Shameless ! (what you think?)

The mom surrogate/sister-bourgeois car thief love story is the most numbingly "warm" element, but fortunately James McAvoy's lips and eyes are sufficiently transporting.

I got the second series for chrimbo and I'm going through it. But the best by far was the new year's 2006 episode.

the whole stupid show! its so heavy handed

(xpost)

anyway, yeah - otm. it's usually quite devasting when that happens because the show carries you along quite merrily and then there's the reckoning moment.

What a weirdly paced show. I'm still trying to digest the first episode.

Argh, got really into the first season when it was on BBC America ages ago and it never came back! I'm sick of How Clean Is Your House and Coupling reruns!

mickey is my number one crush

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/S/shameless/images/pictures/ontheset/gallerynumbertwo/9.jpg

kinda like the US show (much better when Frank is kept to a minimum) - should I start watching the UK version on Netflix?

I just plowed through all three seasons of the US version in about two weeks. I love this show!

Shit, now I need something else to watch.

this show is great. william h macy is the perfect scoundrel; horrible yet at the same time somehow endearing, sometimes.

don't know if anybody is still watching this show but this season really was great (a bit less the whole orange is the new black bits though). the characters are really enjoyable even if the stories are kind of over the top. loved mickey coming out and how kevin's been handling it

Started watching it after only having seen a couple of episodes of the UK one. I think I thought the mother living in the van outside the house was a constant i'd seen so little of it.
But it is pretty great. UK one that is.
NOw have 9 series of it available and have watched 1st one and 1 episode of 2nd.

Think I may have seen one episode of the US one too.

I've just watched as far as Sheila leaving in series 4 and the next couple of episodes seem to be unbelievably naff. I was watching them after having a few drinks yesterday but they really did seem to have gone majorly downhill from the first 3 seasons at least.
I'm just wondering if the show ever recovered. & not sure how much more of it I'm going to watch before abandoning it.

Googling when it jumped the shark I see several comments about it having done so a long time before it was cancelled but for it to retain an audience for another 7 seasons after the ones I watched last night to mean it kept getting recommissioned for a new series seems odd. Am I just thinking too high of a tv audience's taste?

Shame it did start out seeming to be a pretty great black comedy. Not sure about what it says about attitudes to unemployment. I really don't know what the story is on Paul Abbot's politics since I know nothing about the guy. I think I noticed one episode credited to a different writer before it went downhill, not sure about my observation of that though since I've been tending to do various other things while trying to watch it.
Sheila seemed to be becoming a caricature before she left for the cruise if that is where she went. Ian seemed to be being cured of being gay in about the next episode which was one thing that had me wondering about sharks being jumped.

Wel I guess there were 3 pretty decent seasons and what looked to be the beginning of a 4th. Does it go permanently downhill when Kevin and Veronica leave?

pretty much, yeah

Now watched as far as the cashew life saving incident in season 5 and think. God how did the show from season 1 descend to this point.
Started watching the US version instead which is clearly pretty closely based on the UK scripts at the start, though retuned for a different culture.
Not sure how the benefits thing translates over there since dole is a common thing over here and seems to be far less over there.
I think they've had to introduce an incident in past work history to explain Frank which i don't think was in the UK one where it is still possible to reach into adult years without having longtime employment. Though I think they do their best to at least disguise that.

Not being as aware of the culture I'm not sure how it translates. Though maybe i'm not as aware of the original supposed culture to see what a distortion you're beginning with. Does seem to be becoming increasingly pronounced as the UK series goes along.

That cashew scene and the one straight afterwards seem to be a major low, and there are 6 series to go before it was cancelled. Does it get much worse? Or improve at all?