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Some Strange Flea
Apr 9, 2010

AAA
Pillbug

Paperhouse posted:

Friends is being axed from C4 and E4 sometime this year, not sure exactly when though.
I can narrow that down to "summer sometime".

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Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

If you've never actually watched Friends it's a lot better then it's popularity would suggest, and worth watching, especially as you get through about 1 series a week on E4, so you can watch the whole thing in two months.

Paperhouse
Dec 31, 2008

I think
your hair
looks much
better
pushed
over to
one side
everyone has watched Friends though

Trickjaw
Jun 23, 2005
Nadie puede dar lo que no tiene



Brown Moses posted:

If you've never actually watched Friends it's a lot better then it's popularity would suggest, and worth watching, especially as you get through about 1 series a week on E4, so you can watch the whole thing in two months.

I'll have to agree to disagree with you there, chief.

e: It looks like from the 11th ITV are layering their crap with a +1 channel, so now you have no excuse for missing umm.. loose Women? Kyle?

Trickjaw fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Jan 4, 2011

Ratjaculation
Aug 3, 2007

:parrot::parrot::parrot:



How can 6 people, 3 of which are unemployed, afford giant apartments right next to Central Park?

When they reveal in the finale that they've all been meth dealers the whole time it wasn't that big a shock.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

How I Met Your Mother is like Friends, but unfunny and full of unlikable characters.

I expected that to be quoted as:

quote:

How I Met Your Mother is like Friends, unfunny and full of unlikable characters.

Akuma
Sep 11, 2001


Ratjaculation posted:

How can 6 people, 3 of which are unemployed, afford giant apartments right next to Central Park?

When they reveal in the finale that they've all been meth dealers the whole time, wasn't that big a shock.
Ross is a respected professor, Chandler seems to be really well paid (before he goes into advertising) but his and Joey's apartment is hardly massive (it's a bit poo poo, really), the big apartment belongs to Monica's grandmother or aunt or something who's had it for a long time. Phoebe is the poorest but lives further away anyway.

People always bring this up but it's not that ridiculous.

Paperhouse
Dec 31, 2008

I think
your hair
looks much
better
pushed
over to
one side
I really hated what I saw of HIMYM before deciding to watch the first episode just out of boredom and I grew to quite like it. It's not especially good but it does have its moments and it's light and easy

Akuma
Sep 11, 2001


I didn't like HIMYM at all at first, but then I started leaving it on in the background and got used to the characters and now I quite like it. I think that's how it is with most sitcoms, though; you need to get to know the characters before it can really click for you, you can't just watch them like other shows. The same thing happened for me with The Big Bang Theory.

FractionMan
Dec 24, 2003

Bringing back the balls to Rock
I quite like HIMYM, it actually does skew the standard formula and go away from being a standard sitcom at a lot of times. It had a bit of a shaky start but there are some great comedic moments (Usually from Neil Patrick Harris).

Oddly enough the premise of the show is what makes for its annoying moments.

Trickjaw
Jun 23, 2005
Nadie puede dar lo que no tiene



I don't know why, but that Butlins advert with the big green monster makes me want to cry. Not as much as staying at Butlins would make me cry, though.

Royality
Jun 27, 2006

Daimo posted:

"OMG liek the Earth will go bang, fire and brimstone will fall if the planets line up, in 2012!!!11"

"Can I just make clear, the Myans didnt have a clue, they were useless."

Shut up Briain, stop ruining my science :argh:

-

I love how everyone missed the point about sending in 'YOUR OWN' pictures of the sky!

I did enjoy Brian and Dara cracking up though as they went through the hubble-quality pictures of galaxies captured by 'John from Surrey' and other surely-famous astronomers.

Ratjaculation
Aug 3, 2007

:parrot::parrot::parrot:



Akuma posted:

Ross is a respected professor, Chandler seems to be really well paid (before he goes into advertising) but his and Joey's apartment is hardly massive (it's a bit poo poo, really), the big apartment belongs to Monica's grandmother or aunt or something who's had it for a long time. Phoebe is the poorest but lives further away anyway.

People always bring this up but it's not that ridiculous.

Ah, I see. I don't mind Friends at all, but never saw episodes that explained that. I have the same problem with Him & Her that they are both unemployed and live in a bigger flat than me

:negative:

Flatscan
Mar 27, 2001

Outlaw Journalist

Ratjaculation posted:

Ah, I see. I don't mind Friends at all, but never saw episodes that explained that.

Very first episode, they explain that the big flat belonged to a now dead aunt or someone and that it's rent controlled.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

I think it also comes up later that it's being illegally sub let by Monica.

