Well, since my colleagues on this site have been busy (and I have not), I thought I'd chime in with some recent thoughts about television. For those who don't know (or who care), I'm currently working as an Outdoor Education Instructor at a camp in Northeastern Ohio. Phone access is scarse, but technology is not, and thus, I'll be able to watch TV on DVD with some regularity.
Speaking of which, a pet peeve of mine when it comes to TV on DVD sets is the lack of a "play all" feature. Some of us don't have remotes to our DVD players, and thus, are only able to watch one episode at a time. Warners is very good at always including the "play all" feature.
MGM? Not so much. The reason I bring them up is because I bought the second season of "Dead Like Me" last Saturday and have only been able to watch one episode of it. This show, about grim reapers, got cancelled by Showtime last season, so watching these episodes is going to be bittersweet. But the show's so good that I don't mind.
A few posts ago, I talked about how there are certain topics in our culture where if you go too far, you've turned something potentially funny into something incredibly offensive. While "Six Feet Under" did this with ease, they were a drama with occasional bits of humor. "Dead Like Me" is very different in that it jumps back and forth. For example, in the first episode, I found myself laughing out loud at one character's comments who had me screaming "No!" later in the show. For a rather morbid show, this has heart to spare. And Mandy Patikin, as the lead reaper, just kicks ass. In an ideal world, he'd have gotten some kind of award recognition for this.
Before I left home, I was watching "House" on DVD. It comes out pretty soon, and even if you haven't seen the show, I recommend picking it up. I only got through half the season before I had to leave, but this is one of those shows where the lead character pretty much carries the entire show on his back. The plots are rote and you know it'll probally all work out, but that's not why you watch. Hugh Laurie just astounded me, from his flawless American accent to, again, his ability to turn on a dime. I'm actually now rooting for him over another one of my favorites, Ian McShane, on Emmy Night.
There's a great line that Tom Shales used to describe "Homicide" (which I think I quoted before), where he said, "No matter what was going on in the episode, Andre Braugher was sure to be fascinating." And I think in the case of both "Dead Like Me" and "House," you can expect the same from Patinkin and Laurie.
Finally, I recently picked up a few Broadway show soundtracks on a recent trip to Borders. My interest in Broadway is something that's only developed over the past year or so, and much of it came after watching a marathon of PBS' "Broadway: The American Musical" documentary. This is only the most recent example of how television has enriched my life in ways beyond giving me something to do on a Saturday night. I think if we look back at our childhoods and our adulthoods, we can find that TV's introduced us to something we carry forever, whether it's a love of history from "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," or the joy of public service found in "The West Wing." Those are just a few of mine--what are yours?
(And, of course, how to kill vampires from "Buffy.")
1 comment:
House does suffer from formula for most of the first half of the season, but it seems once that they realized that not only would they be picked up, they would be brought back for a second season, they really pulled it out of the fire. The show literally went from me watching weekly, to skipping episodes, to making it near the top on my DVR priority list. The show gets high marks from me.
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