The great TV Shows thread! (formerly THE WIRE)

[-Jay-]

Want to know a good TV show? Monkey. And who's the lucky boy with the massive Monkey box set? Why that'll be me, courtesy of my lovely gf. Whoop whoop!

In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned.
Heavens sought order.
But the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown.
The four worlds formed again and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed. Time and the pure essence of Heaven, the moisture of the Earth, the powers of the Sun and the Moon all worked upon a certain rock, old as creation.
And it became magically fertile.
That first egg was named "Thought".
Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha, said, "With our thoughts, we make the World".
Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch.
From it came a stone monkey.
The nature of Monkey was ... irrepressible!

[rumblecat]

Have you read the book it's loosely based on?



It's totally nuts and bizarre but pretty funny as well, in an insane 16th Century Chinese sort of way.

[-Jay-]

Have you read it, rumblecat? I imagined it would be pretty archaic and unreadable in this day and age, but if it's any good, I'll cop it. There's a really good wiki article on it. The story is based around a priest who actually existed. Interesting stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_west

EDIT: The abridged version you've pictured there sounds like it's the most readable, but I'm toying with tackling one of the full translations. Hmmm ...

[rumblecat]

Yeah, I read it a few years back- I think it was the Arthur Waley translation as well. It's genuinely pretty funny- the monkey god at the start is this insane little fella on a quest for knowledge and immortality, but completely ignoring all social graces and manners, which is more entertaining than you'd expect from a book from that time period.

I thought it'd be tough going and a bit stuffy but it was actually pretty light and breezy. There were a few times though where I got a little lost and confused, especially around the middle when the story switches, but I'm not sure if that's the fault of the book or me skimming pages too quickly at times.

[-Jay-]

Cool. I'll give it a bash. Cheers for that.

[Andy Kurosaki]

Missed last night's ep due to being out with my girlfriend, will try to catch tonight's though.

Speaking of The Shield, noticed Amazon are selling most of them for £9 each, seeing as how i've never seen that either, i've bought the first series to see how i get on with it.

[Rotek]

Speaking of The Shield, noticed Amazon are selling most of them for £9 each, seeing as how i've never seen that either, i've bought the first series to see how i get on with it.

The Shield's amazing. It's a lot easier to get into than The Wire, certainly. After the first episode's cliffhanger, you'll be hooked

[Andy Kurosaki]

I caught a bit of Thursday's episode of The Wire. It involved 2 characters in a flat where a black girl had been murdered. They were putting crime scene photos around, fair enough. But for about 4/5 minutes, the only dialogue was "f#ck", Oh f#ck", "f#ck me". Nothing else was said but this. It just left me scratching my head and going "eh?". Maybe in context this part makes sense, but to me it seemed like 5 minutes of needless,witless swearing. Still, i'll rent the dv'd's from Lovefilm at some point, to see if i can get into it. I don't really watch stuff like this on TV, as it annoys me having to make time to watch it, then having to wait til the next episode. We shall see.

You were bang on about The Shield though, i'm seriously enjoying it. A brilliant first episode, which hit the ground running. An equally excellent second episode, which had me right back on Amazon to pick up series 2+3. No doubt i'll end up getting the rest soon after that.

[Sly Reflex]

I've been enjoying The Wire, it seemed to be a bit slow to begin with, but now the ball is rolling I am really enjoying it.

[SmallOfBooty]

Andy, you can't dip in and out of the Wire, it'd be like reading random pages in a book and trying to construct the story. Personally I love that scene where they solve a plot mystery by working the crime scene anew and communicate all the revelations and air of discovery via the word ****.

[mrkez]

I've been enjoying The Wire, it seemed to be a bit slow to begin with, but now the ball is rolling I am really enjoying it.

Have I ever told you how much I love you?

You'll really like season 2, it has dockers in it!

[Sly Reflex]

Sexy dockers?

[mrkez]

Sexy dockers?

Not so much.

[Sly Reflex]

Sexy dockers?

Not so much.

[dante76]

I caught a bit of Thursday's episode of The Wire. It involved 2 characters in a flat where a black girl had been murdered. They were putting crime scene photos around, fair enough. But for about 4/5 minutes, the only dialogue was "f#ck", Oh f#ck", "f#ck me". Nothing else was said but this. It just left me scratching my head and going "eh?". Maybe in context this part makes sense, but to me it seemed like 5 minutes of needless,witless swearing. Still, i'll rent the dv'd's from Lovefilm at some point, to see if i can get into it. I don't really watch stuff like this on TV, as it annoys me having to make time to watch it, then having to wait til the next episode. We shall see.

You were bang on about The Shield though, i'm seriously enjoying it. A brilliant first episode, which hit the ground running. An equally excellent second episode, which had me right back on Amazon to pick up series 2+3. No doubt i'll end up getting the rest soon after that.

I was under the impression that they were talking like that to cover up the horrendous balls up the last detective made when he rushed the scene. Quite impressed that they managed to put all that through via ****.

On a side line, my girlfriend has just decided that she'd like to watch all the sopranos, having never seen any. Off to Love Film for a few months.