a carbon copy of TWD.

I loved the original AHS.  Asylum had a lot of potential, and moved along nicely.  What there were several questions unanswered (aliens?).  Coven was alright, and I did like it more than I thought.  Freak Show got off to a great start, but to me, it turned into a mess, and I struggled to finish the season. 

I am so so excited for the new season of Fargo.  That's the only returning show I'm looking forward to though.  I used to love The Good Wife and Scandal but both went downhill last season, I'm skeptical about whether I want to return to either one.  It's especially unlikely I will start watching Scandal again.

 Looking forward to AMERICAN HORROR STORY and THE LAST MAN ON EARTH.

I can't believe no one has mentioned the Late Show with Stephen Colbert!
I'll also be looking forward to yet another season of South Park.

I also say it's way past time to cancel Grey's Anatomy and bring back Scrubs in it's place.

Colbert has been doing a great job so far.  The show is clearly still a work-in-progress but there have been some hilarious segments and the interviews are top-notch.

Yes, I'm always interested to see South Park's take on society.  I've been watching South Park since the beginning, and it got a little bumpy there a couple years ago.  But since they decided to do one, yearly, ten episode run (as opposed to the 14-16 episode seasons), the show has had a return to form. 

I actually found the last season to be one of the weakest since the early days. I think Trey Parker backs himself into a corner at times by insisting that each episode be produced early in the week and addressing whatever topic is currently in the news. Sometimes the latest headlines don't make for great comedy (or at the very least cannot sustain a 22 minute storyline).

I thought last season did have a couple of duds.  But not as many as the years just prior to the shift to ten shows.  The 2013 season was very strong. 

I do wish that SP would do a few shows a year that weren't so topical.  Granted, the topcial stuff is great, but those episodes don't age as well as some of the non-topical ones. 

Here's one I forgot out.

The new Muppets TV debuts tonight on ABC. 

I loved The Muppets reboot movie that came out in 2011 (last year's Muppets Most Wanted left a little to be desired).  So, a mockumentary Office-style show on The Muppets could be really good. 

Hi all,

The Big Bang Theory, Life In Pieces, Scorpion and Castle were excellent last night.  Life In Pieces is the new show. 

Didn't see any of those, but I watched the premiere of Season 2 of Gotham.  I thought the first season was a little uneven, but I liked the episode last night. 

That Muppets show was painful to watch.  I'll give it a try for another few episodes but I'm not very optimistic. 

I guess it's a bold experiment, turning the Muppets into a modern Office-like sitcom, but really, was there anybody in the world who wanted to see such a thing?

  Yes. Me. Thumbs up.

I actually liked the first episode, with the exception of the 30 seconds where I had to listen to Imagine Dragons.  After the misstep that was Muppets Most Wanted, I set my expectations low, but it was pretty good. 

Plus, another watch dog group that knows better than all of us One Million Moms, wants the show taken off the air.  All the more reason to watch it and hope for it to be a hit. 

Hi all,

NCIS: New Orleans and Limitless were both wonderful last night.   

I watched the season premieres of two Sunday mainstays on FOX last night - The Simpsons and Family Guy. 

The Simpsons had its moments, but overall, I thought it was pretty weak.  I hate to jump on that ever growing "Simpsons should be cancelled" bandwagon.  But 27 seasons in, it's hard to keep a show fresh and funny after almost 600 episodes. 

Family Guy had one of its better episodes in a while.  I'd heard rumors that this would be the final season so that Seth McFarlane would concentrate on movies, but thus far, have seen no evidence that this is the case. 

The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park all go back to the 1990s (I know The Simpsons premiered in December 1989, but that was a Xmas special.  It began as a series in January 1990), and while they can still be funny and better than most TV comedy IMO, I think the creators might want to consider moving on. 

Hi all,

I watched Blood & Oil at 9 p.m. on CBS last night.  It was great!!!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Bob's Burgers both came back pretty strong.

I've tried watching Bob's Burgers in the past, its not my cup of tea. 

As for B99, I'm just not a fan of Andy Sandberg.  Although, I'm glad that Bill Hader got himself a regular gig since he seemed to struggle post SNL. 

The Simpsons has been weak for years now. Don't get me wrong, there are isolated moments of hilarity in every episode but storyline wise the well ran dry a good decade ago. And yet Futurama gets canned again!

Last weeks episode of South Park was one of the funniest things I've seen in ages.

The Simpsons isn't what it used to be.  Over the past decade, it's been good enough to keep my attention.  But, nothing like it was in the past. 

I do like the new season of South Park so far. 

 (http://i.imgur.com/Ju2LNaM.jpg)

Gotham's second episode was, IMO, the best episode of the entire series by far.  For a show that I almost gave up on at least three times last year, I'm pretty optimistic about the future.  For the first time since I started watching the show last fall, I'm genuinely looking forward to the next episode. 

