What You Should Have Watched #17

My Final Thoughts 
on the 2011-2012 Season

If you want a quick refresher, here were my plans at the beginning of the regular TV season that just ended, and here are my thoughts about how it started.

So, what changed between last August and now? Out of the 50 shows I had listed (which didn’t include Mad Men or any of the premium cable shows like Game of Thrones, Californication, etc.), I either dropped or totally ignored 11 of them. A couple (Glee, Burn Notice) were shows I had watched for a while but lost interest in by the end of the season’s premiere. Some (Grimm, Once Upon a Time, Ringer) had me deleting the show before the series premiere was halfway done. Alcatraz is still on my DVR. All of it. I don’t have the heart to delete it without watching the first episode, but I find myself not caring about it, especially since it was cancelled.

Most of the old stuff was solid this year. Shows like Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, and The Office were reliable. Some good episodes, some bad, but nothing earth-shatteringly great or awful.

Some shows, however, were incredible each and every week. Fringe and Castle didn’t let me down at all. I loved the way Fringe successfully did somewhat of a soft reboot of the show. I loved how the will-they/won’t-they interplay between Olivia and Peter had to be revisited. I loved Walter. I can totally understand why this show isn’t a ratings hit, because it’s not something that you can really casually watch. I am happy that the show is getting a final (albeit shortened) season in order to wrap everything up.

The worst thing Castle had going for it was the introduction of the new Captain, Penny Johnson as Victoria Gates. She wasn’t bad, it’s just that I didn’t much care for her character. Everybody else was consistently great, though. I started watching the show because of Nathan Fillion, but I stayed because of the entire cast and their characters. Again we’ve got the will-they/won’t-they, but it’s much more urgent this season. I don’t know how much to say about the finale without totally spoiling everything. My biggest hope about the next season is that they don’t sweep everything under the rug, that it doesn’t start a few months after the finale with…well, everything back to status quo. I have faith in the writer’s, though, that more good stories will come out of it.

There were some great comedies that I found it difficult to NOT watch the night they aired, despite whatever time I was able to relax in the evening. The best new comedy of the season, and quite possibly my favorite overall comedy of the season, was New Girl. As with a lot of the shows I enjoy, the main character is not the draw. Well, she got me there, but Jess’s roommates, especially Max Greenfield’s Schmidt, kept me around and gave me many cackling, laugh-out-loud moments. Lump in New Girl with great shows like Happy Endings, Cougar Town, Suburgatory, Community, Parks and Recreation, Big Bang Theory, The League, Louie, Archer, and Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apt. 23, this was a great time to be a fan of smart and wonderfully written situation comedies.

The biggest surprise for me was my first real foray into reality television. I tend to shun any and all reality shows. They all just come across as creepy. Watching people attempt and more than likely fail at their dreams, or watching so-called celebrities “live” their “lives,” it’s too tawdry for me. I can’t even get into educational shows on Discovery or The History Channel because, well, when I watch TV, I’m relaxing. I don’t want to learn. I don’t want to work. Then I found out about Drinking Made Easy, and my embargo on reality shows was lifted. It’s a fun show that follows host Zane Lamprey and bearded sidekick Steve McKenna as they travel the country and sample local brews, spirits, and cocktails. It’s two guys getting paid to get drunk. Awesome.

My biggest disappointment this season was Supernatural. It wasn’t bad, but it was probably the weakest season they’ve had. Season 6’s overall storyline was weak, but it had some great episodes. This season, though, was weak on all fronts. They got rid of Castiel in the first episode and waited too long to bring him back. They got rid of Bobby. Not enough Crowley. Too much Meg. The Leviathan as villains didn’t seem quite so…immediate. Although I liked the way James Patrick Stuart played Dick Roman, I just didn’t feel the urgency that I’ve felt in past seasons to defeat the Big Bad. The highlights of the season had to do with the guest stars, three women who are on or who have spent time on “The List”: Jewel Staite, Charisma Carpenter, and Felicia Day. I’m single, ladies! Call me! Day’s character is still alive, so I’m hoping she’ll show up again next season. Oh! And James Marsters was there, too!

