BridgetSPK calling other people retarded? In the seven years I've been on this site I don't think you've ever posted anything that didn't make me weep for the species. Wasn't it you the other day who admitted to being too fucking stupid to get into Chapel Hill?

Quote :

"And you acted like there was a problem with us, like somehow we just didn't understand the direction it was going. You even told us to quit watching the show cause we'd never have any hope of enjoying it."

I won't speak for BoondockSt, but as someone who has made similar arguments -- the problem with you and your camp isn't that you don't like the show. Tastes vary, there's never gonna be a show that everybody likes. The problem is that some people came into this show, knowing what it was going to be and yet expecting and demanding it to be something else.

I swear to God, some of you assholes went to see "The Hangover" after seeing the previews and came out saying, "That movie sucked, there were too many jokes about drinking too much and there wasn't nearly enough action."

And then -- these are the ones that really get me -- there is that set of critics who hate the show, express total disgust with it, and keep watching it so they can keep complaining. "The Walking Dead" is not the only way to spend an hour on Sunday nights. You could try a range of other activities, like seeing how many pills you can swallow and chase down with boxed wine.

---

Probably a wise choice on switching up the writing staff, because there is plenty of room for improvement. I'm a little surprised, though, since AMC and so on liked what they had enough to sign on for another season. Seems to be some disconnect there.

12/1/2010 2:36:27 PM

See the thing about it is that Darabont did the vast majority of the writing anyway, so you've got to question how much of an impact it's really going to have:

Quote :

"Deadline reports that on the four of six episodes he didn’t write all by himself, Frank Darabont still felt that the Frank Darabont draft was better, co-writing or even totally rewriting them all."

http://www.avclub.com/articles/frank-darabont-decides-frank-darabonts-script-was,48444/

12/1/2010 2:38:36 PM

^^^^You reduced Van Alden to a stock character, a typical "hypocritical religious zealot."

I disagree. He is way more fascinating than that to me and one of my favorite parts of the show.

But I don't have time to rewatch the episodes so I can argue with you about it.

So I purposefully stuck with a claim of complex and fascinating, stopping short of well-developed--which based on your previous posts would invite an argument about the necessary elements of character development and your familiarity with the writers' previous work and a whole bunch of shit I don't have time for in a discussion about television.

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 2:42 PM. Reason : Grrr....]

12/1/2010 2:41:35 PM

yea i actually enjoyed the season. was it the best written show never? nah. was it entertaining? i thought so. i don't think that is 'irrationally defending it' or whatever. (if anything there might be a bit of 'irrational attacking' happening.) i more or less got what i expected out of the show. i _was not_ expecting the next mad men or whatever, despite being on AMC. props to AMC for trying something different, and (hopefully) sticking with it.

at any rate, i was entertained, which is in my opinion the point, but i don't expect it to be everyone's cup of tea. why do people that hate something think that there must be something wrong with people that don't? you can hate it, that's allowed. but it is also allowed for me to like it.

Quote :

"Probably a wise choice on switching up the writing staff, because there is plenty of room for improvement. I'm a little surprised, though, since AMC and so on liked what they had enough to sign on for another season. Seems to be some disconnect there."

yea i agree, will be interesting to see what new writers can do. such an awesome environment to write stories in, IMHO

12/1/2010 2:46:36 PM

^You are totally allowed to like it, and I'm definitely not criticizing people for liking it!!! It's the other way around--people are criticizing others for not liking it. The people who love this show are clearly the aggressors.

Quote :

"GrumpyGOP: BridgetSPK calling other people retarded? In the seven years I've been on this site I don't think you've ever posted anything that didn't make me weep for the species. Wasn't it you the other day who admitted to being too fucking stupid to get into Chapel Hill?"

Yup, that was me! As far as I know, I'm the only one who has owned up to being denied. I always make sure to mention my grades and SAT in the discussion so that way people can bash me for not getting in and bragging at the same time.

Quote :

"GrumpyGOP: I won't speak for BoondockSt, but as someone who has made similar arguments -- the problem with you and your camp isn't that you don't like the show. Tastes vary, there's never gonna be a show that everybody likes. The problem is that some people came into this show, knowing what it was going to be and yet expecting and demanding it to be something else."

I HAVE BEEN SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THIS SHOW SINCE I FIRST HEARD ABOUT IT MONTHS AGO, AND I TOTALLY LOVED THE SHOW FROM THE START! ALL OVER THIS SHOW. RECOMMENDED IT TO EVERYBODY AND TURNED IT INTO SPECIAL EVENT WITH MY FRIEND AND EVERYTHING.

