TV Slut Report
Feb. 10th, 2008 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatAck, February...it is showing its true colors finally. Cold winds, blustery weather, and weird temperature ranges. Not my favorite month of the year. Even without the annoying Hallmark holidays, one of which I've sucessfully boycotted since college. We won't speak of it, except to hint that it takes place this week. ;-) Oh well, least I get two days off work -one this week and one next. Gotta love the Presidents days. Also got a shitload accomplished this weekend - taxes filed, cleaned house, food shopping, movie, and contacted a few people that needed contacting. Yay me!
Watched a lot of tv, yet less than usual because of lovey DVR device, which tapes things for later viewage. From what I've been reading this is turning out to be an interesting tv viewage year - we actually have not one but three suspenseful presidential races - the Republicans, the Democrats, and of course the Finale. I've no clue who's going to win this round. The frustrated poli-sci major in me is having a blast watching it all unfold.
On the fictional tv front - the WGA strike appears to finally be drawing to a close. With any luck they will be back to work on Wed. Which, according to the tv press, we'll get more episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, the Office, Supernatural, Brothers & Sisters, Mad Men (which already brokered a deal) and Smallville. No word yet on 30 Rock, House or BSG. Dirty Sexy Money, Heroes, Life, Chuck, Friday Night Lights and Pushing Daisies won't be back until next season. If I didn't list your favorite - it's because I don't watch it. Doctor Who and Torchwood are BBC so not affected. Very happy about the ones I'll get additional episodes on.
Loved Lost the last two weeks. It reminds me a great deal of a lot of the quirky sci-fantasy tv shows I watched in the 70s and 80s, with people stranded in weird locals trying to figure out which reality they were in. Course I'm a fan of psychological horror and mystery. So this helps. I think while watching Lost - you have to keep in mind this is a horror series a la Stephen King and Rod Serling. As such? It is unlikely to end on a happy note. The writers seem to enjoy tragic irony.
I'm really enjoying the new characters. It helps that I've been a fan of Jeff Fahey (who plays the drunken pilot) since well his last television series - US Marshall and a bunch of weird femme neo noir films he did. But I also like Miles (the ghostbuster con man) and Charlotte (the arrogant British anthropologist). Sort of interesting that the one they chose to kill off was the female covert ops agent - Naomi. The only one of the bunch capable of handling situations like this one. Perhaps that's why they killed her off. With Sayid, Kate, Sawyer, Danielle, Juliet, and Locke - we have more trained killers than we need.
We also got a bit more explanation on who the creepy black guy in the suite was in Hurley's flashback. The guy who informs Naomi that there aren't any survivors. Yet, has decided to put Fahey's character on the roster because he insists the footage of the dead people on the plane is false.
My guess - is that the group that came onto the island is somehow connected with the Dharma Initiative or the group that originally recruited Ben and his father, which may be why they are after Ben. It also explains why we see Charlotte finding the Dharma Initiative collar.
The fun thing about Lost is I can't really predict where they are going plot-wise. Course, I'm also brain dead from work at the moment, so not really trying to either. And it does help that the writers have a tendency to jump all over the place and not always in a logical or linear fashion. Lost may be a lot of things, but linear narrative is not amongst them. As a result, it has on occassion defied logic and been a bit on the silly side.
I have no idea why they want Ben Linus. Nor why this mystery organization has gone to such extremes to prove the plane went down in the ocean and there are no survivors. Assuming of course that's the case and the plane did not really go down in one reality, and our survivors are in another one a la Stephen King's The Langolier's. I prefer option one, it's more logical and tracks better. Option two has too many plot-holes. But that's not to say the writers didn't go for option two. At any rate, I think it makes more sense that we are in one reality, that there is a mysterious organization that is manipulating things, including people's perceptions of reality, and that the island is the key. My guess is there's something on the island that can affect the time space continunum sort of like the Bermuda Triangle is rumored to do. Creating a sort of bubble reality or zone.
As for the six survivors. Note they call them the OCeanic Six - which means they had to be on the plane manifest. That does not mean Juliet didn't get off the island or Desmond didn't or for that matter Ben. All three are off the public's radar anyhow. More than six could have gotten off, just as there are more people on the island than the one's who crashed there on the plane. My guess is that Sayid got off - because that has been Sayid's purpose from the beginning. It is all that man seems to care about at the moment. Which is why he went with Jack. He wants off that island. And Lock keeps thwarting him - first with the radio tower (that Locke blew up), then the submarine, and now Naomi. If I were Locke, I'd be a little wary around Sayid. I'm also guessing that either Jack's sister Claire or Sun got off. I'm not sure about Sawyer. Would be more interesting if Sawyer got off, just because he clearly doesn't care one way or the other at this point. Odd considering how hard he worked to get off the Island in season one. Maybe that's because he's finally managed to accomplish his goal - killing the man who destroyed his family.
