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GCR – Episode 26 – Cable TV Original Series

Wowzers it’s a GCR Episode!!! Join Kevin and Mike as they talk about their TV habits in the first part of Episode 26. Then they get into the bulk of the episode topic running down all the networks that have Original Series.

Here’s everything we discussed:

A&E: A Nero Wolfe Mystery, The Glades, The Cleaner, Breakout Kings, 100 Centre Street

Bravo: The Awful Truth, Breaking News, Significant Others

FX: Rescue Me, Sons of Anarchy, Justified, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League, Archer, Louie, The Shield, Lucky, Nip/Tuck, Over There, Damages, Dirt, The Riches, Terriers, Lights Out, Son of the Beach, Starved, Testees

ION: Ponderosa, Young Blades, Palmetto Pointe, Doc

Oxygen: Bliss, Campus Ladies, O2Be, Suburban Shootout

Spike: Blue Mountain State, Factory, Blade: The Series, The Kill Point, The Playbook,

SyFy: Being Human, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Haven, Andromeda, Battlestar Galactica, Bionic Woman, Black Scorpion, Caprica, The Chronicle, The Dresden Files, Farscape, First Wave, Flash Gordon, Good vs Evil, The Invisible Man, Mission Genesis, The Outer Limits, Painkiller Jane, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, Sliders, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe, Tremors, Welcome to Paradox

TBS: Are We There Yet, Meet The Browns, Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, The Catlins, Down to Earth, Glory Daze, My Boys, Neighbors from Hell, Safe at Home

TNT: The Closer, Leverage, HawthoRNe, Men of a Certain Age, Memphis Beat, Rizzoli & Isles, Franklin and Bash, Dark Blue, Saving Grace, Raising the Bar, Wedding Day, Trust Me, Heartland, Saved, Wanted, Witchblade, Bull, Crusade, LA Heat

USA: Burn Notice, Covert Affairs, Fairly Legal, In Plain Sight, Psych, Royal Pains, White Collar, The 4400, Beyond Reality, The Big Easy, The Dead Zone, G vs E, The Huntress, Kojak, La Femme Nikita, The Last Ride, Lost on Earth, Monk, The Net, Pacific Blue, Peacemakers, The Starter Wife, USA High, The War Next Door, Weird Science,

Geeks:

Mike “TFG1” Blanchard

Kevin “OptimusSolo” Thompson

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Steve "Megatron"

Co-Creator @GeekCastRadio | Creator @AlteredGeek | Voice Actor | Podcaster, Husband | Father | Web/Graphic Design | A/V Editor | Geek of Games, Tech, Film, TV.

15 Comments

  1. I dont even know where to start. Stuff on HBO, Showtime and ect. Believe the hype, they are really good. Dexter and Californication are EXCELLENT,True Blood, Weeds, United States of Tara, Entourage and Shameless are up there too. Episodes is actually the name of Matt LeBlanc’s new show. The Glades is a cop show more in line with Hawaii five-0 than burn notice. If your not watching Archer, your missing out. Being Human is one of my new faves, along with Franklin and Bash, Hard Times of RJ Berger and Teen Wolf. The 9 lives of Chloe King is ok too. Royal pains and White Collar are musts. I know there is a bunch I’m missing, but wanted to comment on a few.

    And last but not least…..BLUE MOUNTAIN STATE IS THE SHIT! Lol, sadly being an ex jock turned geek, that kinda of stuff really does happen. Yeah, it’s a lil exaggerated, but it’s no different that stuff like American Pie. Alot of people think it’s silly, but that kinda stuff happened at my high school.

    But hey, it’s just opinions ya know, to each their own.

  2. Believing the hype is great for HBO and Showtime shows, but as we stated if people don’t PAY additionally for those networks then alot of shows from them will be missed. Also most of the shows end up on basic cable in reruns but EXTREMELY EDITED versions which to me takes away from the true vision. Everytime I see an episode of The Sopranos on A&E I cringe at them bleeping out the curse words.

    I can agree with ya on The Glades being more of hawaii Five-O type show, at the time I wasn’t thinking right and as I’ve stated only seen previews of The Glades. I love White Collar, but royal pains is a pain in my ass. I just can’t get into that show.

    Thanks for commenting!!!

  3. So AMC was completely passed over? I know they only have a handful of shows but Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Walking Dead blow away USA and TNT in their programming. Though I can’t comment on Falling Skies.

    Pan Am and Playboy Club coming from the major Networks are copying AMC’s Mad Men with a period setting of the 1960s and male characters being corrupt and morally bankrupt.

    It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the best comedy on FX and cable right now.

    As for the question which do I prefer Broadcast or Cable shows? I say Cable is better because they at least have reruns I can watch and the only 1 Broadcast Network I watch is FOX for House, Chicago Code, Fringe, Good Guys, and Prison Break (Monday and Friday shows). Though the upcoming Terra Nova and Alcatraz are on my radar.

    I am an outlier to the major networks because I can’t stand reality shows and crime dramas that have no underlying plot lines.

  4. We left out AMC for 2 reasons:

    #1 OptimusSolo doesn’t get it in his area
    #2 they are mainly known as a Cable movie channel.

    YES they have started breaking into Original series, and I hope that they succeed in those. I’ve never had any interest in their original series, I have too much other stuff I’m watching.

