Cherry-picking: reasons? (1 Viewer)

[BobO'Link]

I will absolutely cherry-pick around the holidays. At Christmastime I'm watching Christmas-themed episodes exclusively. I'm assuming most everyone does that though so it's probably no revelation.

Gary "in general I try to watch in order, but it's not a hard and fast rule by any stretch" O.

I'd expect nothing else, Gary!

I'm not a huge fan of "Chrismas episodes" of most programs as they mostly seem to be a variation on 2 or 3 themes/foundations often feeling somewhat contrived or forced. It really depends on the show and/or episode but I generally avoid them, even during rewatches of loved series. I lean more towards the UK series penchant for "Christmas Specials" where they may or may not (usually not) have anything to do with the holidays. It's kind of like those "Special Episodes" that I almost always skip or even don't purchase entire seasons because that's what a show devolved into.

 

[bmasters9]

It's kind of like those "Special Episodes" that I almost always skip or even don't purchase entire seasons because that's what a show devolved into.

As on Diff'rent Strokes or The Facts of Life?

 

[BobO'Link]

As on Diff'rent Strokes or The Facts of Life?

Or Roseanne (own only 2 seasons of this one and that's more than enough) or The Cosby Show (only own it all because the MC set was real cheap - otherwise would have stopped after 4 or 5) or Home Improvement (I stopped purchasing it at S5 because of the change of tone in the show) or *any* comedy show that went dramedy for an episode or season or longer.

If you're a dramedy from the start I'm OK and might watch (depends...) but if you're a *comedy* show I don't want any drama injected to bring things down. The last thing I want is to be enjoying a comedy episode/series and have it suddenly go all maudlin.

I never liked Diff'rent Strokes and didn't like The Facts of Life enough to purchase any seasons if it.

 

[bmasters9]

I never liked Diff'rent Strokes and didn't like The Facts of Life enough to purchase any seasons if it.

My thoughts exactly-- both have always been ineligible for my DVD collection, and always will be!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

How easy is Plex to learn?

I’ve only been at it for a couple months but I was able to figure it out well enough to use it the night I set it up. There’s probably some nuance I’m missing but it’s been rock solid on playing everything back.

One tip: if you use an AppleTV for streaming, I found that the Plex app for AppleTV was kinda “meh” - but there’s an app called Infuse that does the job of playing back Plex on AppleTV so much better. If you use a Roku or whatever the regular Plex app for playback is fine on those.

 

[John Dirk]

For those of us who have cherry-picked on releases of certain shows on first-time seeing (I myself have done it as well), what was your main motivation to cherry-pick? Was it:

a. You don't like the subject matter/plot of a certain upcoming episode in the order (whether the next one or one a time off in the run), and you want to get it behind you as soon as possible;

or

b. You do like the subject matter/plot of a certain upcoming episode in the order, and you want to get to that specific one ASAP and enjoy the festivities (how it unfolds)?

(There can of course be other considerations here, and I myself have done it for both of the reasons I stated to begin with.)

For me it's always a more practical reason. Do I have the required time and am I in the correct mood to enjoy said content?" If I am then I do. If not I "pluck" it out and mentally register it to be viewed another time.

 

[bmasters9]

For me it's always a more practical reason. Do I have the required time and am I in the correct mood to enjoy said content?" If I am then I do. If not I "pluck" it out and mentally register it to be viewed another time.

Good common-sense reasoning!

 

[MatthewA]

My thoughts exactly-- both have always been ineligible for my DVD collection, and always will be!

Those are welcome at my place any time they want…but not Cosby Show. We all know why and need not reiterate it.

Unlike Claire Huxtable, at least the word "empathy" is in Mrs. Garrett's vocabulary, and unlike Theo, at least Willis sometimes puts up an actual credible challenge to Mr. Drummond's lectures, and at least Mr. Drummond, for all his faults, wasn't a glorified bully like Cliff Huxtable or prejudiced like Conrad Bain's other TV character, Maude's Dr. Arthur Harmon (who was still about 50 IQ points ahead of Archie Bunker). "I brought you into this world, I can take you out" is not funny, it's a death threat.

