As we twiddle our thumbs waiting for the first pitch thrown in anger, I thought I'd orate a smidgen about another passion, both personally and professionally - television.
See, I get paid to watch TV...to simplify things a little bit. Yes, I know "we" (as in society) should not watch too much TV, and when given the choice of a nice day outside and or vegetating on the couch, I'm often the first one out the door. I play sports, I love to hike and enjoy fresh air walking around.
Still, I will not deny that I watch a fair bit of television, both professionally and personally. However, I'm quite selective about what I watch. I refuse to watch anything "reality" based - in my opinion it peaked with The Real World: San Francisco. Since then, a bunch of has-beens or never-will-be's trying to be the most outrageous person on tv just to get famous enough to be invited to turn on the Christmas lights in Oldham. Super.
Give me a properly scripted, well cast drama or comedy show any day. Over the years I've watched glimpses of more shows than I can remember, and followed a (not) suprisingly vast amount of shows.
Sooner or later though most show "jump the shark". Rarely does a series maintain the writing and energy produced in earlier seasons. Every now and then comes along the exception that drags you in. Now even the shows that fail to jump the shark have their ups and downs, but in today's TV market the leash is much, much shorter and many shows are cancelled long before they fulfil their promise.
Other shows seem to spend a weekly waiting game to see if they get renewed for another half season. Gone are the days of Cheers and Mash, both series that performed below average at launch before going on to run very succesfully for more than a decade.
Currently worth spending 45 mins on:
- Life - Damian Lewis of 'Band of Brothers' fame stars as a falsely imprisoned LAPD officer who is exonerated and returns to LAPD with a goldbadge, untold million$ and an urge to find out who framed him. All while in a Zen like frame of mind.
- How I Met Your Mother - A story told in flashbacks of how a group of 20-somethings live in NYC. It would be too much of a cop out to call it Friends for the next generation - plus this show is funnier.
- Entourage - Sex and the City for men. The city is LA. The sex is with a star actor, his hanger-ons and friends with countless number of starlets and wannabes. An HBO production, so not a PC dialogue in sight.
2 comments:
trying to be the most outrageous person on tv just to get famous enough to be invited to turn on the Christmas lights in Oldham
Are you dissin' my home town?! Are you saying it isn't attractive enough to get those A-list celebs to switch on the Christmas lights?!
Oh, hang on a sec...you're right! :-)
:)
You can swap Oldham for any UK town that either:
A) Does not have a famous "favourite son/daughter" that tends to do duties like this
B) Is not a "cool" city or town (such as London, Brighton, etc).
And of course, the irony is that any town that thinks Chantelle (or whatever the h*ll her name is) is a good role model to be the MC for a town event immediately removes any chance of ever becoming "cool".
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