RPGWW

So, here I am, thinking "Boy, Oz sure is kicking ass, I wonder who else like this semi-old pearl?"

And here's the results.

What shows are you currently watching, re-watching, or still feeling the afterglow from?

As I don't currently own a box for my TV (all stations are digital over here), nor do I pay my TV License (yeah, Lincense, geez) I'm not actually allowed to legally own a TV. I only use mine for games though, and I'm not getting a box because I want to justify, at least to myself that...

You know what, I'll get off the soap-box. What do you guys like?


Here's my list, in no way complete. These are based solely on what I've liked, like or is re-liking:

1. Oz (Superior acting and a multi-faceted story that's so brilliant it even dulls my radiant smile)
2. Band of Brothers (Comradeship, not Good vs Evil, I like that)
3. Sopranos ('though it turned kinda mushy and wishy-washy near the last few seasons, season 1 still rocks)
4. My name is Earl (Cozy and Silly)
5. Dexter (What can I say? He looks like my old programming/gym teacher)
6. Rome (F'ing A)
7. Lost (I stopped looking mid second season, gonna watch it all after it's done)
8. Heroes (mainly because I'm still hoping for my Cape'n Costume Soap Opera)
9. Penn & Teller's Bullshit (Because, sometimes, they actually get a point across despite all the swearing and indignated outbursts of misguided wrath. Oh, and it also feeds the general 'Americans are idiots' idiots over here, which sucks badly. :( )
10.Prisonbreak (Before they escaped anyway)

So yeah, I didn't include animated ones of any kind, but the shining starts of Animations of America are, IMHO:

1. Venture Bros (Seriously, the Monarch doing Red Dragon. Priceless)
2. Aqua Teen Hunger Force (I laugh, and I don't know why)
3. Futurama

Honestly, I haven't really kept up on TV much lately, as I'm usually glued to the intarweb most of the time. That, and with my working hours, I'm not home in time for the shows. And I just don't feel the need to tape them to watch later *shrug*

However, I do have a soft spot for "Top Chef" on the Bravo network. If only because I'm a sucker for watching the drama unfold. =O

Ah, I forgot to mention that. I'm getting them off the net. Bad enough it took Swedish Television years to get Rome over here, it's on cable.

I'll occasionally watch Reruns of Star Trek: Voyager and Star Gate SG-1, and BBC America's "How Clean is Your House?". I never would have though to use tooth paste on walls marked up with crayon, but it works.

Otherwise I'll browse for the occasional movie, and after that I don't really watch much television. My parents can get me to watch House or Bones with them on rare occasion, but I don't keep up with either show.

The Office.

I watch TV once in a while myself. I only really keep it on a couple channels in my room.

TV:
1: House (First got into it when in Ohio for Sugoi con.)
2: Scrubs (My sister got some boxsets of it and I just fell in love with it)
3: Mythbusters (I had no intentions of watching this for a very long time till Chris was mentioning it to me on AIM while he was visiting home.)
4: Food Network: Challenges (I am a sucker for cake making and various other culinary challenges)

Animated TV:

1: Chowder (I don't care if it's a stupid cartoon, I find it hilarious.)
2: Venture Brothers (Loved it from the first episode on CN)
3: Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law (HA ha, Steven Colbert)
And many, many more. I love cartoons, what can I say?

I like the Office, but honestly I don't watch much TV.

I keep up with the Angry Video Game Nerd, though, as well as Awesome Video Games (www.ffstv.com/avg).

And I tend to get a hankering for Most Extreme Elimination Challenge once in a while.

I don't watch much in the way of series-based TV, but the shows I do keep up with...

Scrubs
Breaking Bad
Venture Bros.

That's about it. Otherwise I just watch what's on, but I make no attempts to be sure I see any shows aside from those three. I just don't follow anything else, it's too hard to not be doing other things when stuff's on.

Heroes I follow religiously, and I used to be more into Chuck and I've been meaning to get caught up and keep forgetting. I also used to watch Rome and Dead Like Me when they were on. I'm also a Futurama fan, I like Scrubs but don't follow it, and of course the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

The only thing I can honestly recommend anymore is Dexter. If you don't have Showtime, at least download the damned thing. It's worth the time.

I sorta stopped watching my television shows during the writers strike out of frustration, but these are the ones I was catching every episode of.

Heroes
Scrubs
My Name is Earl

I also watch the following British shows, which I highly recommend if you can find them (clips included)

The Armstrong and Miller Show (WARNING: Contains the f-word) This sketch is actually from their old series back in the day, new stuff is slightly better in my opinion.
The IT Crowd
The Mighty Boosh - Clip is just the theme music. It's a very very surreal show where there are very few standalone jokes in each episode so it's hard to get an impression of what the show is like without watching an entire episode. Worth it if you like surreal or British humour and aren't afraid of adult themes or a lack of sanity.

I also watch the following cartoons.

South Park
Family Guy (though it's nowhere near as good as South Park)
And I've just started getting into American Dad
I'll also be watching Futurama when it comes back on the air.

I don't actually get into TV all that much. About all I can say is that there are some shows that, if I catch them while channel surfing, I'll probably stick around until it's over before switching the channel again.

Mythbusters - Irrefutable proof that engineers are all just big kids at heart.

[scrubs] - The awesomest medical comdey/drama ever, even if the main character is hopeless and kind of annoying sometimes. Although I hear House is pretty good.

Futurama - <3

Venture Brothers - Gotta love that offbeat sense of humor. Coupled with actual production values, which seems to be an incredibly rare commodity on Adult Swim.

