TV: set phasers to suck

[sigma7]

Day 01 - A show that should never have been cancelled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of one of your favorite shows
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of one of your favorite TV shows
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death

You know, there's some truly awful TV in some really decent series. BSG had "Black Market" and "Unfinished Business." Doctor Who had "Fear Her." The Simpsons had "The Principal and the Pauper" in which Principal Skinner is revealed to be an impostor, and is probably my second-place pick for the final spot. I mean, Lost had their Nikki-Paolo episode "Exposé," but at least it had the virtue to kill off the most irritating characters on the show after focusing on them for the full bloody hour. Even MythBusters had a hideous Green-Hornet-themed outing.

But you know, at least those were full episodes. To be truly egregious, you have to cheat. You have to not even make a whole episode. Star Trek: The Next Generation had some off moments, nobody can argue that, but by the end of its second season it was finally starting to get some traction. Until the Writers' Strike of '88 came calling and they decided to phone it in for the season finale. The result is "Shades of Gray", in which Riker's life hangs in the balance, with his survival keying on triggering old memories. So about half of the episode is...clips from previous episodes. There are worse episodes of TNG -- "Angel One," "Justice" come to mind (sorry, Wil, but "I'm with Starfleet; we don't lie" is just abysmal), and let's not even branch out into worse episodes in later (or earlier) series. But at least they lasted the whole 42 minutes. "Shades of Gray" is full of Taco Bell meat and somehow even less filling. Ronald D. Moore called it "embarrassing." Good call, RDM.

Tomorrow...God, didn't I answer that question already? Must find new topic for tomorrow. Redundant meme is redundant.

Comments

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

I guess the difference between tomorrow and 2 is that tomorrow can be a show that's popular? And unlike 4, it does have to be on the air now, but unlike 3, it doesn't have to be brand new? Anyway, yes, stupid meme.

I have such fond memories of TNG, I avoid reruns, because I know it was not always as good as I remember.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

TNG will recur in this meme sooner than you'd think. It had its faults, but it was the beginning of a TV sci-fi renaissance...well, at the very least, resurgence. It's so easy to see it retrospectively in terms of tics and clichés, but at the time, it was the best the genre'd been.

And the two questions are close enough that I feel obliged to wholeheartedly and arbitrarily change things for the next question. I just...forgot what I was going to change it to...suggestions?

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

True that re: TNG. I used to catch it on syndication after school, and the first season or two notwithstanding, there was some pretty stellar storytelling going on there.

It might seem a bit redundant, given the depth of your responses, but for tomorrow I like the idea of "a show that's had a significant effect on who you are today".

For instance, my answer would be Daria. It's not necessarily a great show (and in many ways, it's so very nineties/early aughts - a community where a girl honestly thinks she can raise tens of thousands of dollars for plastic surgery by asking her friends?), but I saw it at a time in my life when things were rapidly changing with no promise they'd stop anytime soon, and adopting that particular brand of snark for my own gave me both a coping mechanism and something to aspire to (much to the horror of my mother). I'm pretty sure I've learned to be more discriminating in its use since then, but I directly attribute a large part of my wit-muscle to that show; I might never have been inspired to develop it, otherwise.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

That's actually one of the ideas I was moving toward. [Either that or something along the lines of "What series would you greenlight?" because there've been a few pilots that never got the go-ahead which would've been very, very cool....] Though I might have trouble answering that fully. There've been at least three mentioned earlier on that can share the blame for a lot of my personal tics....

And me, I loved Daria, though I lost touch with it. I do so aspire to the monotone and the acidic wit, though I've found the latter -- along with my occasional inability to rein it in before I've gone too far -- best left slumbering.

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

I like both those ideas, although I doubt I can remember anything that would answer the second one. And the answer to the first one would probably be TNG. XD Really, though, I think it was the first show my mother and I bonded over, because it was on during the day. (Later, when she let me stay up, we watched Beauty and the Beast and Quantum Leap together.)

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

There's one specific licensed property that I think would make an excellent TV series -- and even got some test footage shot to that effect -- but has otherwise been mostly dormant since its inception. And for which I'd lop off a limb (perhaps even my own) to be showrunner....