Also on FOX, season 3 of Sleepy Hollow premieres on Thursday Night.  After a difficult second half that saw a drop in ratings, the show got a new showrunner.  I'm interested to see what the new blood brings. 

Now, that we're in October, Sleepy Hollow, AHS, & TWD are all back. 

I like Sleepy Hollow so far, but I'm not sure if the show will ever been a good or as focuses as it was in Season 1. 

AHS - Motel.  I thought the first episode was just OK.  Which is actually better than I expected.  Once again, AHS goes more for shock / taboo than horror / terror.  To me, Murder House was by far the best season.  I think the first episode of Motel kept me just interested enough to check out the second episode.  But, my hopes are not high. 

TWD - Season Six kicked the doors in for the season premiere.  Amazing show.  Can't wait for the next one.   

Writing.  All any show needs is good writers.  But... there's a lot of "hangers on" in anything that's successful.  That is, if you create something successful, like the Simpsons, they'll come out of the wood-work and take it over.  Overtime, it'll be used as a vehicle to proselytize an agenda.

I think the reason South Park continues to be awesome is it's a one-man show.  Or two-man show.  They bring in folks to help flesh out ideas etc.  But it's a truly creative endeavor.  It's a truth about creativity, that it's likely a dictatorship.  Most creative people work best alone -- and if they're interested, they'll create forever.

The season premiere of Fargo was fantastic.

I agree with Bean Bag. I'd add to it that, as something becomes uber-successful, the corporate influence becomes inescapable. (I mean this more broadly than the Simpsons; I mean it in genera.) "The suits" care, because they know where their bread is buttered. There is pressure to add Character X to appeal to Demographic Z. There is pressure to change this or that line because it could offend Sponsor A. No show on television is free of that kind of influence: whatever artistic merits some have, TV shows exist so advertisers can speak to viewers, and the programming is an intermittently dangled carrot. But the more successful, in some cases the worse off the artistic side is. Conversely, a strong creator of a popular show also may have the muscle to push back. So it's not an every-case kind of thing.

You should have stopped with "I agree with Bean Bag."  It has a nice ring to it!   :p

There's no question that advertisers are having to themselves get creative with how they reach eyeballs -- but I'm not sure to what degree corporate interests affect the quality of content all that much.  Then again... I don't watch much TV.  I know, for example, I can't watch anything with a lot of commercials.  So, you could be right.

I was referring more to "social engineering" disguised as entertainment.  A thinly veiled morality play, to create a perception of public of opinion.  Nothing new.  Anything that reaches eyeballs will attract these types -- who cannot otherwise interest people.  But their inflated ambitions eventually tip the ratio away from entertainment and more towards "preachy."  In the case of the Simpsons, it destroyed it.  Eventually, talent realizes it doesn't need to be there.  TV, films -- you name it.  The NFL is next.

The Simpsons isn't preachy, there is no moral message to it at all. Any social commentary the show once had has been lost to a barrage of visual gags and celeb cameos.

I never really thought the Simpsons tackled social commentary.  In the past, it took so long to put an episode together, that it was pointless to try to be topical.  It's just a very well written comedy. 

Maybe not as well written as in the past, but still good. 

In 2005, Nancy Cartwright spoke at my college. She specifically pointed to Brother's Little Helper (Season 11, Episode 2 - where Bart is misdiagnosed with ADD and prescribed meds), as a turning point in the series that she was very proud of because she felt that since then they really started tackling important social issues. My husband and I walked away from that saying that was probably the turning point that started to turn us off.

Looking back on the series as a whole, and I think this is the consensus among fans, The Principal and The Pauper (Season 9, Episode 2, Principal Skinner is an impostor) was the real tipping point, if you're looking for a single episode to cast blame on. After that episode, there was no more established reality in the show - any character could be anything to suit a plot or even a single gag, Springfield started to take on wildly varying characteristics and no one seemed to care about consistency across any elements of the show. With a show on the air for many years, it obviously going to get really difficult to maintain the same boundaries, but starting around season nine that step away from their established realities really started to hurt the quality of the episodes. IMO, one of the things that really made The Simpson's great was Homer's Every Man-ness. When the plots started to take him away from being some dopey, middle class guy who got lucky with a good job right out of high school, that's when things really started going off the rails.

I could wax rhapsodic about The Simpsons all day, though. Nearly every episode from seasons two through seven are perfect - packed with jokes, great A and B story lines, no wasted moments. Before Every Simpsons Ever started last summer, my husband and I ranked every episode from the first nine seasons. Partly for fun for us, and partly because his comedy partners aren't Simpsons fans (they're parents wouldn't let them watch it when they were kids and then they never got into it later)  and we wanted to convert them. It sparked some great debate, but I did cede the number one spot to his favorite. It's really amazing when you see them all listed and easily can consider 75 episodes from a single series all great.