Anyhow the show continues to intrigue me.
Other's I've enjoyed are Smallville (if you gave up on it two or three seasons ago, you have no idea what you are missing. It has gotten a lot more interesting. This actually may be the best season I've seen. I gave up on it after season 2, found the season with Zhod almost unwatchable, then out of curiousity tuned into last season over the summer and became intrigued. Somewhere along the way they hired good writers and the actors got a little better. The best thing they ever did was get rid of Clark's parents.) And I'm loving darkLana, Oliver Queen's Green Arrow, and the Lois arc. It explains a great deal why Clark doesn't tell Lois who he is for sooo long and why Lois doesn't quite get it. The conflict between them is the result of previous baggage. It also is doing a great job of showing why highschool love affairs rarely last.
Supernatural - haven't seen this week's episode yet. Loved last week's - in which Dean finds out that demons, all demons, were once humans - their humanity has been stripped from them by the rigors of hell. Interesting and very dark, almost Lovecraftian mythology with touches of Stephen King and urban legend mixed in. I don't find scary any more so much as intriguing.
I tried to watch Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle - but both lack the humor of Sex and The City. They also lack something else Sex had - in Sex & the City - the gals were mostly single.
They weren't into committment, almost afraid of it. Just wanted to have fun. The men had code names or nicknames - we never really knew the real ones for some of them. Mr. Big was well Mr. Big - meaning of course the size of well, you know. Everything had a sexual conotation. It made fun of the dating scene. Fun of the glamorous image of NYC. And the women were far from successful at anything. They were clutzes. Sarah Jessica Parker's character was always screwing up in some way. She was a freelance columnist for a mag with a cool apt. Totally unrealistic, total fantasy, yet her dialogue and quips - were right out of my girlfriends mouths at the time. Lipstick - has no one I can identify with. I don't know these women and this is not my city. Same deal with Cashmere. I don't like the women. I don't like their outfits. And I don't recognize their talk. I give Lipstick points over Cashmere for having better looking and more charismatic male leads - Paul Blackthorn and Andrew McCarthy. But outside of that? It isn't worth the time.
Still adoring Project Runway. Much fun. And I like the designers/designs better than last years. They are better designers, just not as melodramatic and bitchy. So the focus is more on the challenges.
Okay off to make dinner and relax before work tomorrow. Busy day.
Watched a lot of tv, yet less than usual because of lovey DVR device, which tapes things for later viewage. From what I've been reading this is turning out to be an interesting tv viewage year - we actually have not one but three suspenseful presidential races - the Republicans, the Democrats, and of course the Finale. I've no clue who's going to win this round. The frustrated poli-sci major in me is having a blast watching it all unfold.
On the fictional tv front - the WGA strike appears to finally be drawing to a close. With any luck they will be back to work on Wed. Which, according to the tv press, we'll get more episodes of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, the Office, Supernatural, Brothers & Sisters, Mad Men (which already brokered a deal) and Smallville. No word yet on 30 Rock, House or BSG. Dirty Sexy Money, Heroes, Life, Chuck, Friday Night Lights and Pushing Daisies won't be back until next season. If I didn't list your favorite - it's because I don't watch it. Doctor Who and Torchwood are BBC so not affected. Very happy about the ones I'll get additional episodes on.
Loved Lost the last two weeks. It reminds me a great deal of a lot of the quirky sci-fantasy tv shows I watched in the 70s and 80s, with people stranded in weird locals trying to figure out which reality they were in. Course I'm a fan of psychological horror and mystery. So this helps. I think while watching Lost - you have to keep in mind this is a horror series a la Stephen King and Rod Serling. As such? It is unlikely to end on a happy note. The writers seem to enjoy tragic irony.
I'm really enjoying the new characters. It helps that I've been a fan of Jeff Fahey (who plays the drunken pilot) since well his last television series - US Marshall and a bunch of weird femme neo noir films he did. But I also like Miles (the ghostbuster con man) and Charlotte (the arrogant British anthropologist). Sort of interesting that the one they chose to kill off was the female covert ops agent - Naomi. The only one of the bunch capable of handling situations like this one. Perhaps that's why they killed her off. With Sayid, Kate, Sawyer, Danielle, Juliet, and Locke - we have more trained killers than we need.
