TV Round Up…
Alrighty. Figure I’d put this up for posterity’s sake. These are the shows that currently occupy my viewing time. I rarely turn the TV on unless there’s something I actually want to watch on, and these are it. Them. Thingy.
Must Watch
The shows that I absolutely cannot miss.
Chuck
I’ve already spazzed my pants over how much I like Chuck, so I’ll just leave it at that. I will say that, as it’s on at the same time as The Big Bang Theory, I usually watch BBT and then wait for one of the later showings of Chuck. (This is why having Satellite sometimes doesn’t suck; I get a three hour timeshift on everything.)
Dirty Jobs
I often make the mistake of watching this while eating dinner. Still, I’ve loved this show since I found out they pixellate it when anybody vomits. Now if they’d just scramble the vomit audio, it’d be fantastic.
Flashpoint
Absolutely genius show. The editing, the acting and the writing all make me positively gleeful. Also, it made me cry once. I never cry. (I can count the number of times TV/Film have made me cry on one hand. And still have three fingers free.) It’s come a long way from the pilot episode that I described as ‘Eliot DiMauro, The Pink Ranger, and a guy that looks like Josh Charles walk into a hostage situation…’
Read more
Don’t judge a book by its cover… But feel free to judge a TV show by its title sequence. (Part 2)
["...hopefully in the next couple of days." apparently does not take into account a loss in the family, sliding into two weeks in New York, and the onset of the dreaded flu. AND 23 hours without power in temperatures peaking at -17 degrees celsius. Go, go Toronto! Last time I try to give anything close to a definitive answer. Fr Srs.]
And so it continues: gloriously abstract TV titles that contribute effectively to the creation of the thematic identity of the program. (Continued from Part 1 here.)
I’ve been thrown for a bit of a loop here as one of the title sequences I had searched down is no longer available on YouTube thanks to a copyright claim by NBC Universal. Thanks, ever so much. Just for that, I’m not even going to mention the title of the show, or give it some free advertising. No need to thank me, I’m only paying you the same courtesy you pay your viewing audience. (When will you learn? No, seriously. I want a succinct, precise answer.)
I will however pimp shows from some of your competitors outside the jump: Pushing Daisies. Dexter. True Blood. Carnivale. Flashpoint. Dirty Jobs. Nip/Tuck. The Big Bang Theory. Grey’s Anatomy. Supernatural. Stargate: Atlantis. Twin Peaks. Psych. Reaper. Robot Chicken. The Young Ones.
All of those are on other networks. Some of them don’t even fit the criteria for this post. Some of those have been cancelled. Some of them haven’t been on TV in decades. What matters is I like all of them.
Also, you suck.
MOVING ON.
The remaining titles are after the jump. I haven’t figured out what to replace the [SHOW THAT WILL NOT BE NAMED] titles yet, so there may only be four. I sorted it. There are five.
Market Research – A Statistic Is You!
I was recently cold called by a market research company to participate in, funnily enough, some market research on a thirty minute (incl. ads) sitcom that they (whoever ‘they’ are) are considering developing. Being the little media nerd I am, I was incredibly interested in what the process entails and how it works out. In short, I said yes.
Now, I’m not going to go into any specific details regarding who is doing the study (it’s a commercial property, natch), what the show was, or what specific products I was asked to give my opinion about. I’m more interested in the process itself. I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to contribute opinions and whatnot when asked for them for research; I think it’s important to contribute to the furtherance of knowledge and the growth of understanding. In the past, I’ve done this through mainly academic means: participating in studies and filling out questionaires or just sitting down for a coffee with people and having conversations about their works. (I think I’ve been quoted in a thesis on Milan Kundera. *buffs nails and is generally awesome*) But, I’ve never been asked to participate in something which may have lasting impact in the now.
Of course, the now-ness of it all meant that the only opinions I gave that really counted were about the advertising content. Yay, now. -_-
The Package.
