Pajiba

House of Lies can go. Really.

I stopped watching Shameless because of the pedophilia

I think David Duchovny has been phoning it in for 2 years. I do laugh occasionally at it still. And there is plenty of attractive naked women to look at.

Shameless has been great. House of Lies is awful. It is making me dislike Don Cheedle. How is that possible?

whoa! Cinemax still exists?

Banshee's second episode was so appallingly bad it felt like they spent every dime on the pilot, and made episode 2 from what they could find in the couch cushions.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a show with such a jarring difference in production values or even writing. The second episode had this boring "rave" in an amish barn - instead of doing a few establishing shots, a couple of very attractive young people being all "ravy" and maybe a bit nude, they _kept_ filming the rave. no dialog, no real sexual shenanigans, just people bopping around.

Weird.

I haven't gone back for episode 3. does it get any better?

No. But the women that take off their clothes are amazing. That has to count for something.

See, I had understood that Californication was done at the end of the fourth season, because it had reached a natural ending in the finale, and Showtime made no noise about picking up a fifth season (which, alas, I watched most of) for several months. The show is done, but I guess it's supposed to be Entourage with more fifty-cent words and alcoholism.

I never really liked that series, but I certainly agree that the courtroom episode seemed like a natural ending point, from what little I randomly saw of it.

But, see, that was season five. The finale of season four was when Hank packed up and left L.A. for parts unknown after making his peace with his past on the set of Fucking and Punching.

They never did explain what happened to Becca's bestie (Zoe Kravitz), either. Just bam, and we come back with Karen married to Batesy and no explanation whatsoever as to what happened with anyone but Hank in the interim.

And now I'm confused, and I apologize for offering my opinion on that show that I don't care about. (That also sounds like a perfectly fine ending point. They really just need to end the show at all.)

I don't disagree, but again, Showtime seems to intend to run all their original programming into the ground.

Completely agree. Weeds went through four ending points, and managed to have the first two out of those four be really good, and yet it kept fucking going, until we got that godawful finale, which was the only episode I'd seen since the seventh season's unsubtle, wanna-be-Sopranos ending. At least Weeds had ending points, though. Dexter was just great for 23 episodes and then suddenly derailed with Deus Ex Lila killing Doakes, and never looked back. There's no way that wasn't Showtime meddling, especially considering the first showrunner chose to leave the show immediately afterward.

As many on this particular site will vigorously attest.

I think if Pajiba had The Power Of Nielsen, the TV landscape would look quite different.

As the cable/subscription channel equivalent to CBS, Showtime better not do to Shameless what literally already happened to it the first time. I'm not bitter about that show, (prefer this version, love it, in fact, for all its unevenness) but I just generally hate the series-lasting-way-too-long trend. And of course, I'm incredibly bitter about Simpsons, Dexter and Weeds, and very afraid of how worse Homeland could get if Showtime pulls that shit with it. I am so sick of watching shows decay because of factors outside of pure bad writing, though of course, all three of those plague/plagued those shows alongside lasting beyond their due.

It's "Californication," as in "California" and "fornication." It's a fucking pormanteau.

Hmm, I think it was a typo. Much like yours: It's portmanteau, not pormanteau.

Maybe he meant it as Poor Man's Portmanteau?
Hmmm, sounds like a reasonably priced boxed wine now that I think about it...

Typos done twice are more damning than typos done once, if we're getting ultra persnickety about it.

That's true, I actually skimmed over that summary above because I think the show should have ended a while back as well. I just felt like being a dick about the the spelling error since "It's a fucking pormanteau." seemed a bit harsh. Unless JJ meant "It's a fucking-portmanteau." in which case - Nicely played.

As in portmanteau about sex. I do love the idea of a poormanteau, despite MY typo.

I'm not loving "House of Lies" QUITE as much as I did first season - I really liked the first-person narrative to the audience - but I still find it strong and funny with blade-sharp dialogue.

"Shameless"? Yeah, still great. Awful lot going on, though!

Absolutely love Californication. Last season got a little ridiculous with RZA, but the dialogue is always sharp and witty, and the acting is great. It's always fun to see how far they can take Runkle's debasement too.