We also got a bit more explanation on who the creepy black guy in the suite was in Hurley's flashback. The guy who informs Naomi that there aren't any survivors. Yet, has decided to put Fahey's character on the roster because he insists the footage of the dead people on the plane is false.
My guess - is that the group that came onto the island is somehow connected with the Dharma Initiative or the group that originally recruited Ben and his father, which may be why they are after Ben. It also explains why we see Charlotte finding the Dharma Initiative collar.
The fun thing about Lost is I can't really predict where they are going plot-wise. Course, I'm also brain dead from work at the moment, so not really trying to either. And it does help that the writers have a tendency to jump all over the place and not always in a logical or linear fashion. Lost may be a lot of things, but linear narrative is not amongst them. As a result, it has on occassion defied logic and been a bit on the silly side.
I have no idea why they want Ben Linus. Nor why this mystery organization has gone to such extremes to prove the plane went down in the ocean and there are no survivors. Assuming of course that's the case and the plane did not really go down in one reality, and our survivors are in another one a la Stephen King's The Langolier's. I prefer option one, it's more logical and tracks better. Option two has too many plot-holes. But that's not to say the writers didn't go for option two. At any rate, I think it makes more sense that we are in one reality, that there is a mysterious organization that is manipulating things, including people's perceptions of reality, and that the island is the key. My guess is there's something on the island that can affect the time space continunum sort of like the Bermuda Triangle is rumored to do. Creating a sort of bubble reality or zone.
As for the six survivors. Note they call them the OCeanic Six - which means they had to be on the plane manifest. That does not mean Juliet didn't get off the island or Desmond didn't or for that matter Ben. All three are off the public's radar anyhow. More than six could have gotten off, just as there are more people on the island than the one's who crashed there on the plane. My guess is that Sayid got off - because that has been Sayid's purpose from the beginning. It is all that man seems to care about at the moment. Which is why he went with Jack. He wants off that island. And Lock keeps thwarting him - first with the radio tower (that Locke blew up), then the submarine, and now Naomi. If I were Locke, I'd be a little wary around Sayid. I'm also guessing that either Jack's sister Claire or Sun got off. I'm not sure about Sawyer. Would be more interesting if Sawyer got off, just because he clearly doesn't care one way or the other at this point. Odd considering how hard he worked to get off the Island in season one. Maybe that's because he's finally managed to accomplish his goal - killing the man who destroyed his family.
Anyhow the show continues to intrigue me.
Other's I've enjoyed are Smallville (if you gave up on it two or three seasons ago, you have no idea what you are missing. It has gotten a lot more interesting. This actually may be the best season I've seen. I gave up on it after season 2, found the season with Zhod almost unwatchable, then out of curiousity tuned into last season over the summer and became intrigued. Somewhere along the way they hired good writers and the actors got a little better. The best thing they ever did was get rid of Clark's parents.) And I'm loving darkLana, Oliver Queen's Green Arrow, and the Lois arc. It explains a great deal why Clark doesn't tell Lois who he is for sooo long and why Lois doesn't quite get it. The conflict between them is the result of previous baggage. It also is doing a great job of showing why highschool love affairs rarely last.
Supernatural - haven't seen this week's episode yet. Loved last week's - in which Dean finds out that demons, all demons, were once humans - their humanity has been stripped from them by the rigors of hell. Interesting and very dark, almost Lovecraftian mythology with touches of Stephen King and urban legend mixed in. I don't find scary any more so much as intriguing.
I tried to watch Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle - but both lack the humor of Sex and The City. They also lack something else Sex had - in Sex & the City - the gals were mostly single.
They weren't into committment, almost afraid of it. Just wanted to have fun. The men had code names or nicknames - we never really knew the real ones for some of them. Mr. Big was well Mr. Big - meaning of course the size of well, you know. Everything had a sexual conotation. It made fun of the dating scene. Fun of the glamorous image of NYC. And the women were far from successful at anything. They were clutzes. Sarah Jessica Parker's character was always screwing up in some way. She was a freelance columnist for a mag with a cool apt. Totally unrealistic, total fantasy, yet her dialogue and quips - were right out of my girlfriends mouths at the time. Lipstick - has no one I can identify with. I don't know these women and this is not my city. Same deal with Cashmere. I don't like the women. I don't like their outfits. And I don't recognize their talk. I give Lipstick points over Cashmere for having better looking and more charismatic male leads - Paul Blackthorn and Andrew McCarthy. But outside of that? It isn't worth the time.