I was sent a package by the company conducting the survey containing a form letter (unless I changed my name to ‘Participant’ without telling me, which is entirely possible), a DVD, three envelopes– labelled ‘Please Open Before You View The Tape’, ‘Please Open After You View The Tape’ and ‘Please do NOT OPEN‘ (cementing their grammar skills as l33t)–and a $10 gift card. The letter outlined the process, informed me that the DVD was single use only and would self destruct in five seconds would not work a second time, and some questions I should keep in mind while viewing the program. It also said that I should ‘view the show however and whereever you usually watch TV at home. No need to be a TV critic, don’t take notes, we just want to know what you feel about this show.‘
So, I opened the first envelope just before watching it. It included ‘Prize Entry Form #1′ and a booklet. The booklet contained pictures of various products sorted into type and numbered off. The instructions asked that I go through each of the products and list which ones I would like to receive as a prize. Now, presumably, each product was included as a method of finding out which products people would like to use. Duh. But, seriously, in terms of prize content it was pretty lame. I had some seriously amazing and worthwhile choices, yo. Shampoo, conditioner, facial moisturisers, breakfast cereal, lollies, toilet cleaner. Woohoo, sign me up! I participated in SRS RSRCH and I won toilet cleaner! The possibilities were endless and not at all difficult to go out and procure myself were I to suddenly want [Random Item]. No, really.
At any rate, I filled out the form, hemmed and hawed over X-type moisturiser over Q-type moisturiser, considered the possibilities of allergic reaction with F-type laundry powder or liquid, and seriously considered the fibre content of cereal C over cereal Y. (Well, no, I didn’t. I thought ‘which is least likely to make me barf’) and then, at 9:00 last night, I put the DVD in and sat down to watch it.
Movies are a one night stand. Television is an abusive relationship.
Television.
I’m sometimes appalled by how much I love television. Well, not all television; I’m not as enamoured with some genres as I am with others, I don’t particularly care about the wheeling and dealing the buyers and planners do to get the content on air (as long as they don’t sacrifice whichever show I’m watching to make way for ad content; Channel Seven, I’m looking at you), and I have very definite preferences about what I like within a show. I’m always trying to qualify what I watch and why because, ironically, the thirty second grabs for current affairs shows have me convinced that television is inherently evil. Granted, I’m not twelve any more and I don’t have to run what I’m watching past Mum (even then, her approach was that if I could present a cogent and coherent argument for why I wanted to watch something, I was allowed to watch anything. Anything.), but I still have the, perhaps bizarre, notion that watching TV will rot my brain and turn me into some slobbering, hip-jutting, gum-popping, trend-following, moron wearing a cheap, Supre ‘Girls on Film’ t-shirt without any idea that it’s a song about pornography by Duran Duran and not an assertation of feminism and support of Helen Mirren.
I prefer to think that’s not the case. I prefer to think that Television is a pit stop between here and there; disseminating ideas and information in bullet point so that I can go to a more reliable source and find out more. This is as much applicable to fictive television as it is to the news and documentaries. Actually, probably more so since I don’t rely on television (in the broadcast sense) to bring me documentaries and the news as it stands is barely a step above tabloid journalism in its current sensationalist nature: disaster! disaster! injustice! sport. weather. human interest!
It’s really not that much different from the “issues based” drama I’ve seen in my time; it takes a little longer to disseminate, but it makes the same points, but with more over-acting and fewer … well, I can’t actually think of what there’s fewer. SVU practically does panel discussions, 24 does intercuts, and most of them have intractable, perfectly coiffured hair. Dramatic television shows take on social and political issues at greater depth, and often greater (if biased, but when is anything in the media not biased?) accuracy. Why am I supposed to believe that there is any less merit in watching narrative television rather than the news?
I have no idea.
But, anyway. I didn’t actually want to get caught up in a rant about the news. At least I managed to avoid reality television; that would probably have just been a vitriolic deluge of bilious invective, which, while fun, probably wouldn’t have helped.
But, I digress.
Leadership. Television.
There are shows I watch with regularity. There are shows I watch on and off. There are shows I fell hard for in the beginning, but stopped watching for one reason or other. There are shows that annoy me, shows that I adore beyond reason, shows that make me want to put the remote through the TV screen with great force, and shows that don’t even rate a seconds pause when I flash through.
A lot of the time, it comes down to two things: writing and character. I can forgive a lot of things if its well written and the characters are owned by the actors. Sure, I’ll point out the flaws and mock them within an inch of their lives, but I’ll generally keep watching.
There are, of course, a few exceptions.