Huge Simpsons fan since the Xmas special aired back in December 1989.  Just curious as to what your favorite episode would be.

I agree Amanda.  I don't know how people could miss the Simpsons head-first dive into "social commentary."  About as obvious as you could get.  I mean, they weren't even trying to hide behind the pretense of entertainment in many cases.  I saw it as a gross and brazen abuse of people's devotion to the program.  I needed a shower after a few of those episodes!   :-D

There was nearly an entire season (16 perhaps?) devoted entirely to nothing but "issues" -- political issues, one after another.  One-sided as I've ever seen.  There were some episodes where the comedy writers clearly weren't even present.  With so much of TV/entertainment being used as a platform for social engineering, I'm used to these sort of shenanigans.  But I do expect to be served SOME laughs in the process.

I agree with Mike's Beard too though -- lately, it's been mindless gags.

I still piss myself at everything Krusty says and does.

The only episode that comes to mind that really got preachy to me was in 2003 or so, right after the US/Iraq War started.  There was an episode of with two rival scout groups.  And the episode ended with them patching up their differences and singing an anthem.  As the Sea Capt (I think) pointed out, "Not a hymn to war like our National Anthem.  But a hymn to peace the National Anthem of Canada."  Then, Bart made a comment before the credits about war only solves US problems, or something to that effect.  That's really the only time The Simpsons ever turned me off.  I think, for the most part, they go for both sides of the fence, so I let it go.  

Mr. Bag, you and Mike are right about the show being a lot of gags now.  I still find the show highly entertaining, but the episodes aren't nearly as memorable as the first decade they were on the air.  (Sounds like the Beach Boys catalog).  

I was 3 in 1989, so my love for the show really developed in syndication in the mid '90s. Middle school me would get home from school and watch Kids In The Hall on Comedy Central, do my homework in time to catch the hour of Simpson on our Fox affiliate at 5:00.

My favorite episode is A Streetcar Named Marge. It's so perfect - not a single wasted second, and it's a great mix of absurdity and a really grounded, relationship-oriented story. The idea of some local theatre doing a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire is so funny, and then the songs! Those songs get me every time. Jon Lovitz is great in it and it's dumb, but every single time I see it and he tells Marge to put Maggie in his sister's daycare and this sister is just him with a bun and a higher voice, I have to laugh. The story though is really where it's at; watching Marge try to break out of her routine and how the rest of the family reacts to it.

Cape Feare finished number 1 on our list, which I have no qualms about at all. A great example of the show at it's peak. I realize my love for A Steetcar Named Marge probably has more to do with my reaction to it as a young, married woman than maybe it should be ranked on it's own merits, so I didn't fight for that top spot for it.

It's fat homer for me!!  Flawless.  The entire episode I know by heart.  "They'll be plenty of time for the frozen pudding wagon later!" C. Montgomery Burns.

(http://media.giphy.com/media/CNns7ZKG3bRPW/giphy.gif)

"If this is anybody other than Steve Allen, you're stealing my bit."  Krusty The Clown.

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/29/article-2592359-1CAC3BD500000578-337_634x500.jpg)

Cape Feare is a great choice.  You really can't go wrong with any episode from the 1990s IMO. 

I'd have to go with Mr. Plow.  It has maybe my all time favorite Homer moment, when he buys the plow and tells Marge, "Fine!!  I'll never do another stupid thing again."  And proceeds to walk right into the open door of the plow. 

Maybe the B-Sharps episode.  I love Bart's Comet also.  I can't recall the title of the episode, but when Homer decides to give up church to stay home and watch TV is a classic too. 

Mr. Plow finished 6 on our list. A top notch episode for sure.

Bean Bag - King Size Homer - another great one. When we showed our top 15 for our friends over a few weekends, it was one guys favorite too.

My cousin absolutely loves Simpsons. I'm a village citizen, i.e. we have 4 basic channels. When I 1st visited city at 11 to live with aunt's fam, I totally liked the fact there is a channel consisting of cartoons. Nicolodeon (sp?) or sth. That was like most favorite thing about city life. But one cartoon I didn't like at all was Simpsons. Whenever my cousin forced me to watch it, I was like shrugging "What's  the big deal?". But she always said it had great storylines & great humor. I didn't know English at the time so I didn't pay attention to English voices, I heard Russian speech. I thought it's sth. to do with some phrases having no analog in Russian. But later when I checked some bits they actually had accurate translation, meaning humor could translate too. Even voices were identical. That was  good write-up, Amanda but I'm not sure if seeing these episodes might help. I jus' don't get the phenomenon of this show.

