Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

[Gyuri]

In the "When the Hairs Stand Up on the Back of Your Neck" thread, Inca chided me for my shame at watching/enjoying the O.C. While I definitely liked the show, I think I came by the shame honestly as I have been routinely mocked by friends for my O.C.-love.

So, what TV shows have you watched that you're embarrassed to admit to enjoying? Also, what shows have you watched that you've been mocked for though you think such mockery is unjustified?

Besides the O.C., I've received undeserved mockery for enjoying such little-screen classics as Veronica Mars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel.

I've been justly ashamed of watching American Idol (though I only watch occasionally, and usually pay little attention), Friends (after the first couple seasons), 90210, Arliss, and Project Runway (I blame the girlfriend for this one, though).

[Note: I imagine this thread has probably been done before, but I had too much to get off my chest to just let it go.]

[Guest]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I love Buffy and Angel. Buffy's a postfeminist icon, ffs. I even have a buffy mousepad. (It was a gift, but I was pleased to receive it.)

I'm distinctly lowbrow in my taste in tv, and I really don't care.

[Bored Of Education]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

As I mention on another thread, I watch Neighbours regularly. I also watch a whole host of American shows such as Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

90210 is awesome. As are the drinking games associated with it (e.g. "drink when they say something stupid", "chug whenever they have a life crisis with which you can't possibly identify").

I think I've mentioned this before on here, but 90210 is basically Star Trek in High School. Like Star Trek, every week they take on a "New Issue" (Brandon and Kelly visit the planet of teen alcoholism!). And the Peach Pit is basically Ten Forward. And from a professional perspective, I found the entire second and third seasons - with their college search and financial aid story arcs - absolutely fascinating.

I have regular fights with my 11-year-old (who is OC-addicted) about which is the better show. He finds OC "realistic", but 90210 "cheezy", which is obviously irrational and entirely fuelled by his pre-adolescent lust for Mischa Barton.

[Gyuri]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I'm distinctly lowbrow in my taste in tv, and I really don't care.

I don't think Buffy and Angel are particularly lowbrow (not that there's anything wrong with lowbrow). They are definitely genre fare, but, much like Battlestar Galactica, I think they have too much going on in them to be considered lowbrow.

When I think of lowbrow TV, I tend to think of things like American Idol, Deal or No Deal, or any of those big/dumb-guy-hot-wife comedies like According to Jim

[Gyuri]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I have regular fights with my 11-year-old (who is OC-addicted) about which is the better show. He finds OC "realistic", but 90210 "cheezy", which is obviously irrational and entirely fuelled by his pre-adolescent lust for Mischa Barton.

I don't think it's irrational for an 11-year-old to find 90210 cheesy (though I can't fathom the Barton love). 90210 is definitely a bit dated now, and the issue-of-the-week (great Star Trek analogy, by the way) was usually presented in a very standards-and-practices mandated, overtly moral way (if they drink, bad things happen to them).

As I mentioned above, I watched the show regularly (they were my age! they were just like my friends !), but felt that it often had a movie-of-the-week vibe and a terrible sense-of-humor (whereas when the OC was funny, it was very funny).

That said, 90210 was kind of awesome, especially if watched ironically. I think what set the OC over-the-top for me was it's built in sense of self-irony. That pose can get annoying/seem a bit precious at times, but I thought season 1 of the OC nailed it.

[Guest]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

Oh, I think they're fairly low brow, when compared with, say, question time. Not bottom feeder kind of low brow, but not exactly elevated watching.

Buffy and Angel were well scripted, very entertaining, with occasional moments of insight and humour that made them well worth the two hours a week I religiously devoted to them.

Thing is, I think TV is by definition supposed to be, you know, entertaining. If I want to be educated, I read a book. If I want to experience slack jawed drooliness, I watch tv.

[Wyatt Earp]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

That's overstating it, I think, and offers too many hostages to Murdoch. There's nothing intrinsically "lowbrow" about TV drama or comedy, and there's no necessary conflict between entertainment and depth. The TV adaptation of Kant's Prolegomena to a Metaphysics of Morals has perhaps yet to be made, but we're still waiting for the opera and ballet versions as well, and nobody goes around calling them "lowbrow".

In fact, I think you've got the wrong axis here. The key distinction isn't between highbrow and lowbrow, it's between popular culture that respects its audience and popular culture that insults it. There's plenty of scope for the former on telly.

