"Under the Dome" anyone?

[Amelia]

That's irony. People like me gave them ratings. So they screw us by not giving us what they promised.

Next time I should let the show fail and just catch it on DVD. They won't trick me again!

 

[Noomi]

We have to wait until next year to find out what happens. I don't wanna wait that long!

 

[Moonglow]

Anyone watching?

NO, not only no, but hell no, The Simpsons Movie version was much better, moved faster and was less boring.
I'm not really a Stephen King fan. My wife has every one of his books and wants to go to Maine on vacation to try and meet him. Me, I'd rather go to Amsterdam and smoke hash.

 

[Moonglow]

We have to wait until next year to find out what happens. I don't wanna wait that long!

Didn't you read the book?

 

[Noomi]

We have to wait until next year to find out what happens. I don't wanna wait that long!

Didn't you read the book?

Nope. I had a flip through and it looks boring.

 

[Moonglow]

The last mini-series I watched an liked was Roots. The one about Horacio Hornblower was ok.

 

[Sarah G]

Watched a couple of episodes, an outdated concept and the scenarios every single week got on my nerves.

I'm done.

 

[Alfalfa]

Watched a couple of episodes, an outdated concept and the scenarios every single week got on my nerves.

I'm done.

The writing is aimed at children and women.

 

[Montrovant]

The last mini-series I watched an liked was Roots. The one about Horacio Hornblower was ok.

The Dune mini-series from the ScyFy channel was good!

 

[MikeK]

The last mini-series I watched an liked was Roots. The one about Horacio Hornblower was ok.

Are you watching Homeland?

How about Boardwalk Empire?

Did you watch The Wire?

Band of Brothers?

Upstairs/Downstairs?

Downton Abbey?

The Sopranos?

All are (or were) excellent in every way; script continuity, sets, costumes, acting, musical scores. Compared to those masterpieces, productions like this "Dome" nonsense are a cheap waste of time.

Another season of Downton Abbey is almost in the can and will be running soon -- and I am looking forward with great anticipation. Everything the BBC does is good, but this one is great!

 

[Montrovant]

The last mini-series I watched an liked was Roots. The one about Horacio Hornblower was ok.

Are you watching Homeland?

How about Boardwalk Empire?

Did you watch The Wire?

Band of Brothers?

Upstairs/Downstairs?

Downton Abbey?

The Sopranos?

All are (or were) excellent in every way; script continuity, sets, costumes, acting, musical scores. Compared to those masterpieces, productions like this "Dome" nonsense are a cheap waste of time.

Another season of Downton Abbey is almost in the can and will be running soon -- and I am looking forward with great anticipation. Everything the BBC does is good, but this one is great!

None of those qualify as a mini-series I don't think. Maybe Band of Brothers or Upstairs/Downstairs, I never watched them and don't know if they were a mini-series or just a regular series.

Although to be fair, Under the Dome isn't a mini-series either.

 

[waltky]

What a lame ending.

 

[MikeK]

The last mini-series I watched an liked was Roots. The one about Horacio Hornblower was ok.

Are you watching Homeland?

How about Boardwalk Empire?

Did you watch The Wire?

Band of Brothers?

Upstairs/Downstairs?

Downton Abbey?

The Sopranos?

All are (or were) excellent in every way; script continuity, sets, costumes, acting, musical scores. Compared to those masterpieces, productions like this "Dome" nonsense are a cheap waste of time.

Another season of Downton Abbey is almost in the can and will be running soon -- and I am looking forward with great anticipation. Everything the BBC does is good, but this one is great!

None of those qualify as a mini-series I don't think. Maybe Band of Brothers or Upstairs/Downstairs, I never watched them and don't know if they were a mini-series or just a regular series.

Although to be fair, Under the Dome isn't a mini-series either.

What is the difference between a series and a mini-series?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

We have to wait until next year to find out what happens. I don't wanna wait that long!

Didn't you read the book?

Nope. I had a flip through and it looks boring.