And at least with those shows you have a choice to watch or not watch. Sony made that choice for you with Silver Spoons. If you want to watch the Franklyn Seales/Alfonzo Ribiero years and you don't live where they're rerun when they're rerun, tough.

And at least Disney can't touch them.

 

[bmasters9]

Those are welcome at my place any time they want…but not Cosby Show. We all know why and need not reiterate it.

Unlike Claire Huxtable, at least the word "empathy" is in Mrs. Garrett's vocabulary, and unlike Theo, at least Willis sometimes puts up an actual credible challenge to Mr. Drummond's lectures, and at least Mr. Drummond, for all his faults, wasn't a glorified bully like Cliff Huxtable or prejudiced like Conrad Bain's other TV character, Maude's Dr. Arthur Harmon (who was still about 50 IQ points ahead of Archie Bunker). "I brought you into this world, I can take you out" is not funny, it's a death threat.

And at least with those shows you have a choice to watch or not watch. Sony made that choice for you with Silver Spoons. If you want to watch the Franklyn Seales/Alfonzo Ribiero years and you don't live where they're rerun when they're rerun, tough.

And at least Disney can't touch them.

Excellent counterpoint!

 

[MatthewA]

My Dad actually owned a copy of that Fatherhood book by Bill Cosby. Enough said.

Now you know why Married with Children, which was pitched to Fox as "Not the Cosbys," was such a big deal. No life lessons, no omnipotent parents, no white-collar job that makes everything affordable, no clean-cut kids who seem to learn these lessons only to forget them a week later, no false bromides, and no blind faith in the power of television to make the world a better place.

If you're a dramedy from the start I'm OK and might watch (depends...) but if you're a *comedy* show I don't want any drama injected to bring things down. The last thing I want is to be enjoying a comedy episode/series and have it suddenly go all maudlin.

Lucille Ball thought comedy and politics don't mix, yet ironically she preferred Three's Company, whose producers Don Nicholl, Mike Ross, and West were responsible for the early years of All in the Family and The Jeffersons, to those, even going so far as to host its clip show retrospective. And when she came back to TV after 12 years away from it, she acted like all the changes to TV comedy because of Norman Lear's issue-driven output and MTM Productions' character-driven output (which also ripped at least as many stories from the headlines, especially when they had shows set in journalism in the first place) had never happened. And DVD has unearthed the results.

 

[LeoA]

I'm a Facts of Life fan, but I definitely cherry pick what I watch when viewing it.

I avoid all the "extra special" episodes and to this day I still can't bring myself to even try watching any of the later episodes without Mrs. Garrett. And even with the Mrs. Garrett era of the show, there's an episode I've purposely managed to avoid watching entirely and I don't intend to change that anytime soon because of the subject matter.

I loved episodes like Cruis'n, but there's a lot of weak episodes for sure. And then there's a good number of episodes that simply are too unpleasant to watch when I feel like being entertained by a show I consider being a sitcom (like the suicide one that while well done, is hardly a fun way to spend 24 minutes).

I don't think every tv episode has to make you laugh, but I've never cared for sitcoms that occasionally decide that they want to be a drama every once in a while.

Backdoor pilots are another common reason for me skipping episodes. Other than the William Bendix episode of Mister Ed, I don't think I've ever seen one that I actually enjoyed.

 

[MatthewA]

I've always found it odd how the only shows from 1978 to 1985 launched by Tandem/Embassy that ran long enough to syndicate were shows Norman Lear wasn't actually credited on, and the shows that he actually was credited on were flops. If any show suffered the most from him taking a more corporate role in his own company and leaving the day-to-day supervision of shows to others — including present-day Disney bigwig Alan Horn — All in the Family, ironically, was it. Without Mike and Gloria, the Jeffersons, or the Lorenzos around to trigger Archie, who was left? Edith (but not for long), the bar and the revolving door of people in it, and Stephanie. You can't have him constantly losing his temper around a little girl the way you can with another adult. What started with a bang ended with a whimper. By 1982, the year of the Embassy purchase, Archie Bunker had the same status that Mickey Mouse had at his studio in 1952, and network TV now faced the same challenge from cable that movies once faced from TV itself. They could show what the FCC forced ABC, CBS, and NBC to leave to your imagination.