I'm 2 behind right now, but it seems like the joke this season is that every other episode is serious, and every other episode is nutballs.

Just wait till you see the latest.

Which show is this?

dads renewed or?

Joe Adalian ‏@TVMoJoe 14m
HANNIBAL collapsed in its second week:

NBC FRIDAY DRAMAS

GRIMM 5.6M/1.5 A18-49
HANNIBAL. 2.6M/0.8 A18-49

Sirens

disappointing

I think Hannibal's season premier was a little too abstract and meditative to hold any new viewers and probably even alienated some casual fans. I admire the uncompromising attitude but it might have made sense to set up the big serial killer case a little more with a few less fishing and wendigo dreamscapes.

That is disappointing, but notice that overall viewers number. That's pretty good for that level of 18-49 demo (generally that number is around 2m for that demo). I stand by my assessment that few people are watching this show live, due to the subject matter. Next Monday, and the Monday after we'll really know how this show is doing. Still, I'm definitely majorly concerned right now.

I haven't read much of the awful thread for House of Cards season 2, but can someone please explain to me why there is so much hate for it? The show is pretty much identical in genre to Scandal (at a massively higher quality level), but it almost seems like people were expecting Citizen Kane. Spoiler tags would be great for any of this conversation.

This might not make a ton of sense but House Of Cards to me seems like the type of show that does crazy stuff but also take it self serious. Scandal does crazy stuff but it knows it and accepts it. I just feel Scandal understands its identity more. Scandal has all that soap stuff and it understand who the audience is. I like House Of Cards but don't think its great.

I get what you're saying, but I think that's audience projection. I don't think House of Cards takes itself seriously, and how seriously you should take it is really laid out in the first scene of the first episode of season 1. I think the audience is trying to take it seriously, and that's where the problem is.

Yea makes sense

Something like 24 I can look past plot holes but something like The Walking Dead, Homeland I seem to nit pick more.

That's probably because shows like Homeland are taking themselves way too seriously, despite being in a farcical environment. It makes you want to tear down the stuff that doesn't make sense (and there's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense in House of Cards, but it doesn't bother me to the level of something like Homeland).

So sad probably the best show on at the moment can't get the ratings, probably a good dvr bump though.

Is 24 a ridiculous thriller? I've never seen so much as a clip of it, but I could totally go for a ridiculous thriller.

Yeah that is a perfect description of 24.

Hannibal ratings are so sad. Makes no sense that a show like that can't find a suitably sized audience.

House of Cards eats at the Big Boy table but still plays with it's food. I don't think it takes itself seriously, but it certainly thinks it's as good as other, much tighter shows like Mad Men or Sopranos. The problem most people have is that it dials up the drama into Soap Opera territory, when it would be a better show if reigned in a little. That it's at all compared to Scandal is pretty much why people complain about it, even though it's still a very well done show across the board.

That could be an accurate assessment Thug. I think it knows that it has elements that no other show has in its genre (smugness might be an appropriate term, and I love the smugness of it). When comparing it to a show like Scandal, you can easily see why it stands out so much, despite being in basically the same genre. Scandal is full of gimmicky shooting, editing, and speedreading style dialog, in addition to the ridiculous plot. House of Cards doesn't rely on any of that kind of gimmicky style (this show is shot incredibly traditionally and well, something that's almost never done anymore), and that's why I think it is the tippy top of the genre. It's a stilted and unbelievable show, but I think it's great fun to watch. It also didn't blow its wad in season 2 like it did in season 1 really early.

As I said in the other thread, I consider it elite hyperdrama. I think it's always intended as a soap drama (certain things about that genre are actually great, such as running multiple storylines at once), and I don't think it's trying to take itself as seriously as something like Mad Men or The Sopranos, but I think that's probably a good assessment of why people on here hate it. They want it to be something more than it is, and I think they think it's something the show doesn't think it is either. The production value and acting (regardless of whatever anyone else says, Spacey is putting on a brilliant performance to read such stilted dialog so effectively) is what puts it into elite hyperdrama territory, but the writing and dialog is often so stilted that it can be off-putting if you don't buy into it (and with all of the political errors they have made in the show, it's easy to see why some of its true target audience wouldn't buy into it). They certainly clogged it up with a lot of unpaid off storylines in season 2, but I think a lot of it is set up for what will probably be a final season 3. It's not a plot hole until the show ends...lol.

I think your argument of it trying not to be the kind of show Sopranos or Mad Men is brings up a larger issue with watching TV these days. It's so easy to try an lump great shows together, as if they strive for the same artistic goals. It's easy to knock down a show like, Justified, for example, because it's not as heavy hitting as Deadwood, but that doesn't make it any less great. House of Cards may be similar, as you propose. Spacey looks like he's having too much fun for us not to think the creators are enjoying the melodrama in a way that Mad Men wouldn't care to.

I personally think Justified is unquestionably a top 15 show of all time, and get your argument that people need to kind of stop judging shows against each other and instead on their own individual merits. For me, I don't like to throw around the word "best", because art is completely subjective (and as you state, each piece of art has its own artistic goals that are theoretically like nothing else), and what I might love someone else might not, and what someone else might love I might not.

I try to watch every show I watch in a vacuum (I think I'm generally a bad critic, because, in my profession, I treat everything like it's my baby, and mostly tend to see the good over the bad, though I am known to savage stuff that I think is doing things poorly while it thinks it's doing it well). Because I watch a show in a vacuum, I'm not ever trying to compare it to anything. I specifically avoided the House of Cards thread, or any information, because I didn't want anyone else's thoughts to pollute my experience. I, by no means, think it's a perfect show, but I think anyone putting it down isn't watching it objectively enough. I think it's a shoo in to get nominated for Best Drama at the EMMYs, but I suppose it's possible it won't make it there. I love anything that's cinematic and traditional in the TV genre, and this show just blows my mind with how it's presented in a world full of gimmicks. If only the mixers would mix it like a real TV show or movie, it would be even better. I think it's important to view TV as TV and movies as movies. When you try to get to that higher level of verisimilitude available in a 2 hour format, or whatever, that's when TV becomes problematic for viewers (True Detective is really the only TV show I can remember seeing that feels like a real movie, even if it wouldn't play as well in movie theaters). One of the best things about this season of House of Cards is that they took a tremendous amount of care to present each 2 episodes (minus the Jodie Foster one off) by the same director (in essence allowing each director to create a 2 hour movie, giving it a larger feel, set up exceptionally well by Carl Franklin). I thought Jodie Foster didn't get the style of the show, and kind of derailed it, but that's another conversation altogether.

I do agree that Spacey looks like he's having way too much fun (and what others see as a negative about his performance, I relish), but I think the character Frank is having way too much fun. I like to think of Frank as a psychopath who is an expert at manipulating people into attempting to preserve their own self interests at the highest cost and greatest collateral damage possible. He's almost like a nuclear bomb of destroying people, but it's always ultimately self caused by the people he destroys. He plays into the ego of every one of his victims. It's good nuance, in my opinion, even though it's never subtly or believably portrayed.

Joe Adalian ‏@TVMoJoe 11m
ICYMI: RESURRECTION debuted to a massive 13.3M viewers and a 3.6 A18-49. Broad hit with great demos: Bullseye for ABC, and Paul Lee.

wow, didn't see that coming

Strike Back >>> 24 IMO

Those are real numbers, too, very impressive. It absolutely crushed the OUAT lead in.

They did play the commercial 100 times during the Oscars but that's still crazy.