/lit/ - Literature

The Office, the British version, the American one is cancer

I wouldn't say peep show is "lit" but it's an amazing program

>>5517127
So I was gonna twat this geezer, and then it turns out they were both Polish!
>not lit
shut yer whore mouth

>>5517099
The big bang theory of /lit/

>>5517124
>The Office
...

>>5517099
Dekalog
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
I, Claudius

Black Mirror / Utopia / Twin Peaks...

These are just the ones I watch though

>>5517099

>they still watch TV

>>5517210

kek

>>5517212
>posting anime
>having an opinion
choose one

>>5517204
>Black Mirror
>Utopia

>>5517210
This is the best answer you're gonna get.
Another good one would be Dr. Katz possibly, not necessarily "deep" or anything, but some of those monologues are just really really well written.

>>5517230
Problem punk?

>>5517099
I literally saw this while sitting at a tim hortons at 2am.

There was a homeless looking guy with a long-ass beard sitting at the table with a pad of paper and a calculator making weird squares and calculations, and he had a stack of books beside him.

I looked over to see what they were and they were, and I kid you not

>Assets, property, and liquidity: Making sound business decisions
>Pharaohs of Egypt: Tutankhamun
>Chinese Astrology: The Zodiac

etc.

>>5517234
Yeah, a massive problem with your lame tastes.

>>5517238

Spooky

>>5517271
Post yours anon, and we'll see who has the bigger dick

>>5517281
My immediate mental response, cooming straight from my inner fa/tg/uy was holyfuckisthisguyanactualwizard

>>5517203
this is a good post

Twin Peaks
The Wire
True Detective
Rome

>>5517203
Love the Dekalog, tried watching I, Claudius but feel asleep. I'll check out Tinker Tailor though.
Also, the Jewel in the Crown is excellent, as well as the wire

>>5517347
rome a shit

>>5517099
>simpsons
>mad men
pic related

>>5517347
>>5517354
All good except Rome

>>5517374
>not posting the actual Pynchon cameo

>>5517099
Mad Men is definitely the most /lit/ thing on TV right now

>>5517210
>muh britbong french hate
Get a new joke ya limey bastards.

>>5517384
here you go faggot

>>5517210
Black Books is great. I actually saw Dylan Moran at the Stand in Glasgow last night, headlining their weekly amateur-ish event. He's got a bit old and a bit fat but he's still got it.
>>5517455
>dylan moran
>limey
huh
anyway, british french-bashing is at least a little more inventive than american french-bashing, which is generally just "french are cowards lol why don't u surrender" ad nauseum

Game of Thrones
Dune/children of dune miniseries
Under the Dome
Gormenghast
Jane Eyre
Shogun

>>5517577
I puked

>>5517577
>game of thrones

>>5517099

Perhaps The Sopranos and The Wire. Not so sure about Twin Peaks and Mad Men.

>>5517581
>>5517590
bla bla bla its an entertaining show get your head out of your ass

The Wire and Twin Peaks

The Wire
True Detectives
Mad Men
Castle
Game of Thrones

>>5517653
>True Detectives

No.

The Singing Detective

Californication season 1.

>>5517616
>entertaining

LOL yeah for morons.

>>5517411
Nigga please, it was total shit after like Season 2

>>5517232

David Duchovny was perfect on it.

>>5517347
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/09/30/no_it_relies_on_clichs_about_blacks_and_drugs/

>>5517411
Mad Men is a barely-disguised soap opera. Most hour long tv dramas (including The Wire) use worn out soap opera devices to drive the plot and keep viewers interested. The "historical" and "sociological" detail just flatters the viewers' intelligence.

speaking of soap operas

mary hartman, mary hartman

>>5517659
Why not? You don't like the entry-level nihilism of Rust Cohle? The entire point of the show is that Rust's philosophy is wrong.

>>5518194
What is 99% of realist literature

>>5518463
rekt

>>5518194
You're an idiot, part of which idiocy is a stupid variety of elitism. HTH.

>cntrl+f
>house of cards
>0 results
you faggots

>>5518492
it's shit, mate

Sopranos is amazing
Kevin Finnerty sequence was neat

>>5518496
Only insofar as TV is shit.

