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Your worst ever TV dramas - and why

Started by Seymour Clufley, March 05, 2007, 09:12:31 AM

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non capisco

I read they originally wanted to kill off Jack in the first episode of 'Lost' and were dissuaded by the network, so have they bollocks had it planned out all along.

I really liked the first series because I assumed there was a big point to it all along that was going to be revealed, and that there was a connection between the characters that would slap you in the face once it was unveiled. After the largely pony follow-up series, great first scene aside, it was  obvious that they were floundering about killing time (there was no need for more flashbacks for old characters after the end of s1) and that there'd just been a facade of clever writing in the first series building up to nothing.

You know that film 'Wild Things', where there are so many twists at the end you end up thinking 'oh, fuck off'. That's what Lost is like, but over five series for hours at a time. My mates still watching the third series say it's improved but I've been spoilt recently watching good stuff like 'The Wire', 'Heroes' and 'Life On Mars' (which has the good grace to do the pull-back-and-reveal bit after a set-in- stone two series). Life's too short for waiting to see what happens in 'Lost', and I never thought I'd say that when I was bang into the first series.

There was a show on a few years back called 'Attachments', which was pretty terrible.  'Cold Feet' is another, (Helen Baxendale is excluded from any criticism), and 'This Life'. Utter shite.

Feralkid

Well Jemble I'm glad someone enjoyed it.  Personally I think the new Randall & Hopkirk was utterly ruined by the decision to cast comics rather than, y'know, actors.  Neither performer was even vaguely convincing nor technically competent and, given that the show revolved around them, that proved fatal. I love Vic & Bob and always had a soft-post for the original R&H but that re-imaging was very poor indeed.   I know it wasn't meant to be Pinter but even in a Saturday evening telefantasy show we need to be able to invest in the characters and Vic and Bob just aren't actors.  

And surely Buffy's the number one influence on the new Who.

Jemble Fred

Nah, not really â€" only inasmuch as it was a bit of an influence on R&H(D), and was so successful it's inevitably an influence on any fantastical show that aims to gain wide popularity. Buffy was and is an influence on the whole genre, but New Who's approach was entirely built on R&D(H). As well as the many many things they have in common, compare the DVD packaging and 'Making Of' books â€" they just used the exact same InDesign/Quark templates, I swear.

Vic & Bob's relationship made the R&H characters stronger than any couple of hired hams could have managed, IMO â€" Jeff at Marty's graveside in episode one was blisteringly emotional â€" you believed that he'd lost a mate in a far more tangible way than if it was just any old actor. And then of course you generally had the very finest performers that could possibly be assembled to back them up from episode to episode â€" Hugh Laurie, Derek Jacobi, David Tennant, Charles Dance, etc, etc.

I really do love most of the original R&H(D) but it's so flat and repeitive compared to Higson's version. It had everything â€" huge laughs, great performances, extreme strangeness, and genuine emotion throughout. CH appearing in every episode was a bit of a mistake, and The Glorious Butranekh was a bit slow, but that's as far as I can knock it.

Ja'moke

Lost still needs the flashbacks for the old characters though, its not just to build up who they are, it also leads up to how they've ended up on the island, if it wasn't for the flashbacks we wouldn't know people like Jack's Dad who has creeped up in a few other peoples flashbacks too, also we wouldn't have been able to have met Desmond before we actually saw him on the island, also we get a look at the Hanso Foundation and Widmore etc, none of that probably means much to those that don't watch it, but most of the flashbacks are required however boring 'some' of them may be.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: "Analrapist"
Quote from: "Feralkid"the Bob & Vic incarnation of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)

Er, what? It's everything that new Doctor Who should have been!

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt??? R&HD was utter shite. OK maybe some of the ideas and writing were OK, by R&M were such appalling actors I couldn't watch it out of embarrassment. Bob in particular looked completely uncomfortable throughout. And I say this as a R&M fan.

And I like new Doctor Who a lot. But Torchwood is, without doubt, one of the most monumentally half-baked Britsh dramas of the last ten years.

And Lost can, well, I don't really need to finish that sentence.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: "Ja'moke"Lost still needs the flashbacks for the old characters though, its not just to build up who they are, it also leads up to how they've ended up on the island, if it wasn't for the flashbacks we wouldn't know people like Jack's Dad who has creeped up in a few other peoples flashbacks too, also we wouldn't have been able to have met Desmond before we actually saw him on the island, also we get a look at the Hanso Foundation and Widmore etc, none of that probably means much to those that don't watch it, but most of the flashbacks are required however boring 'some' of them may be.
If something's boring then it shouldn't be allowed in a TV show like "Lost", surely? The situation you describe is all the padding that stops us getting to the story. How much more can we learn about Jack's past now? The flashback to the Oriental island / beach Jack was on a few episodes ago- when did that happen? When did he have the time in his life to spend a couple of months living on the beach, and why wasn't it referred to at any point up to then? Surely he'd have mentioned "this reminds me of the time I spent a couple of months in a beach hut" to someone at some point in the first few series?

Ciarán2

Quote from: "Jemble Fred"Why? Was it too far-fetched for you?

Yeah, we just thought it was like a bad soap. It was like watching Neighbours or something.

rupert pupkin

THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR LOST SPOILERS

I'm still watching Lost but get ever closer to giving up on it entirely. I was especially annoyed when they killed off both Anna Lucia and Mister Eko. They were two of the most intriguing characters in it and two of the best actors. It also meant that the episodes focusing on the passengers in the tail section (of which Anna and Eko were two) were pretty much a complete waste of everyone's time. I think I realised then that they really hadn't got a clue about where the show was going.

Srill, it's better than Torchwood though...

Ja'moke

Yeah Eko was a great character, the actor was having problems with one of the producers though, I think, and wanted to leave the show.

rupert pupkin

Quote from: "Ja'moke"Yeah Eko was a great character, the actor was having problems with one of the producers though, I think, and wanted to leave the show.

That's a shame â€" I thought these big US dramas signed up their stars for five or six seasons at a time.