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Way OT: Cable TV Binge Watch- Love it or List it


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Every episode of Love It or List It follows the same formula.

A couple presents their living situation in the current house that they own. In most episodes, the couple is split on whether or not they want to stay in the house.

 

Interior designer Hilary Farr and real estate agent David Visentin tour the couple's home before meeting with them.

The tour usually consists of David finding mostly negative things to say about the residence while Hilary is convinced that she can work magic with whatever plans she is given

 

Thats the premise. Wife and I are hooked on watching a 'gripping ' episode every evening.

 

Hillary and David banter back and forth and its amusing. I believe they have some acting skills.

 

Many episodes take place in Virginia , Carolinas. Home price ranges $300k-700k.

 

Wife and I are sort of real estate junkies, and we enjoy the neighborhoods and home shopping

on the East coast in the above states.

 

Its fun to guess what the featured couple will decide. Home buying is highly

emotional, not always about dollar chasing. Being a numbers geek, I like guessing

what homes are worth.

 

I am not much for cable TV programming. Much of it is contrived/staged which I dislike.

 

Love It List it consolidates much home remodel/shopping time to squeeze out a 45 minute episode- understandably.

In general, it seems authentic, with some exception. Formulaic for sure.

 

Do you have some other binge worthy shows ?

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

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My wife watches this all the time. All these real estate shows follow a tight formula. Some more pieces for this show:

 

- David presents 3 gorgeous houses. Each one has some flaw that the one spouse finds fatal - too far away from current neighborhood, out of budget, yard too small, etc.

- Hillary finds something bad about the current house that must be fixed instead of giving them something she promised, because apparently she can't build in a contingency fund.

- Hillary finds at least 2 more bad things about the house and takes away more things the owners wanted. Owners are upset and discouraged.

- Hillary pulls some money out of her butt and gives back one of the things she took away.

- David amazes the house owners with what their renovated property is now worth.

- Hillary wins almost all the time as inertia wins and the owners accept the flaws in their current house over moving into the better one David found. Or does she?

 

I have read that the producers change the end of the story at their whim to create more drama. In other words, just because the couple says "love it" on the show doesn't mean they stayed in real life.

Moe

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I binged Breaking Bad right when it was entering it's 5th and last season. I consider it the best tv show I've ever seen, in fact it doesn't really seem like tv at all....more like a series of short Tarantino-esque movies.
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My wife watches this all the time. All these real estate shows follow a tight formula. Some more pieces for this show:

 

- David presents 3 gorgeous houses. Each one has some flaw that the one spouse finds fatal - too far away from current neighborhood, out of budget, yard too small, etc.

- Hillary finds something bad about the current house that must be fixed instead of giving them something she promised, because apparently she can't build in a contingency fund.

- Hillary finds at least 2 more bad things about the house and takes away more things the owners wanted. Owners are upset and discouraged.

- Hillary pulls some money out of her butt and gives back one of the things she took away.

- David amazes the house owners with what their renovated property is now worth.

- Hillary wins almost all the time as inertia wins and the owners accept the flaws in their current house over moving into the better one David found. Or does she?

 

I have read that the producers change the end of the story at their whim to create more drama. In other words, just because the couple says "love it" on the show doesn't mean they stayed in real life.

 

Eggzactly. Forumulaic or repetitive. Still entertaining.

 

I suspected the producers mess around with the couples choice , contrive it.

 

There is a 'tell ' I believe, as the couple makes a final deliberation. In their last statement or 2, they indicate a choice.

But when announcing the choice to David/Hillary, they go opposite of those prior 2 statements.

 

That also appears " productionalized " . If you like, as the wife if she has noticed this.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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I binged Breaking Bad right when it was entering it's 5th and last season. I consider it the best tv show I've ever seen, in fact it doesn't really seem like tv at all....more like a series of short Tarantino-esque movies.

 

Breaking Bad is an all time fav. I watched all 5 seasons twice.

Did you hear that Cranston and Jesse dropped a tease about another season ?

I think the tease turned out to be a beer promotion. { this crep bugs me].

 

Dexter is my all time binge fest.

 

a recent favorite was " Killing Eve". The acting is excellent IMO.

I also listened to the 2 audiobooks by the author- the books were the impetus on launching the show.

Why fit in, when you were born to stand out ?

My Soundcloud with many originals:

[70's Songwriter]

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I agree that Breaking Bad is the best ever.

 

Ill put the first season of True Detectives up there with the best of them. Same for the first season of House of Cards (I know....).

 

Better Call Saul is a worthy prequel to Breaking Bad. The storylines are good in and of themselves, and its cool to see how things evolve as the Breaking Bad time period approaches.

 

My wife and I enjoy Shameless, but you have to dig that brand of mindless entertainment. We live close enough to Chicago to get most of it.

 

Ive heard Billions is excellent, we like Paul Giamatti, and probably have that one squared-up next.

 

Our guilty pleasure as been Big Little Lies, Ill admit to enjoying these twisted-up women.

 

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

 

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I recently binge-watched Deadwood to get ready for the movie, which was good but just made me want more. I think its the best show television has ever produced.

 

Others:

 

Dexter

Ray Donovan - the last season was very good.

The Knick - short-lived, but excellent Clive Owen/Steven Soderbergh series with a great synth soundtrack.

Game of Thrones

 

Other than these occasional series my only must-see TV are Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. 60 Minutes used to be on this list but now they bore me to tears. Ive never had any desire to watch Breaking Bad or Mad Men or Lost, or any commercial broadcast shows.

The fact there's a Highway To Hell and only a Stairway To Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic numbers

 

People only say "It's a free country" when they're doing something shitty-Demetri Martin

 

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We used to watch Love It Or List It, but these shows get old. Like many other real estate-based series, (Location Location, Escape To The Country) the Brits do it best, but nothing ever gets resolved... nobody has bought anything since 2008. It's just voyeurism anyway.