Kin
Nov 4, 2003

Sometimes, in a city this dirty, you need a real hero.

Ratjaculation posted:

Ah, I see. I don't mind Friends at all, but never saw episodes that explained that. I have the same problem with Him & Her that they are both unemployed and live in a bigger flat than me

:negative:

If anything, what's unbelievably is some of the preogresssions. For example, Rachel becoming some kind of super fashion executive in just 5 years or so of being some retarded ditzy chick who couldn't do much more than pour coffee (and not very well IIRC).

All of the other characters stayed within their grooves, but that was just retarded. There's also the amount of free time they seem to have on the show. I assume that every episode was at the weekend because they'd just be sitting at that same loving coffe house every day or lounging about their apartments every day, it seemed quite weird how little we actually saw them at work over the course of the entire show.

That's one of the reasons HIMYM is good, it pays attention to all of these little details and even make call backs to them. We only ever really see the group together at the bar they're in at night after their day and (in the case of the recent episode) when one of the characters is off doing something plot centric during the day, he happens to be in his work attire that we've seen him wear in the few times we've had scenes of him at work.

HIMYM is compared to friends (particularly so by E4) because it's vaguely similar in that it's a a sitcom about a group of friends living in new york. But every sitcom is usually about a group of X living in X, so that's about the extent to which the similarities end.

HIMYM is so much better than friends it's shocking.

Some Strange Flea
Apr 9, 2010

AAA
Pillbug

Kin posted:

HIMYM is compared to friends (particularly so by E4)
E4 really didn't do HIMYM any favours with that bullshit. I remember one of their first ads literally talking about Ross I MEAN TED and Joey ahem Barney and when I actually watched it it seemed like a really dumb comparison to make.

Junkenstein
Oct 22, 2003

I think like most popular sitcoms, you need to view Friends as a product of its time. I know I loved the poo poo out of it when I was 15 and C4 were showing the first couple of seasons.

Akuma
Sep 11, 2001


I don't know, in Friends you see them in work about as much as you do in HIMYM.

From the start you'd see Chandler as a bored office drone, then he was unemployed, then he went into advertising. Monica was working at a restaurant, then was unemployed, then started that catering business with Phoebe, then got a head chef job, then was a restaurant critic, and some other stuff I don't remember., Rachel worked her way up in the fashion biz - remember, she started it working as a personal shopper at Bloomingdale's, before going to Ralph Lauren and working her way up, then getting offered a job at Louis Vuitton. Joey was often seen doing lovely plays or bit parts or TV shows. Phoebe was shown doing volunteer work or working as a masseuse a lot. Ross is the only one we didn't see at work much until he became a lecturer.

We saw all of that spread over 10 years. Honestly I don't think you're remembering right. When they're at the coffee house or at home it's before or after work, or at the weekend. It's not hard to reconcile, especially since all of them but Ross spent time unemployed.

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."

Akuma posted:

We saw all of that spread over 10 years. Honestly I don't think you're remembering right. When they're at the coffee house or at home it's before or after work, or at the weekend. It's not hard to reconcile, especially since all of them but Ross spent time unemployed.

He was put on sabbatical or something though (which he would stress angrily whenever it was implied he was sent home for being crazy)

justcola
May 22, 2004

La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo

Friends is alright. I like the episodes where Ross has anger management issues but besides that it's a little, flat. My brother thinks it's one of the best comedies ever and tells me how on watching it again and again you notice new things such as characters rolling there eyes. Then again he hates 'the show with the fat guy and the skinny one where it's told from there point of view', so whichever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLvB_ybcKt0 friends without a laugh track is good though

thehustler
Apr 17, 2004

I am very curious about this little crescendo

Old Madeyes posted:

Did I just hear Robert Webb voicing an advert for Cushelle toilet roll? :/

Yes, you did.

Also, David Mitchell is involved with the new Go Compare stuff.

Fatkraken
Jun 23, 2005

Fun-time is over.
well, it's not like they haven't done advertising before. They were the PC/Mac guys in the UK.

Junkenstein
Oct 22, 2003

Fatkraken posted:

well, it's not like they haven't done advertising before. They were the PC/Mac guys in the UK.

Which had pretty much the opposite effect that Apple intended if you ask me.

Flatscan
Mar 27, 2001

Outlaw Journalist

Junkenstein posted:

Which had pretty much the opposite effect that Apple intended if you ask me.

So PCs are boring and stuffy, but really clever and know what they're talking about, while Macs are mouthy and stupid and full of poo poo? I'll be buying a PC then.

Fatkraken
Jun 23, 2005

Fun-time is over.

