Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So what are you WATCHING?

I just finished watching the first episode of the new NBC show "Smash." It does have every making-of-a-musical cliche, but this kind of story has been neglected in TV and movies for so long, that it feels fresh, or at the very least like an old friend one hasn't seen for a while. And I thought it was well-written and well-cast -- my favorite is Katherine McPhee as the small-town girl with dreams of stardom.

Pretty impressed by the premiere of "The River"!

LOVED the pilot ep of SMASH... I'm onboard.

Have debated NETFLIXing ARCHER for awhile... now I am convinced to proceed with it!

AAaaaaand, was waiting to hear someone whose opinion I respect report on THE RIVER... so consider it HULU'ed!

YAY!

SMASH episode 2: IN LOVE WITH IT.

I empathized with both actresses up for the role, and had to dab a tear for both of them last night. Also touched by the final scene at the adoption meeting and Anjelica's joy at not losing her director.

I love everything about SMASH, but I did spend some time in the theatre world in the 90s so that's not a big surprise to me.

I'm waiting until the weekend to watch the next episode of "Smash" so I can savor it and so I won't be tired from staying up late. After reading Lash's review, I'm even more excited about it.

Just watched episodes 3 and 4 of SMASH... yeah, there's a lot of "cliche" kinda stuff going on here... jealousies, diva-ness, cheating, etc. and I am *LOVING* every minute of it. Let's face it, this is what happens in theatre.

Much more realistic to me than GLEE ever could hope to be.

The last couple episodes of "Game of Thrones" just to review. April 1st can't get here too soon.

Also "Young Justice" and "Green Lantern" with my boy. They're basically fulfilling my superhero fix these days.

Cant wait for Game of Thrones to restart!

I highly recommend Archer--fall off the couch hilarious! The humor is abbrasive that it's engrossing.

Drake, I also like Justified quite a bit. We've always kind of liked the same shows.

For example, I've been rewatching all 7 seasons of the Shield, which is the best cop show ever IMO, and one of the best TV shows ever. Just finished the finale of season 5 this past weekend--whew, I forgot how tough the show is on it's viewers. I've got my wife totally hooked, and shes been a trooper handling the rough subject matter. The show amazingly contains what I consider the greatest performances ever by both Glen Close and Forrest Whitaker.

Also, a show I think is really funny is New Girl.

I just watched a British film that I really enjoyed, called, "Exam".

The premise is this:

There are eight final candidates competing for an extremely prestigious position within a corporation.

Having reached the final selection stage, they are brought into an exam room with a single piece of paper sitting on their desk and are told they have 80 minutes to answer a single question to determine who gets the job.

They are given a block of instruction containing a few key points which will result in their disqualification, namely - They may not spoil their paper in any way, they may not leave the room for any reason, and they may not attempt to communicate with the armed guard at the door.

The timer begins, they flip their papers over... and they are completely blank.

Thus begins a nice 80 minute suspenseful puzzler of a film that completely held my interest throughout. It is basically a character study piece of the candidates themselves, where each minute escalates the tension between this group, and the lengths that each will go to ensure that they are the only one to answer correctly.

I did find the ending a little less than what I had hoped, but the journey there was quite engaging.

Recommended.

I'm watching reruns of The Rockford Files, and also Portlandia on hulu.

The latter can be pretty uneven. It often suffers from "SNL" syndome. (Lorne Michaels is at the helm, after all.) Y'know, that thing where a sketch runs on five or ten minutes longer than it should, because nobody knows how to end it.

Some of the sequences are priceless, though. A local organic grocery service brings a Yuppie couple a Durian, and the resultant surreal happenings are almost worthy of Kids In The Hall at its best. A cat goes on tour with a two-person human band, only to attract a very creepily-devotional human fan.

And the recent half-hour ep about people who take brunch wayyyy to seriously was doubly rewarding, because I recognized most of the places in which it was set. (The local pizza parlor was disguised as the brunch place that everyone had to get into at the same time.)

I'm enjoying GCB quite a bit.

As a Houstonian, it makes me dislike Dallas all the more.