 

The best binger I've seen in the past year (maybe the past 5) was The Night Of. And two seasons of BARRY (Bill Hader, Henry Winkler). Runners up: Narcos Mexico, anything written by Sally Wainright. Deadwood was great, but Sopranos still takes my pick for tops. Dated, now. Heard there may be a movie in the works.

 

 

____________________________________
Rod

Here for the gear.

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When my sister comes for a stay at my house we watch Love it or List it, Texas Flip and Fixer Upper. They are formalistic but enjoyable. We also like The Pioneer Woman and took a trip to eat at her restaurant and visit the lodge where it is filmed. I find the ranch life part of the show more interesting than the cooking. The main reason, I was raised in the hills where we only saw the sun between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Outside of that the sun was behind the hills. Sitting on the deck of the lodge and being able to see for miles was akin to being at the beach and looking at the ocean. On a related note, while traveling through Kansas I saw a train and had to pull over to watch for a while. It was traveling through a corn field and you could see the entire train from engine to caboose. Now living in the coal fields I have seen thousands of trains in my life time, but never an entire train at one time. Normally you see a small section as it crosses a road and the view of the rest of the train is blocked by hills.

 

And that leads me to another groups of shows that I like to watch on Amazon Prime, shows about travel and trains. As of late I have been particularly interested in Switzerland and their extensive train system. Would love to travel there some time.

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Penny Dreadful

Banshee

American Gods

Lucifer

 

In terms of "reality" shows like Love it or List it, I can't bear to watch them because they are so obviously scripted and edited out of order. The worst is House Hunters, where the couple almost always has already purchased one of the houses.

"For instance" is not proof.

 

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I WATCH WHILE I PRACTICE.

 

Luther (almost any British detective series)

Spiral (highly recommended)

The Americans

4 Blocks

Bosch

Deadwood

Unforgotten

 

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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Not much binging, but the current short list:

  • Jessica Jones (Netflix) -- extra points for the coolest opening theme since Park Avenue Beat
  • Person of Interest (Netflix)
  • Stranger Things (Netflix) -- but season 3 is seeming pretty Nickelodeonesque
  • Rake (Netflix)
  • Legends of Tomorrow (Netflix) (Guilty Pleasure)
  • Tales of the Unexpected (Roald Dahl stories) (Amazon)
  • Outer Limits (Amazon)

 

 

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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The Sinner: canceled

The Last Alaskans

Code Black: Canceled

Chain of Command: Canceled

Edge of Alaska: Canceled

The Brave: Canceled

Good Behavior: dono

Yukon Men: Canceled?

Fargo: Canceled?

The Last Defense: Canceled

Bering Sea Gold: Canceled

Manifest

Life Below Zero

Port Protection Alaska

Jeopardy

Greys Anatomy

Blindspot

The Blacklist

Gearz

Ransom

Xtreme Off Road

Engine Power

Truck Tech

Detyroit Muscle

The Good Docter

NCIS

Restoration Garage

FBI

New Amsterdam

Law &Order SVU

NCIS LA

Madam Secretary

Chicago PD

Bitchn' Rides

Bull

American Chopper

Building Alaska

Fantom Works: ended

911

The Resident

SEAL Team

This Old House

Ask This Old House

Yellowstone

The Code

Whiskey Cavalier

Snowfall

Holmes & Holmes

Flip or Flop

Alaska: The Last Frontier

Animal Kingdom

NCIS: The cases They Can:t Forget

Pure

The Good Fight

Suits

Pearson

Property Brothers

 

 

Triton Extreme 76, Kawai ES3, GEM-RPX, HX3/Drawbar control, MSI Z97

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I've been known to binge watch Bar Rescue Sunday nights - when Spike runs them back to back all night long. Definitely a guilty pleasure - like revisiting all the people I've run into during my 50+ years of working bars.

 

There's definitely a formula: John Taffer bursts into the club, yells and screams, floods the club with more customers than they can possibly handle, "retrains" them with strategic product placement, then remodels the club with a successful reopening.

 

The owners put up with it because of the remodel. It must be horribly demeaning personally. As for me, I just smile and nod my head... yep seen that, oh yea seen that too :D

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Penny Dreadful

... The worst is House Hunters, where the couple almost always has already purchased one of the houses.

 

What I hate about House Hunter is "John and Suzie are fresh out of college and looking for their first home. Their budget is $1,250,000 "

This post edited for speling.

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I binged Breaking Bad right when it was entering it's 5th and last season. I consider it the best tv show I've ever seen, in fact it doesn't really seem like tv at all....more like a series of short Tarantino-esque movies.

Breaking Bad was amazing.

 

Just finishing up Mad Men now. Also very good.

 

dB

:snax:

 

:keys:==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <==:rawk:

 

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I've been known to binge watch Bar Rescue Sunday nights - when Spike runs them back to back all night long. Definitely a guilty pleasure - like revisiting all the people I've run into during my 50+ years of working bars.

 

There's definitely a formula: John Taffer bursts into the club, yells and screams, floods the club with more customers than they can possibly handle, "retrains" them with strategic product placement, then remodels the club with a successful reopening.

 

The owners put up with it because of the remodel. It must be horribly demeaning personally. As for me, I just smile and nod my head... yep seen that, oh yea seen that too :D

Its basically the same formula as Gordon Ramsays Kitchen Nightmares, which I really liked (the British version. The American version sucked).

The fact there's a Highway To Hell and only a Stairway To Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic numbers

 

People only say "It's a free country" when they're doing something shitty-Demetri Martin

 

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