Flatscan posted:

So PCs are boring and stuffy, but really clever and know what they're talking about, while Macs are mouthy and stupid and full of poo poo? I'll be buying a PC then.

Charlie Brooker posted:

Unless you have been walking around with your eyes closed, and your head encased in a block of concrete, with a blindfold tied round it, in the dark - unless you have been doing that, you surely can't have failed to notice the current Apple Macintosh campaign starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, which has taken over magazines, newspapers and the internet in a series of brutal coordinated attacks aimed at causing massive loss of resistance. While I don't have anything against shameless promotion per se (after all, within these very brackets I'm promoting my own BBC4 show, which starts tonight at 10pm), there is something infuriating about this particular blitz. In the ads, Webb plays a Mac while Mitchell adopts the mantle of a PC. We know this because they say so right at the start of the ad.
"Hello, I'm a Mac," says Webb.

"And I'm a PC," adds Mitchell.

They then perform a small comic vignette aimed at highlighting the differences between the two computers. So in one, the PC has a "nasty virus" that makes him sneeze like a plague victim; in another, he keeps freezing up and having to reboot. This is a subtle way of saying PCs are unreliable. Mitchell, incidentally, is wearing a nerdy, conservative suit throughout, while Webb is dressed in laid-back contemporary casual wear. This is a subtle way of saying Macs are cool.

The ads are adapted from a near-identical American campaign - the only difference is the use of Mitchell and Webb. They are a logical choice in one sense (everyone likes them), but a curious choice in another, since they are best known for the television series Peep Show - probably the best sitcom of the past five years - in which Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, "PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers." In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign.

I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, "I hate Macs", and then I think, "Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.

Cue 10 years of nasal bleating from Mac-likers who profess to like Macs not because they are fashionable, but because "they are just better". Mac owners often sneer that kind of defence back at you when you mock their silly, posturing contraptions, because in doing so, you have inadvertently put your finger on the dark fear haunting their feeble, quivering soul - that in some sense, they are a superficial semi-person assembled from packaging; an infinitely sad, second-rate replicant who doesn't really know what they are doing here, but feels vaguely significant and creative each time they gaze at their sleek designer machine. And the more deftly constructed and wittily argued their defence, the more terrified and wounded they secretly are.

Aside from crowing about sartorial differences, the adverts also make a big deal about PCs being associated with "work stuff" (Boo! Offices! Boo!), as opposed to Macs, which are apparently better at "fun stuff". How insecure is that? And how inaccurate? Better at "fun stuff", my arse. The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac. Myst, the most pompous and boring videogame of all time, a plodding, dismal "adventure" in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modelled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-'em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac's relationship with "fun".

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. Of course, that hasn't stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs. Besides, that's what we PC owners are like - unreliable, idiosyncratic and gleefully unfair. And if you'll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming.

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."
It always annoyed me that the ads would say a Mac can do "fun stuff" like, erm, photos and videos and music (and of course, PCs have followed suit there now) and yet there is no mention of games.

Not as annoying as the Mac/PC arguments that occurred before then:

"A Mac is way more powerful than a PC!"
"Are you comparing like for like valued machines?"
"Of course not! The Mac is three times as much!"
"What if you compared these two identically priced machines?"
"But it's not a Mac!"

Mitchell and Webb seem fairly mercurial about advertising, That Mitchell and Webb Book has a bunch of "rejected campaigns" that send up the Apple ads.

EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



Despite being a big Apple nerd, I'm not a fan of either countries Mac vs PC ads. The iPhone/iPod/iPad ones (after the first awful iPad one anyway) are far better, simply showing the product off. That's all you need to do with OSX, but they keep forcing this stupid, playground-esque battle on people.

Anyway, with all the Friends talk about I feel my public duty to pimp my thread for 'Episodes', which is written by David Crane of Friends and stars Matt Le Blanc. It's a BBC/Showtime collaboration, so it also has the awesome Tamsin Grier as well as her co-star from Green Wing, and the recent Dirk Gently - Stephen Mangan. It's also really, really good and it starts next Monday on BBC 2/HD.

Onion Vanguard
Jun 11, 2010

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Paperhouse posted:

Friends is being axed from C4 and E4 sometime this year, not sure exactly when though. It will probably just be replaced with something comparable like How I Met Your Mother

Thank the good Lord. Although I don't want it replaced with How I Met Your Mother.

Pablo Bluth
Sep 7, 2007

I've made a huge mistake.

Royality posted:

I did enjoy Brian and Dara cracking up though as they went through the hubble-quality pictures of galaxies captured by 'John from Surrey' and other surely-famous astronomers.
You only have to look at the winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year award to realise there is some seriously good work taken by amateur from their back-gardens.

