Saturation Point

40 thoughts on Saturation Point

1. Good god almighty! When will people stop worshipping the tube. They charge everyone about 15 bucks a month or more for “basic” channels, which is basically what we got for free when I lived in flatland Illinois as a kid. A black and white, an ariel on the top, TV dinners and Gilligan’s Island, Lost in Space, Star Trek, To Tell the Truth, The Match Game and then off to bed. That was when we were babysat. Other nights were PBS or nothing. And that was when PBS had some teeth.

   A few years ago I hitched on someone’s cable in an apartment I lived in, but then when that ended I was forced with nothing or paying 40 bucks a month for “basic” and then all those extra juicy channels like Fox and CNBC.

   Nope. At least my public education taught me to read. And I always have this here computer.

   May all televisions someday go black.

2. No, it’s not just you. You also left out NCIS and Numbers (I think that one’s still going).

   The TWOP joke reminds me of one of my favorite South Park jokes, from the first episode: “Hey Ike! Do your impression of David Caruso’s career!” And Ike jumps down head-first.

3. God I want a television.

4. I just watched “detective’s daughter witnesses an icky murder.” But the important part is that the detective is really, really hot.

5. I’m obsessed with PBS, teeth or no. Tonight I watched a great program on dog-training. No, really.

6. Me, a housemate/friend, and an SO like to rent CSI (original flavour) on DVD en masse and watch them 4 and 5 a night while eating junk food. We call it forensics porn, and no commercials!

7. You got a tivo too? Isn’t it great?

   I am still trying to figure out how to get people to buy a tivo, and use my account as a referrer for all teh free struff.

8. Don’t forget NCIS, which is the sexual harassment workplace show (the women give as good as they get, though). I am totally addicted to it, even though I know it’s bad–because I also think it’s funny, the idea of Mark Harmon as a total hardass, and there’s that cute goth girl, and David McCallum, and and and…

9. I have pretty much had it with CSI. Everytime Bugman Grissom spouts his inane quip at the beginning of each episode I ask myself why I am still watching.

   I try not to miss NCIS, the actors have a great chemistry and they are snarky and teasing each other they come across as a great team who love each other. For the mindless crime drama genre – best show by far.

   And I pretty much ignore L&O all flavors.

10. I don’t know why people are so obsessed with corpses. I don’t watch TV anymore. I think I’m saner for it.

    BTW, the only good cop drama was Due South, everything else pales in comparison.

11. I like NCIS, too, because it’s an actual team show. And, gee, how come so many of the victims are women?

12. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve watched anything on network TV, though I do want to catch up with Lost.

    Mostly, I watch HBO and various channels in the Discovery family. Dirty Jobs is probably my favorite show right now.

13. Nowadays, I watch The Daily Show, I download Mythbusters and Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, and sometimes watch Law & Order: SVU with my girlfriend. Other than that, I stay away from television entirely. I just read a shitload instead, and I’m better for it.

14. Ever since I discovered a local video store that rents out Criterion Collection movies, network TV went away. Also: Turner Classic Movies, when they’re not doing some sort of Mickey Rooney Day or some shit, actually has a decent and eclectic set of older movies, although they need to put on foreign movies more than once in a while.

15. You want a good cop show, check out the BBC’s series “Midsomer Murders” from the late 90s. (I get them from Netflix.) They’re real mysteries; L&O etc. pale in comparison.

    I also highly recommend anything featuring David Suchet as Poirot, but there isn’t so much gore and mayhem in those. Miss Marple is also awesome.

16. Is Bones still on? Another to add to the list.

    My husband and I enjoy Law & Order just to watch for the “Your turn. Now your turn” conversations that occur every episode. They go something like:
    Ice Cube: I am looking at this guy’s picture on my screen.
    Skinny-face man: From that printout we can assess he lives near a chuch.
    Olivia: Let’s make a map of all the churches within a two-mile radius of where the body was found.
    Psychologist guy: Coincidentally, I am the expert on men who murder people near churches. His criminal profile is (rattles off profile).
    Some random person suddenly appearing: We got a lead on blah-blah-blah!
    (All characters rush to the scene.)

17. You forgot NUMB3RS and Medium. At least those shows have interesting twists. I’m hooked on both of them.

    By the way, it’s not ice Cube on SVU. It’s Ice-T. Yeah, I know, it’s easy to get the Ice’s mixed up. At least it’s not Vanilla Ice. Then, the show would be a comedy.

