The Office

The quality of the 1 hour episodes of "The Office" has always been a little hit or miss. A good deal of the time they feel like half hour episodes with a bunch of filler tossed in, or stuff that was close to good enough, but probably should have ended up on the cutting room floor. This season's premier of The Office was 100% gold, however. It seemed like every single scene had a laugh-out-loud moment. It's the season premier and already the writers are on the top of their game. Amazing episode.

Oh, and beware the dangers of technology: I somehow forgot to re-add a season pass for Heroes when I set up the new Tivo, so I completely missed the premier. Thank god NBC was rerunning the premier this weekend. With any luck I should be caught back up by the end of the weekend.

I am exceptionally bad at blogging.

If I thought I had any readers, I would apologize for my lack of posts in the last... uh... 8 months. As it is I'm mostly disappointed that I couldn't get enough momentum going to keep updating throughout the year.

However, a new TV season beckons and I have the urge to blag again. There's not a lot of new shows this year due to the writers strike, but it's good to see my favorites back (most of them, at least... RIP Journeyman & Jericho), and a few of the new shows have promise. True Blood on HBO, after 1 episode at least, seems like an interesting take on the modern vampire.

I'm most excited by Fringe, though. I'm currently watching episode 2, and if anything, it surpasses the promise of the excellent pilot. A little horror, a little sci-fi, a little conspiracy, some fascinating characters... I like it. I'm also digging the short commercial breaks but I'm hoping I don't get too used to it because figure it can't last forever.

The other thing that has me excited for this TV season is some new TV equipment:

Samsung 46" Series 5 LCD: $1800
Refurbished TivoHD: $180
1 HDMI cable from an online vendor: $5
Watching an entire room of nurses recoil in horror at the thing they just pulled from a woman's womb in glorious HD: Priceless

If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

Come with me if you want to live

I've watched episodes 1 & 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It's off to a pretty good start. The action is good, and the writers managed a deft sidestep of the blatant continuity error that everyone familiar with the Terminator movies recognized as soon as word of the series came out... i.e. in Terminator 3, Sarah Connor dies of cancer in 2005.

I'm nearly alone in this assessment but I honestly thought T3 was a drastically underrated movie. I rented it with some friends on a New Year's Eve a couple years ago, expecting to get drunk and make fun of it MST3K-style for a couple hours, but even the most jaded of us had to admit that it wasn't quite as bad as we figured it would be. It was more of a return to the roots of the series... Terminator 2 was a really good big budget action flick but it was much less of a science fiction movie than the original. T3 brought back the lower budget sci-fi feel to a large extent. I'm willing to admit that my opinion of T3 is colored by expectations... I was expecting nothing but was rewarded with an entertaining movie.

I'm worried that The Sarah Connor Chronicles will fall victim to really bad tech and continuity errors. Even in the 2nd episode, they ran into a rigged safe that delivered a jolt of electricity big enough to reboot a Terminator... which John was able to touch by putting his sweatshirt over his finger. Not to mention the fact that there are now apparently roving packs of people from the future living in 2007 fighting over the future. It's going to stretch the boundaries of plausibility that all this time travel won't have long term effects.

In the end though, it's an entertaining show - things blow up, there's some robot kung fu, and hot chicks. I can't complain.

Primary Colors

I wrote up this huge post as a response to Carrie's political angst post (which itself seemed to be a response to Mrs. White's political angst) this week but then realized that it was the sort of thing I ought to, you know, put on my own blog. But seriously, go read the two blogs I just linked because they're both way better writers than I am.

I've done little to differentiate any of the Democratic candidates in my mind because the Democrats have decided that Michiganders are not worthy to participate in their primary. However, I do have a lot of concerns regarding whether either Clinton or Obama can actually get elected.

Hillary faces the conundrum that Carrie has experienced... if you're a strong woman, you're a bitch; if you're a caring woman, you're weak and emotionally unbalanced. If you're a Democrat and support Hillary, you hate brown people. She and her husband also galvanize the Republicans like no one else can. Republicans HATE Bill Clinton (they impeached him for lying about a blow job!!) and if Hillary is nominated the Republican turnout for the Presidential election will be absolutely enormous.