And then the fourth episode almost made me gag. My friend and I were watching it later in the week, and I was pointing out how much worse it was than the previous eps, and he was like, "You're only saying that cause you already the reviews." And I was like, "No, I didn't read them so I would avoid spoilers." Sure enough, the episode ends, and I hop on over to TWW to find everybody discussing how much the episode sucked.

Of course, there were two main defenders: you and BoondockSt. Again, you two love the show so much that you were willing to let it suck--like ignoring your kid's drug problem cause you just think he's soooo wonderful. Also I find it bizarre that you aren't devastated by the potential writing changes cause apparently the show was just so good before, so good that anybody who disliked it clearly needed to stop watching and STFU.

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 3:01 PM. Reason : sss]

12/1/2010 2:58:29 PM

Quote :

"Sure enough, the episode ends, and I hop on over to TWW to find everybody discussing how much the episode sucked."

I just want to point out that by "everybody" you must mean like 4 people

Quote :

"Also I find it bizarre that you aren't devastated by the potential writing changes cause apparently the show was just so good before"

I already addressed this issue in my earlier post on this page

I don't think the writing on this show is great (nor did I really expect it to be), and there are certainly some issues they need to address but it's still a long way from terrible or the "worst written show on TV", and that kind of hyperbole and overreaction renders any legitimate criticism you may have had null and void in many people's minds.

12/1/2010 3:10:48 PM

This thread provides far more entertainment than the show.

12/1/2010 3:11:04 PM

you should also note that you are arguing with someone who is of the opinion that Boondock Saints is a good movie

12/1/2010 3:11:44 PM

But BridgetSPK likes Outsourced, so I'd call it a wash.

12/1/2010 3:16:50 PM

^JESUS CHRIST. I said Outsourced was "okay."

Quote :

"armorfrsleep: I already addressed this issue in my earlier post on this page"

Kirkman is credited with writing the fourth episode, the one that to me was the worst.

Quote :

"armorfrsleep: I don't think the writing on this show is great (nor did I really expect it to be), and there are certainly some issues they need to address but it's still a long way from terrible or the "worst written show on TV", and that kind of hyperbole and overreaction renders any legitimate criticism you may have had null and void in many people's minds."

Precisely how did you manage to take a random twitter post about "worst written show on TV" and attribute to me?

It's like the wackiest straw man ever!!!

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 3:19 PM. Reason : ]

12/1/2010 3:18:24 PM

I didn't mean to attribute that to you, it was more just a general response to the people who have been hating on the show. I realize someone reposted that from twitter, but I've seen very similar comments about this show from other posters in this thread.

12/1/2010 3:22:51 PM

side note, this is by far the longest thread i've started.

12/1/2010 4:26:19 PM

Quote :

"you should also note that you are arguing with someone who is of the opinion that Boondock Saints is a good movie"

That's when I stopped

12/1/2010 4:29:14 PM

Christ, I'm gone for a few hours and look what happens.

Quote :

"BoondockSt, it should be evident at this point that you are the retard."

If you're defending people who post on the internet in general, and most especially people who spend time posting on twitter, then you, ma'am, are the retard.

My comment was leveled at the credibility given to people hating via twitter. Say what you will about other social networks, internet forums, etc., but in my opinion, twitter is about the dumbest fucking thing out there.

Quote :

"Many people told you how awful the show was getting. And you acted like there was a problem with us, like somehow we just didn't understand the direction it was going. "

A few people, like you, expressed their own negative opinions repeatedly about all, or a large chunk of the series thus far. Perhaps TWW needs to be available in braille form so that you can read it, but I've repeatedly expressed my position that I 1) Am no apologist for the show, and 2) I've disagreed with some, but not all of the criticism that's been leveled at different points.

Quote :

"You even told us to quit watching the show cause we'd never have any hope of enjoying it."

You're right, I specifically told the small minority of people who have enjoyed an insignificant amount of the show to quit watching, rather than acting like you're forced to watch it because it has zombies in it, and then complain when you inevitably continue to not like the product.

I'm right there with those who've only had the occasional problem with the show, and my comments were fairly clearly not leveled at them.