It was also entirely predictable that the quality of photos by this existing band of elite amateurs would swamp anything taken by more casual astronomers. I was surprised they didn't include a few more token beginner photos by the less experienced.

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
Some of them looked like deep IR & hydrogen filter false colours. If you're an amateur who can get that, you're not really an amateur anymore.

Graviton v2
Mar 2, 2007

by angerbeet

Zorba the Greek posted:

Thank the good Lord. Although I don't want it replaced with How I Met Your Mother.
Never got Friends myself. Its like it might make you smile a bit funny. Not 'lol' funny. Same goes for almost every imported yank sitcom.

I will give Frasier a pass here because while it still isnt 'lol' funny its very clever and well put together.

While im on the topic of slagging off our American cousins sitcoms what the gently caress is with 'Everyone likes Raymond'? Thats been top rated for years in thats and I swear to god when im visiting my parents they always have this on a dinner time. I do not raise a smile at it ever.

Id like to gently caress Rays wife thats the best I can say about it.

Akuma
Sep 11, 2001


I've never really understood it's popularity, either, since it's loving depressing. I've never seen the very end of it but I can only assume Ray and his wife get divorced because their relationship consists of unhappiness and lies and disappointment.

thebardyspoon
Jun 30, 2005
Or multiple homicide from any of the characters.

oxford_town
Aug 6, 2009
Everybody Loves Raymond was one of those shows that Channel 4 used to show in the mornings, just before I had to leave for school. This sort of built up a Pavlovian aversion to the show - although when I saw it later it was still as awful and unfunny as before.

When I got to sixth form, though, going in late and watching Frasier at 8:30 in bed was the way to go :cool:

FelixMeOneMoreTime
May 11, 2010

Akuma posted:

I've never really understood it's popularity, either, since it's loving depressing. I've never seen the very end of it but I can only assume Ray and his wife get divorced because their relationship consists of unhappiness and lies and disappointment.

The end is actually rather sweet. I've seen every Raymond episode like 3 times as it was always on before school, and it is pretty poor, but the ending is nice. Ray has to have a routine operation, and the family are all joking about it, but then the doctor comes out and says Ray won't wake from the anaesthetic. 30 seconds later he comes out of it just fine, but the reactions of the family when they think there's a problem are really moving. Robert panics and tries to go see his brother, Deborah starts breaking down, and Frank shows emotion too. The very final scene is the entire family enjoying a normal meal together without arguing, and it fades to black. One of the better sitcom endings, even though the show is normally poo poo.

Not as bad as According To Jim which they're now showing in Raymond's timeslot.

King Crab
Nov 12, 2005

lets pretend i didnt say that and lets als0 pretend it isnt inevitable
Man, I don't get all the Micheal Macintyre hate that's going on here. He seems to really love what he is doing and I think it gives him a great energy.

Why can't we all just team up and hate on the comedy black hole that is James Corden?

\/\/ Is it because everyone goes around quoting his comedy and his general overexposure? He does say some genuinely funny stuff, plus you can't hate that laugh! \/\/

King Crab fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 4, 2011

marktheando
Nov 4, 2006

King Crab posted:

Man, I don't get all the Micheal Macintyre hate that's going on here. He seems to really love what he is doing and I think it gives him a great energy.

Why can't we all just team up and hate on the comedy black hole that is James Corden?

James Corden may be an unfunny, boring, unwatchable disgusting fat piece of poo poo but he is less irritating and funnier and a better person compared to McIntyre.

Lovely Joe Stalin
Jun 12, 2007

Our Lovely Wang

King Crab posted:

Man, I don't get all the Micheal Macintyre hate that's going on here. He seems to really love what he is doing and I think it gives him a great energy.

Why can't we all just team up and hate on the comedy black hole that is James Corden?

\/\/ Is it because everyone goes around quoting his comedy and his general overexposure? He does say some genuinely funny stuff, plus you can't hate that laugh! \/\/

I think it is that his humour is so simple, and his voice so annoying. He tells jokes about noticing things that everyone notices. It's dull, and shallow. Also there is a perceptioon that he seems to have essentially popped straight into the limelight as a product more of his management than his talent.
Or perhaps I am being pretentious because I'm reading Stewart Lee's book.

Whatever the reason for the dislike, I think we can all agree that people who talk about their mandrawers are pricks.

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DaWolfey
Oct 25, 2003

College Slice
Anyone watching David Walliams' Awfully Good?

(It's poo poo, he's not funny)

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