I'd love to think that the fact that Barack Obama is an African American won't matter in 2008, but there's a corner of my brain that snickers every time I try to tell myself that with a straight face. If he is the Democratic candidate, he will bring a LOT of people to the polls who wouldn't normally go near a voting machine. Whether that turns out to be a positive or a negative is up in the air, but the cynic in me believes that there are more non-voting racists who will vote against Barack Obama than non-voting minorities who will vote for Barack Obama. So you have the racist front, which is a problem for the Democrats, but one which the Republicans can't really advertise. The other front that Obama faces a lot of problems on is his lack of experience. He's a great speaker, and a good senator, but he's been involved in national politics for only 4 years, and has never lead the executive branch of anything. I'm not saying I agree with this point... I'm just saying it's going to be a valid concern for undecided voters. Once again, a 2nd candidate with major roadblocks to winning a national election.

But then again, where does this leave us? Edwards? Pray that Gore pulls a Nader and decides to run? Once again, the Democrats have brought us a completely uncompelling set of candidates. This feels exactly like 2004 all over again, and it scares the bejezus out of me.

The Wire: Season 1

The Wire: Season 1 is one of the best seasons of television you will find anywhere. The writing is superb. My heart was in my throat as various plots wound towards the conclusion. It teaches of... inevitability, which isn't exactly a hot topic for most cop shows. Most cop shows are simple and neat, and the streets of Baltimore as shown in The Wire are neither. The complexity and nuance are way beyond anything you'll see on network TV. It rings with truth that most shows about crime can't touch. It's a damned shame not many people watch this show. It's certainly better than The Sopranos, and I really liked that show.

If I or someone in my family were murdered, I'd want Jimmy McNulty on the case.

Seasons 2, 3, and 4 will follow. Series-ending season 5 starts this weekend - hopefully I'll be able to catch up and watch the last episode when it airs. Not being done with The Sopranos when the finale aired last year really sucked and I don't want a repeat this year, even if The Wire isn't nearly as popular as The Sopranos was.

Words fail me.

I went to Baja Fresh for lunch this afternoon while doing the last of my Christmas shopping. While I was enjoying my delicious Burrito Ultimo, this came on over the speaker system:



But that's only the 2nd worst Christmas song I've heard this week. Yesterday I saw this gem linked over at Everyday Should be Saturday:


I feel like I need to bleach my brain.

My Guide to Surviving the WGA's Strike

As anyone who watches any amount of TV knows, the writers are on strike, and we're looking at TV Armageddon in January when the holidays are over. I'm in a better position to survive this dark time in our nation's history - I have a ready list of shows that I've missed over the last few years that I can fall back on, plus I haven't watched movies regularly for several years, so I can always fire up a Netflix account and go to town there.

Anyhow, here's my list of shows I'm counting on to see me through the next few months until the strike is over.... hopefully anyone who reads this (like, 3 people) can take some inspiration from this list and make it through the long winter a little easier. This list is rather HBO-heavy for two reasons: HBO makes a ton of quality TV, and I didn't have HBO from the time I moved away to college till I moved back in with my mom and dad in 2003.

• Deadwood: I'm excited to expand my vocabulary of swear words, but I'm rather embarrassed that I haven't watched this show yet. It's a fascinating western show centered on the town of Deadwood.
  
• The Wire: I've heard nothing but wonderful things about this show. It's a police drama set in Baltimore and is constantly praised by critics and everyone who watches it. Unfortunately, not many people watch it. Fortunately, it's on HBO and has very low production costs (Requiescat In Pace, Rome), so despite weak ratings it has gotten a full complement of episodes. The final season debuts in January, so it's possible I'll be caught up by the time it is finished.
• Battlestar Gallactica: I had never seen the original series, and this was the first show made by the Sci-Fi network that was any good, so I missed the beginning... and since it's so serialized I've been putting off catching up on it. With any luck I'll be able to catch up before this show ends its run later this year (unless the season is delayed by the strike? Anyone know?). I've heard the first two seasons were pretty bad but I don't know if I'm going to skip them outright or not.
• Lost: I watch this show almost religiously, but I really want to re-watch at least Season 3 before the next season begins at the end of January. Season 3 ended with a run of awesome episodes and I hope they can carry the momentum into the next season. Last year's season finale was a total game-changer, and I'm excited to see how they proceed from there. I'm not sure how I'll prioritize this... I've already seen these episodes, but I really do want to see them again.
  