If you enjoyed the first episode, but have disliked 2 or 3 or more episodes since, simple arithmetic indicates that you have disliked a large chunk, if not a majority of the series thus far. A simple application of statistics will tell you that you're not likely to like much more of it.

Quote :

"And now they can the entire writing staff and all you got is, "Odd move?" It's not that odd of a move...firing people who suck is kinda normal."

Regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of the show, it IS an odd move to clean house after a single season. Take Boardwalk Empire, for example. In my opinion, that series has largely been a disappointment, yet the writers still keep chugging along. There are tons of god-awful shows that continue with the same ass hats on staff (i.e. Two and a Half Men).

Quote :

"BoondockSt has been overly defensive of this show with everybody who criticizes it, not just me. To be clear, I'm not confused by his response to me. I'm confused by his basic ability to appropriately respond to information in general."

As evidenced by this particular response, I've been defensive to people like you who seem to take pleasure in being as negative as possible.

Quote :

"The writers were basically like, "Oh shit, we gotta develop theses characters and their relationship. Let's stick them in a boat and have them talk about fishing with their dad for a while. Oh yeah, we're so smart and subtle!!!" And then they were like, "I bet people are gonna have questions about how and why Merle chopped his hand off. Hey, let's just have the characters themselves answer those questions explicitly--TELL, DON'T SHOW! We can have them say stuff like, It looks like he couldn't cut through this chain so he had to cut through his hand. and He must've applied some sort of tourniquet. And let's have them repeatedly talk about how much blood Merle has lost, how serious the injury is, and how he couldn't have gotten far.""

Jesus. Have you picked up a comic book before?

Perhaps you did, and then set it back down after the writers and artists didn't spell out everything for you. Perhaps you're the kind of person who went to see X-Men and Batman Begins, and then came out bitching about how Professor X and Raz Al Ghul weren't as rounded and fleshed out as you'd like.

So that I'm clear: I'm in no way holding the writing of this show up as some shining example that kids at USC film school should get as summer reading before freshman year. But if you've taken issue with these things, and haven't seen improvement (in your opinion) over the last episode or two:

STOP WATCHING and STOP BITCHING. Even with a new writing staff, I'd make a hefty wager that things won't change in your eyes.

Look at it this way, I'm saving you an hour each Sunday night, plus the extra time that you come on here and drone on.

12/1/2010 4:39:21 PM

Quote :

"you should also note that you are arguing with someone who is of the opinion that Boondock Saints is a good movie"

Hey now, nowhere have I said that. I made my name shortly after seeing it for the first time, and I enjoyed it for what it is: a mindless action movie with a good helping of Willem Dafoe.

12/1/2010 4:40:56 PM

It is the year 2017 AD.
Society has crumbled... but the FLAME WARS lives on!

[Rocking 80s guitar riff]
FLAME WARS!

A world where opinions are battle cries and anarchy is the law of the land!

Flame Wars!
[Space robot doing a wheelie on a dirtbike]

Starring
Kurt Russell as Lt. Buck "BoondockSt" McGuffin, an ex-spacemarine cowboy who lives by his own rules!
and
Karen Allen as Lorraine "BridgetSPK" Vespa, a bounty hunter and spacebartender with the psychic powers of persuasion!

Flame Wars!
Coming to a galaxy near you this Summer!
[80s FX explosion]

12/1/2010 5:06:59 PM

^ gg

12/1/2010 5:35:34 PM

^^I would watch that movie.

Quote :

"I HAVE BEEN SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THIS SHOW SINCE I FIRST HEARD ABOUT IT MONTHS AGO, AND I TOTALLY LOVED THE SHOW..."

OK, OK, I get it, your complaints are more recent. I'll freely admit that I didn't pay extremely close attention to who started bitching and when.

I stand by my overall point, though, regarding most of the haters, and in defense of the "If you hate the damn show just stop watching it" argument.

Quote :

"Also I find it bizarre that you aren't devastated by the potential writing changes cause apparently the show was just so good before, so good that anybody who disliked it clearly needed to stop watching and STFU."

Well, for one thing I always admitted that the writing was weak. What makes the show strong in my opinion is the concept, the source material, and the look of the thing. If writing is the weak link, I'm open to the idea of tweaking it.

Again, I said the writing was weak, not the debilitating ruiner of the program some people here argue.

12/1/2010 6:25:26 PM

Quote :

"I'll freely admit that his writing doesn't capture how people actually talk, but the overall story was solid."