>>5518496
Please. If this isn't a /lit/ television show nothing is. It's practically just a modern sleek retelling of Macbeth.

>>5518510
yea but it's a shit retelling of macbeth

>>5518510
With a little of All the King's Men thrown in

>>5518510
>It's practically just a modern sleek retelling of Macbeth.

is this a may-may? are you replacing Richard III with Macbeth for comic effect? like if I said that West Side Story was a modern retelling of The Merchant of Venice?

>>5518463
well mad men and the wire are vindicated then? or 99% of realist literature is negligible garbage.

Sherlock

>>5518476
I can write coherently. hth

>nobody has mentioned Breaking Bad
Seriously?
I feel like people who say it's shit are just playing contrarian. It's really very good.

>>5518553
I'm only superficial, I always look at the reactionary movements around me, and then I create my own counter-culture against them which still goes against the popular trends that those movements are against.
I do this with everything, I'm a contrarian thick and through and no one has been able to catch on yet and no one probably ever will.

>>5518542
That depends on whether things everyone in real life deals with like death, infidelity, pregnancy, financial problems, etc, are "worn out soap opera devices" that simply do not appear in genuinely original fiction

More of a mini-series then tv-series, but if the Dekalog counts then so does this: Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes From a Marriage". The 6 episode cut is great, and if you've only seen the movie cut of "Fanny and Alexander" I would check out the 3 episode version.

Also thanks for reminding me to stop being lazy and start watching film again instead of TV. Shows are worthless in comparison and actually take up way more time in the long run, they're just so easy to ingest.

Otherwise, the only series to not treat me like a retard have been:

>Twin Peaks
>Tatami Galaxy
>Dekalog
>Arrested Development
>Louie

Freaks and Geeks, Kaiba, Neon Evangelion, and Peep Show receive honorable mention.

>>5518539
Yes, it's been a may may since someone said Breaking Bad is a modern retelling of Macbeth because Walter White was a tragic hero.

>>5518567
I write things on the internet.

>>5518553
Breaking Bad is a great show, not sure if I would call it 'literary' exactly.

Sherlock

>>5518570
I know you're going for variety here but was the anime really necessary

>>5518569
I'm not just talking about themes or broad events, although, yes, death, infidelity, and pregnancy are all very regularly exploited in soaps to keep viewers watching, as is the secret identity plot. I'm talking about the rhythm of the plotting. When writing a compelling original drama gets too hard, end an episode with, eg, a brand new affair. Nothing dramatically interesting needs to come of it. Viewers will surely watch the next episode while the script team and producers kill screen time with portentous sociohistorical detail or supposedly realistic procedural grind, because they want to learn more about "what happens next." It doesn't matter if the script team deals with death or infidelity in a completely hackneyed manner. The audience will be too busy patting themselves on the back to notice.

>>5518588
Tatami Galaxy is great, although it has a sagging middle. Not the same anon, but I don't see how "necessary" or "unnecessary" have anything to do with it.

For a similarly frenetic anime experience, try Teekyuu. It's not as good-looking or smart, though.

Edge of Darkness
Smiley's People
The Perfect Spy
The Grenada Television Sherlock Holmes
series with Jeremy Brett
Twin Peaks
Millennium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTbwlRm-ZOE

>>5518545

>>5518615
amazing

>>5518615
But it follows the novels pretty well for a modern adaptation and the plot for most episodes is inspired mostly by the novels and pays attention to most of the details found in the books
You'd think that it would be the most /lit/ show out there

>>5518623
It's also shittily written in general, and if it pays attention to the details found in the books, the ways it ends up using them ends up being infuriatingly smug and annoying if you're a fan of the books

>>5517664
underrated post

>>5518588

Animation has it's place, just because it's japanese animation doesn't mean it should be discredited. Masaaki Yuasa is a flower among weeds. I'll give you Neon Evanglelion, but to air those last two episodes was pretty ballsy, failing budget or no.

Non-Weaboo animation to check out:

>Perepolis
>Watership Down
>Waltz with Bashir
>Waking Life
>La Planete Sauvage
>Mind Game (Animu, don't care)
>Angels Egg (Animu, don't care, 2deep4u)

Secret of Kells and "Mary and Max" were alright. Anyone see Plague Dogs?

