Has anyone watched Missing? Is it on yet? My wife and I have been cracking up at the trailers, with some of the most "angry acting" I've ever seen coming from Ashley Judd. I've never considered her Oscar-worthy, but I also never thought she was as bad as she seems in these trailers. The next time you see one of them, check out how she says "I will do annn-eeee-thinnggg." It cracks us up every time!

Jeff, I hate not being able to respond to your post or even look at it, but the first half of season 2 left me so underwhelmed that The Walking Dead has remained my last go-to show on my Tivo list, so I haven't seen any of the second half.

Jeff, the wife and I had the same feelings about the season finale.

Matt, just watch them all back to back in a day. Ok, maybe two. The second half is better than the first, maybe thanks to the new show runner.

I enjoyed the first half of the season too, but there have been some really great moments in the second half. Last weeks episode was pretty epic and very welll done.

One interesting thing

I agree with your spoiler completely.

Watched the first episode of Dirk Gently yesterday, surprised to say that I actually enjoyed it, no flash effects or blood and gore, just interesting and fun. Better than Sherlock Holmes I thought.

Very much enjoying Game of Thrones right now.

I can honestly say, that even with hindsight-euphoria, there has never been anything made for TV that approaches being even half as good as Game of Thrones. It's also far better than a large percentage of movies past and present. Very well done and addictive story lines. So many that you almost wish they'd run it as multiple overlapping series - or at the very least, expand the episode count to 20 for the season.

Watching the first couple of episodes of Season 1 last year (coupled with my brother's heckling when he found out I hadn't read it yet) compelled me to by the books. I wasn't disappointed, and appreciate the series that much more.

Firefly.

tanstaafl.

Firefly? No disrespect, but not even in the top 100 as far as I'm concerned. And even number 2, whatever it is, doesn't come close to Game of Thrones in my books. The series is mind-bogingly epic. I can't think of anything else that's ever been done for TV that approaches its scale/breadth.

GoT is spectacular not only for its source material which brings the overall plot and most of the characters, but its production is phenomenal. Sets, locations, costumes, scripts, dialog. And there's occasional boobies.

I'm saving reading the books until at least a few more seasons of the show have gone by. No matter how good a filmed "version" is, nothing can really ever live up to the original literary work.

Seeing it on the small screen however, has made me really want to see another epic series of stories produced. Thieve's World. Now that could be great, but it would be an insane challenge to do well.

No, Doug. Hyperbole is never wrong. It's the most accurate way to describe anything ever.

Instead of a long post expanding on my comment, here's the gist of my response:

I can't call a show the best of all time when it's not over, and when it doesn't hit as wide a range of emotions (for me, at least) as other shows (the ones it does hit, however, it does better than anything else).

And when it comes down to it, my top 10 list is one of my favorites, not what I objectively call "the 10 best." My #1 might not even make your top #10 of what you'd call the best ever, and I'm fine with that.

(ps-"mind-bogglingly")

I don't rank these things on an emotional level, so I wouldn't expect that type of list to be the same.

In addition to what I've previously mentioned, I also hold the show in high regard on artistic merits. At the end of the day that's what film making is.

But what I'm not sure of is what the ending of any show has to do with its quality. A superb ending can be had on an otherwise crappy show, likewise a fantastic show can have a horrid ending. Or somewhere in-between. The fact that something is great doesn't mean it can't falter and visa versa (once, twice or three times a lady).

I give some examples of various of the above issues in no particular order:

Lost
Seinfeld
Medium
The X-Files
24
Heroes
Twin Peaks

It's just chance that I listed only shows that have ended their runs.

Not one of those shows would make my top 100.

YMMV.

Of course, I've watched less than two hours of television in the past two and a half years, so perhaps my opinion is not entirely valid.

I do remember a few shows that I liked...

Firefly
The West Wing
Joan of Arcadia
The Paper Chase*
Buffy

and a few non-drama shows from the Discovery Channel or PBS.

Can't think of anything else, maybe that's why I don't watch TV anymore.

Hmmm... I do see a bit of a common thread among the ones I liked: interesting and deep character development, where every episode wasn't all about the same central character every time...

tanstaafl.

*Nobody under the age of 40 is likely to remember this very memorable show.

That wasn't necessarily a list of top shows, but shows that suffered the issues I mentioned previously in the post. Besides, I don't do top lists, I think they don't serve much of a purpose and are a waste of time, especially considering they'd need re-ordering on an on-going basis. I especially don't care for other people's (organizations, magazines, etc.) top lists.

I do (if the topic, is of general interest to me), but only really to look for stuff I don't know about. I quite enjoyed the Desert Island thread we had, for just that reason. I found a lot of new-to-me music in there that I would never have heard of, otherwise.

The other day, I was looking at an article about "the top 15 cool libraries in the world" (or something like that). I don't care about the rankings, but the unique architecture presented in the list was definitely interesting, and inspirational. I wish the designers of our city library had seen the list...

Now, you want waste of time, try arguing cell-phone sales and market share statistics on the internet.

Yay or nay on this one, Sherlock fans? When I first heard about this I thought it sounded like a cheap knock-off, and I still don't expect it to measure up to the quality of the UK version, but it doesn't look unwatchable from the preview.

I didn't feel that way. I'd never heard of it before, and the preview told me it would be pretty awful. Perhaps hearing about it lowered your expectations so much the preview could only raise them?


NAY! Nay big time.

I've liked Jonny Lee Miller in Hackers (yes, I actually really love Hackers), and Eli Stone (yes, I really watched all of Eli Stone), and he seems to be the only remote reason to watch this show. I've never liked Lucy Liu's acting, and Aidan Quinn looked like he wasn't contributing much here, but I guess we'll see.

My primary turn off is what I'm able to perceive about the quality of the writing. From that trailer, it seems like it'll be pretty lazy, cliche-ridden, and generally unimaginative.

I predict four to six episodes will air before it's cancelled.

Keep in mind, I would think this even if Sherlock didn't exist. Elementary looks bad enough on its own, and it only looks worse in the shadow of Sherlock.

I'm sure a lot of it is lowered expectations -- the first I heard about this was an NPR interview with Benedict Cumberbatch where he basically stopped just short of calling the folks behind Elementary rude names over some interactions they had. Then just knowing it was going to air on CBS lowered expectations further -- I figured it'd end up being "CSI: Baker Street" in the best case, or "Two and a Half Detectives" in the worst case.

More than lowered expectations, though, I think I want this to work because I'm desperate for some Sherlock-like substance that's available for more than 4.5 hours out of every calendar year... So maybe my glasses were a bit too rose-colored when I watched the preview.

I had to VPN into the US of A to watch the preview. -1.
Apart from that, the show looks watchable -- big fan of LL here, and she should be able to make up for her co-star.

Cheers