Wow, it's been a long time. I guess a good way of keeping my typing in order is to keep my head in order. And to do so, I should list what I've been watching or have watched since September. (Sunday to Saturday with no headings per day...)

Entourage
True Blood
Gossip Girl
How I Met Your Mother
Heroes
CSI Miami
90210
Fringe
Eli Stone
South Park
Bones
Life
Dirty Sexy Money
Smallville
Supernatural
Life on Mars
30 Rock

Okay. So, let's start with the sitcoms.

Entourage
Entourage was supposed to be "back" this season. Early on, you could tell the show was taking the characters on a more serious run. I was irked early with the tiredness of Johnny Drama's "quirks" and thankfully those ran their course early. It did give an opportunity for Turtle to develop his character though and it's nice that they're allowing him to expand from being their fat, stoner, scrub friend. It's been a very fun season, though, seeing Vince struggle and Ari and Eric having to deal with it. It's been unnerving to end episodes with loose ends fraying even looser, but that's the beauty of this season.

How I Met Your Mother
The last time I said anything about HIMYM, I wasn't too pleased with the beginning of the season. But since then, they've let last season's stories run their courses, sorta, and we're back to more friendly shenanigans. I thought the first few episodes continued on the seemingly forced growth of the characters as they moved beyond the early 30s or late 20s. They're still growing, but I think the increased stability of their ratings has helped the producers slow down the race to resolution and have allowed them to focus on the funniness of "here". I thought the last few episodes have been their HIMYM-Flashback best of the season.

South Park
It's only a few episodes in, but we've already seen..
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as rapists..
Obama's victory spoofed just a day or week after winning (they knew he was going to win, obviously)..
The Goth-Emo kids get mad that the Vampires were stealing their kool-aid..
A two-parter about the safety we receive from Peruvian Pan-Flutists...
and what else...
Just crazy. I love it.

30 Rock
What can I say? It's been on fire, like usual!

NOW... for the ones I've dropped...

True Blood
At lot of people whose opinions I respect seem to dig this show a lot, but I never really got on board. I was excited for a vampire-based drama done by HBO, but I wasn't all that hooked from the start. I feel like I may be overdone with vampire stories. I've been on the various vampire mythos-based comics and movies and shows and I think any interesting takes on them are somehow redundant for me. Maybe I'm just turned off to the vampire thing since I was into it before. I dunno.

Dirty Sexy Money
I think I covered this in my last post. But, ultimately, it just lost interest for me. There was a zest of satire in the early episodes of the series and although there remained some camp it just generally was expendable given the rest of the shows on the DVR along with the start of the NBA and NHL seasons.

Fringe
When push came to shove.. and when I mean push, I mean time.. and shove I mean Warriors basketball and other DVRed goodies.. Fringe lost. Watching Fringe began to be a chore. If I wasn't watching much else, I'd still probably keep on my radar. If we had a bunch of extra receivers at the house, it might still be on the dvr. But, at this point, I don't care if I watch it or not. It's not that I hated the show or found it too ludicrous like others. It's just that I'd rather watch other things.

... now.. before I get to the mainstays, I'll just comment on CSI: Miami.

It's still the goofiness or badness of David Caruso that entertains me so.. but I still only watch it when the premise is interesting (aka the murder).. and I have nothing else to watch. So, it really doesn't belong on any list really.

... oh.. and before I get to the mainstays, I'll just comment on HEROES.

Heroes
In the middle of last week's episode.. maybe in the first quarter.. I realized I didn't know what was going on, that I didn't care what was going on, and that I was done. So I stopped the show (I was watching it on a DVR-delay), and erased it without finishing it. I. Am. DONE. They say they're going to clean up the storytelling once the "Villains" arc is finished, and I'll watch a few episodes then, but I am DONE with VILLAINS and this waste of potential show.

We can vote on various reasons why this season was a complete waste of time, but I'll just throw a few out there..

- the excessive time traveling just made each story and character convoluted
- each character acting on limited motives or flawed reasoning
- the redundancy of Season 1's "everything's gonna blow the fuck up cuz of some superpowered badness and we have to get everyone together to stop it" story
- the time spent building bit characters and losing grip of the main characters
- having us choose to care for characters, then having us choose to not care for them, then having us choose to care for them again, then having us choose not to.. then.. then.. then.. bleh

Stupidity. I only complain cuz I wanted and expected more. I'm not the only one.

okay.. enough of that.. the mainstays..

Gossip Girl
I've been down with the show throughout and it's one that I usually can't stop watching once I've started playing it back on the DVR. Now, I have to watch it all online too since it's competing with HIMYM and it's no longer repeated on Sundays. Little's changed with Blair. She's still the stone called.. bad and devilish brat. Serena's still the heart of the upper east side. Nate's obviously going through more this year and we're seeing that he's a nice guy.. not just the rich jerk that was best friends with Chuck Bass... was waiting to de-flower Blair.. and somehow got drunk and instead did her BFF instead. Dan's still the pompous "integrity" of the show.