>>5518623

>Doyle was friends for a time with Harry Houdini, the American magician who himself became a prominent opponent of the Spiritualist movement in the 1920s following the death of his beloved mother. Although Houdini insisted that Spiritualist mediums employed trickery (and consistently exposed them as frauds), Doyle became convinced that Houdini himself possessed supernatural powers—a view expressed in Doyle's The Edge of the Unknown. Houdini was apparently unable to convince Doyle that his feats were simply illusions, leading to a bitter public falling out between the two.

The criticism "smart people appear as wizards" applies just as well to Doyle himself, and I'm not sure i'd call Sherloch Holmes "literature" to begin with.

>>5518599
I never thought The Wire or Mad Men were particularly hackneyed in the way they dealt with those things, honestly. I specifically don't watch Mad Men just to see "what happens next," which would be kind of silly since the show has a mostly episodic structure.

>>5518640
>Secret of Kells

is that any good?

it seems like a strange subject for an animated film

>>5517230
Utopia is gr8
Best Aussie show in ages

>>5518178
What a terrible article.

>>5518640
Also, you know, classic American animation like early Disney movies, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Fleischer Studios

>>5518653
Yes it's pretty cool

>>5518653
>>5518666

What he said, but the tone takes a bit to accept, it feels less than mature at the start. Its animation style is really unique, especially any scenes with nature.

>>5518658
He has a point. The main reason the show became popular at all is because it's about gang fighting. This is why a lot of people dislike the second season compared to the rest, because it puts the gang fighting to the side. I think it's unfortunate Ishmael Reed feels the way he does about the show, though, given that he's one of the leading black writers today.

>>5517664
I try to get into this every year but it's just not happening

I like it when I'm watching it but after it's done I never feel like watching another ep

>>5518647
There's an episode of The Wire that ends with an affair/death double-whammy. I watched a stretch of both shows and there was merit in both (I agree with Reed btw), and it's true they don't have as many cheap soapy gimmicks per episode as a lot of one hour dramas. However, I think The Wire's attention to social and procedural detail would've been more credible if they'd had even one black Baltimorean play a major role in the production (Simon, Burns and Price are all white). And Mad Men barely disguises the oh-no-he-didn't qualities it has. Oh, Peggy got the account. Times sure are a-changin'. Omg Lane dies?! Joan boobies infidelity pregnancy but she's REALLY a hard-nosed business woman.

Both shows are dramatically flabby. I wish Mad Men had gone for full-on Woolrichian suspense instead.

>>5518664
Bob Clampett!

The Soup

The Tulse Luper Suitcases

You've probably never heard of it.

>>5518759
>>5518683
am i immune from this critique if the second season was my favorite

>>5518759
Does the part when Ginsberg cuts of his nipple count as one of those

deadwood you cocksuckers

>>5518768
Man, it's ok. You can like your show. It doesn't make you dumb or a bad person. I mostly watch k-dramas, tbh, even though I usually quit them in disgust about a quarter of the way through. I supposedly like them because they're compact and written like novels, but they're almost always just as guilty of exploiting the plotting devices I wrote about as any American show.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

The number of self-references and the post-modern structuring is off the charts.

possibly not even joking

>>5517664
>tfw no novel translations

>>5518782
It's colorful for sure! But does it stand on its own as saying something insightful and "true" about mania or computers or lust, or is it just an outrageous bloggable moment cooked up in a bull session? And would you care about the Ginsberg subplot if it wasn't interleaved with the rest of the show? Would you say to your friends, "You've gotta see this short film about this guy who's driven crazy by a computer and cuts off his nipple to impress a girl"? If so, then maybe Ginsberg cutting off his nipple doesn't count. I dunno. I'm not the tv cop.

>>5518857
Why bother with the novels?

>>5518864
I dunno, maybe there's some thematic significance to his character arc that I'm too lazy to think about since I only watch the show for cheap thrills

>>5517212
Is this from that show about clothing taking over the world

>>5518876
Probably not. Is there any show with corporate authorship that plans this carefully?

Your post is like half-sarcastic and half-sincere.

>>5518567
That just means you're part of the system yet you have to be pretentious about it.

>>5518865
Source material is always better

Think of all the shit they cut from the LotR movies

>>5517374
"You're reading Gravity's Rainbow!"
"REreading!"