I realize I’ve not mentioned any offerings from Showtime, Starz, or HBO. Quickly, then. Dexter was awful this season. The Deb/Dexter stuff was creepy, and not in a good way, and I groaned, sometimes out load, whenever Colin Hanks came on screen. He is not a good actor. Most of the other stuff that I watched (Californication, Shameless, Spartacus) was solid. Nothing great, but always enjoyable. HBO debuted Girls and Veep, and I’m really enjoying Veep. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays somewhat of a combination of Elaine and Old Christine, and that’s comedy gold when you put the character as next in line to the presidency of the United States. Girls, though, is harder to get behind. It comes off a lot like a hipster version of Sex and the City, and I hated Sex and the City. The four main women were all awful people in some way, and I felt incredibly bad for the men that fell for them. With Girls, the main characters are a bit more likeable and the men slightly less likeable than their SatC counterparts. I’m still watching it, though. I heard Donald Glover will be on next season, so that right there is a way to keep me around.

And we’ll end with HBO’s Game of Thrones, which airs its season finale this Sunday. Holy crap. This season has been phenomenal. There’s just not enough room to talk about how awesome Tyrion and Arya are, or how much I hate Joffrey and Theon. I read the first book when the first season ended, and that was going to be my plan with the other seasons and books. I’ve since decided that I can’t wait, and I’ll be doing my best to catch up on the rest of the series this summer.

Now that the main season is over, I’ll be cleaning out my DVR. I’ve got some Mad Men, Magic City, Shameless, and Alcatraz that I need to get through. After that, unless AT&T brings my monthly bill down back to where they said it would be, I’m getting rid of cable all together. I’ll be reliant on Netflix, Hulu+, and Amazon Prime. I’m pretty sure the only way this’ll affect me is that I won’t be able to watch the premium stuff as it airs or stuff on CBS. The premium stuff I’ll be able to watch on Netflix, but CBS kind of pisses me off. The other major networks are great about offering their shows online, but CBS is really hit-or-miss, and for the shows I watch (Big Bang Theory and Person of Interest) it’s miss. I’ll even be able to watch Supernatural by hooking my netbook up to my TV. Yay!

Also, in case you've forgotten: When I can remember to add this to the bottom of my posts, I’m going to whore myself out with an impassioned plea: click on the ads. PLEASE click on the ads. I don’t care if you exit out of it immediately or actually look around. This isn’t some professional blog where I believe in the products I’m shilling. These are automatic ads placed by Google. But when you click ads, I get a little bit of money, and as a single father of three, every penny from every source helps. So I’m going to keep this tiny bit of begging at the bottom of my posts, and I hope you’ll take an extra 10 seconds after reading my blog to click on an ad. The only thing it costs you is time. :) Thanks so much!

What You Should Have Watched #15

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a strange addiction, but I do tend to go through withdrawal if I don’t watch TV regularly.

To give you an idea of how much TV I WANT to watch versus how much I’m ABLE to watch, check this out: according to my DVR, I have 67 series scheduled to record throughout the year. Of those, 11 are for my kids, but I’ll watch probably half of those (Phineas and Ferb, Ultimate Spider-Man, etc.). Currently, my DVR is 51% full with 95 recordings. Of those 95 recordings, 45 of them belong to my kids. Whereas I delete my shows after I’m done watching them, my kids like to watch their stuff over and over and over, so I keep it up there until I need more space. I haven’t had to delete any of their recordings since switching from Comcast service to AT&T U-Verse.

I enjoy almost every type of show except for most reality shows. I say most because one of my favorite shows right now is Drinking Made Easy on HDNet. I also enjoy sitcoms (Community, New Girl, Happy Endings, etc.), cop dramas…with a twist (Castle, Psych, White Collar, etc.), horror (Walking Dead, Supernatural), and even period pieces and fantasy shows (Boardwalk Empire, Spartacus, Game of Thrones).

There are some actors I’ll follow to anything they do. Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and just about anybody who has ever worked with Joss Whedon (although I gave up on Ringer halfway through the first episode). Peter Dinklage won me over with Death at a Funeral (the original) and Threshold. Also, I loves me some pretty ladies.

There are also a few web series that I enjoy. Right now I’ve got a pretty big crush on Felicia Day, and I’m thoroughly enjoying The Guild and The Flog, and I’ll be checking out the shows on “Geek and Sundry” as they appear. I also watch Epic Meal Time every week. One of these days…ONE OF THESE DAYS…I’m going to make one of their dishes.

