Television

[Kathy Li]

DB, I'm with you on Samurai Jack--it's absolutely gorgeous to look at (and I'm watching the Star Wars: Clone Wars episodes because they were also done by the same person), but the storylines and stuff don't necessarily grab me. I like the anime-influences, though.

It's Teen Titans that seems like cheap wannabe anime to me. Probably because of the themesong and use of sweat drops. Also, Justice League hasn't grabbed me like its predecessors, and I'm not holding out high hopes for the new Batman, either. I want the OLD Batman guys, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini (not to mention DD), back writing those scripts!!

[Quill]

Thanks, kli6, but I've never watched "Inspector Lynley".

Won't be watching "Wrinkle" either, no cable, and I have to save my cable favors to get L&O:CI since NBC doesn't come in well over the antenna. Neither does PBS, come to that. *shrug*

[Kathy Li]

Wow. You need cable to get ABC? Well, just as well, then, that we all like reading. Me, I'm a cable-sucking junkie of the first order. I tend to rotate among tv, films, comics, and books.

The Lynleys are fun. Elizabeth George is a Californian who writes a British "cozy" series (modern-set) about a noble Scotland Yard detective, Thomas Lynley and his pugnacious sergeant, Barbara Havers. The BBC adaptors have done weird and strange things, straying from the less-than-deathless-prose on the page in ways that drive the real fans nuts, but which I liken to what happened with Cornwell's Sharpe.

Then again, I can't remember the last time a book adaptation stuck faithfully to the book. Even the current Hillerman adaptations are going off the map.

[calliope]

DD wrote episodes for Batman? One of my favorite authors wrote for one of my favorite shows...how did I miss that? *shrugs* I never saw Teen Titansas an anime rip-off, but that's probably because I don't watch a lot of anime. I rather like it. ^_^ I agree about The Batman, though, there's no way it's going to live up to the original one. I'm going to give it a shot. But other than odd assorted cartoons, that's all the TV I watch. I'm a book person.

[Kathy Li]

DD and PM team wrote "The Lion & the Unicorn". It was an Alfred episode, and it was cool. They also wrote "The Hound of Ulster", and "Ill-Met By Moonlight" episodes of Gargoyles. DD's done tons of animation writing.

[db_pr]

C
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I agree with you on Teen Titans too kli6. I haven't seen Clone Wars but my brother saw it once and told me that the episodes are only five minutes long. Is that true?

[Zgirl]

Yeah I don't watch those shows but my little brother does, and each episode is 5 minutes long. (What a rip-off.) It was so funny! Here read this:
SCENE: After school with little brother fighting over TV...
Me: Okay you can pick 1 show to watch and then I'll pick one show.
Him: Okay I pick Cartoon Netword CloneWars.
Me:Whatever
NEXT SCENE: 5 minutes later...
Me: My turn!!!!!!!!!!
Him: Groan.

[db_pr]

L
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...That's the thing! Each episode five minutes! Come on, I haven't even watchd it once only because of that...

By the way...http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet...personid-17722

[Agent M]

Ugh. Teen Titans. I've seen one episode cuz my brother was like "I wanna watch Teen Titans!!!!" when I was watching something else and I had already watched too much t.v. anyways... heh heh. So I let him and I was bored so I watched like half of it with him and then left cuz it was kind stupid... And I couldn't tell if it was anime or not cuz it didn't look like anime but it had the sweat drops and stuff....
And Clone Wars just looks weird...

[Zgirl]

Yeah. The only good channels are: Vh1, MTV (sometimes, I kind of don't like that channel because it portrays teens as kids who are very sullen and swear too much and do *bad* things.) Nickelodeon (come on you know you like it) Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, (have a laugh I hate most of these shows but they are entertaining.) ABC Family, (Brilliant, at least the teens on this network aren't portrayed as druggies.) FOX and ABC (or is that last one CBS), (American Idol, Bernie Mac, and Survivor.)

[Quill]

kli6--ABC I can get. I need cable to get NBC without the snow and hissing. I want my cable back, but right now I just don't have $45 per month to toss on it. I'll keep my eyes open for the Lynley series, though, should opportunity arise.

The last decent book adaptation I saw (barring the recent two blockbuster series) was the first part of The Neverending Story. I can think of a couple of films where the movie was better than the book, though. --Wait, the WonderWorks prod. of A Little Princess was pretty decent.

[Kathy Li]

db: I don't catch Clone Wars in the five-minute segments, I wait for the "marathon "half-hour showings. They're going to marathon the second "series" (episodes 11-20) on the 9th in two half hours, and then they're marathoning all 20 on the 10th. They remind me of Aeon Flux in a weird way. Supercool, incomprehensible and very pretty.

Agent M: I can understand how and why Teen Titans came to be, but the problem for me is that when Wolfman & Perez did the Teen Titans comic book, it was a cheap DC attempt to imitate the X-Men that never quite pulled it off, and it still shows. It would've been more fun if it was the "classic" kid-sidekick team, I think (Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Speedy, etc.)

ZGirl: I used to love the Disney Channel, back when they still did the Vault Disney thing, and were airing Avonlea but now aside from Toon Disney, they've got very little for me. My faves are PBS, BBC America, Bravo, HBO, Showtime, Trio (which is where all the good Bravo stuff went, btw), TMC (silent movie sundays!), Anime On-Demand, Hallmark Channel (when they're not being a Christian Network), USA (Monk, Dead Zone), and Cartoon Network. I'm in a love-hate relationship with Fox, right now, given how many of my fave shows they've been killing off, lately. WB for Angel. CBS for Bruckheimer things (CSIs, Amazing Race). NBC for West Wing.

Quill: Wrinkle is going to be on ABC, so you can get it in clear. Just your luck. You can watch Alias but not L&O. (sigh). And yeah, I have to go back to '80s BBC for good faithful adaptations: Alexander Baron's adaptations of Jane Eyre (the one with Timothy Dalton) and Vanity Fair (Eve Matheson) spring instantly to mind. These days, the best we can hope for is a brilliant re-interpretation, like Sturridge's take on Longitude.

[Quill]

Oh heck, I forgot all about Pride and Prejudice, the A&E version. That was excellent, and the Sense and Sensibility that followed wasn't bad either.

Well, I don't watch Alias; I'm told I should, but I hate coming into a series in the middle, and I'm still having trouble with that on CSI. Fortunately I'm only hooked on Criminal Intent. When's Wrinkle on? I should watch it out of curiosity alone.

[Kathy Li]

Yes, I enjoyed the A&E Pride and Prejudice, although it doesn't hold a candle to the Fay Weldon adaptation from the '70s. I couldn't help thinking that Andrew Davies got his authors mixed and thought that Dickens had written it--he was so thunderingly heavy on the comedy. And his butchering of Othello and soft-coreish adaptation of Tipping the Velvet has made me lose all respect for him. Didn't even bother with his version of Doctor Zhivago.

Skipping Alias is a very wise choice, as it's soap opera to the max. And not particularly well-written spy soap opera at that. I'm not sure, however, that CSI has enough continuity to cause a problem with coming in in the middle. The stories are reasonably self-contained, and the character development over three years has been minimal, and usually self-erases (e.g., Grissom's going deaf. Voila! Magically fixed with an operation. Sigh.)

Wrinkle airs ABC, May 15. 8pm P/E.

[db_pr]

Okay. I saw Clones War yesterday and thought that that shouldn't even be considered as anime (as some people do). I mean, look at this.

Compare this...

...with this.

Notice any difference?
Teen Titans is more anime-like that the others though.