>>5518917
A lot of movies are better than the books they're based on. Samson Raphaelson and Lubitsch usually based their movies on inferior material. Sometimes it's a bit of a toss up. Like, which is better, Lionel White's The Killing or Kubrick's movie? How can you really quantify a difference between them?

>>5518576

There's quite a lot of referencing to poetry

And the spundtrack is the best spundtrack a series ever had

>>5518864
>"You've gotta see this short film about this guy who's driven crazy by a computer and cuts off his nipple to impress a girl"?
Did you hear this bullshit criteria at film school or something because it's retarded. I'm not surprised at this point because you are a woman who likes k-dramas though

>>5518968
Did I what what? I didn't go to film school and I didn't study film at all. I'm not a woman. I'm not embarrassed to watch trash and say it's trash. I don't think saying that a story on a show should be integral to the show is a "retarded" criterion, unless you like your shows to be those were things simply happen, a show of gussied up non sequiturs. There'd be nothing wrong with that, but I don't think that's why Mad Men gets critical praise.

You tell me, what do you think of the Ginsberg subplot? Do you really think it contributes thematically or dramatically to the show? Or is it an outrageous, meme-worthy standalone mini-story? Or something else?

>>5518968
What is your deal?

>>5517099
Justified. Historical references, film references like Chinatown, Shane, High Noon; references to Saul Bellow, Emily Dickinson, several others.

The Wire
Sopranos
Twin Peaks
The Wire again

>>5518178
This has got to be the dumbest article I've ever read.

The reason it's of anthropological interest is its analysis of city life. That's the whole point of the show. The decay of the modern American city.

The 2nd season is also one of the best. Dat blue collar struggle.

Just rewatching The Wire because it is the only show with truly literary aspirations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UluX8EfUM-4

>>5519058
yeah, it's a stupid fucking article. America needs white people pathologizing black people.

>>5519076
>implying the show does that at all

>>5519065
I love that this handwave-y shit isn't just on /lit/:

>crni195 2 months ago

>theres something called positive deviation..
>basically that teory says that you have to be
>deviant at one point in your life if you want to
>be succesfull..

>but deviation and criminal activites are 2
>different things..
>i cant explain over the internet becouse its too
>complicated, but i already see that you didnt
>get the point of the wire at all, and you didnt
>understand it

>>5519082
>implying we use green text this way implying implying

The three main voices behind the show, Simon, Burns, and Price, are all white people belonging to the creative class. Ed Burns actually has a background as a police officer and a teacher. Here he is literally pathologizing black children:

"Well, it's how damaged these kids are. I mean, it's profound. You get a class of 35 kids, of which five or six are thugs -- what the DSM calls 'oppositionally defiant children.' "

Here Burns gives you an idea of his goals as a teacher:

"What you try to do is present an image that the kids -- maybe at some time later on in life, even if they're sitting in prison or something—can reflect on."

Even if they're sitting in prison, they can look back on old Burns and reflect on their time with him. What great insight he has into the youth of Baltimore.

I don't have any particular problem with Ed Burns, and I'm exaggerating his deficiencies a little (albeit using his own words), but I don't think he or Simon or Price are the people to tell the story of black students and drug dealers in Baltimore. I don't even think they're the people to tell the story of white dock workers in Baltimore! I see a lot of cop show and mob movie cliches interlarded with procedural and institutional details, and I don't think the latter makes up for the former. I think there's very little "anthropological interest" in the show. It's just a show.

Seinfeld.

I'd suggest Black books, it has some great dialogue but maybe, one or two characters are a little bit much.

What's a good philosophical/sociological show? Preferably something without that continuous drama that most shows base their existence on.
From what has been mentioned so far I like Black Mirror (>>5517204).

>>5517230
Black Mirror was fucking awesome!

>>5517099
>>>/tv/

>>5518178
Wow, Boston is racist as hell.

They are just pissed off that there isn't a daily hollywood blockbuster being released about Whitey mcNobody

>>5518463
Major REKT

>>5517204
Utopia season 1 is legitimately a piece of art.

Bear in mind there are two shows called Utopia, one of which is pleb garbage, one of which is not. The guy you're replying to was obviously referring to the non-pleb one.