    It’s always sunny just isn’t funny to me at all, but that’s just me.

    I haven’t really watched broadcast networks much because I just don’t care about any of the shows on them in the last 2 years. Reality TV I can take with a grain of salt………..but I normally watch cable TV Reality Series not stuff that’s on the big networks.

  5. Cable TV, DVD, Blu-Ray, ITunes video store, Blockbuster and Hulu owns much of their existences to to the VCR and the TV show side action market.

    If Hulu had shows form the Discovery Channel I could replace COX with it.
    I know many of you may prefer Netflix but I don’t rent enough movies to support an 1 price unlimited thing + I prefer going to the local store this is way I try as much as possible to buy the CD or DVD versions before I go buying them on Itunes.

  6. CDs are almost dead at this point. The only time I buy a CD is when I can’t find it on iTunes. Whenever I see an ad for an artist most of the time they say available for download or at retail stores everywhere. The thing is most artists and bands nowadays make “special editions” for iTunes and stuff like that and the TV ads usually only advertise the cheapest “bare bones” version of the CD. We’ll get more into this in the future on GCR……

    While I’ll never understand the appeal of DVDs through the mail where you could just go to the damn video store to get them I have to say the Netflix instant watch for $8.00 a month is an awesome service.

    Lance your everything owes it to the VCR argument could be rivaled with VCR owes it’s success to BETA machines. The evolution of how we get media over the years hsa been awesomely strange, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

    However I think I just got an idea for Episode 28 of GCR (Ep 27 is already set) So thanks!

  7. “And last but not least…..BLUE MOUNTAIN STATE IS THE SHIT! Lol, sadly being an ex jock turned geek, that kinda of stuff really does happen. Yeah, it’s a lil exaggerated, but it’s no different that stuff like American Pie. Alot of people think it’s silly, but that kinda stuff happened at my high school.”

    Um no, Blue Mountain State is one of the worst shows to ever appear on television. First of all, its writing could have been done by teenagers, second I played three sports in high school and nothing like that ever happened at my school, but even if it did the way they present the material and the acting makes that show unwatchable!

  8. Ya if it’s wasn’t for fact that their was no winner in the Audio DVD war (Super Audio CD vs DVD-Audio) their wound be no Audio-CD or CD-ROM today.

    By the way the Audio DVD war info and the VCR link came to me form the old Tech TV and per Tech TV days . John D at over Retroware TV also looked into this after an flood cursed him to throw out old video game magazines; and the AVGN looked at this old video formats in his show. The only video formant that James looked act that I never heard of was CED.

  9. We all just got lost I only meant them to help see why the Cable TV was 1st formed and what helped Cable TV networks do their job.

  10. Actually these media forms had nothing to do with Cable TV. They have to do with watching reruns of shows past not the physically watching of them. They had more so to do with the fact the studios producing the shows wanted to cash in on people liking the shows.

  11. Really enjoying you’re guys podcast including this episode.

    One thing though, I would have to disagree with the notion that shows receive more critical acclaim simply because they are on paid networks. I think it’s more that networks like HBO don’t have to abide by the same guidelines as cable or the regular networks. They have limited censorship, and give their show creators a lot more freedom. Also ratings play a smaller role in these. Shows like The Wire wouldn’t be able to exist past a few episodes on NBC, because it doesn’t get huge ratings. Though many would argue The Wire is easily one of the greatest TV shows of all time, and honestly it is. Plus these networks have fewer shows, so the ones that are created are given larger budgets.

    More freedom and bigger budgets allow them to attract huge talent like Steven Spielberg, who produced Band of Brothers, or Martin Scorsese who helped create Boardwalk Empire. (Though Spielberg also produced Falling Skies on TNT, which happens to be a great show). They treat TV as an art form and less as a vehicle to get commercial ad money.

    To get to the point of this episode I would have to say Cable currently has some of the best TV programming out there right now, and some of the worst. The worst being all the horrible reality shows. Though those shows get the big ratings, so they do serve the purpose of allowing good shows to exist.

    Network TV wins in quantity of good shows, but is out matched in quality. If you match the best of Cable with the Best of Nework, Cable wins.

    Looking at the best you have AMC. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Walking Dead are three amazing shows. Breaking Bad is possibly the best show on TV right now. Again these shows wouldn’t exist on a network like ABC, one due to ratings, two due to content. But they can exist on cable, because the numbers they do get are high for the network. (Though perhaps not for much longer since AMC is being becoming very cheap)

    I feel network TV in general has become extremely bland, and full of crime procedurals and generic sitcoms. There are a few exceptions like Community which is possibly one of the best sitcoms in recent memory, but overall you have a lot of CSI and Two and Half men. Perhaps I’m wrong, but TV networks seem to be playing catch-up.

    I don’t believe there is a network TV show that could reach the quality of acting, writing, and direction of a Breaking Bad, Mad Men, or Justified. Networks need to create shows that appeal to large audiences to ensure they can get ratings. While there are times when a show can be both popular and high quality, it doesn’t happen as often as it once did.

  12. It wasn’t for the Discovery Channel and Anime Network I wouldn’t have COX today as Jaroo, Hulu, Itunes, and Blu-ray have putty much replaced COX.

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