TV Shows that started great and then went downhill

[indeedproceed]

I'm not going to touch Hamlet or War And Peace.

But I will extend the EXACT same criticism to LOTR as I do to ASOIAF. Harry Potter, meh. That's a weak criticsm when there is an entire world of muggles making food and Wizards with near incomprehensible wealth and power, but LOTR and ASOIAF have very similar issues, probably more pronounced in LOTR.

And Hunting and Fishing? Hunting and Fishing?!

This isn't Gary Paulsen's Hatchet here mate. This is epic high-fantasy. If you're gonna spend 2,000 words describing the differences in army standards and courses at a feast, gimme one chapter about the plight of the farmer, stressed beyond means by a demanding lord who is making money hand over fist. It's got to be more compelling than whatever bullcrap Bran is up to when he's turned into half a [dang]ed tree.

And Martin attempts to tackle the issue in part by multiple times describing the famine in the cities for all the refugees who have come for safety from those rampaging raping murdering armies.

And he goes to absurd lengths to describe how hard it is to get to the keep in the Eyrie, the nigh unassailable stronghold, but how the hell do they get eggs and crap up there? The same way? One basket at a time? Come on. It's dumb.

As much as I agree with a lot of what you are saying I'm not 100% sure he should have to devote time to explaining things that actually have happened in human history. Is the food/water situation so much worse than the situation at Machu Piccu? Plus consider Machu Piccu didn't have as good of pack animals as the Eyrie. 
Further another city that is comparable is Rome. Ancient Rome had perhaps a million people. They got food. Current day Tokyo has like 30mill and Japan has like no farm land WHATSOEVER! Granted they have modern trucks and whatnot, but I'm just not sure the food situation is central to the story. Some people would definitely rather have a good murder or affair or revenge than an explanation on how a serf is growing wheat, threshing it, baking it into bread, and then sending it on a cart with a merchant.

My frustration is 100% born of the books. And it'd be a complete waste of time for me to talk about Machu Piccu, because I'm woefully under informed there. Rome though, I know back to front.

And 90% of Rome's energies were devoted to keeping a land peaceful after they conquered them, so that sweet, sweet swag could be channelled back to Rome. What happened when grain became scarce? Power shifted.

What was the limiting factor for the worlds greatest armies throughout history? Keeping them fed. Stretch a supply line far enough and it breaks.

ASOIAF is a great example of something that started out as brilliance but has become tedious and less believable at each subsequent turn.

Lol. I have very strong feelings on this.

[indeedproceed]

The thing I hate about Game of Thrones is that the entire world seems so half-conceived. It's a weird thing to say about a world that is so enormous, but like..where are the farmers feeding these people? The armies are trapsing around raping and killing everything in sight, when you could actually be growing something, you can't because armies are running through your fields, killing your livestock and utility animals, stealing your crap, and raising your food stores. And that's for the families who have their own armies come alone. Enemies will add killing/raping your family to the list.

What are there, like 500 people left in Westeros, all intricately detailed just doin it all the time?

Is there some other kingdom who just feeds everyone while they're fighting, making a buck off both sides like some kind of mix between colonel sanders and Nic Cage in Lord of War? Probably not, because every [dang] where else there are dragons or gelded mercenaries or horse riding nomads.

I think you are looking way to deep into this.  I dont want GoT the TV show to delve into the mind of one of the millions of farmers in Westeros to explain to us how poeple are getting fed. I'm open minded enough to accept that there are a lot of farmers supporting these Kingdoms. You have probably read the books and they do touch on this, Highgarden being known as having more food then other kingdoms and using it to their advantage.

But lets not completely derail this thread.

I also accept that we might not get deeply into the economies of all the districts in Hunger Games.  And Hunger Games would be a great tv show.

Haha. I have had the EXACT same conversation about hunger games.

[incoherent]

Nip-Tuck went like 7 seasons or something but I stopped watching after the 2nd, it had a really strong 1st season.  I dont know much about the show afterwards but It started to get way to bizarre for me.

[Beat LA]

The thing I hate about Game of Thrones is that the entire world seems so half-conceived. It's a weird thing to say about a world that is so enormous, but like..where are the farmers feeding these people? The armies are trapsing around raping and killing everything in sight, when you could actually be growing something, you can't because armies are running through your fields, killing your livestock and utility animals, stealing your crap, and raising your food stores. And that's for the families who have their own armies come alone. Enemies will add killing/raping your family to the list.

What are there, like 500 people left in Westeros, all intricately detailed just doin it all the time?

Is there some other kingdom who just feeds everyone while they're fighting, making a buck off both sides like some kind of mix between colonel sanders and Nic Cage in Lord of War? Probably not, because every [dang] where else there are dragons or gelded mercenaries or horse riding nomads.

