So the Inside is more like a HBO-show than a regular network one?

My HBO watching has been Sopranos and 6FU, which I found rootable. But it's been a while -- I don't know what the landscape is like now.

I could root for Web, understand, but he's too vague right now.

I had characters to root for on Sopranos and Curb Your Enthusiasm. In a sadistic way, sure, but I liked them all the same. So I'm not sure where that distinction is coming from.

With this show...it's tough. There's no one whose head I want to get inside, and so I'm having to judge each episode entirely on its own terms. The pilot, I liked. Old Wounds, I loved. This past week, I was indifferent. Because there's no entry point character (and, as ita said, no one to root for), it's hard to see myself falling for the show as a whole. I can easily see myself falling for individual episodes, but right now, there's no character arc I'm invested in following.

My HBO watching has been Sopranos and 6FU, which I found rootable.

Carnivale was rootable too. Season two of 6FU killed all my interest in that show.

This is really not the thread for expansion on this, but for me HBO has more often than not been all brain and no heart -- and damnit, I need the heart. So the Inside is a bit like a HBO show so far, with the exception that I believe there is a heart in there. Somewhere. I can hear it beat even though I can't feel it.

Because I just don't like them? More important, I don't care what happens to a single one of them.

I hope I'm not making you feel defensive, DX. I'm interested in knowing if it's a gut reaction or specific characteristics is all.

I can't explain why I love certain humans, it tends to be a gut reaction. Same for characters, too.

I can't stand House, and that was a gut reaction right out of the gate. He makes me feel profoundly irritated, I want to smash him into oblivion. I could say it's the smug arrogance, the predictability (it's 8:30, the patient must be having a siezure...it's 8:45, House has figured out that the condition has been caused by a rare allergy to plastic lawn flamingoes) but those are qualities I can usually find enjoyably snarkworthy. It's totally a gut hate-on.

I feel pretty much the same way about House. However, there are characters in the show that I do root for, and I do enjoy Hugh Laurie, so I will occasionally watch (although I was way more likely to watch Veronica Mars).

As far as likeability goes, ita said it better than I did.

Should I be happy that The Inside increased it's rating slightly over its lead in this last week (according to Zap2it)?

You should be happy that it held through the half, which means that the people who tuned in, stayed tuned in.

Firefly lost a huge number of viewers at the half, which means people tuned in to check it out, and it didn't hold their interest. I think that fact sealed the show's fate.

I think maybe a problem with Rebecca is that she isn't relatable. I don't think we've seen one scene of her outside of work. Sometimes it's okay if you don't have that one character to root for if you have a really great one to root against. Web seems like he could be a character like that. So far all we know is that he's some kind of puppet master but I think I'd feel let down if he didn't have more of a hidden agenda than that. The first 3 episodes of many a Buffy season are forgettable. It's tough, audiences just don't give shows time to find their footing.

There can be difference between not liking characters and disliking characters. I don't have enough to go on yet for this show, but when I have failed to like characters (as opposed to disliking them) it has been the rooting thing, or at least, it has been that they didn't grab me and pull me in, in some way. I didn't think the SFU characters were particularly likable, and I don't think I rooted for any of them (perhaps Claire) but they did pull me into their stories.

You should be happy that it held through the half, which means that the people who tuned in, stayed tuned in.

Thanks. I can't imagine how someone couldn't.

So it's impossible to want to grab her hand and see her through it in these few eps, she's little more than pain!girl right now.

When you say it like this, it makes me try to imagine starting Buffy with Season 6. That's a tough sell.

Tim needs to work on that First Impression Strategy.