It was like as if a teacher made his class act out a scene explaining what they had learned from the last chapter of ZSG. I can't remember a single character, much less associated with or felt empathy for any of them.

Quote :

"And "Zionist propaganda"? Because of one, maybe two chapters"

The entire book was littered with references to how "Israel saved the world" because they love the native Palestinians, if only they would stop shooting at them boo hoo. Those two chapters in particular just read like the diary of anne frank without the good ending.

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 6:46 PM. Reason : ]

12/1/2010 6:46:12 PM

wow.

12/1/2010 6:58:55 PM

I know that Kris is starting another argument, but I'm still on about my business.

1. This is not a flame war. If anybody is flaming, it's GrumpyGOP who thinks he can kick off a conversation by announcing that I'm too stupid to get into Chapel Hill and that I make him weep for humanity.
2. GrumpyGOP, the show ain't sandwiched between Xena and Hercules on UPN Saturday afternoons. It's AMC, and like you said, it is based on some good source material...weak writing is a major, major problem. Now, if they wanna go cheesy, they can do that, but the ultracheese cannot be an accident.
3. BoondockSt, where in my post did you get the idea that I need things spelled out? I said the opposite--they spelled things out too much!! And I'm procrastinating on a paper so I will take the time to break it down for you:

"He must have cut his hand off cause he couldn't get through the chain. He must have applied some sort of tourniquet. Yeah, but he's still lost a lot of blood. Look, here's a blood trail, let's follow it...he couldn't have gotten far with an injury like that. Ah, here's a flame--he must have cauterized his wound--but he still couldn't have gotten far. He's probably in pretty bad shape with all that blood loss. But look at those zombies over there--he was strong enough to kill those zombies, wasn't he! Oh my, a broken window...I bet he went through there out on to the street. Why would he do that? With an injury like that and all that blood loss, he's probably dead by now! Yeah, but he's super strong, remember! But, still, he couldn't have gotten far!!!"

I put that in quotes because practically all of that shit was said OUT FUCKING LOUD. Just one long sequence of characters making the same observations we were making. IT WAS AWFUL--relatively awful compared to the rest of the series.

And, to be clear, in my criticism of the boat shit, I wasn't implying that they need to do a better job of characterization. But, if they are going to attempt that, they should not use some horribly contrived, artificial scene where these women discuss knots in a boat. IT IS OFFENSIVE TO THE AUDIENCE. After seeing the fifth episode, my criticism of the boat stuff goes double--all that needed to be said (about their relationship and the sadness of the new world) was captured in her apologizing to her zombie sister and shooting her in the head. But, fuck, without the boat scene, we may have had to hear more talk about how Merle couldn't have gotten far with that injury...

Your defensive attitude about the show and recommendation that people stop watching it is a sure way to get the whole thing canned. Again, you love this show enough to let it suck. The fact that they've ditched or reworked the writing staff should indicate to you something about how awful episode 4 truly was, but instead, you just find the move "odd." Your argument to support that notion is that other shitty shows, like Two and a Half Men, keep their writing staffs so it is odd for Walking Dead to clean house. Sure, but this is not Two and a Half Men!!!

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 10:04 PM. Reason : ]

12/1/2010 10:01:37 PM

For fuck's sake.

12/1/2010 10:06:52 PM

Quote :

"I can't remember a single character, much less associated with or felt empathy for any of them."

:shrug:

To each their own. I remember most if not all of the characters and related to many of them.

Quote :

"The entire book was littered with references to how "Israel saved the world""

I saw a handful of instances where other people say that Israeli paranoia probably helped them out, but overall I did not get a very positive impression of the Jewish state that exists now. But I guess if you want to see Zionist propaganda in everything you can conjure it up.

Quote :

"If anybody is flaming, it's GrumpyGOP who thinks he can kick off a conversation by announcing that I'm too stupid to get into Chapel Hill and that I make him weep for humanity."

Something I did because you called somebody else retarded.

Quote :

"the show ain't sandwiched between Xena and Hercules on UPN Saturday afternoons. It's AMC"

So the fuck what? I keep hearing, "It's AMC, it's AMC." If AMC announced that it was going to start a softcore pornography series would you people be bitching because it had too much gratuitous nudity and not enough Don fucking Draper?

Quote :

"After seeing the fifth episode, my criticism of the boat stuff goes double--all that needed to be said (about their relationship and the sadness of the new world) was captured in her apologizing to her zombie sister and shooting her in the head."