I think you are looking way to deep into this.  I dont want GoT the TV show to delve into the mind of one of the millions of farmers in Westeros to explain to us how poeple are getting fed. I'm open minded enough to accept that there are a lot of farmers supporting these Kingdoms. You have probably read the books and they do touch on this, Highgarden being known as having more food then other kingdoms and using it to their advantage.

But lets not completely derail this thread, for more ridiculously in depth GoT discussion check out the www.westeros.org forums

Plus, why bother with that on the show when the history channel features such compelling segments (sarcasm) of modern marvels like farming tech, fast food tech, grain, water (which is neither modern nor a marvel), and then finish it off with bathroom tech 1 and 2, of course  
And there's always American Eats Week.  Ugh.  I miss the real history channel.  I think that whoever is approving such programs as pawn stars, hardcore pawn (different network, but the point remains the same.  No pun intended, btw ), and now pawnography is the most obvious and public cry for help I've ever seen (although I haven't seen much haha).  Seriously, if you're addicted to pawn, get help.  Please.  Oh, and take all of that **** off of the channel while you're at it.  Thanks.

[slamtheking]

Nip-Tuck went like 7 seasons or something but I stopped watching after the 2nd, it had a really strong 1st season.  I dont know much about the show afterwards but It started to get way to bizarre for me.

completely forgot about that show -- agree that it went further and further off the rails as it continued

[incoherent]

ASOIAF is a great example of something that started out as brilliance but has become tedious and less believable at each subsequent turn.

Lol. I have very strong feelings on this.

I agree and thats why I think the Show will ultimately be better then books when all is said and done.... and this coming from someone who bought the Game of Thrones board game back in 2004.

[Eja117]

I'm not going to touch Hamlet or War And Peace.

But I will extend the EXACT same criticism to LOTR as I do to ASOIAF. Harry Potter, meh. That's a weak criticsm when there is an entire world of muggles making food and Wizards with near incomprehensible wealth and power, but LOTR and ASOIAF have very similar issues, probably more pronounced in LOTR.

And Hunting and Fishing? Hunting and Fishing?!

This isn't Gary Paulsen's Hatchet here mate. This is epic high-fantasy. If you're gonna spend 2,000 words describing the differences in army standards and courses at a feast, gimme one chapter about the plight of the farmer, stressed beyond means by a demanding lord who is making money hand over fist. It's got to be more compelling than whatever bullcrap Bran is up to when he's turned into half a [dang]ed tree.

And Martin attempts to tackle the issue in part by multiple times describing the famine in the cities for all the refugees who have come for safety from those rampaging raping murdering armies.

And he goes to absurd lengths to describe how hard it is to get to the keep in the Eyrie, the nigh unassailable stronghold, but how the hell do they get eggs and crap up there? The same way? One basket at a time? Come on. It's dumb.

As much as I agree with a lot of what you are saying I'm not 100% sure he should have to devote time to explaining things that actually have happened in human history. Is the food/water situation so much worse than the situation at Machu Piccu? Plus consider Machu Piccu didn't have as good of pack animals as the Eyrie. 
Further another city that is comparable is Rome. Ancient Rome had perhaps a million people. They got food. Current day Tokyo has like 30mill and Japan has like no farm land WHATSOEVER! Granted they have modern trucks and whatnot, but I'm just not sure the food situation is central to the story. Some people would definitely rather have a good murder or affair or revenge than an explanation on how a serf is growing wheat, threshing it, baking it into bread, and then sending it on a cart with a merchant.

My frustration is 100% born of the books. And it'd be a complete waste of time for me to talk about Machu Piccu, because I'm woefully under informed there. Rome though, I know back to front.

And 90% of Rome's energies were devoted to keeping a land peaceful after they conquered them, so that sweet, sweet swag could be channelled back to Rome. What happened when grain became scarce? Power shifted.

What was the limiting factor for the worlds greatest armies throughout history? Keeping them fed. Stretch a supply line far enough and it breaks.

ASOIAF is a great example of something that started out as brilliance but has become tedious and less believable at each subsequent turn.

Lol. I have very strong feelings on this.

and thiiiiiis is why we need a history/military history thread. Trying to think of how to create one....or two

[incoherent]

The thing I hate about Game of Thrones is that the entire world seems so half-conceived. It's a weird thing to say about a world that is so enormous, but like..where are the farmers feeding these people? The armies are trapsing around raping and killing everything in sight, when you could actually be growing something, you can't because armies are running through your fields, killing your livestock and utility animals, stealing your crap, and raising your food stores. And that's for the families who have their own armies come alone. Enemies will add killing/raping your family to the list.

What are there, like 500 people left in Westeros, all intricately detailed just doin it all the time?

Is there some other kingdom who just feeds everyone while they're fighting, making a buck off both sides like some kind of mix between colonel sanders and Nic Cage in Lord of War? Probably not, because every [dang] where else there are dragons or gelded mercenaries or horse riding nomads.