• The Sopranos: I got to the Sopranos party late. I've watched about half of the series so far but I lost momentum due to a bit of Sopranos overload, since it was about all I watched, 2-3 episodes for about 3 weeks in a row. I'll finish this up at my leisure, savoring it like a fine wine.
• Carnivale: It's a shame this one died, because everything I've ever heard about it says I would have loved it. Still, I can at least watch the episodes that aired.
  
• Oz: Ahhh... prison life. I've heard a lot of good things about this show, but I think that reflected a bit on the state of TV at the time. I haven't exactly heard people talking about this show in the pantheon of great HBO shows lately. Still, it's on my radar as something to check out.
• Dead Like Me: See also, Oz. Except Dead Like Me is from Showtime. The subject matter (girl dies and becomes a grim reaper) is more interesting to me, though, so I'll probably watch this one before Oz.
• The West Wing: In my opinion, the best drama that TV produced this decade. I've seen almost all of the early episodes thanks to Bravo while I was unemployed, but I'd still like to watch them all back to back. It'll be rough to slog through the seasons when John Wells began strangling the life out of the show. It recovered for a passable final season, but I still resent what he did to my favorite TV show.
• Sports Night: Sports Night is in many ways the spiritual precursor to The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin developed his... unique... dialog style on Sports Night. It was short lived but well liked. I hope I can get this through my usual channels because it is a bit older than the rest of these shows.
• Futurama: Futurama is one of the best animated shows ever. Always funny, insightful, and even occasionally touching. I never watched it as religiously as I should have, so I'd like to go back and watch all the episodes I can get.
• Alias: Sci-fi. Spies. Conspiracy theories. Jennifer Garner. How did I not start watching this as soon as it started? I hear it gets dreadful at the end but I'll watch at least the first few episodes.
• Psych: A lot of people don't give this show the credit it deserves, being that it's on USA, but it's incredibly entertaining. The key is that it doesn't take itself seriously - it's simply fun to watch. The chemistry among the cast is obvious and the show is consistently hilarious.
• The Shield: Another well-respected cop drama that doesn't get the credit it deserves. This one is on F/X. It doesn't get quite as much critical praise as The Wire does, but I think this one is going to be worth watching, especially if the strike continues for months into 2008.
• Damages: A Glenn Close vehicle on F/X that aired this summer... I heard some good things about it from people whose opinion I trust about TV. As a bonus, it's a currently running show, and like USA, F/X runs original series during the summer so I'll pick up another show to watch between Tigers games next year if I like it.
• Arrested Development: This was the funniest show on TV from the first episode to the last. If you don't like this show, chances are I don't really have that much in common with you.
  

That's my list. Here's a list of things I think my friends should watch if they haven't already:

• Band of Brothers: The pinnacle of the WWII genre. It's not possible to overstate how good this series is. I could write an entire post on why I think this series is so great, and may eventually do just that. Just take my word for it right now.
  
• How I Met Your Mother: HIMYM is one of the best traditional sitcoms on television today. The "Slap Bet" saga should be the "Soup Nazi" of our generation. It's also one of the first sitcoms aimed squarely at people my age, which makes me feel old but I can't help but love it. Barney is the best comedic character on TV today.
  
• The Office: The Office is a must watch. This is the funniest show on TV. Cringe comedy at its best.
• 30 Rock: This is the other best traditional sitcom right now. The first episode or two weren't that good but it improved dramatically and it's now almost as good as The Office. Alec Baldwin steals every scene he's in.
• Firefly: The best sci-fi TV show in a decade, and it got canceled after less than a season. Die in a fire, FOX.
  
• Scrubs: This show was great until 2-3 years ago. It's obvious now that they're just playing out the string, and I resent how bad it has been recently.

While writing this post, I watched an episode of Moonlight, the CBS show about vampires that debuted this year. Can I have that hour of my life back? Ugh. Dreadful. I love vampire mythos, why can't anyone make a decent TV show about it? The Vampire: The Masquerade show was actually decent, but everything else has been awful.

Yes, I'm including Buffy and spinoffs in that. I know I'm risking alienating my only two readers by saying this, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer was an awful TV show.