Still adoring Project Runway. Much fun. And I like the designers/designs better than last years. They are better designers, just not as melodramatic and bitchy. So the focus is more on the challenges.
Okay off to make dinner and relax before work tomorrow. Busy day.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 01:53 am (UTC)SitC is pretty much a 90's show - very specific to its time period, even though it ended around 2004, the best seasons were the early ones and it come on the set around the time that female centric shows were hard to find. It showed up around the same time as Buffy, possibly before and right about the same time I moved to NYC. I was 28 at the time, around the same age as Carrie and her pals. (SJP and I are close in age - she's five years older than me). Also I was paling around with a bunch of Manhattanites who worked in publishing, restaurants, and advertising. They spent money like there was no tomorrow. (I almost went broke trying to keep with these folks in 1998 before I moved to Brooklyn and became more frugal, in 97-98 I was living in Manhattan.) Discussed sex almost all the time. And had the same sexual misshaps as Carries and her friends. To such an extent - that I stopped watching the series somewhere around 2001 or thereabouts, because it hit too close to home.
Plus - we were all single and in our late 20s and early 30's - fully aware that it was unlikely we'd ever get married and the men we dated/hung with and met were well not the type who want to get married.
My life now? Very different. I'm no longer friends with or even in contact with these women. The Roaring 90s...I miss them.
Also NYC it's well its own beast. Quite different than most cities. I've been to and lived in several including London, Paris, Istanbul, Sydney, Kansas City, El Paso, Denver, Colorado Springs, Melbourne, San Franscico, LA, Boston, St. Louis, Philadephia, Las Vegas, Topeka (not really what I'd call a city), etc...and none of them are anything like NY. They aren't much like each other either to be honest. Weird - cities are so unique, while surburbian areas look exactly the same.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 06:10 am (UTC)Of course I don't usually like the Beautiful Rich White People With Problems shows anyway, but when they get big name actors you would think they would try to get writers who could give them something interesting to say.
I am enjoying 'Eli Stone' (lawyer turned prophet), but then his plots are surprising and his dialog is snappy.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 01:40 am (UTC)The best thing about Lipstick was Blackthorn, who unfortunately had zip to do and was playing a somewhat stereotypical role. I think they miscast. Blackthorn would have been better in the Andrew McCarthy role and Andrew McCarthy would have been better in the Blackthorn role. At any rate - watching it just made me miss The Dresden Files. I really need to stop following hot male actors around the tv set. ;-)
Would agree...both shows were unwatchable. Lipstick is slightly better...but not by much.
PS: Very OFF-Topic - but thank you so much for the Firefly Valentine. It's the only one I'm getting, so am treasuring it all the more. ;-) Love the drawing. Very well done!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 01:54 am (UTC)I think 'Eli Stone' will surprise you, it is very funny and engaging, I find it has such interesting characters that I am pulled in no matter what my mood. I'm a little in love with the lawyer's acupuncturist!
And you are SO right, Blackthorn would have made a way stronger more interesting billionaire guy! But I'm afraid that even that recasting wouldn't make me want to watch the show (well, maybe a little bit! LOL).
Tonight we get some more 'Terminator:SCC', which isn't a great show, but it is one I'll be faithful to, and hope for the best from.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 02:03 am (UTC)(I DVR a lot of tv shows, but figure I'm racking them up for the dry spell we'll be getting in March - until they can produce new ones in April. March is always a bad month for tv anyway - strike or no strike.)
I've saw Blackthorn play a millionaire character briefly on Big Shots (more unwatchable than Cashmere and Lipstick, believe it or not). Yes, a much better millionair. To date - his best roles are Dresden and the villian in Season 3 of 24 (the only season I think I liked.)
Agree on SCC - it's not a great show, but it entertains me and I'm somewhat faithful to it. I like the strong female leads. I find everything in it to be quite good. The guy playing the bad guy Terminator right now is the same actor who played the role of Tommy Lee Jones' deputy or assistant cop in No Country for Old Men. An excellent character actor, who I've seen in quite a few things.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-12 02:22 am (UTC)but of course I have no proprietary rights to the Jon Stewart icon, it was made by