Winner of an Emmy for best dramatic series in 1988, thirtysomething (ABC, 1987-1991) represented a new kind of hour-long drama, a series which focused on the domestic and professional lives of a group of young urban professionals-- a socio-economic category of increasing interest to the television industry. The series attracted a cult audience of viewers who strongly identified with one or more of its eight central characters, a circle of friends living in Philadelphia. And its stylistic and story-line innovations led critics to respect it for being "as close to the level of an art form as weekly television ever gets," as the New York Times put it. -
Museum of Broacast Communications [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Jun 9, 2009 -
75 comments
Twin Peaks season 2 DVD is almost here ... finally! That leaves precious few days to get prepared:
bone up on cast and crew details,
argue about theories,
click your way through the townsfolk,
obsess over every itty bitty blessed detail,
buy a "best friends" necklace,
keep the faith about the deleted scenes,
see whether it makes any more sense in German than English,
put a poster on your wall that will give you nightmares,
explore the Lodges,
watch very bad things happen to Jenna Elfman,
walk with Coop through the Black Lodge (
part 2),
blow the rest of the day reading stuff. For the truly ambitious,
book a room in scenic Snoqualmie and watch the entire series there.
posted by jbickers
on Mar 23, 2007 -
43 comments
Okay, I admit it. I have a DVD player, and I even have a TV ... that I watch! I didn't find myself buying many DVDs though, until I discovered that I could waste my money buying
TV shows on DVD, finding the ones I like usually through word of (mostly analog, sometimes digital) mouth. When deciding whether or not to Netflix and/or buy
Smallville, I came across
DVD Verdict, and I found the site's conceit--to present each review of a particular DVD as one would present evidence in a trial, then deliver a verdict--to be charming rather than annoying. Chalk it up to generally good and entertaining writing, and very in-depth DVD reviews. Oh, the site's authors like Smallville. But then their motto is "truth, justice, and the digital way"...when it's not "making the jump from heroin to digital smoother since 1999".
posted by WolfDaddy
on Sep 18, 2005 -
16 comments
HBO's Deadwood is quite possibly the best television show ever produced. Not only is it amazingly gripping stuff, it's also meticulously researched. (Pretty easy to do when the
entire city is a registered
historic landmark.)
Sure, we all know that
Wild Bill and
Calamity Jane were real people. As it turns out, though, almost
every main character in the show (and many minor ones) had a real life counterpart, as did many of the
events.
Deadwood notables
EB Farnum,
Reverend H W Smith,
Seth Bullock and his partner
Sol Star,
Colorado Charlie Utter,
Al Swerengen with his Gem Saloon, and the crosseyed gambler
Jack McCall all lived and breathed in one of America's most storied cities.
posted by absalom
on Dec 10, 2004 -
82 comments
Anybody remember that classic sci-fi TV show
The Starlost? You're forgiven if you don't, since it barely lasted one season. Dreamed up by Harlan Ellison, he promptly disowned it when it failed to meet his expectations, but he had grand ideas: featuring writers such as Frank Herbert, Ursula Leguin, Philip K. Dick and others, with more help from Ben Bova, The Starlost was a virtual who's who of anything sci-fi. Read all about it in this exhaustive site.
Now that your interest has been piqued,
buy the series for only $60! I think it should be made into a movie, myself.
posted by ashbury
on Aug 4, 2003 -
14 comments
