Category Archives: TV

TV

Sons of Anarchy

sonsI borrowed season 1 of Sons of Anarchy on DVD from my cousin and all I have to say is “holy shit, I love TV so fucking much.” I watched the first episode around 7 o’clock on Saturday night and finished the season this afternoon, but if I wouldn’t have had Nolan coming over today I probably would have blown through the entire first season that night. To me that’s one of the best feelings in the world when you get really wrapped up in a show and you don’t care what time it is, you just know that you want to watch ONE MORE episode and then when that one episode ends you somehow talk yourself into one more after that. That was me last night, Sons of Anarchy is a really good show and coming from me that means something. Not because my taste in TV is impeccable (it is), but because this show is not really in my wheelhouse. Tatted up bikers and Harleys aren’t exactly what you would call my thing (fags), but there is something about this show that completely hooked me and in just one 24 hour watching period this show entered the pantheon of shows I got addicted to along with LOST, Veronica Mars, Friday Night Lights, Weeds (which ended up disapponting me and then slightly winning me back), The Wire and Baywatch Nights. (Just seeing if you were paying attention with that last one.) It’s that good. Great actors (Katey Sagal, Lloyd from Undeclared, Hellboy, Don Draper’s Jewish girlfriend, dudes from X-Files and Deadwood, the list goes on and on), not a single dull episode in season one and just a really good season-long (and the makings of a series-long) arc. Great, great show.

TV

Why you should watch Modern Family

This song rules and just about sums it up. This is one of the best new shows on television, consistently hilarious and hasn’t gotten serious yet. I hope it never does.

TV

Fall TV

rachelI LOVE TV. Really I do. I think that sometime in the past few years TV has surpassed movies as the best form of entertainment out there. Sure, there is a lot of terrible stuff out there but the good stuff. Oh, it’s so good. Here’s what I’m watching and why.

How I Met Your Mother: One of my favorite shows on TV which is crazy because my least favorite character is the lead character. I know I am not alone in thinking like this, but luckily Barney, Marshall and Lily are such great characters they make up for Ted’s lameness.

Fringe: Or as it should be called X-Files 2009. The “monster of the week” stories are hit or miss, but the overall arc episodes are super strong. I really have NO idea where the story is going which is awesome. Multiple universes? Yes, please. Pacey’s character and his dad Walter are the two best reasons to watch this show as they provide laughs and a story that might end up making me cry this year.

A Modern Family: A new series for 2009, this show has made me laugh out loud multiple times in the first two episodes. “My dad got struck by lightning, that’s why he can drink as much as he wants” is one of my favorite lines of the year. Good characters, good writing, consistently funny. High recommendation here.

30 Rock: Funniest show on television by a longshot.

The Office: I was thinking about The Office the other day and this is, what, the sixth season of the show? The premise is that people are shooting a documentary about this office, don’t they have enough footage by now? The show peaked with the Jim/Pam stuff of the first few seasons, but it still provides laughs so that’s why I watch it. I just hope they call it quits before it stops doing that.

Parks and Recreation: My new favorite show. I don’t know what happened to this show between last season and this one, but it is about 50x funnier this season. Amy Poehler rocks it as always, but her boss and especially Aziz Ansari just kill it. It’s also created by Michael Schur who used to have a wildly popular and funny baseball blog, which I hope we can say one day sounds familiar.

Dollhouse: Dollhouse is a good show, but it isn’t a great show. There might be a great show in there (see: Epitath One), but there also might not be. Joss Whedon created Firefly and Buffy and Angel so I stick around, but I sometimes wonder if I would without that. I think I’m not the only one here. This show is getting canceled soon anyways.

The Amazing Race: Giving this a shot. For a reality show, it’s awesome. I think I should go on it. Does that make me a narcissist? I think it’d be a good career move.

Glee: I love Glee. One of the best shows on TV, but I worry that they are running through stuff way too fast. For instance the “Acafellas” episode could have been a three episode arc, hell it could have been the entire second season, but instead it was condensed into one episode. They’ve already done the Finn/Rachel will-they-won’t-they thing more than Scrubs did the JD-Elliot thing which is amazing for a show five episodes into the season. I worry by the time they finally do get together nobody is going to give a crap. The football episode was another thing that seems like it could have taken place over a few episodes as opposed to one. The songs are awesome and most of the characters are excellent (I want to marry Rachel), we’ll see what happens with this one but I have really high hopes.