I would also submit 'Garth Marenghi's Dark Place' and 'Man to Man with Dean Learner' to this thread.

>>5519281
Ishmael Reed lives in Oakland, I think.

>>5518656
I'm Australian and have never heard of this show. Does it air on SBS?

>>5519313
wait, that pseudo-intellectual shitshow with the architects?

>>5519318
The Block?

>>5519320
ba-dum-tss.jpb

The Wire
True Detective
Boardwalk Empire (shit's cash)
Skins (the first 2 seasons)
Twin Peaks
Six Feet Under
South Park
Louis
Band of Brothers/The Pacific
Breaking Bad

>>5519341
>Boardwalk Empire (shit's cash)

Margaret ruins it for me

>>5519348

also Darmody was my favorite character by far and when he was killed off i lost interest

>>5519348
yep, Margaret is a fucking awful character

most of her storyline isnt even fucking related to the premise of the show

House of Cards
Game of Thrones
The Wire
Sopranos

None of them are anywhere close to a great work of literature but they are thoughtful and engaging. Game of Thrones is perhaps a bit more indulgent and focused more on plot than any higher artistic ambitions but I still think it's great.

I'd rank south park pretty highly regarding artistic value.

Hannibal, season 1 is okay but season 2 is incredible.

>>5518640
25 and 26 of NGE are the best parts of the series fite me nerd

>>5517127
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn22UlVdpw0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWSSD8_sAF4

>>5519131
This, and Curb Your Enthusiasm

>>5519468
I really enjoy Hannibal, but I wouldn't say it's literary. IMO, that would be equivalent to calling Refn or Lynch films masterpieces of cinema, when it's all just style over substance

I would have to say Deadwood. The dialogue is pretty noteworthy.

~140 posts and no House M.D.

I have just lost all respect for /lit/

>>5520284
Second

>>5520293
Formulaic trash, self-parody and soap opera-tier after the cast purge of season whateveritwas.

>>5519490
Infinitely better once they replaced Cheryl with Leon, amazing show

>>5518639

epic

>>5520303
>Formulaic trash, self-parody and soap opera-tier after the cast purge of season whateveritwas
Nah, you're just fucking dumb.

>>5520309
you have awful taste in TV, sorry

>woah that girl looks like she's gonna get sick
>SIKE IT WAS THE OTHER GUY RIGHT THERE OOOH BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING
>[title sequence]
>step aside retards Dr. House is in
>it's totally [this disease]
>oh no it's not working
>[House has an epiphany relating to some random contrived interaction that had nothing to do with the patient]
>patient gets better
>oh wow House you did it again you cheeky bastard
>cane-twirl
>fin

every fucking episode

>>5520324
honestly if your favorite show on Fox didn't get canceled in three seasons or less you should question why your taste seems to align with that of Fox executives and the masses of retards that watch those shows

>>5519499

>style over substance

The most meaningless, horseshit critique known to man. Especially so when discussing film. Come on you stupid pleb fag, at least try to not be such a retard.

>>5517204
>Black Mirror

Twin Peaks
Black Books
The Simpsons

that's it

The only Finnish TV show that can be considered to be high art, Harvoin Tarjolla, has qualities that /lit/ could apprecitiate.

>>5518656
>Utopia
>aussie

Are you retarded? It's definitely bad enough to come from Shitstralia, though.

>>5520324
>dislikes mindgamey tv shows
House M.D. is fucking awesome dude, probably the cleverest thing they ever put on TV. I fucking loved all those "uh, whose gonna be the sick one!" openings too.

>>5518492
First season was decent. Second was absolutely abysmal in every possible way. Regardless, it's like 1/10 as good as the original series.

>>5517099
Rome.

>>5520385
THIS is where it's at.

>>5518510
It's a commentary on all of Shakespeare's history plays, something which was pretty much left out of the shitty American remake.

>>5517664
This.

>>5520453
weaboos fuck off no one cares

>>5517664

Also voting for Legend of the Galactic Heroes along with Tatami Galaxy because they were both novels before becoming anime.

I am vouching for Carnivale and The Twilight Zone(original series), I am very surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet.

>>5518898
Exactly, I'm part of the system but for different reasons, I'm the post-ironic man.

>>5520508

I forgot The Prisoner, mostly because there is Franz Kafka references all over the place in that series.

