Current TV watching status

Just for the hell of it, and to keep this from being a dead blog, here's my report on what TV shows I've been watching on Netflix.  Obviously this doesn't exactly count as earth-shattering news, but what the hey.

I usually don't sit and watch TV while doing nothing else, but I'll frequently have it on in the background while doing other activities.

• Finished season 5 of Doctor Who on Netflix instant watch this morning (which is why I decided to create this list).  Now I have to wait for season 6 to end so I can start queuing it.  I enjoyed it immensely.  Lynnea will not watch it because as far as she's concerned, David Tennant is the last Doctor Who.  Won't even give Matt Smith the time of day.  Poor Matt.
• I've been streaming audio of the BritCom The IT Crowd on my Android in the car.  Nearly done with the series.  The only time this does not work is when they do musical interludes with lots of laugh track, as there is clearly some visual comedy going on that I'm missing.  Almost done with the entire series.  It's enjoyable, but kind of a stupider version of Big Bang Theory, which is unfortunately not available on instant watch.  Stupider because in BBT, you can tell that the nerd jokes are authentic and loving.  In ITC, half the time they are clearly speaking complete gibberish for laughs.
• I finished rewatching (or relistening to) Buffy a while back, but I never did get through Angel.  Nearly done with Season 2 now, but it's been lower priority for me than "Who".
• Lynnea and I are now about two seasons behind Dexter.  Added Season 5 to the DVD queue as it's not available on instant.
• Got Ben hooked on Third Rock From the Sun.  One of the all-time great comedies, IMHO.  I'm saving episodes for when he's around and we have nothing else to do.
• Watched a single episode of Breaking Bad.  Promising start, I think, so I'm saving more episodes for later.  It was recommended by a coworker who, in turn loves Game of Thrones and has to put up with my constant danger of spoiling the series.
• Speaking of which, season 2 of Thrones starts up again in April, so I'll be going to my sister's again for screenings.  Woohoo!
• We still have about one and a half seasons of Quantum Leap that Lynnea's never seen, and we watch it at the rate of about one episode every two months.  That oughta take a while.

Well, that about covers it.  I know it sounds like I watch a lot of TV, but as I said, I often play it as background noise in the car and while working on other stuff, and it took me over three years to get through Doctor Who, so, you know...

I am now a fan of the Sarah Connor Chronicles

And it's only taken one episode.

I mean, they already had me with "It's a TV series based on Terminator"... so already I know this is going to involve time travel, gunplay, explosions, and evil robots. Now to that, add Summer Glau, who played River Tam on Firefly. Hey, we all know that they could just make a movie called "River Tam Beats Up Everyone" and it would be great. But beating up everyone while nude? I'm so sticking with the entire season. :)

Also, this show seems to have taken the very wise approach of wiping out the completely lousy Terminator 3 from the chronology, so, bonus.

The Daily Show returns, for real

In other political news you may have missed, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will air their first new episodes this Monday night. However, since the strike still hasn't ended, they're doing it with no writers. This isn't optimal, of course, but I've seen Jon Stewart do interviews. I still think that an ad libbed Daily Show is better than none at all.

Also, Stewart will be a guest character on The Simpsons this Sunday.

The Daily Show is back!! Well, kind of...

The Daily Show writers, who probably have nothing else to do, are producing their own mini-Daily Show, live from the picket lines, on YouTube.

The writer's strike explained

I hate the fact that there's a writer's strike; it means that I won't be seeing new episodes of The Daily Show for a while, and Boston Legal will probably go into reruns soon. My friend Possum Momma is also affected by it directly.

Joss Whedon, whose work I dearly love in all incarnations, (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, most of Toy Story) has written a great essay that explains why the strike is good and necessary. Everything Joss says must be right by definition, for he is Joss.

Also, this video is one of the most clear and concise explanations of the strike that I've heard so far:


I'm a fan of writers. With a very few exceptions, I despise reality shows and think they are a cheap, lazy way to get around the need to write compelling content. I mean, user-generated content is great and all; I like blogs (obviously) and message boards. But give me a good, solid novel any day, or a well-written non-fiction account. Give me a TV show that's smart and/or funny, as long as it's well written. There's only so much schadenfreude I can derive from watching Simon Cowell brutally crush the egos of young idiots who mistakenly believe they can sing. (This is one of the "few exceptions." The first few episodes of American Idol are loads of fun. After the field of contestants has been narrowed down to people who supposedly have "talent," not so much.)