The two stars of Season 2 so far have been Chuck Bass and Jenny Humphrey. Chuck, as I stated before, is the current MVP of the show. He has the BEST storylines run through him and or turns every storyline that involves him into the most compelling. By virtue, Blair becomes an essential part, but Chuck carries the plot.

Jenny has also emerged as the most troubling of all characters and thus the owner of the baton of the other plot. We all thought that her stint as the Queen Bee wannabe that ended would bring her back to the goodness of the Humphrey name, but instead she's gone major bonkers this year with her youthful impetuousness and short-sightedness. But, as a strong youth advocate and one who deals with challenging my patience with them most days, Jenny's just plain annoying right now and the fact that Dan suggested that his dad give-in this time irks the heck out of me. Jenny's not being a normal rebelious kid, she's being a bratty spoiled sweet-16-esque orc and I'll be disappointed with the show if they make Rufus succumb to her.

With that said.. it's Gossip Girl.. it's a soap opera.. and I shouldn't think about it this much.

90210
I still haven't seen anything all that special with the show, but I still watch. Don't ask why. It hasn't been anything that completely makes me convulse out of stupidity or so boring I fall asleep anytime I try to watch it. Actually, it's perfect to watch while I'm doing other meaningless stuff on laptop. Annie, though, is supremely annoying. Everything else is nothing special or nothing terrible.. Annie, though, is SUPREMELY annoying.

Eli Stone
I mentioned this on my last post, but I still enjoy the show every week, but I'm worried about the direction of the storytelling. No worries though, I guess, since I'm only going to see one or two more episodes before it's run is done, right? I'm big on all the main attorneys minus Maggie. Maggie's character was much better last season.

Bones
This is still easily one of my joys every week. It's funny how they're rotating the anthropological intern, the role that Zack played in the lab, now that he's in federal prison. It was great to see him help out once - a great way to salvage his character seeing that the Gormogon twist didn't do much for the show. Sweets has become an essential part of the show and his scenes are my favorites besides the regular Bones and Booth exchanges.

Life
I tried this show out just because I had room on my DVR, because it's in HD, and because Sarah Shahi is super super hot. I like this show though because Damian Lewis, the lead, is great as a quirky detective, because the shows mood isn't too heavy, the cases are always interesting, there's an overarching story (that I honestly don't keep up with), and Sarah Shahi's super super hot. Okay, to be fair and not so male-horny, she does a wonderful job playing the straight-edge to Damian's quirk. I think what Life has proven to me is that I prefer to compliment my super heavy shows: BSG and Lost, with lighter fare. I hope the ratings improve or they find a good home for it.

Smallville
The show of shows. I haven't been thrilled with Smallville since the middle of last season and have been lukewarm to most of this season although I still find watching every episode exciting no matter how disappointed I may be after watching. What I've realized is that although I was tired of the hyper-Kryptonian based stories of last season, the worst part was the loss of the charm of Smallville, the town (the set) itself. Metropolis in the earlier seasons was real - it reflected the mood of show. Now, Metropolis is plastic - it's all indoors, it's dark, it's very "Birds of Prey", and is just not as interesting as Vancouver was (because the characters were different). Before, although there were the season long stories to develop, the character development was more important. The relationships and the story about a town and it's ultra-special citizens were the core elements of the show. I can't say the same now. The Metropolis of Smallville now is about an overarching story that happen to plug in our long-enamored characters. But, yet, I still watch.

I loved the cameo from Lana last week, sorta, and I'm excited to see how they'll end Lex's existence in the Smallville Universe.

Life on Mars
It took me a long time to tap this show. I've had it DVR'ed since the beginning of the season. I've watched pieces of the original BBC pilot and liked the premise (just couldn't hang with the accents). But, for some reason, it took me a while to get into this show.. so long, in fact, that I didn't watch more than the pilot until.. last night. But, I watched ep. 2, 3, 4, and parts of 6 last night. And, I like it. I don't love it. It's pretty much a regular cop show with some funny moments when Sam, the character that got warped into 1973, mentions the future or refers to the change of time zones unintentionally, but still it's a solid show to keep interested.

Supernatural
The big winner of the season is easily Supernatural. I loved Season 3. This show almost lost my interest in Season 2. I stopped watching Season 3 because of it's time conflict with LOST. But, this show, this season, is on fire with its mix of comedy, storytelling, character development, and mythology. I've been there and done that with Heaven and Hell stories, but since this show focuses more on the characters it works. This consistently has the best 44 minutes of network tv each week with Dean easily being one of the most entertaining characters to follow each week.

With that said..

I still am so excited for BSG and LOST. So excited!

posted by breakfast boy@ 4:30 PM