Star Trek: TNG

Just skip through the Troy episodes.

>>5518492
>not uk version

stay pleb, tripfag

The Sopranos is fantastic.

>>5517099

>Comedy
Classic Simpsons
Monty Python
Louie

>Drama
The Sopranos
The Wire
Mad Men
True Detective
Twin Peaks

>>5519348
she sure does

but did you see the latest episode? she was cute as hell being all drunk and shit

>>5518008
The first two seasons were probably the weakest, but 6 was a little subpar too. I'd pick 3, 4 & 5 as the best run the show's had so far. Betty was a pretty uninteresting character for most of s1 and we needed to get past the Dick Whitman crap to get to the really good Don stuff.
>>5518194
I dunno, is any interpersonal/relationship drama a "soap opera" to you? Seems pretty reductive. It's no more a soap opera than The Great Gatsby, and the best bits of Mad Men tend to be pretty self-contained. The whole thing is almost more like a collection of linked short stories than a novel.

>>5520912
I described what I meant about soap opera plot devices upthread.

>>5520337
Not anon, but I think it's fair to discuss without saying "stupid pleb fag" and "retard" and all that. Why don't you try having a collaborative discussion about style and substance and argue why it's ok to favor style in film, or to have a stylish but otherwise empty film?

The Sopranos and Berlin Alexanderplatz

>>5520964
>>5520940


Classic short stories use the "worn out soap opera devices" you describe pretty frequently. I could easily level those kinds of accusations against The Lady With the Dog or The Man Who Would Be King. You've basically just described a way of watching the show - for the emotional peaks, the basic arcs, and nothing else - not an actual flaw in the structure or texture that put those peaks into context and nuance, and so give them human depth. The thing is, the "soap opera devices" in soap operas aren't tied to excellent cinematography and mis-en-scene, economic and realistic dialogue, the "social color," and strong acting.

>>5520457

You don't get it, sweetie. To put it in terms you could understand, pls go.

>>5520964
Tell them anon, this place has descended to the annals of faggotry, it's like anons don't even try anymore.

/lit/ if you wanna shitpost go to /b/.

>>5520940
Hm, I understand a little bit better now what you're talking about but I think you're misplacing the blame, which should be on a shitty blogging/recap "culture" which overreacts to new plot points and information with pointless speculation and gossip. Mad Men's character arcs, even when salacious, are largely pretty sensible (to me) and come from a character place rather than a puppetmaster shock factor place. Lane's suicide made sense from a character standpoint and a dramatic standpoint. There are a couple plot points where I'd agree with you to some extent, like the Betty-and-Veronica "who is Don going to marry next" stuff and the somewhat tedious splitting-off of Peggy to a different agency, then rejoining her with Don.

But in general, Mad Men's characters are remarkably consistent and speak in remarkably consistent voices. Honestly, just think about the fact that only 10 years ago a show like The West Wing was considered to have "good dialogue." Mad Men's dialogue blows it out of the water.

The Wire
Twin Peaks
secondary:
Borgen
Sopranos
Rome

/thread

Cowboy Bebop anyone?

>>5521047
There's a difference between having a story to tell and telling it and using stock plotting devices to burn up screen time (or page count).

The acting in Mad Men is ok, but the plotting is pretty soapy. The acting in The Wire is often bad. I think both have realistic details and dialogue as far as tv is concerned, but I don't think either one is necessarily realistic outside of the one hour drama format.

Reading for "emotional peaks" and "basic arcs" is like a high school Freytag's pyramid conception of drama and storytelling. I'm not saying they're not useful concepts, though.

I like Chekhov's stories quite a lot, so fuck you for comparing them to fucking Mad Men.

Read my other posts if you want a more detailed argument about realism & The Wire. As for Mad Men, I'm so used to 1960s revisionism and mythologizing that Mad Men's isn't even risible.

>>5521070
That's sensible. It could just be a matter of taste.

>>5521366
I should probably put a comma after "telling it" to be clear.

The Simpsons
Seinfeld

>>5521366

My point is that they aren't stock plotting devices if you look at the details of the show. Just because they have been used as stock plot doesn't mean some plot points are innately stock. You can use conventional characters, conventional arcs, and that sort of thing, provided they are consistent thematically, and/or consistent with the characters, which, on the whole as >>5521070 points out, they are, and, more stridently if you want, provided they are realistic.

