Keeping it light -- what TV shows do you find unwatchable?

I get what you’re saying. I have held and repaired those models.

The pink selmer mk6 serial number 65k in the front room of the largest musical museum in the world…

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##…What TV shows do you find unwatchable?

Pretty much all “reality” tv programming, with the sole exception of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

That would be my one “guilty pleasure,” but I honestly don’t feel very much guilt about it.

:slight_smile:

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I know what you mean, but I gave it a pass because they talk about how unusual that is.

And there’s that lovely scene early on where Mary goes to say good-night to her parents and gently scolds them for sleeping in the same bed (since they’re too upper-crust for that), and then after she leaves they have a discussion about how they didn’t fall in love until a year after they got married.

I mean, if they weren’t progressive for their class, they’d just be upper-class twits and it would be hard to tune in week after week (I admit I lost interest around when the Titanic sank, but that was for the soap opera aspects).

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…That was the first episode. Or was that the joke? Sorry I’m tired.

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Back in the days when I had access to cable, my one reality TV “guilty pleasure” was Tattoo Nightmares. People would visit this one tattoo shop with tattoos they hated, consult with the artists, and get cover-up designs over the old ones. The show had an overall positive tone, and I adored the artwork they wound up with. These tattooists (is that the word?) were truly talented. The tattoos they did were amazing! They even explained how and why they did what they did, often incorporating stronger elements of the old tattoos in the new patterns. I loved it and I don’t feel guilty about watching that show at all. (Though I’m not likely to ever get ink of my own, I hate needles and I’m not sure I could pick anything to live with forever. I’m such a wimp. :wink:) Otherwise I avoid reality TV like the plague that it usually is… but that’s me.

Aside from that, the original Ninja Warrior, the occasional Adult Swim cartoon, and Mythbusters, I don’t miss cable at all. So much of it was reruns and the same movies over and over. I can get that on digital over-the-air stations now. The TV is always on at my house, mainly for my Dad, and a lot of the time it’s just background noise for both of us. I usually pick out one or two shows I actively follow and pay half-attention to whatever else is on.

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Oh, you’re right, I guess it was. The Great War then. Maybe. Some real-life event around the second season.

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I actually never thought I’d be asked that.

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That actually sounds interesting, unlike the premises of most ‘reality’ shows.

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Each person who went on the show talked briefly about how and why they got the original tattoo-- so there were plenty of regrets. But even when the reason was some sort of foolishness (which was often), they were always treated with respect. So overall the show had a very positive tone, and I liked that. And it was touching to see how much getting the cover-ups affected people, especially when it was a memorial design. They always felt so much better about themselves afterwards. It might have been “reality tv,” but it was better than the usual fare in that genre.

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That’s why I could take the original What Not to Wear in small doses but could not stand the US version. One of the presenters would rifle through the guests’ closets, holding up clothes to the camera and saying, “Ewwww!”. Whereas the British one would try to find something, anything they could make a compliment of or show empathy about (“if you spend so much time in school uniforms as a teenager, it’s hard to find your own colour sense”).

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Those are good points, fairly made, and I do accept I may be being curmudgeonly here - it’s been know to happen occasionally :slight_smile:

Certainly, most shows need sympathetic protagonists, and for them to successfully overcome their conflicts - and it is a show set in that period amid societal change, and the protagonists are ahead of the curve, (for them to be sympathetic). I did still get a subtext that, once noticed, crippled the enjoyment. And that’s definitely also to do with where it fit into life in the UK at that time and how it fit.

I’m happy to accept that that’s far from universal and I think I’m glad that others could enjoy what is a gorgeous piece of escapism.

(I’m now wondering if I’d enjoy it more if it were made today instead of then? I’m still somewhat predisposed against shows that function primarily as soap-opera-y drama, but I think it might get more of a pass.)

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You know, it was around then that I cancelled cable. I’m not sure that’s coincidental, that was objectively awful television.

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Trinny and Susannah were ok in small doses. They were also self depreciating and made fun of themselves. And they did some fun fashion forward things with the people on the show. Stacy and Clint were just so boring. The best shows were when the women hated the make over and wanted their clothes back.

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I caught that show on a few times. It was very interesting and you are right – there was no ridicule or anything. The tattoo artists were amazing. I always thought “They’ll never be able to cover THAT up” but they always did in a way that was amazing.

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There’s an episode in season 2 where a badly burned soldier shows up claiming to be Patrick, the heir to Downton who died on the Titanic. It’s the worst episode, and he never appears or is even mentioned again after that. I can see giving up on the show at that point. Even when I binge it I skip that episode.[quote=“gadgetgirl02, post:290, topic:95100”]
That’s why I could take the original What Not to Wear in small doses but could not stand the US version. One of the presenters would rifle through the guests’ closets, holding up clothes to the camera and saying, “Ewwww!”. Whereas the British one would try to find something, anything they could make a compliment of
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The British version of “Hoarders” (not sure what it was called) was kind of the same. They’d pair a person with a disaster of a house with someone who had a cleaning obsession. As the show went on, you’d discover that the person with the disaster had a real reason for it that made you sympathetic - AND - the clean-obsessed person also had personal issues that drove them to scour every surface 4 times a day. So by the end they were both facing their problems.

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This.

I watched that show a few times when it was Trinny and Susannah, and all I could think was: they’re not respecting the person’s underlying preferences when they completely remake everything about them. Anyone can dress a woman up like a peacock for a 1-hour photo shoot, but can you figure out a way to pick clothing, SHOES, accessories, and makeup products that the person will actually wear from then on?

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Canada’s Worst Driver. Hopped over to Netflix to try it after reading about it here. Unwatchable. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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I found Lucha Underground to be unwatchable because I can’t get El Rey, so I had to d/l it.
But I hear it’s coming to Netflix. :smiley:

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