Come on folks, first we complain about trite sitcoms and yet another CSI and when we get something that isn't easy you fold.

My guess is that Ulysses, Moby Dick and any book that doesn't wrap up in some vanilla, lives happily ever after would be viewed as cryptic and strange by Heather.

What the hell do you want, with JFC you get great writing, characters you care about immediately and symbolism all over the place.

Maybe another 70's show will come along for you deep thinkers.

I’m not sure there’s ever a good time for an idiot-savant Christ figure to stage a dissociative fringe theater monologue on a weekly T.V. show, but Heather sure as hell didn’t have patience for it this week!

“If there were enough big, beautiful moments, or even little, poignant or sweet moments to nourish us, then fine.” Absolutely! And so far I’ve gotten plenty of those moments. Another sustaining factor is humor, which I haven’t heard many people mention but I think this show is fucking hilarious, and in a smart, absurd, and self-deprecating way. I love the peanut gallery at the hotel.. “A young Henry Kissenger.” Are you kidding? That’s fucking GOLD!

John From Cincinnati is merely the continuation of Deadwood by other means. Same heart, same moments of sweet humanity in the midst of confusion and cruelty. Hell, it’s got half the same cast now! I’m glad to see other seemingly rational and intelligent people are getting something from the show instead of bewailing their precious dramas of yore, all tied up in a sack and throwed in the river by them cruel and myopic HBO execs. Relax, watch it without trying to put all the pieces together or expecting a nice, neat, boring payoff each week (or ever, maybe! oh no!) and you might just get something out of it.

So basically the rules generally are, the show has to be on a big network or a paid network like HBO and Showtime.

Then the show has to generally stay away from interesting explorations of the human existence and just banter about the everyday crap of sex, murder, and cheap laughs.

So that leaves shows on Sci-Fi, CW, FX, TNT, USA generally off the Emmy nod list, with occasional exceptions. Plus the big networks don't want you watching shows on those smaller networks, they aren't going to give you directions to go watch them by saying how great they are.

I saw a story about how the major networks aren't getting the numbers they used too, which eventually will reduce their ad revenue, which will reduce the salaries of directors, writers and actors. None of them want to see that happen, so they want the majority of Emmy nods to go to shows that are on NBC, CBS and ABC, HBO and Showtime.

Then there are just the shows that go against the status conservative quo, so shows like The Wire and Weeds are out. People don't want to think about areas where cops make decision to stop busting dime bag dealers or a suburban mom is selling pot for whatever reasons she's doing it for (I've not watched these shows yet, they are on my Netflix listing though!)

As for JFC, I like it, but some episodes have been really really boring and I check my watch to look if it's over yet and also, the characters aren't making me care about them too much either. Mitch is an asshole, Cissy is a bitch from hell, Luke Perry is boring so is Cass, Ed O' Neil is interesting and so is Kai, but other than those folks, I really don't care if I never see most of the characters again. Heck I want the drug dealers to go away just so I can hopefully see more of Kai, Butchie and Sean.

My grandmother saw Mad Men and she says she just couldn't stomach the return to what she calls the bad ol' days, but she is interested to see how I see it since I came about 20 years after the time period this show is set in.

>that awful 60's song, "Wives and Lovers" (which features the immortal advice-to-wives, "Day after day, there are girls at the office and the men will always be men, Don't stand him up, with your hair still in curlers, you may not see him again.") :)

deering, I remember being forced to listen to that song every schoolday while my mom made breakfast. Between that and Peggy Lee singing "Is That All There Is?" it's a wonder I ever got married.

Heather...it'd be a very interesting piece if you could do a little digging into just WHY *The Wire* has been so completely ignored by the Emmys (except for one writing award for the first or second season, if I recall correctly). I'd be very interested in a hard-hitting piece on just what in hell's going on. The Wire was so *obviously* the best show on television last year. It's not even a competition. In a perfect world, *The Wire* would take every award in every category it could qualify for. The fact that it's been nominated for nothing at all just demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of the Emmys.

The standard story is that Emmy voters vote their wallets. And since The Wire is not shot in Hollywood, and does not use name Hollywood actors, it gets ignored, since very few or none of the Emmy voters will get work from show.

If that's true, and it probably is, it's about as pathetic a thing as I've heard lately. Emmy voters? If you're here, you suck.

As for JFC, I was with it until two weeks ago...then, I gave up. I went from being enchanted to feeling like my chain was being yanked. I also noticed that my enchantment diminished in direct proportion to the disappearance of the surfing sequences. In the first episode, when everything's totally fucked up, and Mitch says "let's get wet" it just made my day. Because, as a life-long surfer myself, there's nothing to beat a session to put life into perspective. It's all waiting for you when you come out of the water, but while you're out there, you're part of something much bigger, and your problems fade away.

I can't believe Milch hasn't make more out of that.

Instead, he's doing a domestic drama that makes very little sense (folks, storytelling really is important..and it's not for amateurs)...some of this I chalk up to Steve Hawk, who is one of the biggest hot-air balloons in a business full of them. If you heard him in Riding Giants (or was it Step into Liquid. I forget now) you know what I mean. Talk about a guy who takes himself too seriously..brother. He's a bad joke. When I saw he was involved, I knew there would be trouble.

I'm sorry the show is crashing. I think it had real potential, squandered by people who, apparently, don't have a David Chase or a David Simon keeping them honest, and making them remember what the point is: tell a good story.