I didn't mean to elevate Mad Men to Chekov, just to say that you can talk about The Lady with the Dog as a maudlin adultery story (man goes on vacation and falls in love, plans to leave wife, but maybe not, waaaahhh) if you are so inclined to ignore the skill of Chekov's touch.

It could be you don't like Mad Men, and that's fine, but it sure as hell isn't a soap. It's not perfect. It does deal with a lot of sordid stuff, but that's in an attempt to do on TV what "the Great American Novel" does, to capture all the important parts of human life in a particular setting. You might not like the acting, historical flaws, the tone of the show, so on, so forth, and that's fine.

Also, watching for the peaks and arcs is more eloquently described by >>5521070 a what a shitty blogging/recap "culture" does. They reformulate the show into a soap so they write speculation, WHOAAA HE DID SHE DID, think pieces, etc, on it.

No The Sopranos?

Worthy mostly because the writing really invites analysis, and is, at times, clever.

Television is for plebs.

>>5521454
this

>>5521454
⇒The Simpsons
That show is pseudo-intellectual garbage for overweight manchildren.

Rectify. Very slowly unfolding Southern Gothic story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElxiVh3Pi6Q

>>5521539
>That show is pseudo-intellectual garbage for overweight manchildren.
like /lit/? :^)

>>5521513
I've never read a great "Great American Novel." I like Something Happened, but it's pretty out there as those things go. I'd be more interested in a GAN as a genre piece, like a fairly straight melodrama like Peyton Place, than a GAN with literary aspirations. (Yes, that's not to ignore how Peyton Place touched a nerve with readers in the 50s and 60s.)

I know that stock plotting devices are used within the context of its characters, settings and themes. I almost completely object to the one hour drama format because stock plotting devices are used by writing teams to keep the wheels turning and the characters reacting.

It's ok for people to die or have affairs in a story. In the book I just read, Nella Larsen's Passing, the last part of the book deals with the specter of infidelity and and a very real (and perhaps contrived) death. I don't mind because the plot is constructed specifically for its characters and for Larsen to be dramatically didactic about her ideas of race and passing. The plot is a delicate construction designed to unwind and show specific things about people and society, after which it ends.

Soap devices, on the other hand, are used to keep the wheels moving and to give characters a reason to react. I don't read recaps of Mad Men. When I've watched it with friends or gfs, I feel manipulated by that machinations of the plot. The decisions of the writing team seem geared to audience reaction and to flattering their sense of recognition.

And this isn't a genre plotting vs. literature plotting thing. I have no problem with genre books. I read a lot of them. I even think stock devices can even be put to good use, although I would say they make a plot creaky. I just don't like their repeated use for the sake of making characters react as if the writers are just playing a game of The Sims and setting the house on fire to see their sims freak out and run around. It doesn't matter if a story has the dressing of quasi-realistic social and historical detail. In fact, I feel a little insulted if the melodrama is disguised this way.

>>5521539
I don't think The Simpsons has ever tried to be intellectual. It's comfort tv.

>>5521539

>The Simpsons is pseudointellectual

jesus christ arrow faggot, you are really stepping it up today

>>5521617
The Simpsons has actually always been quite clever. Perhaps not *intellectual* though.

>Only two mentions of Deadwood

I'm disappointed. It's such a /lit/ show.

>>5521670
Yeah but it's never tried to be intellectual, it just was naturally clever at times due to its satiric nature.

>>5521678
Fair enough. There can be some neat word play and psychological depth to it too though, but it doesn't shout it from the rooftops I suppose.

>>5521539
Why don't you just fuck off? No one cares about your opinions.

>>5517238
lol

>>5519131
George Costanza is underground man tier

>Dark and disturbed? His whole life revolves around Superman and cereal. I convinced him to act like that so that you would think I was funnier. That's how disturbed I am! If you want disturbed, that's disturbed! You can't find sickness like that anywhere. You think sickness like that grows on trees? Nobody is sicker than me, nobody. He's pretending, I'm the genuine article.

>>5521691
Exactly.
>An evening with Philip Glass? Just an evening?

the subtle humor of that show is infinite