If you couldn’t tell, I love my DVR. After putting the kids to bed each night and cleaning up from dinner and getting stuff ready for the next day, I only get about an hour or so to watch TV before I fall asleep. I like to watch the sitcoms first; I feel like I accomplish more if I watch three shows instead of just one. Then I’ll move on to the one-hour dramas, focusing on the must-sees: Castle, Fringe, Game of Thrones. Some stuff, no matter how awesome it is, can wait until the entire season has finished. That’s what I did with Justified, Southland, and Alcatraz this season.

As much as I love watching TV, I’m seriously considering doing something drastic. Things at work are getting a bit uncertain, so I’m thinking of cancelling my U-Verse subscription. I’d keep my Internet, I’m not totally crazy, but there are enough options out there that this wouldn’t affect me TOO much. I’ve got a Netflix account, and I’ve got a Wii in the living room and an X-Box in my bedroom (my bedroom TV has a Netflix app, so I’ve got a back-up if something happens to the X-Box), so there’s an option. The downside to that is that there’s a pretty decent delay between the time a season wraps to when it’s available to stream. With my viewing habits of a couple of shows this season, though, I’m apparently becoming a bit more comfortable with that. This would be how I catch my premium cable shows. I’d just have to make sure to stay away from spoilers. I’d also end up getting a Hulu+ subscription, something that can also be streamed through the Wii and X-Box. I had it when it was first available on the X-Box, but it really didn’t offer enough to keep me with it past the free trial. If I don’t have a cable subscription, this is how I’d catch my major network shows. Should I do this, I’d also consider an Amazon Prime account. I’d be able to use it on my X-Box, but not the Wii in the living room.

One thing you should expect from this blog is up-to-the-minute TV news. I might share awesome happenings (like whenever an announcement about the new season of Arrested Development is made), but chances are you’ll be able to find it earlier at an actual entertainment news blog. If you’d like a recommendation, I check Warming Glow daily. It’s got a very sarcastic tone to it, but the writers really care about good television. It’s the first blog I check each day.

As this ends, I just realized that I haven’t given you a taste of what I watch. Here’s a bit of a sampling: Anything by Joss Whedon, anything by Aaron Sorkin, Game of Thrones, Californication, Shameless, Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother, Castle, Psych, White Collar, Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, The Office, Modern Family, Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apt. 23, Happy Endings, Cougar Town, Person of Interest, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Louie, Archer, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Drinking Made Easy, Spartacus, Magic Town.

That’s certainly not everything I watch, but it’s a huge chunk of it.

December is Here Video Constitutional!!

If I were still married, Alison Brie would take up ALL the places on my List. You hear that Alison? I'm single. You can call me now! http://fuckyeahalisonbrie.tumblr.com/



My dad sent me this to show the kids, and my oldest thought it was hilarious. If you like dogs and you like birds and you like videos of them eating spaghetti, then this is the perfect video for you. After watching this you can go ahead and cancel the Internet.



Doctor Who strips for the kids. Plus, there's a trailer for this year's Christmas special.



After downloading the album from Amazon last week, I am totally in love with Childish Gambino. I don't even like rap all that much.









I think Katy Perry is hot, but a little of her music goes a long way for me, so I don't go searching for new music by her. My sister shared this video on Facebook, though, and yeah, I think we've all got one who got away, even if we can't admit it.



WINTER IS COMING...at the bottom of the sea. This time-lapse video of starfish and sea urchins being frozen by brinicles is somewhat amazing.



Justified!







I love Community, and I don't even notice all the little Easter Eggs. Of course, when they take three seasons to complete, sure, I'll get a little lost.



I'm guessing this video is fake, but that doesn't mean the laughter isn't real. Thanks, Josh!



I'll be watching Alcatraz because of the people involved, not because of this commercial. I have absolutely no idea what the show is about, and this commercial tells me nothing except that somehow Alcatraz is involved in something.



Why do I love to cook so much? Gordon Ramsay gets it!



Rest in peace, Patrice O'Neal. I enjoyed you in everything I saw you in (Oh, most definitely), and the comedy world has lost a genuinely funny man.

