Girls or Shameless?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
19 Comments
Honestly, Shameless is way more fun and finds me yelling “in what world do you think you’re living in?!?!” less than Girls. Girls has some great dialogue, granted, but does skew people’s perceptions of New York City 20 somethings, of which I am one, towards that of being completely unready for life. Most of the time if you’re living in NYC after 25 then you’re either completely dependent on your parents or you’ve basically made it, rather than working in a coffee shop and paying for rent with money from God knows where.
Both are romps in rather fantastical situations of different sorts, but I find that Shameless has been (though less so right now) one of the few shows on television giving an idea of what life without money is like while Girls is a good introspective of growing up in the aughts and not knowing what to do with yourself.
Plus, Shameless has Frank, who is like a car wreck.
Neither.
Why “either/or?”
So two-dimensional.
Why watch alla that nasty shit?
AG
Relax, it’s 1962 again.
We went through 1962 in a recent season of my favorite, Mad Men. I also prefer Breaking Bad and, in a more fair comparison, Enlightened, to the shows you mention here. Oh yeah, and Veep! Its first season was very enjoyable.
Anyhow…the use of this song at the end of the first episode of Mad Men was absolutely, devastatingly on point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9lizGaEYTM
After eeverything that Don had done in that episode, this choice slayed me thoroughly. One of the best moments in the history of television.
No. It isn’t.
AG
OK then, AG- just relax.
In 2013. For a moment.
Then, we can all get back to your regularly scheduled despair.
Hugs and kisses, from the Tribune audience.
There he goes, denying my genius again.
Thank you so much, centerfielddj. Keep looking away. You live…quite comfortably I am assuming by your smug tone…in the midst of the most massive criminal conspiracy of all time. Our soldiers are committing suicide in unprecedented numbers out of sheer guilt. People driven batshit crazy by the contradictions implicit in this scam system are walking into schools and shooting innocent children. Our president is blissfully okaying drone-committed murders all over the world. And you are so happy!!! I am so glad. You’re next. We all are. Wake the fuck up.
AG
Jesus. I guess I need to up the dosage:
I dunno, Booman, that was a large, concentrated dose of the wonderfully weird. Don’t go too heavy on our grimmer playmates- evidence shows the good shit might cause paranoic freakouts.
Worked for me, though. What a delightfully strange culture that let this Tim grab his 15+ minutes- thanks for sharing.
It seems to have done the trick.
Oh gee, AG, I only suggested that you relax “for a moment”. You could look it up!
Maybe your 9:31 post is the sound of you relaxing.
There are more threads coming, really there are. We were talking about televised entertainment here. Speaking of which, here’s some of the bottomest of the funk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eoSXpNZD9o
MACEO!
that’s gold.
Then there was this,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9adAljIaKYc
which created much astonishment and good humours for me.
Oh, and to finally provide my respose to your seed question: Shameless, on account of the William and particularly the Emmy and the whatnot. I hope I’m understood here.
Just watched the Series Finale of Fringe on FOX. As a diehard fan, IT WAS AWESOME. It’s definitely gonna be on my list of favorite Sci-fi series finales. Heck it’s gonna be on my list of favorite all time finales too.
Welp, first, Star Trek:The Next Generation, then, The X-files, now Fringe. WTF sci-fi program am I supposed to watch now? Here’s hoping there are more new sci-fi shows like it next season.
The Fringe finale was a little heavy on the saccharine for my taste, but honestly, I don’t know how they could have wrapped up all those threads any better. The Momcat and I decided this morning we’re going to have to watch all five seasons again just to try and catch all the clues and hints we missed the first time around.
Caught the premiere of Continuum Monday. Looks interesting. And I’ve seen some hints about Borealis that look very interesting. I’m getting vibes of Firefly meets Deadwood. I hope it makes it to American TV so I can get a look.
How come all the good TV, and especially all the good sci-fi, comes from Canada or the BBC these days? I’m jealous.
More televised crunchy, nutritions goodness: Here’s Mitch Hedberg (RIP), dealing with his difficulties (and he had ’em!) in a very genial fashion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7auvTMm47uM
Two of my favorite bits are at 4:33 and 6:06, but it’s all funny fun.
Extremely calculated weirdness, but oddly entertaining all the same:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLt-PN7QSSE
Stick around for the interview, and smell the contempt.