For those of us who spent Thursday night watching Grey’s Anatomy instead of CTV’s soap opera premiere, The Gates, our strange dream of watching fellow Columbians act like melodramatic fellow Columbians is now realized! Watch the drama unfold in the poor quality tradition of YouTube. (See the links below.) Oh the suspense!
54 Comments
@ugh i can’t tell whats worse, the acting or the script.
on the one hand, monkeys are better actors.
on the other hand, i could write a better script drunk, high and without arms
@Wow Ludicrously unwatchable, like all CTV programming.
@yes Well put, well put: fuck that shit. I concur.
@man... fuck that shit. the problem with the show is that it sucks.
@Infatuated at least Terry and Julien were hot
@the grad student best part, no contest.
@wirc The Piranesi bit was the perfect kind of pretension for Columbia: let me use it now. How is drawing like an engraving specifically like Piranesi? Drawing the steam tunnels or Lerner’s ramps, however, would be pretty Piranesian.
@alina that acceptance rate goes way up after any possible students see this…
@hmm After all the hype, I was terribly disappointed…
@Anonymous Awesome. Come on, for an entirely volunteer student production, I think it’s great. Well done.
@Yeah.... whatever, they make a lot of stupid mistakes, but that’s par for the course. They’re kids. It’s tough to make a TV show.
I just don’t understand why, when tons of people tried out, they still managed to cast a lot of impressively bad actors.
@Anonymous they weren’t THAT bad
@It was good! Good premiere, I think. Well done except that the awkward sex scene wasn’t very realistic, particularly the one-liner afterwards.
@Pretentious Snob Keep an eye out for the sloppy editing, boom in fame, faux interesting camera angles, and the director’s voice. This soap just reeks of professionalism.
@pants Which artist did Julian say that girl comparing herself to? Ferenzi? Pharenzi? Huh?
@it was Giovanni Piranesi i think. Neat guy.
@interesting you know, this actually *does* have the potential to catch the youtube wave. (certainly more than it will on ctv).
@this will be without a doubt my newest favorite guilty pleasure. yeah it’s corny, but as a soap about college kids (yay stereotypes!) I thought it was hilarious and great.
“So, do you go to Barnard?” [girl rushes off] – amazing.
@On the contrary... All the lines that fall flat fall flat exactly when they should:
“You’re a cool guy, you know that?”
[Boy awkwardly looks away.]
Also,I’ve lived abroad: the Julian stereotype is amazing. Half the people that go here, if you promise them a travelogue—or make the shadow of a promise—can be dragged off into a side room within a few minutes; I know a few who do it, and it makes me sad.
Actually, most of the stereotypes are amazing. This isn’t a blinking drama, it’s a soap.
@Wow This is stupider than I thought it would be.
How you see CC kids? Whatever dude.
@you sound like you belong in the soap, DUDE.
@grad lame, lame, lame
@i says le boo
@this is exactly how i see CC kids. this show is dead on.
@agreed “well, there’s a whole school of them”
GOOD CALL
@there are some damn fine barnard jokes out there, and they choose this crap?
come on, cc students, you can do better…
@Anonymous This was actually a lot better than I expected it to be. And the stereotypes were funny… because they’re true.
I really liked how they dressed Sarah’s friends. They were DEAD on.
For a pilot, that wasn’t half bad, it’s better than that other crap that they used to… still put on CTV.
@this blows.
@yeah, i'm with give it a chance. It may not be amazing yet. They should definitely work on obvious flubs like leaving the boom mic in the shot, but it must be tough as hell to put together 30 minutes of show with a cast and crew of undergrads who don’t get paid in locations you probably don’t get exclusive access to. I say pander a little more to the general public (e.g. more lesbian kisses, sex scenes) to build a fan base. Everyone seems to be forgetting that this is supposed to be a soap opera. Soap operas aren’t about great writing, editing, or acting, they’re about cheap thrills and exciting implausible events.
By the by, who wrote the screenplay? I’d bet Davide, but they don’t seem to explicitly say in the credits.
@ditto Some rough patches, but oh well, it’s their first episode. I enjoyed it, the cast and crew did an amazing job, I think they have some great stuff to work with and I wish them the best of luck.
@give it a chance Its just the pilot, and honestly could (and if you could, would you bother to) do any better?
@three shots every time “the middle east and asia” is said
@more brilliance: “It’s times like this I’m glad I’m an atheist.”
“Why is that?”
“Because if these guys are made in God’s made he must be a real asshole!”
@correction *God’s image
@two shots every time a piece of music plays WAY too long
@Cheers Gates drinking game
take a shot every time the acting is bad
take a shot every time the boom mike enters the shot
take a shot anyone hooks up, if its implied sex, finish your drink
take a shot anytime it’s unecessarily cheesy
please post anymore ideas trust me this show gets a lot better if you do this
@honestly this is HILARIOUS, and I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not.
“Should I be smoking in here?”
“I don’t really care – my whole family does it.”
“Are they hipsters too?”
@that's a line that could have been good if it was surrounded by better context and if the acting was better on the scene – it fell flat, just like all the lines seemed to. whatever. I don’t watch grey’s anatomy either, this could still be just as good.
@C '05 I’m not sure if this makes me want to re-live my first week of college or forget it entirely.
@its ok....but they really have to edit as well as work on screenplay. was it me or did they say “ready action” in the scene where we first see the girls?
the language is also slightly cliche.
on the bright side, they casted some attractive people. potential exists maybe?
the last thing i wanna see them do is burst into a rendition of “Roar, Lion, Roar”
Then again, i didnt get past part 2.
@yeah I heard a rumor that the producers were so displeased by julian’s acting that they are thinking of killing him off…
@yeaah man, that painter guy was hilarious
@i thought it was fun! The guy who plays Julian has a great voice. I look forward to seeing all the characters fleshed out more in later episodes, keep in mind this is just the pilot!
@lion The real star of the show seems to be the art grad student
That guy was simpley amazing
@I agree haha… yeah, I think he should have a bigger role
@roar the stereotypes are both amazing and are so explicit that they miss the boat completely:
seas girl – asian, possible lesbian
nyu girl – brown hair, big boobs, obviously jewish
pretentious moron – brown blazer
artsy fartsy kids – scarves
and the barnard jokes were both unnecessary and unfunny.
totally agree with earlier comment about how columbia kids can’t even pull off trying to act cool. these kids are just… weird. and so wrong for this.
@you forgot stereotypes? They forgot twins and jocks…
@of course Even when they’re trying to act cool in a TV show, Columbia students just can’t mask their natural awkwardness.
Who has social interactions like this: “You’re a cool guy, you know that?”
If you’re going to hit on a guy, either stick to subtlety or come out and say what you want, but don’t take the middle path and pull a non sequitur “you’re cool.”
And what’s with the chick just running off in the middle of every social encounter saying, “I gotta go”?
@leroy the guy that plays terry looks rather effeminate
@awesome NO – go watch part 3, it really picks up there.
@awesome wait… I meant part 2.
@well done um. this sucks ass.
@uhm you have got to be kidding me…
@sooo how bout that?