Roast of Charlie Sheen

So apparently Super Mario Brothers was redone by some Asian dickhead. This video of an Australian guy playing the game is awesome.



The video from Chloe (you remember Chloe from 24, right?) is okay, but I watched it because it features music from Wired All Wrong and Self.



I think I love Felicia Day. She's adorable, she's a nerd, she's got gorgeous red hair...yup, I loves her. Here she is playing with herself. Thanks, Jonathan!



Best rap I've ever heard about pancakes.



I think I may rewatch Firely over the holiday season. Here are the 32 best quotes from the show.



Is this a great opening credits mash-up or the GREATEST opening credits mash-up?



Here are a bunch of beagles (my favorite breed of dogs ever!) who get their first experience of being outside and on grass. They were lab dogs who spent their lives in cages. If you have even the tiniest scrap of human emotions, this video will touch your heart. It's adorable! They don't know what to do!



Also, in case you've forgotten: When I can remember to add this to the bottom of my posts, I’m going to whore myself out with an impassioned plea: click on the ads. PLEASE click on the ads. I don’t care if you exit out of it immediately or actually look around. This isn’t some professional blog where I believe in the products I’m shilling. These are automatic ads placed by Google. But when you click ads, I get a little bit of money, and as a single father of three, every penny from every source helps...especially with Christmas looming on the horizon. So I’m going to keep this tiny bit of begging at the bottom of my posts, and I hope you’ll take an extra 10 seconds after reading my blog to click on an ad. The only thing it costs you is time. :) Thanks so much!

VD Constitutional

Happy Valentine's Day!



NEW FOO FIGHTERS!!!!! WHITE LIMO!!!! WITH LEMMY FROM MOTORHEAD!!!!! Now that the caps are off, I'm conflicted with this song. Conflicted because I like it, but it's not generally the type of Foo song that I like. The first Foo album is my least favorite, and really, it's the least like any of the others. "White Limo" really makes me think of that album, especially the tracks "Weenie Beenie" and "Watershed," I guess just because of how lead singer Dave Grohl is singing. Not a big fan of the raspy singing, here. But overall I like the song better than either of the ones I mentioned.



Are you single with...specific...tastes? Then this dating site might be for you.



The Avengers is going to open to a LOT of high expectations. Top-notch cast, director with a small but rabid fanbase, and you're combining some decent-sized franchises into a bigger franchise. Good luck, guys! Here's a fan-made made from clips of the solo movies that are already out there. It's very well done, and it works well as a teaser trailer.



I'm captivated by this, and I don't like it.



Another awesome Justified commercial.



I used to really like Weezer. Their Blue Album is one of my favorites. But their last few albums really fell flat for me. It seemed like they were trying too hard to be different, while still trying to be the same (if that makes any sense). Then a buddy gave me a link to this video. It really sounds like Blue Album-era Weezer. The rest, though, seems like a joke. But hey, I like the song.



Movie trailer mash-ups!





I've never been the biggest fan of Valentine's Day, even when I had a special someone to share it with. But this was my first official VD as a single guy since...1995? Wow. And you know what? It was great. There was no pressure to make sure I got the perfect card, or the perfect gift, or make a reservation at the perfect restaurant. It was just a Monday. So I watched How I Met Your Mother, and I watched Mad Love (meh), and I went to bed wondering if I'd win the MegaMillion jackpot on Tuesday night. Just...another...day. So why not have some additional fake holidays? Actress/writer Natalie Kim has some thoughts.



Babies are MUCH funnier when they're drunk, but they're also a bit more destructive.



A longer Thor trailer, you ask? Why sure! Also, I love how all of these Norse Gods all have British accents. I imagine EVERYBODY in Europe is actually British, so this works.

I love Felicia Day. Even with long, pointy ears. Okay, maybe not quite as much, but she's still cute.



I just got an XBox, and after borrowing Bioshock from a friend, I have concluded that any zombie game with good graphics will probably freak me the fuck out. I'm almost positive that Dead Island will be really good at freaking me the fuck out. I think I still want to play it, though.



There was a time that I was GREATLY amused by LOL sites. I think I still link to a couple on one of the sides of this blog. Here are some of my favorite pics that I pulled off of the sites before I got bored with them.