May 14 2010
Five Shows That Require(d) an Obscene Amount of Analysis
There are many types of television watchers out there. I find myself to be a total blend. What I mean is that there are times when I want to watch pointless entertainment where I can sit back and be totally dumb for a half an hour. And there are times when I truly want to be captivated and challenged.
Honestly it all depends on where your head is at. Clearly the show LOST has baffled viewers for its entirety and if there’s one show that requires thought, it’s LOST.
But what about other shows? Are there any other that need or needed the same amount of analysis? Well, personally I think there are five….
LOST
From season one viewers were questioning the show right off the bat. What the hell is this “hatch?” What is this island? What powers does it have? Is it an alternate universe? What the hell is going on? And to this day were are still painstakingly and yet happily tortured by the amount of questions we face. And I’m sure even after the show ends, we’ll be racking our brains trying to figure it out.
Arrested Development
The amount of fun little idiosyncrasies, the inside jokes, and sometimes humor that goes over your head just left a ton to be analyzed. No it’s not your regular murder mystery type of a show but I’m pretty sure everyone who watched it talked about the show for a while after they saw each episode. This is definitely one of the most underrated comedies of my generation.
Twin Peaks
On the morning of February 24, in the town of Twin Peaks, WA, logger Pete Martell discovers a naked corpse tightly wrapped in a sheet of clear plastic on the bank of a river. Following the arrival of Sheriff Harry S. Truman, his deputies, and Dr. Will Hayward on the scene, the body is discovered to be that of homecoming queen Laura Palmer. And so it went. The show became a commercial success and those of you know David Lynch can surely appreciate the amount of mystery and craziness he brings to the table.
Flash Forward
Just because the entire premise is impossible and you have to spend the whole time making it make remote sense. Thing that involve bouts of time that are impossible to figure out make the head spin. This show has a ton of that.
Battlestar Galactica
Space. Politics. Religion. This show was as mysterious as Lost for a while.
More Unreal Posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj9SbbRw4bo
funny lost parody i found this morning
I dunno if it counts as Obscene but I was a very loyal X-Files fan (until Duchovny left) and felt like there was always a lot of analysis involved.
It was only years later and much reading about political history that I learned that The West Wing was actually based on a large number of actual events. Analyzing not only the events in the show, but hunting down the parallels between those and real life events was fascinating. The government shut down in later seasons actually happened with similar results in the mid 90′s, for example. Josh Lyman was based on current WH chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, etc.
My roommate refuses to watch Arrested Development, which kinda pisses me off cause I’ve known the dude for almost 10 years & know what kind of comedy he likes.
His defense is “I saw an episode and didnt know what was going on and it wasnt funny.” But he hasnt seen any more than just the one episode.
Shit is infuriating.
I’m currently watching the entire collection for the millionth time & still finding little jokes I missed before.
@ J5
Clearly, your roommate is making a huge mistake.
Agreed, now if I can just show him the error of his ways…
I’m gonna try & get my other roommate into it that way if we start quoting the show he’ll feel lost.
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE!
You guys wanna know what I saw in MY flash forward?? The Lost finale! Muhahaha
I saw Flash Forward getting canceled in my flash forward and you know what? It came true!
There was a joke about the wire in community last night that really related to me. They were talking about a test they were taking and one of the characters, Troy, said “I got half of it which helped me get the other half” and one of the other characters, Abed, said “like the first season of The Wire” and Troy replied “just like the first season of The Wire”. It didn’t require a whole lot of analysis but the first season of The Wire sure did get confusing at times
you are missing 12 oz. Mouse. Prolly the best show ever.
I finally caught Arrested Development a few days ago on a random channel and liked what I saw. Unfortunately the next day, I watched it and was hit with a “Next time on the Epilogue”. At least the station is airing them from the first episode now, but it kind of sucks that I know some of the twists at the end.
@hun23
the “next time”s on arrested development are fake. they are just jokes and never actually happen on the next episode.
you forgot fringe! such a great show, and it gets you thinking.
@Chelsea
Yeah, I realized that when quickly skimming a FAQ of the show. I was just a little disappointed that the 3rd episode that I watched was the finale
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