The Shield Season Finale (no spoilers from me)

[Brian Reed]

I feel like I need to sit in a quiet room and try to let everything that just happened settle in. It's just a fictional show. It's just make believe.

HOLY

FUCKING

SHIT

Has there EVER been a better TV show, ever?

[Your Pal, Carl]

I need to watch the whole season from the beginning. I haven't seen one episode of it yet.

[noble]

Do it now.

That was the most intense five minutes ever.

I knew what was coming, and I was hoping something would deflect it, and I was still screaming at the tv.

[Lamond]

Has there EVER been a better TV show, ever?

I like THE SHIELD. But yeah, there are better TV shows :D I understand the question was rhetorical but let's see: Nip/Tuck, The West Wing, Deadwood, ...

[noble]

I like Nip tuck, Deadwood, Lost, etc. And yes they are great shows. However I've never seen a more intense bit of television ever.

[JABSEN]

I like Nip tuck, Deadwood, Lost, etc. And yes they are great shows. However I've never seen a more intense bit of television ever.I like Nip/Tuck....No waaaaay is it even in the same class as The Shield

[mewelke]

I like Lost, but I don't think it has the consistency that the Shield has (I still haven't seen any of the most recent Shield season.) The second season of Lost has reminded me a lot of Twin Peaks after the Laura Palmer murder wrapped up, where it felt like they were sort of stumbling around looking for what the show was about. In Twin Peaks I think they were starting to find that with Wyndam Earl, one of televisions best villains, but then they were canceled. I'm hoping Lost finds its way soon. I also wonder if Lost misses David Fury a lot. He wrote "Walkabout" and "Numbers" which were my two favorites from season one, and then left the show. I can't help but think that if you removed the two worst episodes of season two, and replaced them with two episodes of "Walkabout" quality, I wouldn't be complaining about the shows consistency.

[Brian Reed]

It's pretty hard to get me emotionally involved in a piece of fiction because I understand too well how the machinery of the story works. I guess my enjoyment of a well-crafted story is somewhat the same as how a mechanic can admire how an engine is built.

But The Shield breaks down that barrier for me. It grabs me and does what I suspect most good shows do for most of their audience - it makes me care about what's happening and makes me forget that it's all make believe.



As for Lost, there's "everything happens for a reason" and there's "wouldn't it blow everybody's mind if Kate's dad was the guy who captured Sayid in Iraq?!" -- or, as the wise moan once said, "It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

[mewelke]

I find myself forgiving more in fiction for precisely the same reason. For instance, in Buffy Xander might have an utterly reprehensible line of dialogue, but then I realize that it needs to be said, otherwise someone in the audience will post all over forums and boards that "why didn't anyone think this" and poor Xander hasn't said anything all episode so he gets stuck with it. Or someone needs to say one line out of character in order to move the plot along and fit everything in forty minutes of air time, and this poor bastard gets that bit of hell.

As for Kate's Dad and Sayid, I get the sense that if Lost is being thought out at all...a big "if"...then part of the point is that these characters are amazingly connected in far more than being on the same plane.

[Brian Reed]

What really drives me nuts about Lost at the end of the day is, even if they have it planned to a T and they know the exact plot points they have to hit between now and the end of Season X to tell their whole story -- they keep confusing plot with character study.

Easily 90% of the show's episodes could have the flashbacks removed (or even swapped between episodes) and the island story wouldn't suffer one bit.

Walkabout and Numbers are prime examples of episodes where the flashbacks were part of the plot and not just writerly masturbation of putting a character through their paces.

[Lamond]

It's pretty hard to get me emotionally involved in a piece of fiction because I understand too well how the machinery of the story works. I guess my enjoyment of a well-crafted story is somewhat the same as how a mechanic can admire how an engine is built.

Interesting :-? It's quite a high prize to pay for being a writer, isn't it ? ;) And at the same time a very convincing argument not to become a gynecologist :scared:

[Busman]

I feel like I need to sit in a quiet room and try to let everything that just happened settle in. It's just a fictional show. It's just make believe.

HOLY

FUCKING

SHIT

Has there EVER been a better TV show, ever?

No. It has officially passed Homicide for me. I thought last season was amazing, this one blows that one away. I think in the 50 something episodes there have been 1 maybe 2 not so good ones, and even those were still good, just not great; one-offs that I didn't much care what happened.

I love West Wing as well, but this show is way past that. During this last show, you knew it was coming, and I sat there a sinking feeling in my stomache, my hands to my mouth, I was even holding my breath. I was stunned, shocked, actually dismayed. West Wing has the witty reparte down pat, and I love it, but The Shield is genius.

[ramtower]

I missed the last episode because of GDC. We DVRed it, so I watched it this morning, and I'm glad that I did not watch it alone in my hotel room Tuesday night. I barely kept my shit together this morning watching it with Maki, and she had already told me that she had practically cried herself to sleep after watching it herself -- and that thought alone breaks my heart. I felt like I should have been here.

Yes, that's how much the show has affected us.