Also, lately, a friend has gotten me into watching Death Note, which I thought might be a shining example of anime that is awesome because it's not trying so hard to be anime. But now, about halfway through, it suddenly remembered that it is, in fact, anime, and it's started gradually sucking more and more.

Also also, Priam was showing some episodes of Penn and Teller's (totally awesome) Bullshit! to company for a while, but it's been a while since that happened.

I'd like to add that I decided to see Harvey Birdman, as for some reason I've been pushing up getting the episodes.

And it's funny. As hell.

In other news, I'd like to add a few British series as well:

Black Books
Monty Python's Flying Circus (I can never get enough of Cleese shouting)
The Comic Strip. I believe THIS is enough to convince anyone.

Christian wrote:url=http://youtube.com/watch?v=g_TiqoEw4sQ]THIS[/url] is enough to convince anyone.

I am convinced.

House is pretty good, which is surprising mostly because I expected that I would hate it because it's a medical drama. It isn't entirely accurate, but it's entertaining enough that I can overlook the fact that doctors are being sent to break into people's houses and that somehow Dr. House can rush into the OR without scrubbing without anyone stopping him to play with a patient's bowels.

We don't have cable, so I don't watch a whole lot of TV, but I concur with those who have recommended Mythbusters. That show is science.

As far as dedicated watching, what really had me recently was this season's American Gladiator. It was my first time watching and I had no idea how over-the-top awesome it was.

I'll occassionally watch Scrubs & Mythbusters. Scrubs is terribly entertaining, but I prefer to watch my serials on DVD. I <3 The Daily Show & Colbert Report, but given their showing times are often gaming or "out of the house" times, often rely on Mike to keep me up on the HAK PIE.

I like to put on GSN sometimes when I'm on the comp, playing DS, or eating dinner with Mike. There's a lot of word games out there right now that I like--Lingo, Chain Reaction, and old reruns of Password/Password Plus/Super Password. Dog Eat Dog is surprisingly entertaining, an I'll sit down for some Weakest Link from time to time, too--and, of course, old favorites such as Family Feud.

Would you please explain this TV license business to this woefully ignorant American?

(PS - Scott, I risk the heresy of suggesting that you'd love American Gladiator. It's all about manly men and manly women. Also, Hellga is a woman after your own heart. Possibly to eat it.)

I'll give you a rundown of the Swedish version.

Sweden's got a public broadcasting network called SVT, SVeriges Television (Sweden's Television); which costs money to mainting, as they have no corporal advertisements, only ads for scheduled shows. Thus, we have the Television License. In Sweden, it is actually illegal to own a Television Set without paying the license for it, even if you do not use that Television Set to watch TV.

This is a rarely enforced law in Sweden, 'though there's been some amusing ads running about it (like a child creeping out of TV-sets to put snails on the eyes of those who aren't paying their License Fee, then turning to the Viewer and asking in a creepy voice 'Do you also want a snail on your eye?'. I kid you not, this is one of my earliest TV-memories) and those sneaky TV Inspectors knows all the tricks in the book to find out if you have one or not.

This may just be coincidence, but I bought a used TV set from my uncle for a couple of bucks, a small one that I intended to use with my PS2. I plugged in the power, but not the cable that transmits signals.

Then, the day after, a letter pops down in my mailbox reminding me to 'pay my Television License.'

In Sweden, TV-licenses are seriose bosiness, some politicians have even been exposed as NOT PAYING THEIR LICENSE, FOR SHAME! D:<

For a little while, there was talk about upgrading it to Media License, forcing people to pay for MP3 players, TV-sets, computers, cell-phones...

Thankfully this was voted down rather quickly.

Still, I'm not, and I never will, pay the fee as I have only watched one thing on my telly since I moved in here 3 years ago; and that was the recent post-election debate... which was on public television...



There are a few privately owned stations and networks, and most of them are actually pretty good. Still, not good enough to get me hooked on TV again though.

Same in England. If you have anything larger than a few-inches big portable that can receive a TV signal then you fork over £100+ a year for it or get slapped with a £1000 or so fine. When you buy a TV stores are obligated to inform the TV licensing people. Black and white sets are cheaper (£40, I think?), but if they weren't redundant years ago they certainly are now. This doesn't include just TVs, as I implied before. Got a PC with a TV input on the video card? You'll need a license for that.

Speaking of which...do we have a TV license Smo?

We do indeed. We got sent a letter saying "we know you bought a TV, now pay up, bitches."

This is actually news to me, despite having lived in England for a time. How long has this been going on? Perhaps I was simply too young and ignorant to be aware of the rules of European telecasting.

I saw an episode of Doctor Who wherein he was in the past and they talked about TV licenses so Who knows! (he does, get it?)

It's been going on since 1946 according to Wikipedia.

Yeah, but The Doctor knows everything, including how to most fashionably wear a scarf.

TO THE GROUND

It has been a while since a new Bullshit! episode has been aired, so I'm still waiting to download that business whence I see them. I also have a collection of the two seasons of 30 Days as permanent residents on my hard disk, right next to my Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex subdirectories. Also, periodically I go back and check on South Park episodes that I haven't seen (and some that I have seen), which is always good times.

edit: Wow, how did I not see the changed topic of conversation earlier? Madness.

Wow, that's some crazy shit. Thanks for the explanation.

All the CSI (Vegas and Miami), C-Span Washington Journal Law and Order (CI and SVU)...


Wow, no comedies. Odd...