I think comedy in general is really dependent on language and cultural experience, so I totally buy someone from rural Russia not enjoying the same comedy someone from the Midwestern U.S does. A Streetcar Named Marge might play for you because of the story, but a lot of the comedy might not work. Maybe check out The Last Temptation of Homer. The A story is about Homer dealing with sexual tension at work and the minor B story has some good laughs at Bart's growing pains.

Ooh are we naming our favorite Simpsons episodes?  Well there's the hilarious meta commentary of "The Itchy, Scratchy & Poochie Show", the late Phil Hartman's performance in "A Fish Called Selma", the heartwarming nature of "Lisa's Substitute" and "And Maggie Makes Three".  Also "Marge vs. the Monorail", "Last Exit to Springfield", the two-part "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", "Summer of 4 ft. 2", "Bart the Lover", "Homer's Enemy"... there are definitely so many more that I can't think of at the moment.  After two and a half decades, it's lost its spark and its charm but put those first nine or ten seasons against any season of any other animated series and there's really no contest.  The sharp clever writing, the great character designs, the top-notch voice acting, there's just no beating it.

That's true--and maybe even more cultural experience / reference than language: one can learn a language, but to understand double entendre, certain kinds of wordplay, or just references, that's tough to catch in a foreign culture. Not that there's no comedy that crosses cultural lines, but generally, the more similar the culture, the more likely the comedy is to work. And the Simpsons is SO, SO loaded with cultural references, I'd think it would be among the harder examples to really "get."

On a similar line of thinking, I recall Stephen Merchant discussing the licensing of The Office franchise across different countries. He said something along the lines that, other than the most basic part of the premise, he and Gervais just left the native writers to themselves, knowing that they (Merchant and Gervais) were unlikely to be as funny to those audiences as their own native writers.

In my mind, I was lumping wordplay and the like into language differences, but I totally agree with you, culture is the driving force in most comedy. I like that story about Gervais and Merchant, and that says a lot about their sensibilities. I'm a big fan of theirs though. Of course, the show runner for the American office was Greg Daniels, who had previously been the runner for King of the Hill and was a writer/producer for The Simpsons during their prime, and it's another show that ran a few seasons too long, so this has been a full circle conversation  :-D

Summer of 4ft 2 is one of my top ten Simpsons also. 

Last night was, IMO, one of the best Simpsons in years.  They actually did a non Treehouse of Horror Halloween episode (and of course they referenced that in typical Simpsons fashion). 

Without giving too much away, they did a nice send up on pop up seasonal stores, PC Halloween costume alterations, and "adult Halloween" (even if Robot Chicken beat them to the punch on that one). 

Amanda,

I was a huge fan of The Office, but you're right, it was on too long.  Seasons 1-6 are brilliant.  I recently received the final season on DVD to complete by Office collection, and it was a bit of a chore to get through some of those shows. 

I thought the last season was okay, at least much better than the season before it, the one with James Spader.  That was awful.  I thought I would stop watching for good after that but I was willing to give it another shot when I heard Greg Daniels was coming back for the last season.  But I thought they did a good job wrapping up in the last few episodes.  The finale was really well done.

I did like the finale.  But, am I the only one who thought Steve Carrell kinda sleepwalked through it?  Just didn't seem like Michael Scott to me.  And it would've been cool for him to be included in the post party Dunder Mifflin folks had at the office. 

I have to admit that Ed Helms's line "I wish there was a way to know you're in the gold old days when you in them" got to me. 

I agree that the last season was better than the one before it, that second to last one was roooough. I really could have done without all the set up to the Schrute Farms spin off too, and thankfully we were spared from that train wreck.To me, Jim and Pam's wedding should have been the end.

Yeah, Jim and Pam's wedding would've been a great end. 

And I second your thoughts on Schrute Farm.  Much like the proposed How I Met Your Father, the network made the right choice to pull the plug. 

To Gervais and Merchant fans - am I the only one who thinks Hello Ladies the TV-Show was achingly funny? The movie was terrible, though.

Kinda got off topic with The Office.

But here's a reviewer who agrees with me that last night's episode was the best Simpsons in years:

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/its-scary-outstanding-simpsons-halloween-episodeno-227031

Haven't watched it yet, but I definitely want to.

To follow KDS' lead and bring it back to topic, my favorite show on TV right now is Nathan For You - so funny.

So, two episodes into American Horror Story - Motel.  And so far, I like it a lot more than I thought I would (although the first four episodes of Freak Show were great, then the wheels fell off).  Still not really into Lady Gaga, but luckily, her part isn't that big in the first two shows. 

Anyone else watching?

Dec. 10th!    :-D
http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/The_Earworm_Reverberation


(I like that song, too.)

I'm not a regular view of BBT.  I catch episodes now and then on reruns, but I might try to watch this one On Demand. 

Winter tv, now (a good series) --
http://www.cnn.com/shows/the-sixties

A good interview --
http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60665244

(Glad to hear George telling his side of things; I hope he continues to make films.)