I bought the book and just couldn't get through it.
Stephen King is of course a great story teller...but he has always tended to overwrite.
And this book is the most over-written book he has ever done. Pages and pages of describing minor events in the book, and pages of getting into constant side-bar mini-stories within the story. It was a herculean effort to get as far as I did.

As for the series...like so many of these types of low budget shows - they start getting ridiculous. Characters start doing things they would never do, and over-react to minor things. Not to mention some pretty bad acting. And the way they ended the season?? WTF was that?

 

[Montrovant]

Are you watching Homeland?

How about Boardwalk Empire?

Did you watch The Wire?

Band of Brothers?

Upstairs/Downstairs?

Downton Abbey?

The Sopranos?

All are (or were) excellent in every way; script continuity, sets, costumes, acting, musical scores. Compared to those masterpieces, productions like this "Dome" nonsense are a cheap waste of time.

Another season of Downton Abbey is almost in the can and will be running soon -- and I am looking forward with great anticipation. Everything the BBC does is good, but this one is great!

None of those qualify as a mini-series I don't think. Maybe Band of Brothers or Upstairs/Downstairs, I never watched them and don't know if they were a mini-series or just a regular series.

Although to be fair, Under the Dome isn't a mini-series either.

What is the difference between a series and a mini-series?

A regular series is longer, will almost never be more than an hour an episode, and continues for multiple seasons (given good enough ratings).

A mini-series often has longer episodes, fewer of them, and is not intended to go on for multiple seasons. It is more like a very long movie broken up into a few segments.

That, at least, is my understanding of the terms.

To use the example I gave earlier, the Dune mini-series was, if I remember correctly, three parts of two hours each.

The average series on US television is 22-24 episodes, or 10-13 episodes on premium-type channels.

British television follows a much different formula, and their regular series are often short like US mini-series are. However, there is still the difference that a mini-series is usually a one-time thing and not something which occurs over multiple seasons.

 

[DGS49]

Reading the book (as I did) would be no help here. They deviated from the book drastically, in order to set it up as a continuing series. At the end of the book, for example, Big Jim and Junior are both dead. Obviously in the series, they will continue to be the Bad Guys for the coming year.

As for Steven King's "over-writing," I long ago attributed that to his discipline as a writer. He has a personal practice of writing X words a day, and he does that even if he hasn't decided where he wants to take the main story line. So he goes off on tangents for page after page, then eventually (when he decides what to do) comes back to the main story line.

Just my theory.

 

[MikeK]

None of those qualify as a mini-series I don't think. Maybe Band of Brothers or Upstairs/Downstairs, I never watched them and don't know if they were a mini-series or just a regular series.

Although to be fair, Under the Dome isn't a mini-series either.

What is the difference between a series and a mini-series?

A regular series is longer, will almost never be more than an hour an episode, and continues for multiple seasons (given good enough ratings).

A mini-series often has longer episodes, fewer of them, and is not intended to go on for multiple seasons. It is more like a very long movie broken up into a few segments.

That, at least, is my understanding of the terms.

To use the example I gave earlier, the Dune mini-series was, if I remember correctly, three parts of two hours each.

The average series on US television is 22-24 episodes, or 10-13 episodes on premium-type channels.

British television follows a much different formula, and their regular series are often short like US mini-series are. However, there is still the difference that a mini-series is usually a one-time thing and not something which occurs over multiple seasons.

Okay.

I tend to refer to all of them as series. But since you've cleared up the difference, one very excellent BBC mini-series I neglected to mention is Parade's End. It's very well done and if they don't run it again I will buy it. That's how good it is.

It consists of only four episodes but is superb in every way.

Another really fine BBC production is Gosford Park. It isn't a series but is well worth watching for. (They run it about twice a year on PBS.)

 

[DGS49]

With nothing better to do, I watched the first two episodes of Season 2 of Under the Dome last night. Two of the main characters - one of whom was a major reason for watching the show - were killed off. But of course, since this is Steven King, just because they are dead doesn't mean they aren't going to be included in the show every week. We'll see.

The plot lines are so bizarre the writers ought to be embarrassed.