18. And there’s that new one with Kyle MacLachlan and his huge hair – In Justice. And isn’t there another ghost one – The Ghost Whisperer which is kind of crime-based. I completely agree that it’s way too much right now.
    A quick question though – I thought that the imobile forehead and red-headed stepson of satan were on the same CSI??

19. I also forgot Close to Home. And The Closer. And, arguably, Ghost Whisperer, which is about an exploited woman solving brutal murders.

    Oh, and possibly Supernatural. Does that count? There have been damsel-in-distress and final-girl plots aplenty. And the main characters are solving the brutal and graphic murders of a mom and a girlfriend.

    Also, there’s apparently another Law & Order spinoff coming down the pike, called Conviction, with Deep ADA imported from Law & Order: SVU.

    And, gee, how come so many of the victims are women?

    Well, who wants to see a naked, violated, brutally murdered man?

    I’ve seen some very good feminist writing on this in Where the Girls Are , by Susan Douglas (Go! Read! Brilliant, brutal, and not even slightly intimidating for the theory-allergic! Also, you can meditate on exactly how much of your life has been wasted on teevee), and the last couple issues of Bitch. But it seemed to mostly identify the trend towards yet more graphic and elaborate sexualized murders of yet more women on yet more crime dramas.

    I’m not sure I’ve seen much writing about why we need to both rescue and rape the woman in danger. I have some thoughts, but they’re half-baked. Is the rescue part simply an excuse? Does it provide some necessary element? Is it (humor me) a sign that these shows are attempting to grapple with misogynist violence in a responsible way? How does the courtroom segment play into all of this? Is the raped woman supposed to represent all women, some women, certain kinds of women? What about the way in which the rapist is punished, either legally or extralegally? What about the tendency on these shows to put their female detectives in danger as well, in a way that never happens to the male characters? Do they symbolize a different aspect of the issue than the victim of the week?

20. Reminds me of the spoof spin-offs that Adult Swim used for a Harvey Birdman ad. They started off with a few that were kind of straight-laced (Harvey Birdman: Criminal Investigations Unit, Harvey Birdman: Special Unit Investigating Criminal Investigations), and by the end they were totally ridiculous (Harvey Birdman’s Baby Mystery Club, Harvey Birdman: Bon Appetite).

21. I luuurv TV Without Pity (although they stopped doing my fav. recaps–ER and Enterprise).

    I also happen to enjoy CSI: Emotionally Constipated Asexual Crimesolver, but it really bugs me how the recurring theme of the show seems to be “women will be punished for their sexuality”. Like that episode where some guy who hits on Catherine in a bar turns out to be a murder suspect, and everybody spends the entire episode dumping on Catherine, like it’s her fault for even attempting to have a social life.

    Crossing Jordan can be forgiven for having started out on the far side of the shark tank.

22. I also happen to enjoy CSI: Emotionally Constipated Asexual Crimesolver, but it really bugs me how the recurring theme of the show seems to be “women will be punished for their sexuality”. Like that episode where some guy who hits on Catherine in a bar turns out to be a murder suspect, and everybody spends the entire episode dumping on Catherine, like it’s her fault for even attempting to have a social life.

    Or the one where she gets abducted by a suspect’s lawyer. Or the one where a nurse gets murdered for being, basically, a sexual person, and everyone’s all, “Gee, Sarah*, she sure looks like you!” and spends the entire episode alternately freaking out about it and reminding her of it.

    *the other woman on the squad.

23. Crossing Jordan can be forgiven for having started out on the far side of the shark tank.

    Also, Jill Hennssey. Although, Jill Hennessey’s character.

24. You kids gotta check out Battlestar Galactica. I shit you not. Best show on TV. Think of the height of Star Trek the Next Generation, squeeze out all the suck, multiply the awesome by 50 to 100, and crank up the bad-ass.

    I’ve also been hooked on this season of The West Wing. A motherfucking presidential campaign. I can’t get enough of that shit when it’s the real deal.

25. You kids gotta check out Battlestar Galactica. I shit you not. Best show on TV.

    I do love that show, and I love me some Mary McDonnell. I have some serious reservations about the last couple episodes, though, not to mention the promos for the next one. I’m pissed that Michelle Forbes only shows up on television to be killed off shortly thereafter. Can’t Starbuck start having hallucinations of Admiral Caine or something?

26. Heh. The slash fiction, it writes itself.

27. Second the praise of Battlestar. I’m cheap, and therefore don’t have the cable necessary to watch it in real time, but good gods that show is awesome, and I will own all seasons ever made on DVD. And after I move out of the parents’ house, I will buy it again for myownself, because it’s just that good.