I must admit, I take the medium far more seriously than you say you do.

[Guest]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

OK, I might be exaggerating slightly for effect...

[Anton Gramscescu]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

The TV adaptation of Kant's Prolegomena to a Metaphysics of Morals has perhaps yet to be made,

See, there's where you're wrong. I can think of at least a half-dozen episodes of 90210 where the gang try to make the transition from common rational to philosophic moral cognition.

[Ek weet nie]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I watched Dawson's Creek when I was in school, the first series of Desperate Housewives. When I'm flicking channels and Scrubs or any quiz show whatsoever is on I'll watch that too.

[Bored Of Education]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I don't think there is anything as high or low brow. Well, certainly not anything that is objective.

[Guest]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I genuinely thought The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl was a good drama.

[Heliotrope]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I'm not embarrassed by this but know I'll be judged harshly on OTF for it: I will never not love Friends.

[Guest]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

those big/dumb-guy-hot-wife comedies

I really love The King of Queens.

Call Girl though, I had to sit through the whole thing at work and I thought it was a bit rubbish, very by-numbers.

[Wyatt Earp]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

at least a half-dozen episodes of 90210 where the gang try to make the transition from common rational to philosophic moral cognition.

Totally.

[Guest]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

Yeah, no need to be embarrassed about liking Friends, Coffy. I regularly watch the reruns. People who claim to dislike it are just showboating.

[Havencheese]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

There was a terrible dating BBC show I was into about three years ago called 'Three's a Crowd'. Me and my bored housemate loved watching it, it was sheer turd, but we kept watching it til it vanished very quickly.

[Bored Of Education]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I agree, Freinds is excellent. No "Frasier" but still very good

I will get slaughtered for this but I prefer "Freinds" to "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

[My Name Is Ian]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

"Crimewatch". Even now, I get mildly annoyed at myself when I switch the television on and it's half-way through because I forgot (as I did last night).

I even have my 20 year old running joke (and surely everybody does this) of accusing people that I know of the crimes featured on it, and then trying to come up with reasons why it could surely only be them that did it.

[Er Liquidatore]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

I will get slaughtered for this but I prefer "Freinds" to "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

We should never sit and watch TV together.

Friends is shit in my eyes. I actually liked it for the first couple of years when the characters actually seemed like real human beings. At some point they got rid of the things that made those people amusing and turned them into heavily made up gag machines. That, plus the soapy tendencies of the relationships turned me off of it.

[Guest]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

It was relatively crap for the first two seasons. The characters weren't defined enough: Joey kept making clever remarks a la Chandler and everyone spoke in the same "like, hello?" tone of voice. When they were more defined they were indeed gag machines. But what tremendous gags.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

For me Friends and seinfeld are the same kind of supercelebrity comedy shite, with friends being slightly more annoying. I've never seen the point of the larry seanders show, and curb your enthusiasm is just basically a cunt does comedy of embarassment based on a cunt goes around being a cunt to cunts. I have no patience for american comedies written by teams of scriptwriters. It's like comedy eastenders or something.

That said, I will admit to liking Bones.

[Bored Of Education]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

Strangely, Liq, I didn't think that an evening of us together fighting over the remote would go that well anyway.

AIATL, as I say, I am no great fan of Seinfeld or especially CYE but there are very few Britsh sitcoms that come anywhere close to American ones. Even ho-hum ones like "The Big Bang Theory" piss all over "My Family" or "The Royle Family" whereas it is only with "The Office", "Gavin & Stacey", "Nighty Night" etc that the UK has raised its game.

When "Cheers", "The Golden Girls" early "Roseanne", "Frasier" etc were being aired, there was nothing at all here that could be talked about being in the same league here

[Gyuri]

Judge Me By the Shows I Watch

For me Friends and seinfeld are the same kind of supercelebrity comedy shite. . .

AIATL, what does "supercelebrity comedy shite" mean? It sounds like you're saying that it's comedy based solely on the celebrity of the actors, but, at the time these shows started, none of the actors were famous at all. Seinfeld was the most famous, and I would be surprised if 1 out of 100 people had ever heard of him before he had the show.

While I have no issue with your cunt cunting cunt cunt description of CYE, it is written solely by Larry David, though mainly improvised on camera, so I'm not sure why it leads into your point about teams of screenwriters.

Agree about "Bones", though I'm not sure why I like it as much as I do.