The wife and I went to see "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" this evening - the espionage film with Gary Oldman and Colin Firth - and... I am just dumbfounded at how little I enjoyed this film.

I fancy myself a reasonably intelligent person, but I don't think I can remember a time when I have understood less of what was going on in a film than I did during this one.

I'm not even talking about the "wow... this has so many convoluted twists that I'm lost in the plot" type of confusion that can be, at times, sort of fun. No... I'm literally talking on the level of, "Wait... who is that guy? What are they doing now? Why are they doing that?"

Perhaps I was in the wrong mind set, perhaps the variety of dialects used added to the effect, perhaps it was a case of not being familiar with the source material, but... whatever it was, I'm amazed that I could sit though a film that garnered fairly wide acclaim and come away just so unsatisfied.

Did anyone else see this?

Having just seen the first eight eps, I'm now convinced that it's secretly written by certain Legion Worlders. I refuse to name names, however.

(Also, watching it before bed? Not good. I don't ever want to talk about my dreams ever again...)

Exnihil,

I was worried about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy being a bit too complex.

I like dense espionage tales but sometimes they get lost in translation (into a film).

I personally think that films and novels should be shorter and more focused. There is an art to the novella.

Anyways this has happened to me watching other movies...i tried watching them again a few years later. Usually the 2nd time around it's better. But I hear what you are saying.

I rented "The Conspirator" over the weekend. Whoa. A period piece with a timely message and a lot of suspense. Robin Wright is excellent in this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XhOq5zp6j4

Recently got into the show Archer.

Outside of that, I may start watching some old Knight Rider and A-Team on Netflix.

Mad Men, but I'm not really feeling it this season. The hiatus was so long that it sometimes feels like I'm watching a parody of Mad Men.

ARCHER has been a total hoot!

I'm a longtime fan and I'm also not getting into it yet this season. Something else else feels like it's missing--some kind of tension, or I don't know what. I'm hoping it picks up.

Having watched the penultimate episode of the current second season, I must continue to extol the virtues of SyFy's American version of Being Human. This has been an engaging and occasionally hilarious series since it debuted last year. I can't compare it much to its British progenitor (couldn't even get thru the pilot of that version), but in and of itself, this show is just flat-out good!

Again, if you've never heard of it, the premise revolves around a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing an apartment in an attempt to "be" more "human". The vampire Aidan struggles (often unsuccessfully) to stop feeding on people and to be free from the mafia-esque vampire society he's been a part of for centuries. The werewolf Josh had his life shattered by the encounter that turned him and constantly finds his attempts to rebuild complicated by his curse in some unexpected ways. The ghost Sally was a murder victim and her dealing with her afterlife helps us see things from the ghost perspective in ways we've never seen.

I know it sounds all angst-ridden and melodramatic--and it IS all that and more! But the show finds the right balance to not always take itself so seriously, even while delivering a lot of shocking, emotional developments. It's not a "funny" show, but it's not all "Twilight-y" either. Plenty of down-and-dirty violence and sexiness without glitter and lipgloss.

Definitely recommended for sci-fi/horror TV genre fans and anybody who likes to be entertained.

I'm the opposite of Lardy, I can't stand the remake of Being Human. But even the current season of the UK original with 2/3 of the principle cast gone, is really compelling and fun.

I'd skip the pilot myself as a lot of the premise really changed going forward with the main series, but would highly recommend at least the first three series (which are only 8 episodes each I believe).

Been watching "The Voice" avidly. That said, tonight Christina Aguilera goes and eliminates THE BEST FRIGGIN' SINGER IN THE WHOLE DAMN COMPETITION!!! WTF?!?!

Note to all future male Voice competitors: If Christina presses her button, and you have ANY other coach turn around for you, CHOOSE THE OTHER COACH! Between this season and the first, Christina sticks with the divas, even if there's a clearly superior male on her team!

Jesse should have had a shot at winning it all, and Christina sabotaged it. #superpissed

/end rant/

Having a good time on my night off watching my ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT DVD collection.

^ for some reason after reading your post, the first thing I thought of was the Carl Weathers episode.

I just LOVE how he deadpans that his focus is purely on food.