In other news, and speaking of Mr. Whedon, a friend recently notified me that he has a new show in the works. With Eliza "Faith" Dushku. Be of good cheer.

30 Days

Morgan Spurlock's TV show, 30 Days, has just started its second season. On an upcoming episode, airing August 9 at 10 PM on the FX channel, an atheist will move in with a Christian family for 30 days.

I actually heard about this episode last year through the ACA and sent an audition tape, but didn't get the part. They wanted an atheist to go live with a Christian family for 30 days. The money sounded pretty good. However -- and here's my sour grapes rationale -- it would also have been my first semester of college, so I don't know how difficult it would have been for me to keep up with my first couple of months of classes.

I know atheists are probably feeling burned by reality TV after the Infidel Guy episode of WifeSwap, but I got a pretty good vibe from the producers of this show. I did, however, question their motive in having an atheist live with a Christian family rather than the other way around. It seemed to me from the episode I watched on the DVD they sent (a straight, uptight Christian lived with a gay San Franciscan for 30 days) that the show usually puts "normal" people in unusual living arrangements.

They assured me that they weren't looking for an atheist revelation and conversion, and they were hoping to get a very insulated fundamentalist family and give a wider perspective. I think part of the reason they didn't reverse the situation was because they didn't think they would be able to showcase a "typical" atheist lifestyle.

In the meantime, I watched the season premiere on Thursday. It was only the second episode I've ever seen, but I'm now officially hooked.

In this episode, a Cuban-American, anti-immigration Minuteman volunteer went to live with an undocumented Mexican family in Los Angeles for 30 days. When he arrived, there was a definite undercurrent of hostility, and they got into some real table-pounding arguments. By the end of the month, he had truly come to think of them as some of his best friends. He actually visited their former home in Mexico and brought back videos of their family, whom they could not visit themselves, because they would not be able to return. Some of their kids were young enough that they had never met their own grandparents.

As a general rule, I don't like reality TV. Wait, let me qualify that. I like the first month or so of American Idol, when Simon Cowell is eloquently crushing the dreams of talentless hacks. But it's a guilty pleasure. Those shows don't uplift. Shows like Wife Swap are usually a freak show: we took one insane family and switched them around with another insane family, now let's watch the sparks fly! It reminds me of how Jerry Springer the radio host often says of Jerry Springer the TV show: "Don't watch my show. It's garbage."

But 30 Days seems different to me. They didn't dehumanize either the family or the minuteman. In fact, the minuteman got plenty of chances to air his opinions, and they weren't completely crazy. Immigration is one issue where I'm very ambiguous; I understand both sides. I do think, however, that tramping around the border toting guns is more about feeling manly than about accomplishing anything constructive.

But with this guy -- they put him in a new situation, and he learned something. They couldn't have given him a better character arc if it was scripted. The family came off as very sympathetic. They understand his arguments against immigration, although he angers them. But they don't feel like they have a choice, and this feeling is strongly backed up when you see what are the living conditions that they left in Mexico. There is also a side story about the teenage daughter trying to be the first in the family to go to college. The end of the show implies that she got accepted, but she'll have a hard time figuring out where the money will come from.

When I sent in an audition tape, I seem to remember that they were going to pay $15,000 to whomever they selected. That should help.

The show was very uplifting in the end, which is something I can't say about very many reality shows.

I'm still very anxious to see how the atheist episode plays. So far, in both shows that I've seen, the person who moves out of his own environment is the one who is the most sheltered and closed minded. I REALLY hope this isn't what they're trying to get from an atheist living with Christians.

Classic Daily Show shot

I ripped this picture off the Comedy Central web site.

I have nothing in particular to say about it, just saving it for posterity.

Clarification for those who don't watch the Daily Show:

The picture is of Jon Stewart doing his usual very bad -- yet oddly hilarious -- impression of Bush.