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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Guilty Daytime TV Pleasures

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16:56 / 08.01.03

Come on. Some of you must be grubby students or unemployed or nightworkers or just like taping or TiVoing the junk that we get every day on TV. But do you have any guilty pleasures? By which I mean geniune pleasures, not laughing at the guests on Trisha.

I am refreshed by reruns of Cheers and Taxi. Though Cheers is being shit, because, well, I think it's the early series. Or the late ones. There's no Rebecca, and the scripts are crappy.

Taxi's great, though, and I'm not sure why. Marilu Henner does have something to do with it... but it's rather good. Kaufman's irritating, though.

I miss endless repeats of ER.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:30 / 08.01.03

Oh god. I only have one answer to this:

Diagnosis Murder

*Dick - gawd bless yer Mary Poppins - van Dyke* as twinkly-eyed but strangely fatal (in that 'everyone keeps getting killed around me' TV stylee) Dr.Mark Sloan.

Barry van Dyke as blond police hunk Detective Steve Sloan.

(Amongst many things to love about this show is that patently, Barry is such a lousy actor that even with a famous dad, he can only get a job if his dad creates an entire TV show. and casts Barry as, you've guessed it, his son.)

Barry- er Steve *lives with his dad* at their beach house. Steve is forever bantering with Amanda, the beautiful Pathologist. Don't worry, she's black, so they're never going to get it on.

Typical episode titles: A Education In Murder, Murder at the Finish Line, Deadly Games.

Must Kill TV is a particular gem, in which the death of a tv exec leads the Sloans into the murky world of the tv business. Features a producer who keeps trying to make a detective show based on Mark Sloan! yay! Features a bunch of real-life tv people playing themsleves! yay! A guy called Stephen J Cannell playing 'jackson burley' - washed up TV exec. SJC produced the Rockfold Files. Yay!

This is the cheesiest thing in existence, and I know I really shouldn't, but I'm addicted. Can you guess?

But thanks to talking about it here, I've discovered the DM discussion board. Barry's *big* over there.

:shivers:

17:36 / 08.01.03

"Cops" and anything like it. Though they're usually on in the evening.

Hattie's Kitchen

18:55 / 08.01.03

When I was on nights, nothing chilled me out more than TJ Hooker and his wobbling jowls.

Tryphena Absent

19:06 / 08.01.03

Doctors, it was on before Diagnosis Murder and after Neighbours for a while, truly awful compulsive viewing. I love it... it's usually got a very dramatic storyline going, bigamy, murder. The best kind of soap is always the trashiest. It doesn't quite match up to DM though, Steve is clearly the best thing on TV, needing his dad to solve crime and all.

Rollo Kim, on location

19:39 / 08.01.03

Cheers and Taxi and 'Ed' i think it was called. I liked Ed, such gentle, sweet, twee crap. Gawd bless lunchtime TV. And I miss the double dose of ER too.

20:07 / 08.01.03

There is a particular episode of Diagnosis Murder set on the set of a TV Western. It's notable because it features, if I remember the credits, about six members of the Van Dyke clan. All I'll say is this:

Dick is the best actor, Barry's the next best.

This episode had six of them in. Oh, and Barry wrote it.

Do the math.

Oh, and Anna - yes, Doctors! Compulsive-but-shit! And just dramatic enough to convince one it will get good. And similarly, just-bearable acting. But such graveyard shift TV.

20:40 / 08.01.03

Watercolour Challenge. Bunch of gimps with paintbrushes, marvellous.

Actually, I hated it after about five minutes.

21:11 / 08.01.03

Don't mock the gentle wonder of "Ed". It's a lovely program which is currently being repeated on E4. Yay!

Tryphena Absent

22:39 / 08.01.03

Ooh yeah ER and Ed definitely - though in December they were showing ER season 8 and while it's got a lot of Maura Tierney (yum) I've seen it a bit too recently to want repeats.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:01 / 08.01.03

I actually (and I mean this in a totally honest sense) pretty much gave up watching TV when Sunset Beach finished. Anything now seems anit-climactic. But while it was on... man, that was the bollocks. Especially the whole Rosario Diamonds story. And the turkey baster. And the whole Ben/Derek evil twin malarkey. And that time when Antonio ACTUALLY MET GOD... and he had the voice of Aaron Spelling...

Daytimes, and TV, just ain't ever gonna be the same again.

I weep for the future of popular culture.

00:33 / 09.01.03

Any and all talkshows. Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones (a particular fav), Ricki Lake, Maury, Montel, Oprah. Dr.Phil is my latest obsession.
Oh, and I like Hamtaro *shrugs*

Goodness Gracious Meme

08:40 / 09.01.03

Stoatie hits the nail on the head (always trust a nightworker when it comes to gloriously bad telly). Sunset beach was *amazing*, when I was sharing a flat with one of my best friends, the sunday omnibus was the highlight of our week...pjs, coffee, fry-up and three glorious hours of big hair and evil twins....

Just for you, hon:

11:30 / 09.01.03

Diagnosis Murder is indeed a classic, always seems to find an excuse to dance! Best episode I've seen though has to be a Halloween one I saw last year, all about vampires you see, I'm talking about no fooling real vampires chucking Dick around a room and flying etc.

Wish I was off work this week since Channel 5 seem to have gone Columbo mad, how much do I love Columbo? Lots that's how much!!

11:40 / 09.01.03

Soap Operas. I'm not around enough to follow the storylines, but they're always good for a laugh with all the overacting and the "angst". Passions is the best of the lot though. I mean it has latex demons. How can you go wrong?

12:13 / 09.01.03

My name's pear, and in the summer, I became addicted to 'Providence'

*weeps gently*

18:54 / 03.04.03

Home and Away- Its true that you admit more on the web.

