television

In Which I Make a Plea to the General Television Audience

Okay, folks. I’ve had it. Your standards are all too low. I’m sick and tired of the fantastic television shows getting canceled while the shining stars of mediocrity get renewed year after year. Cases in point: Pushing Daisies? Canceled. Eli Stone? Canceled. Arrested Development? Canceled. Firefly? Canceled. Wife Swap? Now in its fifth season. The Bachelor? Seventh season. Hell’s Kitchen? Sixth season. COPS? Twenty-first season. Now, granted–every now and then you give a show like Lost its fair dues. And you let Seinfeld do quite well, so I’m willing to cut you a bit of slack. But the fact of […]

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Oscars and Underdog

As some of you are no doubt aware, today the Oscar nominations were announced. Benjamin Button racked up 13 noms, Slumdog Millionaire got 10 and Dark Knight got 8 (though the only biggie was Ledger for supporting actor). I have to admit that I’m not entirely thrilled with the field this year. Too many repeat nominations for movies I’m just not that hyped about. I’ll see them all at some point, no doubt–but when you see the same movies nominated in all the categories . . . it gets kind of boring. Sigh. Watched Underdog last night with TRC. He

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Why Jessica Fletcher Must Be Punished

There are actually a variety of reasons. For those of you not “in the know,” Jessica Fletcher is the real name of Angela Lansbury. There was a lengthy (twelve years) biopic called Murder She Wrote, in which she played herself, but other than that, she’s gone by the stage name of Lansbury. Sort of like Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens. Anyway. Jessica has a lot to pay for. First of all, it’s because of her that I was a walking zombie this morning, slack jawed and out of it until I walked out into the brisk Maine air. You see, I stayed

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The Mentalist vs. Fringe, or What Makes a Good Story Great

So I’ve been following the new shows that are premiering, putting my DVR to good use. And for the most part, things have been pretty easy. As usual, the majority of the debuts are of things that I Have No Use For, and feel comfortable ignoring. For example, I don’t do sitcoms. For me to actually watch a comedy show on television, there’d better be something spectacular about it, and I better be hearing great things from across the board (for two examples of what fits this description, see Arrested Development and Seinfeld, although from what I’ve been hearing, 30

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Why I Like the Amazing Race

DKC and I were trying to relax last night–I’d gotten all in a huff about politics (something that’s happening more and more often lately)–so we decided to kick back and watch the season premiere of The Amazing Race. I love this show, and DKC asked me why. She’s got a point. It’s reality television, it’s about airplanes and airports–things I detest in real life. I think the reason it appeals to me is because it gives me a chance to see a whole lot of traveling happening, but with the plane rides all reduced to Indiana Jones-style red lines traveling

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