BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'

Subject: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:03 AM

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/21/DD6417O0SP.DTL


From today's news. Am I the only one who thinks this is a lot od crap? With the June 12 digital switch over, I plan to drop TV cable. There is so little worth watching that I can't catch a day later on my computer.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:33 AM

Sinsull, as I have been reading about the new TV seasons, it occurred to me that the only network shows we watch, here, are on CBS. Mrs. Coast is going to be pissed when she finds the Mentalist moving to 10pm, Fridays; she goes to bed at that hour. I cannot think of any show we watch on ABC, NBC or Fox more than once or twice a season.

We watch no 'reality shows'...well we did watch two episodes of a now canceled one, but only because my youngest cousin was involved in its production. Honestly, we found it awful.

Mostly, I watch TCM for old movies, PBS week ends for old BritComs, and ancient history on the History or Discovery channels.

What I miss most on TV are the anthology dramas, Studio One, Playhouse 90, etc. the likes of which I am assured will never return to this medium owing to high, high production costs with no aftermarket to help recoup them.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 May 09 - 11:24 AM

The only show I watch regularly is Ghosthunters. Don't know why. It is the same thing over and over with an occasional full body apparition thrwon in. But I do watch it...and I can live without it. As I plan to do.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Becca72
Date: 21 May 09 - 12:43 PM

The Mentalist and The Amazing Race are 2 of my favorite shows. 2 1/2 Men used to be on the list but has gotten too trashy for me. I used to watch Criminal Minds faithfully but it now conflicts with Ghosthunters and Jay and Grant won out.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 May 09 - 02:29 PM

Cable gives me PBS ((two choices as to station), BBCNews and BBC Canada, many music channels to choose from (Usu. I listen to baroque and world selections), two classic movie channels (one is Turner), Telelatino (Canadian), and several news and documentary channels- enough when I don't feel like watching DVDs.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 May 09 - 02:30 PM

CBS? What's that?

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Bill D
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:00 PM

The Compromised Broadcasting System

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:25 PM

Time Warner just dropped BBC which was the final nail in the coffin for me. I should be able to get PBS with a digital TV after the 15th.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Bill H //\\
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:39 PM

Newton Minow did not know what a real wasteland looked like---it came after his description all those years ago. Now 200 or so channels all presenting pretty much nothing (Unless ICe turkers over and over is your cup of tea)---save for PBS and few of the original things done on a few of the cable channels (Mad Men,Monk, etc;)

It is all subjective; of course. SOmetimes one just has to go back to the days of early TV or--as said---the Brit Coms which still hold up well (3 cheers for Mrs. Bucket -prounounced "bouquet").
\

As to CBS---great joke about them on the cancelled MAD TV. In spoofing their reality show and showed the hints they gave to the various ethnic groups on how to make a fire in the wilderness==The Hispanics got 2 sticks, the African Americans got a magnifying glass, and the WHites got some matches---then the logo=-===CBS__The Caucasion Broadcasting System.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: maire-aine
Date: 21 May 09 - 07:04 PM

There's so little on TV that I actually care to watch, I can list them on one hand: Bones, NCIS, House, Mentalist. Cold Case and Brothers&Sister are okay, too. I watch Leno on the Tonight Show, but I didn't/won't watch Conan O'Brien when he takes over. The TV in my bedroom is not digital, so I may just go to sleep early. I have a converter, but am not in a rush to hook it up.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Aug 16 - 08:16 PM

Did not want to start a separate thread for "Criminal Minds" so this will do.

This show is getting ready to air season 12 if I read right. Of course any show that lasts this long is going to have actors that come and go.

But it strikes me that when actors leave "Criminal Minds" there is often bad blood. Not always. One woman actor, I have forgotten who, made a departure and it was all very well behaved.

But right now Thomas Gibson has just been kicked out for getting physical with one of the writers!! Shemar Moore left a few years back. And Mandy Patinkin refused to come back after the premiere season. The Mandy Patinkin thing shocked me, as he is a long-time professional, years in the theater as well as on screen, has made sound recordings as well; he is not a person you would expect to behave in an unprofessional manner.