Really? The whole "I'm sorry" thing seemed as cliched as it gets for zombie movies.

12/1/2010 11:38:45 PM

This thread is getting downright unreadable.

12/1/2010 11:41:02 PM

what happened to healthy discussion? I agree with ^ - can't even get through the page to see what happened.

12/1/2010 11:43:58 PM

The summary is that I am a pathetic human being who is overly attached to obscure nerd-dom like zombie stories while BridgetSPK is a subliterate she-ape who disagrees with me.

Also Kris is an anti-semite. That statement may be factually inaccurate but it all kind of runs together at this point.

12/1/2010 11:55:13 PM

Israel quarantined itself and closed her borders in the book. I don't see that as pro or anti Israel as Cuba and other countries attempted to do the same.

12/1/2010 11:56:11 PM

this thread...

12/2/2010 12:47:29 AM

Okay folks. That's enough.

12/2/2010 7:21:09 AM

Quote :

"Israel quarantined itself and closed her borders in the book. "

DO NOT DISCUSS THE FUCKING BOOK OR COMIC OR WHATEVER THE HELL THIS WAS BEFORE THE TV SHOW IN THIS THREAD

12/2/2010 8:14:12 AM

^That's World War Z.

And can someone ban BridgetSPK for trolling in here for fuck's sake. Some of us are trying to discuss the show.

12/2/2010 8:20:20 AM

hah, the way the show is going, discussion of the comic isn't really much spoiler for the tv show

12/2/2010 8:50:05 AM

Alright guys seriously, just agree to disagree and move on.

12/2/2010 9:12:32 AM

Quote :

"This thread is getting downright unreadable."

Quote :

"The summary is that I am a pathetic human being who is overly attached to obscure nerd-dom like zombie stories while BridgetSPK is a subliterate she-ape who disagrees with me. Also Kris is an anti-semite. That statement may be factually inaccurate but it all kind of runs together at this point."

12/2/2010 9:51:10 AM

A poster named BoondockSt loves a poorly written, poorly acted TV series. Surprise surprise.

12/2/2010 10:15:49 AM

^hyuck hyuck hyuck

12/2/2010 11:04:35 AM

Quote :

"^That's World War Z."

oh ok. there have been other instances of people discussing TWD comics though.

12/2/2010 11:29:24 AM

I have avoided this thread until I got a chance to watch Sunday's episode, which was just now. Good read everybody, top notch stuff. I enjoyed the "subliterate she-ape" line.

I have nothing to contribute about the show, other than it sounded like he was listening to the Truman Show soundtrack at the CDC.

12/2/2010 11:06:17 PM

I realize this thread is getting unreadable....which I do not dispute. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

12/2/2010 11:36:05 PM

save that bullshit for chit chat

12/3/2010 12:21:48 AM

^ this show has turned into bullshit and as such is chit-chat worthy.

12/3/2010 1:29:17 AM

i ♥ this show...it's about fucking ZOMBIES, people

i'm still not sure what people are arguing about in this thread

12/3/2010 8:22:40 AM

Is a show about ZOMBIES precluded from being well-written or

12/3/2010 8:33:39 AM

what the fuck else are you gonna get excited about on a sunday night

12/3/2010 9:14:55 AM

Psych on netflix

12/3/2010 9:28:44 AM

This argument could best be saved for the offseason. Y'all got like 11 months to hash out whatever it is you're talking about.

Having finally watched the whole thing: I though Rick flipping out at the camera was really lame. It also got dark in like fifteen seconds.

12/3/2010 9:29:20 AM

I haven't read everyone's comment about episode 5 and some flaming ITT.

Anyhow, Just saw ep5 and honestly I got to say, I'm really disappointed in the aftermath of the attack. They spent too much time trying to build up drama with the dead girl and ended up wasting precious screen time, which could have been used to tell the story of getting to the CEDA/military base in a much more interesting way. The ending was stupid and to think that one CEDA scientist was left... what?

This series makes me cry. Good idea gone boring

12/3/2010 9:53:46 AM

yeah, I don't get why there was only one of the scientists left in such a secure facility. Did he lock himself in the closet? Did the others blow their brains out, as he planned to do?

12/3/2010 9:57:48 AM

if only they were making more episodes that could explain what is going on.

12/3/2010 10:02:06 AM

okay everybody, stop discussion about the show, Lokken doesn't like it

12/3/2010 10:05:19 AM