Slitherine

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But nothing of interest for the lads at Festung Meade in Mary's Land ;)

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have you spent time at Ft. Meade?

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No Such Agency

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ORIGINAL: DOCUP

Oberst: What part of WV do you visit. I live in WV.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

"The Newsroom" was excellent. Watched it several times. The pilot episode is perhaps the best one-hour of television ever made, at least in terms of character introduction and premise.

You should watch "The Sopranos." At least the first season, which can be viewed as a self-contained arc. It's the show that utterly changed the direction of US television and set off the devolution of network control we see in full flower today with Net-delivered content. It's a Greek tragedy in form; it has a pilot that is paid off eight (?) seasons later in the last episode. (Tip: the ducks in Tony's pool are not an accident.) James G. absolutely inhabits Tony Soprano--an acting process for the ages. If you write fiction you appreciate that the "story question" is presented overtly in one, classic line of Tony's in his first meeting with Dr. Melfi. The show has symbolism in its music selections, its still pictures in set design, and in the movies Tony views on his TV. Nothing is by accident, everything ties together. Even the opening credit sequence, with its now-classic song by Alabama 3, is a time machine trip through the NJ Mafia's recent history, as well as Tony's life.

"The Sopranos" is big-boy television. It's adult in every meaning of the word, including the violence, but far more than that. It's well worth your time.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

Television is where the stories are being told today. Movies have become violence porn, and a lot of movie actors who want to tell stories are going to the little screen. JK Rowlings said that if Harry Potter was being put on a screen today, she would insist on it being a TV series instead of a series of movies.

When my SO and I met, I had satellite TV, but I had turned it off a year or two before because I just wasn't watching it. I watched a couple of programs a week but otherwise didn't watch TV. She grew up doing theater and planned on being an actor until she spent a summer doing reparatory theater and realized she didn't want to spend her life with those people. Her ambition was to be a director, so she looks at movies and TV through a somewhat professional eye. We turned the satellite back on for her and we've been watching some of the best of TV ever since.

I wasn't as impressed with the Sopranos as a lot of people were, but then Star Wars didn't impress me as much as it did a lot of people. I thought it was well done though.

I thought Breaking Bad was better. The pitch Vince Gilligan made was they were going to start with Mr Chips and turn him into Scarface and they did a masterful job. It's a 5 year movie and very intense. The prequel Better Call Saul has every lawyer I know going ga ga. All of them say it's probably the most accurate show about lawyers ever made.

Bill

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

"The Sopranos" is going on twenty years old, but for its time it was shattering. We take it for granted now that HBO is series with a few movies to fill in the corners. Then and since it was founded it was all-movies, all the time. Tony and Co. was a big risk.

"Breaking Bad" is in my Netflix to-watch list, along with a couple of years of other viewing. We've only had Netflix about three months. It's miles deep. Like "Game of Thrones" I'll have to watch BB alone. Girl of the Prairie doesn't do the violence stuff.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: wdolson


When my SO and I met, I had satellite TV, but I had turned it off a year or two before because I just wasn't watching it. I watched a couple of programs a week but otherwise didn't watch TV. She grew up doing theater and planned on being an actor until she spent a summer doing reparatory theater and realized she didn't want to spend her life with those people. Her ambition was to be a director, so she looks at movies and TV through a somewhat professional eye. We turned the satellite back on for her and we've been watching some of the best of TV ever since.


Bill

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Violence against women and children really upsets me sometimes.

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

Television is where the stories are being told today. Movies have become violence porn, and a lot of movie actors who want to tell stories are going to the little screen. JK Rowlings said that if Harry Potter was being put on a screen today, she would insist on it being a TV series instead of a series of movies.

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy


Game of Thrones is a very interesting experiment in parallel stories - with the TV series now outpacing the books and seemingly going in different directions. Most authors would be livid and uncooperative, but George R.R. Martin's background is in television (he was a writer for several seasons of the CBS series Beauty and the Beast in the 1980s). He understands the time pressures and production limitations inherent in television and seems content to let the GOT screenwriters go where they want.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy


Game of Thrones is a very interesting experiment in parallel stories - with the TV series now outpacing the books and seemingly going in different directions. Most authors would be livid and uncooperative, but George R.R. Martin's background is in television (he was a writer for several seasons of the CBS series Beauty and the Beast in the 1980s). He understands the time pressures and production limitations inherent in television and seems content to let the GOT screenwriters go where they want.

The "extras" in the on-demand version of GOT, and I assume the DVDs, which I don't have, indicate the two show-runners have met with him in highly secure locations and he has shared in detail where he intends to take the books through completion. They of course are free to deviate under their contract.

That the books are now behind the show is his fault, not theirs. He's blown past several deadlines for the one due.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy


Game of Thrones is a very interesting experiment in parallel stories - with the TV series now outpacing the books and seemingly going in different directions. Most authors would be livid and uncooperative, but George R.R. Martin's background is in television (he was a writer for several seasons of the CBS series Beauty and the Beast in the 1980s). He understands the time pressures and production limitations inherent in television and seems content to let the GOT screenwriters go where they want.

The "extras" in the on-demand version of GOT, and I assume the DVDs, which I don't have, indicate the two show-runners have met with him in highly secure locations and he has shared in detail where he intends to take the books through completion. They of course are free to deviate under their contract.

That the books are now behind the show is his fault, not theirs. He's blown past several deadlines for the one due.

Hey, when you are fabulously wealthy and getting on in age, where is the incentive to produce for a deadline?

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ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Yeah, 'owning' is probably just an admin term. I imagine the Army was responsible for crew payroll, maintenance, etc. for budgeting purposes. What that meant for those ships after the war would depend on whether they were built for the Army, requisitioned or leased. The contracts for this sort of thing must have filled warehouses.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

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ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Yeah, 'owning' is probably just an admin term. I imagine the Army was responsible for crew payroll, maintenance, etc. for budgeting purposes. What that meant for those ships after the war would depend on whether they were built for the Army, requisitioned or leased. The contracts for this sort of thing must have filled warehouses.

Yeah, that was the real reason they built the Pentagon - so the clerks could file all the contracts!

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Imagine all the paperwork they had to do before computers.