Since then Patinkin has expressed regret for the way in which he got himself out of there; but he has no regret for actually leaving. When Patinkin finally went on the record to talk about "Criminal Minds," it must be allowed that he was well-behaved in that he took responsibility for his own problems, and cast no blame upon fellow actors on the show. But Thomas Gibson was there with Patinkin in the first season, and now, I have to wonder....

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Aug 16 - 09:58 PM

I had cable up until about 7 or 8 years ago when I "cut the cord" and now only watch over-the-air programming supplemented by NetFlix. Without cable I started watching some of the weekend and evening reruns of network mysteries I'd never before watched. I was okay with the various CSI programs, and have seen many of the Law and Order ilk. I watched Cold Case and Criminal Minds for a while, but I got tired of both of those. In the already contrived world of television mysteries, they were over the top and not very sympathetic or without original protagonists. They were a yawn.

I started picking a few series to watch, and (straying from CBS) the one that held up best of those I've watched from beginning to end (thank you, NetFlix!) is Bones. Very few cast switches, and the ones that happened were generally logical. It has run long but since it was always a moneymaker for FOX and it has very faithful fans, they kept it going because the mysteries are reliable. They will finish with 12 episodes in the upcoming season 12. Going out gracefully.

One I watched recently that had some charming moments but was generally strained in trying to justify the original premise lasting for so long was ABC's Castle. I saw the earlier seasons on DVD, haven't seen season 8, and am not going out of my way to. It apparently got pretty strange, and they did end up all disliking each other. Too bad. I did see the end of the last episode. Totally stupid, how they did that, tagging on a little "in the happy future" scene after clearly setting up a cliffhanger.

I watched The Good Wife up till the last couple of seasons when I got out of sync with it and wanted to watch it in order. I'll get the rest of it one of these days. It was well-written, cleverly cast, and always delightful. The premise for the program was ripped from the headlines, but the rest of it was amazingly on target as far as current issues, that usually happened shortly after any given episode aired, eliminating the feeling of it somehow being a derivative of the news.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Charmion
Date: 15 Aug 16 - 09:50 AM

It must be 15 years now since we cut the cable cord, and I'm still glad we did; it cost more than Cdn$100 per month then (God only knows what it would cost now), and we rarely saw anything that we liked much. We abandoned the system just as the first "reality" show -- was it "Survivor"? -- was coming to the Canadian networks. (Note: In much of Canada, all TV comes by cable.) My husband would like regular access to sport, but since he likes rugby best getting cable again would not solve that problem. Between Netflix and YouTube, we get more TV than I can stand, and almost as much rugby as Himself wants.

I lost interest in "The Good Wife" (available on Netflix) a few episodes before the male protagonist (I have forgotten his name) got shot. I think it was all the cheating, lying, manipulating and prevaricating; the acting is uniformly excellent, but the relationships between the characters, as written, strike me as completely unsustainable. The law practice elements of the stories also seem wonky; rather too often, I would turn to Himself (a lawyer) and ask, "Wouldn't you get disbarred for that?" Also, processes that take months if not years in real life unfold in mere hours or just a few days in the not-quite-Chicago of "The Good Wife". The pleasure of watching Alan Cummings exude sleaze -- how can such a nice person play a rat so convincingly? -- does not offset my constant struggle to suspend disbelief.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 15 Aug 16 - 07:14 PM

Here it is 7+ years later and still mostly watch CBS in prime-time. But we now have several channels on sub-carriers of local stations which show older movies and series television, including old 50s/60s anthology series. I can be young again, oldly.

Subject: RE: BS: CBS' 'Solid Line Up'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Aug 16 - 10:00 PM

Agreed - there was warp speed involved in some of those trial situations. Police procedurals share the same problem. But all things being equal, the level of writing and acting in that program rose above most of them that I was aware of.

I don't watch NBC or ABC much. PBS I used to watch a lot more - many of the mysteries seem to be manufactured for an American audience, or the UK audience is more lightweight than it used to be. Some of them are still charming, others are ho-hum, and it used to be that just about anything that came across PBS was excellent. (FOX, as objectionable as their news wing is, does have some good entertainment - I wish they'd extended Backstrom after the first 13 episodes.)