TV series you gave up on before the end

[Benjm]

Yeah. I got through season 3, I think and was planning to keep going when more of it is on Netflix. I think one has to care about Batman to get into it. I don't see how a normal person could like it.

Ah now, I really liked the first series, thought the second lost the plot and missed the third because we don't have Netflix (the first two were on a free-to-air channel in the UK). Now the fourth series is available to us again and we're up to episode 18 or 19 and still enjoying it. The obvious problem is that the more interesting bits of it are generally those that don't feature Bruce Wayne, although he and Alfred are very well played, so we're clearly on a hiding to nothing there.

[Snake Plissken]

Just reading the bit up there about soaps reminds me that the highest rated weekly soap opera contains at least five hours of live content a week involving lots of characters in multiple interconnecting storylines that changes week by week (sometimes in response to fan reaction) and does all that while asking the stars to hit each other with steel chairs.

[ursus arctos]

None of the US daytime soaps are shot in New York any longer; they are all in LA.

It used to be that there was a sufficient population of "legitimate theatre" actors, actresses and production types in the city (and in between plays) for those shows to have an accessible talent pool, but as Broadway has become dominated by revivals and musicals (and revivals of musicals) and productions like the Law and Order empire have grown like Topsy, it just doesn't make sense any more.

Many of the telenovellas on Spanish-language television here are Brazilian productions that have been dubbed into Spanish.

[Hot Pepsi]

None of the US daytime soaps are shot in New York any longer; they are all in LA.

It used to be that there was a sufficient population of "legitimate theatre" actors, actresses and production types in the city (and in between plays) for those shows to have an accessible talent pool, but as Broadway has become dominated by revivals and musicals (and revivals of musicals) and productions like the Law and Order empire have grown like Topsy, it just doesn't make sense any more.

Many of the telenovellas on Spanish-language television here are Brazilian productions that have been dubbed into Spanish.

Somehow it always makes me a little sad and I feel duped when I discover that a show not set in LA is filmed there. I should get over it - and mostly have - but still.

I recall being somewhat surprised when I learned that Seinfeld was all filmed on a soundstage in LA. Once it became a huge hit, they built that very realistic NYC street set. I thought it was Manhattan. Or maybe Brooklyn.

So then I was a bit surprised to learn 30 Rock was going to be filmed in New York. Most of it was done at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens. Maybe more stuff will be filmed there now.

Of course, SNL, Fallon, and Seth Meyers are still filmed in New York. I always thought that made a show better, but that might be an eastern bias or bias created in the 80s when I, and most people my age, loved Letterman and thought Carson was past it.

[ursus arctos]

A lot of things are filmed at Silvercup, perhaps most notably The Sopranos and Sex and the City. I still miss thmell of fresh baked bread that used to fill the area when it was a bakery.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Somehow it always makes me a little sad and I feel duped when I discover that a show not set in LA is filmed there. I should get over it - and mostly have - but still.

I recall being somewhat surprised when I learned that Seinfeld was all filmed on a soundstage in LA. Once it became a huge hit, they built that very realistic NYC street set. I thought it was Manhattan. Or maybe Brooklyn.

So then I was a bit surprised to learn 30 Rock was going to be filmed in New York. Most of it was done at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens. Maybe more stuff will be filmed there now.

Of course, SNL, Fallon, and Seth Meyers are still filmed in New York. I always thought that made a show better, but that might be an eastern bias or bias created in the 80s when I, and most people my age, loved Letterman and thought Carson was past it.

It's interesting how familiarity with a film's location can endear you to it. I'm sure a big reason I've watched, and liked, both Deadpool flicks is because they're filmed here and don't try to hide it. Also Ryan Reynolds is a local boy and says so in a bunch of promos, he also spends a lot of time in this area. The local people I know who work in the industry don't have a bad word to say about him either. I know none of this should make any difference to what I think of the films, but I also know it really does.

[Hot Pepsi]

I like a few things made in Vancouver, but it’s better when the show is actually set in Vancouver or, at least, Seattle, like iZombie.

It’s hard for me to perform the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy a show or film if I’m fairly familiar with the city the show is set - Washington or Boston - and the show is filmed somewhere else. And it’s really hard if I’m familiar with both the setting and the location. Like when Charlotte was pretending to be DC on Homeland. Baltimore as DC in House of Cards didn’t really work either.

Toronto as New York can work ok if the only exteriors are fairly tight shots and supposed to be in the Financial District.

Most shows shot in LA manage to hide it. Usually by having almost no exterior shots, like Mad Men. The Office didn’t really hide it. There were exterior shots where the mountains in the background give it away. But I don’t think they cared. That was kind of part of the joke, perhaps.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I like a few things made in Vancouver, but it’s better when the show is actually set in Vancouver or, at least, Seattle, like iZombie.

It’s hard for me to perform the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy a show or film if I’m fairly familiar with the city the show is set - Washington or Boston - and the show is filmed somewhere else.

