Re: TV Shows You Do Enjoy
I don't watch CSI but "the scuba diver in the tree" sounds an awful lot like a bit in the opening of the movie "Magnolia." It's based on the true story of a scuba diver being picked up accidentally by a fire plane that was gathering water from a lake to help put out a nearby forest fire.
My all-time favorites list: As a kid, "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and all the Jay Thomas cartoons, ie, "George of the Jungle," "Dudley DoRight," and "Tom Slick." While my sister and I watched them in the TV room, our dad would sit in the coffee and laugh his a** off just listening to them. Also the older Bugs Bunny cartoons, especially the ones done before the code. Bugs running around in a bra and panties; Bugs and Elmer Fudd doing Wagnerian opera ("Kill da wabbit! Kill da wabbit!") and the "Barber of Seville." As the guys who created them said, they made those cartoons for adults and there are more hidden obscene things in them than anyone can begin to imagine. I thought "Green Acres" was hilarious, one of the few sitcoms that holds up. "Upstairs/Downstairs" and later on "Brideshead Revisited" and "The Jewel in the Crown" I think raised the bar for drama, even though they weren't regular series. And of course Monty Python--perhaps the pinnacle of television before 1980, comedy or drama.
"Hill Street Blues." It looks hokey now but at the time, it was the eptime of realism and dark humor on TV.
A couple of us talked about not like "Lucy," but a show I liked that was an '80s version of "Lucy," "That Girl," and "Mary Tyler M00re" was "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd." Didn't last long, but it was one of the first "dramadies."
The first two or three seasons of "Northern Exposure." Unfortunately, as happens with most great shows, the original producer makes it great, then after a couple of season moves on to create more "great" shows. He/she/they usually don't and the original show loses its edge and its center and gets stupid, as happened with NE.
The first "Survivor," though I still don't know if I consider these things TV shows. They seem more like psychological studies that we get to watch. But I thought the first one really was fascinating, whatever it was.
"AI"--again, don't know if it's in the category of TV show. This seems more like sports--who's gonna win!? But it did hook me.
There used to be weekly 30-minute documentaries by Errol Morris, director of film documentaries such as "Gates of Heaven," "The Thin Blue Line," and "The Rise and Fall of Fred Leuchter, Jr." on Bravo called "First Person." Absolutely fascinating. Interviewed a guy who went to senior year in high school six times in different states just because he liked being in high school. Interviewed a guy who helped try to land the plane that crashed in Iowa about eight years ago. He was a pilot, but was just a passenger on the plane and went to help out when the plane got into trouble. Gave virtually a minute-by-minute account. About 200 died and he almost did. Incredible stuff. I don't know why it didn't get picked up by somebody else. I think Morris is a genius.
"Six Feet Under," though it seems to be suffering this season. I wish Nate would have just killed Lisa.
Rgirl
, I also really like Will and Grace, Scubs, and I used to be very devote to ER, but thats kinda gone down in quality the past few seasons. And I manage to fit in a good dose of reality TV: American Idol, Mr. Personality and Born to Diva (ocasionally)