    As for The West Wing, that used to be a weekly watch for me up to the debate episode last month. I can’t bring myself to watch it since the death of John Spencer, though. No rational reason, I just can’t do it. And yeah, I own the first five seasons on DVD of that one, too.

28. I should add…if any postings in comments or on the front page about Battlestar would contain spoiler warning tags or something similar, I would very much appreciate it. Like I said in the above comments, I don’t have cable (nor do I want it…I would watch exactly two channel sets: SciFi for Battlestar, and the ESPN channels. And maybe Olbermann every once in awhile.). I’m waiting on the DVDs, and I don’t like knowing what happens before I see it. Childhood trauma from seeing the ends of both The Matrix and Fallen before I saw the beginning, thus totally ruining both movies. (Yeah, The Matrix ending was obvious, but still…)

29. Second the praise of Battlestar. I’m cheap, and therefore don’t have the cable necessary to watch it in real time, but good gods that show is awesome, and I will own all seasons ever made on DVD. And after I move out of the parents’ house, I will buy it again for myownself, because it’s just that good.

    It’s one of the shows Television Without Pity is recapping, and they’re great fun to read.

    And one of the posters at Lawyers, Guns, and Money had some posts up about the political issues in the show.

30. I should add…if any postings in comments or on the front page about Battlestar would contain spoiler warning tags or something similar, I would very much appreciate it.

    Sorry. #25 needs a retroactive spoiler tag. Dunno about LG&M’s posts, or how specific they are.

31. hey! D’Onofrio rules!

32. Spoiler?

    Piny, the slash potential between Kaine and Starbuck is endless. And, well, Adama and President Roslin, but I think Ron Moore might do that for us. It _was_ a bit of a copout to have the Cylon kill Kaine, but my sheer terror that she would freak out and start a purge of some kind outweighs it.

33. I don’t watch any of the current crop of crime shows, but I’m partial to reruns of stuff like The Rockford Files and Remington Steele and Magnum, P.I. (god help us all, there’s a Magnum movie in the works). One thing that’s struck me is that so, so many of the crime shows in the late ’70s and early ’80s were about private investigators, not cops. I think that says quite a lot about the difference in attitude toward the state and its authority between now and then.

    As for other TV fare, the new Doctor Who is starting on the SciFi channel in the States on March 17. I highly, highly recommend it — the writing is whip smart, the acting is fabulous, the stories are thought-provoking and funny and scary at the same time, and the Doctor’s companion Rose is gutsy and fascinating.

34. Piny, did you watch Michelle Forbes in Homicide, as ME Cox, in a doomed and boozy relationship with Reed Diamond’s character? I loved that show, and her character.

35. You kids gotta check out Battlestar Galactica. I shit you not.

    Third, fourth, or fifthing this. It’s probably the best, most original thing running right now. Best that you start with the miniseries (now on DVD) or just begin with Season 1 right out of the gate (that’s on DVD too, isn’t it?) If you jump in now, you’ll have a hard time catching up with the story. Props to them for getting DVDs out quickly, though. It’ll probably help BG get around the long-plot-arc issues that doomed other shows.

    And FWIW, I second the spoilers bit, too. Canada’s “Space” channel is lagging several episodes behind the US “SciFi” channel, though I think they’re set to be back in sync within a couple weeks.

36. Chuck, Season 1 and the first half of Season 2 (the last episode is the appearance of Pegasus and Admiral Cain) are available on DVD, and the miniseries is part of the Season 1 box set.

    Piny, don’t worry about #25, I figured spoilers were on the way in this thread when it turned to Battlestar. I was just saying for future reference.

37. I just started watching Hustle on A&E, and reccomend it highly.

    I suppose it’s a crime drama too, but since the criminals are the protagonists and there’s a significant dearth of murdered strippers I don’t think it fits in with the rest.

38. A shout out to anyone who’s interested: my family is currently obsessed with the FIREFLY boxed dvd set. Awesome, awesome. Can’t recommend it highly enough. Then, after you get done with the series, you can get the movie SERENITY.

39. We’ve been obsessed with it too. I remember a few months back when all the hot bloggers got invites to the sneak premiere, and there was buzz about Serenity, and had the “oh whatever” reaction. But we picked up the DVD and were very very pleasantly surprised.
    They invested in the right thing: good writing.

40. I hate Joss Wheadon with a consuming passion, but it’s consistently gotten good reviews from those who don’t.

    And guys, if you’re behind a few episodes on Battlestar and hate the MPAA or whoever has jurisdiction, check out torrentspy.com

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