Thursday, April 26, 2018

Thursday Movie Picks #198: TMP Television Edition - Failed to get a Second Season



Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five titles and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is TMP Television Edition - Failed to get a Second Season (excluding mini-series/limited series where it was meant to be just one season)

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Hey, it's my favorite Thursday of the month: the TV edition! This week it's TV shows that unfortunately did not get renewed which always sucks when the first season ended with a cliffhanger. Most of my picks today are series that are more than 15 years old, so my memory of them is very poor, but I did like them and had wanted to see a second season.

American Gothic (1995-1996)
I remember this as being very creepy. Most of the plot escapes me now just that it had a scary sheriff, a sort of devil-like character with supernatural powers, trying to control a young orphan boy who has a very thick southern accent.

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)
I re-watched this recently and I think it has aged very well. Still found it very funny. What sets it apart from most teen shows is its focus on the "freaks and geeks", none of the main characters are the popular kids. Such a pity it did not get a second season.

Undeclared (2001-2002)
This was the other Judd Apatow series that got cancelled after one season, this time a college series that was just as funny and had some of the cast of Freaks and Geeks.

Pasadena (2001) 
A teen girl discovers her wealthy family may be hiding some terrible secrets. The thing I remember most is that there was something that was left unresolved in the last episode and I had so wanted to see a new season only to learn that it had been cancelled.

The Returned (2015)
A remake of the French series, which I heard was better, about deceased locals returning. However, I had not seen the original so I can't compare. I thought this remake was a decent series, much better than the other series with a similar premise that had aired about the same period - Resurrection. The Returned ended with things starting to go wrong and with no explanation yet why the deceased have returned, so I was very disappointed when it was not renewed.

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10 comments:

  1. The only one I watched with any sort of regularity was American Gothic which I never missed. I'm not much for horror but it was more suspenseful than anything else. A great look and atmosphere and absolutely killer performances by Gary Cole as the unsettling often downright evil sheriff and Lucas Black as the young boy. I really thought he would have an enormous career since he was so talented but it didn't happen.

    I never watched The Returned but did see a few eps of Resurrection but it didn't work for me.

    I have a bad track record with series, usually I get into one and it only lasts a season so I had several to choose from this week.

    Awake (2012)-LAPD Detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs) is involved in a serious car accident with his family and when he awakes finds himself in two different realities. In the first his wife Hannah has survived the crash, in the second his son Rex but Michael can’t tell which is his true waking life. To try and help him place himself he wears a red wristband in the first and a green in the second and consults a different therapist in each. They are the only ones aware of his problems which leads to issues with his team at work. But Michael has become extraordinarily good at solving crimes since he is able to use details and clues he gleans from both realities. Complex, sometimes disorienting (there are times where Michael is dreaming within a dream and so forth) series had a great performance by Isaacs in the lead but required an attention investment that might have been too much for viewers.

    Forever (2014)-In 1814 35 year old Dr. Henry Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd) is killed while trying to free slaves from a slave ship but something happens whilst he’s in the water and he reemerges alive, unharmed, naked and immortal-a pattern that is repeated whenever he dies. Jump forward 200 years and Henry is now a New York City medical examiner who uses his centuries of accrued knowledge to help solve crimes while he searches for the key to his immorality. A widower he lives over an antique shop owned by his 80 year old “son” Abraham (Judd Hirsch) who he and his late wife rescued from a concentration camp as a child. But Henry has an enemy-Adam (Burn Gorman) a 2000 year old immortal who thinks he might have found an answer to releasing them from their plight and tries to force Henry to help him. Not as complicated as it sounds this was a fun show full of quirky characters and a fantastic team in Gruffudd and Hirsch who played off each other so well.

    Rake (2014)-Keegan Deane (Greg Kinnear) is a criminal defense lawyer and reprobate whose self-destructive behavior cause him no end of troubles leading to him battling wits and owing money to everyone he knows, including his ex-wife, judges, an assistant district attorney, his bookie, a brothel owner, and the IRS. His saving grace is that when he gets around to it he’s a very good attorney. Ramshackle comedy/drama was driven by the charismatic Kinnear who obviously was having a hell of a good time. Had the misfortune to air on Fox who moved it around too many times.

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    1. The boy in American Gothic, I agree he was very good in it. Perhaps not a big movie star, but he is in one of the NCIS series.

      I've seen a little of both Awake and Forever.

      Awake, while the premise is interesting, I can see why it was not renewed. How many seasons of him not knowing which is his true waking life does the audience wants to sit through.

      Forever was ok, but not memorable.

      Rake...is it a remake of an Australian series? The premise sounds familiar.

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  2. I almost picked Freaks and Geeks because I loved that show but they started c(angling the times around and I knew it wasn’t going to make it. I wanted to see American Gothic but never got the chance to. The last tv show sounds like a movie I watched whee all these people who were dead came back and people were happy to see their loved ones but started feeling scared . It was a weird movie for aure

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    1. The Returned is a remake of a French TV series which was a TV adaptation of a French movie, so that could have been the movie you saw.

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  3. I think I saw one episode of Freaks and Geeks, but that's all I got.

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  4. Freaks and Geeks is a show I have yet to finish.

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  5. The Returned was on my to watch list for ages but I never got to it. But I will, despite it only being one season.

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  6. I also chose Freaks and Geeks. I haven't seen the other films.

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