Community: Giving this a shot because of Joel McHale. Needs to get funnier before that’s not enough.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: At times this can be the funniest show on TV, but a lot of the time I just end up disliking the characters so much (which is actually the point) that I stop liking to watch it. It’s a weird feeling.

Mad Men: Way behind on this one, but I think that’s kind of a good thing. So many episodes of this show are just place settings for later episodes that it can be annoying. A true DVD show. One of the best shows on TV and Jon Hamm is probably my biggest man crush in the industry right now.

There’s a few more shows that I am going to give a shot. Hear some good things about The Middle and Flashforward. In January I will definitely check out Human Target and maybe V when it comes around. The new Scrubs makes me nervous, but I’ll give it a shot. I’m dying for Friday Night Lights to come back.

TV

Weeds

weedsI decided to give the show Weeds a try and thanks to the magic of Netflix online and the internet, I have watched the first three seasons and part of the fourth in the past week. (Yes, I am aware that I have watched over 24 hours of this show alone in under 7 days. I know I have a problem.) Overall, I have to say that I really, really like the show. Despite being a drug dealer Mary Louise Parker’s character comes off as one of the most realistic moms on television. She really does an amazing job with her character and it’s obvious that she deserves any awards that she has won for this show. Surprisingly she is outshined in the acting department by Elizabeth Perkins’ Celia Hodes character who may be one of the biggest bitches in the history of television. She does the most unbelievable bitchy, selfish things (starting with shipping her daughter off to boarding school in Mexico) that make you want to kill her, but you somehow never end up hating her and kind of miss her when she’s not around. Really a great job by the girlfriend from Big. Who thought you would have ever seen her again? There are some really well drawn characters on this show and some good acting performances. The writing is sharp, witty and more often than not laugh out loud funny.

That being said, this show has it’s flaws. The first two seasons are excellent and you can tell the story was mapped out very clearly. In season three and beyond this isn’t always the case. Some things are started and not re-visited without rhyme or reason. Nancy will do things that sometimes feel more like fanwank (Nancy in a thong! Nancy swimming in bra and panties! Nancy having random meaningless sex!) than a part of any overlying story. The show is still good, but it’s missing a lot of what made it the nice, quirky drama that it was in the first two seasons. Nancy crosses a line at some point and there is no going back. It’s no longer about providing for her kids, she’s in it for different reasons. (The picture I used is when I think this came to be.) It makes sense character-wise for this progression, but it’s kind of sad to see the moral gray line she was walking disappear. She still won’t mess with other drugs, only marijuana, but she’s also a lot more okay with some of the things that go along with being a drug dealer and that shouldn’t be okay. The show was recently renewed for a sixth season and I hope that the producer’s have a plan to get her back to being a good person by the time this thing is all said and done. I haven’t even made it to the fifth season yet and I’m already wondering where her breaking point is.

Regardless I highly recommend this show to anyone. It’s not a show about drug dealing or drugs, it’s a show about a family who happen to deal drugs. You don’t have to approve of what they do. It might actually be more enjoyable if you don’t because they don’t glorify drugs at all. It’s immediately shot to the top 5 of my active television show list (along with Lost, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights). Which shouldn’t be surprising considering I watch True Blood every week despite the fact that it’s a vampire show 1/50th as good as Buffy or Angel (and that’s being generous). Check it out. If you have Netflix online the first two seasons are online or I am sure if you search the internet you can find them for free somewhere.
Netflix, Inc.

TV

Five years ago Angel was canceled

Five years ago one of my favorite shows of all time, Angel, was canceled. That’s pretty crazy to me when I think about it. I didn’t love another show until two years later when Veronica Mars debuted. Of course, that was canceled about two years ago now too. It’s weird to me to think about Angel though. I used that show (correctly and incorrectly) as a metaphor for my own life so many times. In fact, I still quote an Angel line as my philosophy on life.

If there is no great glorious end to all this, if – nothing we do matters, – then all that matters is what we do. ’cause that’s all there is.

To me that was always the best thing about the show, the underlying philosophy of it and why I think it was better than Buffy in the long run. It’s weird how much things have changed since those days though. I’ve moved three different times (state-wise) since that last episode. I’ve had a kid. I’ve had a terribly failed relationship. I’m pretty much a whole different person now and the funny thing is, it still makes sense. The show still works for me. I can still use it (correctly and incorrectly) as a metaphor for my life. What more could you ask for?