19:04 / 03.04.03

I had a guilty Sunday evening pleasure, though if I wsn't working I could tape it and watch it in the day. I suppose that would count, wouldn't it?

SAS Jungle: Are you tough enough?

I certainly wasn't, could barely get through an episode without bursting into empathic tears. Fucking great stuff. Sgt. Eddie Stone - you're a bastard - SAH!!! - but I wouldn't say that to his face.

For those that don't know, Reality TV set in the Malaysian jungle. Watch fitness nuts get tortured with real SAS training. S'great.

19:21 / 03.04.03

frdgmgnt, please don't hate Watercolour Challenge, it's a magnificent programme. Even if just for the people who've spent years working in factories or whatever, and taken up painting in their old age only to find out they were brilliant at it. It makes me *weep*.

19:29 / 03.04.03

General Hospital. Although it used to be much better in the 80s. Back then it had spies and treasure hunts and evil geniuses that planned on freezing the world..and aliens. Nowadays it has mobsters and corrupt cops and grandsons of evil geniuses who tried to freeze the world.

20:54 / 03.04.03

Columbo. I can't overstate how much I love Columbo. *Not* the shitty 90s revival of the show, I hasten to add. That's just painful. The original episodes, though, are wonderful. If I'm not around a telly on Wednesday afternoons, I make sure the video timer's set.

The episode with Johnny Cash was on last week. Johnny Fucking Cash. I nearly came.

21:08 / 03.04.03

Why is Johnny Cash interfering in my life today? My housemate just made me listen to 2 whole CD's...

Columbo *rocks*.

Goodness Gracious Meme

21:23 / 03.04.03

Oh, and have just remembered the Diagnosis Murder 2-parter(god, the cliffhangers) where Jesse goes to a log cabin and is 'abducted by aliens'.

So spends ep.2 in a kind of shitely written/lowbudget 'twin peaks' scenario where anonymous men with guns appear at his apartment and tell him to 'find the others, they know...

Pure class.

Tryphena Absent

22:09 / 03.04.03

How did I miss that? Sounds like a classic storyline! Hmmm, perhaps I was asleep.

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:20 / 03.04.03

Hunt it down, anna, I haven't even told you about the amazing plot twist.

23:58 / 03.04.03

See, Columbo's good because it's good. The writing and Falk's acting give the character real life and backstory, without the need to ram it down your throat all the time. Yes, the dirty mac and never-seen wife are gimmicks, but they don't stink too bad. An intelligent, working class guy who consistently manages to get one over on the society-types sounds shit on paper, yet it works on film. Other things that make it brilliant; seeing the murder happen along with the reason why and working backwards; the complete lack of a theme tune; guest actors who don't fuck everything up; likeable killers; the fact that, a couple of times, Columbo admits that he's put people away who he's genuinely liked and admired in the time he's known them; the fact that his quirks don't make him quirky, just a believable, well-defined, true character (something they screwed up spectacularly in the 90s eps).

I'll go and lie down now.

01:57 / 04.04.03

I found myself in front of the John Walsh Show the other day. It wasn't intentional, I was trolling for Star Trek. He had on teenagers that were, well, screwed for being teenagers (a kid trying to start an anarchy club, another with a "terrorist" rap song, 2 girls educating kids on birth control). And it was good. He was, well, intelligent, and reasonable, and stood up for common sense, of all things. And yet I'm still guilty.

Oh, and Columbo really is the shiznit. That's not a guilty pleasure at all, and shame on anyone who thinks so. I used to watch it, rapt with glee, waiting for the moment when he explains to the perp how he spent the last night dumpster diving for the crucial piece of evidence to convict him. And that he couldn't shoot a gun worth a damn, and he knew it. Someone told me that his "never-seen wife" got a show of her own at some point, and it was ST:Voyager's Captain Janeway. No wonder he never went home.

02:18 / 04.04.03

Renegade was not daytime TV, but was the best thing ever. Better even than Sunset Beach which I think a certain Mr. Morrison should have learned a trick or two from.

And punk Quincy, oh truly, is the best single episode of any daytime TV ever. Ever.

Regrettable Juvenilia

06:45 / 04.04.03

Ah, yes. 'Next Stop Nowhere'.

Quincy (dancing with an attractive yet sassy young nurse to some chilled-out lounge jazz): "Why would people want to make music full of *hate*?"

08:25 / 04.04.03

Loving the Columbo love going on in here, their making a new one for the anniversary set in a Big Brother style house.

Quincy rocks of course, but they really need to bring back Banacek maybe I should start a campaign it kicks Diagnosis Murders ass!

Renegade was cool too - He was a cop and damn good at his job

Tryphena Absent

08:37 / 04.04.03

That's right BiP, leave me in suspense, now I have to find it!

08:54 / 04.04.03

Oh yeah I've seen that alien one, can't remember what happens though isn't it something to do with the government dumping something? The vampire episode is still the best

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:07 / 04.04.03

So, true, Bear, the vampire ep. is absolute glory.

Anna, I can tell you if you like

(gosh, this is like telling the purple joke.)

the rake at the gates

22:50 / 04.04.03

at last other people who have seen banacek, clearly 'the' best tv dectective show,

closely followed by quincy (when he's not on a moral crusade),

whereas DM is great, but its not quality if you see what i mean, how many times has steve flying tackled the murderer, shit but fun.

whereas doctors is just shit, and leaves a gap between neighbours and anything else

10:07 / 05.04.03

Shagging 'Doctors' and 'Neighbours'. That's it. Both of them crap, but dear god I just get so f-ing bored.

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