That's generally true. It's kinda weird when, half way through a show, you suddenly see a building you're familiar with and realise it's at 41st & Cambie and you're not in Sacramento (or wherever) after all. There's another level though — and maybe among successful shows/films only Deadpool and X-files have ever reached it here in Vancouver. It's when, from the opening frame, you know exactly where every location is without being told. No signs, signals or announcements, just constant visual recognition. The 'Oh yeah! I know where that is!" disappears with the opening credits and afterwards just adds another level to the enjoyment.

[Patrick Thistle]

Part of the enjoyment of Doctor Who and Torchwood for me was spotting bits of Cardiff.

[Benjm]

Somehow it always makes me a little sad and I feel duped when I discover that a show not set in LA is filmed there. I should get over it - and mostly have - but still.

The scales fell from my eyes pretty early on that front.



Although I still felt a bit cheated when I read quite recently that Cagney & Lacey was filmed in LA.

[elguapo4]

It was disconcerting watching "Educating Rita " when what was supposed to be Liverpool was familiar sights of Dublin though it's a great nostalgia fest for what the city looked like in the early 80s

[WOM]

The Handmaid's Tale is filmed all over southern Ontario; mainly Hamilton, Toronto and Cambridge, ON. You'd really need to know your small-town geography and architecture to have that many 'spotted' moments, I suspect.

[Patrick Thistle]

I've just remembered another series I gave up on before the end. I never watched the complete final season of Chuck.

[Hot Pepsi]

I don’t recall deciding to give up on Chuck. I just faded away.

[Benjm]

Chuck was another that didn't have a regular time/channel here, so was quite hard to keep up with. I've just looked at an episode list for the final series and losing touch with it may have been for the best.

[Bored Of Education]

That makes perfect sense. I sort of felt that way about The Sopranos.

You grew up in the Mafia?

[ursus arctos]

No, but a number of people in our neighbourhood were "connected"

[Bored Of Education]

Somehow it always makes me a little sad and I feel duped when I discover that a show not set in LA is filmed there. I should get over it - and mostly have - but still.

Episodes (another I gave up on) should be interesting for you then - it is set in LA but filmed pretty much all in the UK.

[Various Artist]

Part of the enjoyment of Doctor Who and Torchwood for me was spotting bits of Cardiff.

Quite the reverse with me, it always took me right out of the story seeing hugely recognisable bits of Cardiff with something like a red London bus plonked in there to unsubtly and unsuccessfully try to 'relocate' it.

I don't recall this nearly so much from the last five or six years, to be fair, so either they're getting better at hiding it, or they aren't filming in such obvious areas. Or I'm just getting better at suspending my disbelief – but equally I'm moderately certain Cardiff hasn't stood in for, say, Utah, in recent series.

I must also confess my irritation from the earlier episodes was magnified by watching some with my brother and/or mother, who seemed to think it was OK to spend the running time pointing and exclaiming "Ooh, look, that's Queen Street/Rhiwbina/the Temple of Peace/that bit just down by the Burger King near the castle" and so forth, while I was inwardly seething "I'M TRYING TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE ACTUAL PLOT HERE YOU KNOW".

Just reading the bit up there about soaps reminds me that the highest rated weekly soap opera contains at least five hours of live content a week involving lots of characters in multiple interconnecting storylines that changes week by week (sometimes in response to fan reaction) and does all that while asking the stars to hit each other with steel chairs.

Haha, this is so true. I'd find 'regular' soap operas a hell of a lot more worth watching if they adopted some of the same principles, frankly. If a typical day in Albert Square saw Ian Beale hit Phil Mitchell with a Queen Vic bar stool then DDT him on the pub floor I'd be inclined to tune in to EastEnders.

[Gangster Octopus]

Watching Minder was always good for spotting bits of West London.

[Snake Plissken]

Haha, this is so true. I'd find 'regular' soap operas a hell of a lot more worth watching if they adopted some of the same principles, frankly. If a typical day in Albert Square saw Ian Beale hit Phil Mitchell with a Queen Vic bar stool then DDT him on the pub floor I'd be inclined to tune in to EastEnders.

Book it, Vince!

[Various Artist]

Dot Cotton as special guest referee.

[Central Rain]

Loved Homicide:Life on the Street. Even tolerated the incredibly inept way in which the writers dealt with departing characters (or the ridiculous way in which an entire case went from crime to trial to sentencing all while Kellerman was at his brother's wedding or something). Then it went off on a big tangent with the nasty drug dealer whose name I've forgotten. The penultimate season was still riveting but it really should have finished there. I started watching the final season but it all seemed pointless - the first episodes almost felt like the start of a new and much more boring show. I abandoned the last box set about 10 years ago and have never gone back to it.

[Incandenza]

One that comes to mind for me is Weeds. Was really good its first two seasons, then seemed to get increasingly outlandish.

[Femme Folle]

Succession, after two episodes. But I might go back to it now that I know one of the actors and I share a mutual friend. And she told me that she thought my dog was adorable on Twitter.