I think you are looking way to deep into this.  I dont want GoT the TV show to delve into the mind of one of the millions of farmers in Westeros to explain to us how poeple are getting fed. I'm open minded enough to accept that there are a lot of farmers supporting these Kingdoms. You have probably read the books and they do touch on this, Highgarden being known as having more food then other kingdoms and using it to their advantage.

But lets not completely derail this thread, for more ridiculously in depth GoT discussion check out the www.westeros.org forums

Plus, why bother with that on the show when the history channel features such compelling segments (sarcasm) of modern marvels like farming tech, fast food tech, grain, water (which is neither modern nor a marvel), and then finish it off with bathroom tech 1 and 2, of course  
And there's always American Eats Week.  Ugh.  I miss the real history channel.  I think that whoever is approving such programs as pawn stars, hardcore pawn (different network, but the point remains the same.  No pun intended, btw ), and now pawnography is the most obvious and public cry for help I've ever seen (although I haven't seen much haha).  Seriously, if you're addicted to pawn, get help.  Please.  Oh, and take all of that **** off of the channel while you're at it.  Thanks.

This just reminded me of another show.

The Real World.

First couple seasons of this show was groundbreaking, forcing diverse groups of people to live together and survive together. Then it quickly turned into a frat party living in a mansion for the remainder of time.

[Celtics4ever]

It would be hard for me to call the history channel a historic channel with all the alien stuff.  If you like nazis, pawnshops, pickers and aliens perhaps.

[indeedproceed]

ASOIAF is a great example of something that started out as brilliance but has become tedious and less believable at each subsequent turn.

Lol. I have very strong feelings on this.

I agree and thats why I think the Show will ultimately be better then books when all is said and done.... and this coming from someone who bought the Game of Thrones board game back in 2004.

I agree with this (that the show has a better chance of keeping up steam).

The reason why I kind of hate the series now (but will still listen to it) is that basically I'm like a bank.

I'm like a bank, but instead of lending GRRM my money, I lent him my attention. And he kept coming in, asking for more, and I gave it to him. And he came in and asked for more. And I have it to him.

But now, even though I wish Id never read the darn thing to begin with, I can't justify walking away because I've already invested like 300 hours of my time to get to this point. It's that old story , if you owe the bank 1,000 dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a million dollars, you own the bank.

[Eja117]

I love it when a mod writes something that gets auto corrected. It's just hilarious. Dang it all it's hilarious.

[Beat LA]

I mean, we're the greatest military power in the world, but the only reason we can sustain a state of perpetual war is because we've got a peaceful prosperous nation just taking up all the best farm land of an entire continent.

And Big Bang theory is utterly terrible. It's always been terrible. Just like Two and a Half Men. The show is as insightful as peak two and a half men.

Without a laugh track people wouldn't have any idea when to laugh, because the jokes are terrible.

And because we have the two greatest natural defenses of all time to protect us from invasion -- the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 

Russia, on the other hand, with the rolling plains of the steppes, hasn't been so blessed in terms of natural defenses, which has always made it susceptible to invasion (well, for those who are dumb enough to actually try it, lol).  Like us, they have, or had, the greatest bread basket in Europe in the Ukraine and elsewhere, but they could never seem to harness the bountiful resources of their agriculture, and, as we all know, this has been going on for centuries, so it wasn't just collectivization.  I'm just writing this to illustrate that our technology and expertise in regards to our agricultural production shouldn't be overlooked when comparing our food stores to those of other countries (not that you were, of course.).

[Beat LA]

What does ASOIAF stand for?

[indeedproceed]

What does ASOIAF stand for?

A Song Of Ice And Fire (the name of the series GOT is based on)

[Beat LA]

It would be hard for me to call the history channel a historic channel with all the alien stuff.  If you like nazis, pawnshops, pickers and aliens perhaps.

Well, there is history in regards to the alien stuff, although obviously some of it is pure crap.  The Nazis are a given, but the old, informative programs about them are no longer featured.  Take a show from today's lineup, for example - Nazi Gospels.  Umm, isn't that an oxymoron, lol? 

Still, there isn't anything like there used to be on there.  Jurassic Fight Club instead of Engineering an Empire?  I mean, come on.  There's nothing ever on about Egypt, the Soviet Union, Rome, World War 2, or anything like that anymore.  All you get is the classic tease program known as Brad Meltzer's Decoded, which is pure crap, American Pickers, which is nothing more than Pawn Stars combined with Hoarders, Pawn Stars (god I hate that show), and now they've got something called American Restoration, which might as well be called, "Weekend Warriors."  Ugh.  Where can I put my head through a wall? 

Who knew at the time that that Rocky and Bullwinkle movie was foretelling the future with the launch of rbtv, of which mtv is a founding partner (sarcasm)