I watch a lot of television. I'm sure I constitute a nightmare of social evolution -- sitting in a darkened room, watching stock charts on one screen, typing into email or blogging on another, with TV perpetually in the background. The TV is always on when I'm awake, if only to provide background noise. And it doesn't stop when I go to bed. I have Star Trek The Motion Picture on my netbook's Tivo Desktop, and I play it as I get into bed (cool thing about that is that when the movie is over, the laptop goes into sleep mode).
Television is an important part of my morning routine. After working a 12-hour night shift at the hospital, we eat breakfast in front of the 50" TV and crank up Tivo for an hour or so before I go to bed for the day.
This is what we are watching:
The Rachel Maddow Show. Yes, we're pretty liberal. Some day, we'll block Fox News so it won't even play anywhere in our apartment. We get all of our political news from MSNBC and CNN. But we just love Rachel. We call her "Honey." So when something interesting happens, one of us will say to the other, "so, what does Honey have to say" or "how do you think Honey will respond to that one?" If Rachel ever finds my blog and reads this, I hope she isn't mortified. Honey means she's a part of our family -- the part that makes sense first thing in the morning and tells us the truth.
CSI Crime Scene Investigation. I've been saying this since its first season -- the smartest hour on television and a good show to watch how the Sciendific Method actually works.
Big Bang Theory. People tell me am just like Sheldon. That would be enough for me to look, but after three seasons, it's the great writing that keeps me coming. Like them, we eat our meals in the tv room. We don't eat out as often, but we do have favorite restaurants we go to over and over again. We do have assigned seating. I love the way the ensemble cast has grown with and into one another.
Fringe. I think it's an homage, maybe even a re-imagining, of the X-Files franchise. Really weird and freaky story lines including the perenniel favorite, alternate dimensions and time lines. John Noble is spooky-effective as Walter.
Hot in Cleveland. I just love Betty White. She gets the best lines but the worst wardrobe. And I've had a thing for Valerie Bertineli since One Day at a Time.
The Good Wife. I don't like a whole lot of lawyer shows, but this isn't just about the courtroom. This is the story of the wife of a State Attorney who cheats on her with another woman. She decides to make it on her own as a lawyer, while dealing with the aftermath with her family. A lot of really powerfull talent in this show.
Happily Divorced. They've been married for 18 years, and then one day he realized he had been gay the whole time. This is a hilarious story about how these two divorcees try to rebuild their lives in what is usually a painful situation. The magic of the show is that the two still love each other deeply.
2 Broke Girls. These two girls have such great chemistry. She's like Bernie Maddoff's daughter who has lost all of her money and belongings to a grand jury, and she's trying to start a cupcake business while working at a downtown NY diner. The dialogue is the best on television.
New Girl. I loved the first episode, but was disappointed in the second episode, and then they went on hiatus for a month. The producers of the show need to think about that more. Anyway, I'm willing to give it another chance but the last episode was the ubiquitous "saw you naked" episode which, in the genre of co-ed room mate shows, is just too overdone. I think they should keep Jess, Schmidt and Cece but change the other two room mates to more interesting characters. Still giving it a chance.
Terra Nova. An interesting Sci-fi show. Folks from 22nd century Earth have messed up the environment so bad they had to get off the planet, and the way they did it was to figure out a way to go back millions of years into Earth's past. If you're a Star Trek fan, you'd freak out right here as they messed up their own time line, but somehow that catastrophe has been averted, they are screwing up with a parallel dimension's time line. Well, I'm not as much into that as the story of how they survive in a pre-historic environment while yet enjoying the benefits of 22nd century earth. Jason Omera is great and believable, as is Stephen Lang (who I had just grown to hate after his character on Avatar, but here he's very heroic and likable.) My only problem with the show is that it can lapse from great Sci-fi to, well, basically, a trivial episode of Dawson's Creek. I mean, teen-aged angst is going to be a problem when there are velociraptors out there trying to eat ya? I don't think so. But again I'm giving it a chance.
American Horror Story. Man, this is one messed up show, and I Totally Love It. It's a haunted house recently bought by a painfully dysfunctional family. A sex dom dressed all in leather, ipecac-laced cupcakes, nurses getting stabbed to death (oooh... I do love that one... don't ask me why...) and the appalling lack of lockable doors all set my nerves on fire.
Grimm. He's the descendant of a long line of monster killers. The Matriarch, his aunt, has died, and has left him everything, including a trailer full of axes and swords. I like the show so far, especially the chemistry between David Guintoli and his two parters (one is a cop, the other is a vegan wolf man with a sense of honor and justice and does pilades. )
Grimm is on at the same time line as Fringe, and I hear the ratings are down for Fringe as Grimm goes up in ratings. I'm hoping with the DVR/Tivo technology out there, that we've come up with a way to count our household under both shows, as our dual-channel Tivo records both at the same time. No idea how that works out.
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