[quote=“Devil Bunny, post:17, topic:1822”]New- Dexter
Dead Like Me
Ab. Fab.
Carnival
Wire in the Blood
Inspector Morse
Sherlock Holmes
Old- Twilight Zone
Monty Python
Black Adder
Dark Shadows
Maverick (A sad and shocking ommision from the last poll!)
Avengers
Wild Wild West
Star Trek
Young Ones
Bonanza[/quote]Glad to meet another Carnivale fan! That series ended way before its time. Stupid HBO. It’s actually my favorite series together with LOST (although the fifth season left me a bit disappointed… here’s hoping they were just saving the best for the final part).
I’m not even going into animated series because I have so many it’s ridiculous. Mostly Japanese stuff anyway.
I have over the last months watched several episodes of The Avengers and The New Avengers. And I was a bit disappointed. It’s clearly a dated series.
I can still see why it was that good in those days, and also why I liked it as a child, but compared to modern series like Lost, X-Files, Twin Peaks or whatever it looks rather dowdy. (Or is homespun the correct term?)
I defy anyone to say that about the Twilight Zone. The writing in that series, on a whole, was brilliant & it’s influence can be seen in many hit movies over the years.
[quote=“Stanton, post:24, topic:1822”]I have over the last months watched several episodes of The Avengers and The New Avengers. And I was a bit disappointed. It’s clearly a dated series.
I can still see why it was that good in those days, and also why I liked it as a child, but compared to modern series like Lost, X-Files, Twin Peaks or whatever it looks rather dowdy. (Or is homespun the correct term?)[/quote]
I don’t know what you mean
Personally I don’t like Lost or the X-Files, to me me they’re boring and stupid series, and I only liked some of Twin Peaks (it soon became tiresome); but when you speak about ‘dowdy’ and ‘homespun’, are you thinking of how the series looked like? Or more in particular the clothes the actors were wearing?
Of course the series is dated, but I guess that’s part of its charm.
These modern series are much, much better directed, and much better acted.
On the contrary they are far from being stupid. Lost and The Sopranos and one or another episode of X-Files have an intelligence TV series could only dream of before the 90s. There’s a reason why many people say meanwhile that some TV series are the better cinema. Nobody would have said these 10 years ago. (Of course, apart from Twin Peaks, but that’s Lynch)
For me The Avengers are now a bit boring. I watched them without finding any interest in what will happen next (in fact mostly I already knew). The ironic distance of the narrative killed all the suspense.
I liked the acting of Macnee and the girls are still nice to look at, but nevertheless the erotic is mostly gone and the action is, well, maybe better than what they could do for TV in those times, but from a modern point of view rather clumsy.
The New Avengers are slightly better, maybe only for being newer.
But I have to admit that it is generally very disillusioning for me to rewatch any of the TV series I liked in my youth. While many of the old films (not all) are still great.
I wasn’t talking about acting and directing, they’re largely okay in the series you’ve mentioned;
I haven’t seen any of The Sopranos, people say it’s good, but it’s a gangster series and i’m not really interested in those things (I’m not interested in those gangster flicks from Scorsese either, it’s just not my kind of thing). Lost is interminable drag, I see it from time to time because my daughter loves it, and i can’t see any sense in the X-files; Richard Dawkins has described in better words than I could ever find what’s wrong with that series (I think in ‘Unweaving the Rainbow’ - I don’t want to have an argument about this, by the way)
Must agree here with Stanton. I’m not a fan of all these CGI’s, 24’s but they are better directed and show better acting as e.g. TJ Hooker or Baywatch . One of the best TV Series was Band of Brothers. You could easily watch all episodes as one very long War Movie. And I highly appreaciated DEADWOOD.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:30, topic:1822”]Not too difficult, if you ask me
Some parts of Baywatch were okay, though. Especially body parts
Band of Brothers was a good series, watched it again A-Z a few months ago, but I still think the first half of the series was better than the second[/quote]
I agree about Band of Brothers. I first saw it in disjointed peices, and when I finally saw it straight through I was very moved and impressed. As for Baywatch etc., that falls into the mindless entertainment catagory witch everyone indulges in (even if they don’t admit it!) We all watch, listen to, and read things that we know aren’t going to make us smarter or bring about some sort of epiphany; We do it because we like it on some level. Scooby Doo and Bonanza hasn’t made me any better or worse than anything else, but still watch it because I just like it.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:30, topic:1822”]Not too difficult, if you ask me
Some parts of Baywatch were okay, though. Especially body parts[/quote]
To be fair I didn’t watched Baywatch to see good acting! I rember in the first season they tried to have something like stories and soapish elements but then came Pamela. After Pamela left the Show something was missing. I remember Pamela Anderson made later a TV show which was horrible.
Some episodes of X-files were really weird. I stopped watching X-files after I saw X-files The Movie.
I watched the first season of X-Files and left it at that. The stories were wierd, and I usually like that, but I sort of lost interest. Anyone remember The Saint? Pre-Bond Roger Moore being suave and Bondish on TV. I saw some episodes when I was little but didn’t really remember it until BBC America had them on a few years ago.
I used to love The Saint as a kid. But my favourite of that type was Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan. Much darker. Enjoyed The Prisoner too of course but not until I was older.
Glad you liked it Paco. Even though the show was 2 hours long it was a great way to kill time and laugh at stupid movies. There’s an episode called Space Mutiny which you gotta check out. The movie stars John Philip Law, Cameron Mitchell, and Reb Brown. It’s priceless.
Two things here Sherp. It’s going to be better in the beginning, just like the History of WWII, is far more interesting just before D-Day, the landing & what follows soon after (which BTW was depicted great in Ambrose’s book 'Citizen Soldiers). Also, each episode was done by a different director. By the time you get to the ‘Crossroads’ episode, your into Tom Hanks directing so…
Also, you want to see Lt. Winters in action, not on the sideline. Ironically there are lots of Brits playing Americans in that series. Deadwood was also great. John Adams was another, albeit, a miniseries. I’m also discovering (for lack of a better word) the Thriller series hosted by Boris Karloff. Never heard of it until now.
I remember Pamela Anderson made later a TV show which was horrible. 
, must be the realistic fight scenes with Cleef