4 posts tagged “tv”

I hate the rule of the guest star (I really need a proper name for this) = Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize.

Whenever there's a big-name guest star on a murder mystery (CSI, L&O), he is always the guilty one.  Always.  Unless it's an episode with multiple big names, but that happens only rarely.  And I hate this because it takes out all the mystery, of trying to figure out whodunnit and why.  We already know who, so then figuring out why is usually a short leap.

The TV tropes link above says pretty much the same thing, but with more words, and a metrick butt-load of examples.

I guess I can understand why tv people do this: the show gets a Big Name Star to come on; the Big Name Star gets a chance at a meaty role, to Be Bad and Act (Genius! Thank you! No Thank You!).  But sometimes it just sucks all the enjoyment out of an episode.  I'm on this rant today after watching The Closer last night, which was a really mediocre story once Tom Skerrit came in and revealed himself with his mere presence as the bad guy.

I watch waaay too much tv, but I guess I'll learn to accept it.  I started watching Kings on NBC a while ago, and was truly disappointed when the network announced that the show would not continue beyond the first season.  Thankfully, all the episodes are being broadcast (have been?  I am behind in my PVR viewing), so I don't have to wait for the dvd to learn the end.  This show could really have been special.

I heard on NPR recently that Cheers had dismal ratings for almost two years before it clicked and found an audience -- there's no time for shows to mature anymore, and that's regrettable.

I started watching a new show called The Colony, which is a post-apocalyptic experiment reality-type show, but (I hope and pray) without the drama of a competition.  This group of colonists are living in an abandoned warehouse after a biological disaster, and have to use their skills and wits to survive -- so it's a staged experiment, and they are somewhere in LA, because they were gathering water from the LA River (that trickle of water running through the concrete culvert, which shocked me when I learned that was really a river, but I digress).  There are hostiles who come around making noise in the night and scaring the colonists, and I'm sure these attacks will escalate, although the psychologist running the experiment has instructed the "hostiles" not to injure the subjects -- but the subjects don't know that!  Tonight was ep 2, but I haven't watched it yet.  I think it's supposed to last 10 weeks, maybe on Discovery Channel, a little bit Survivor or Survivorman, a little bit Junkyard Wars, a little bit Jericho (fictional P-A show from a few years ago).

being out of town kind of messes with my tv schedule.  Things are on at weird times (Jeopardy! is on at 5:30 instead of 4:30 -- my world is collapsing!), not to mention the problem of stations being on different channels (CBS is channel 7, not channel 2!).

Anyway.

Plopped down on the couch last night, saw that the PVR was recording something.  Not weird in itself, but I had no idea what it could be.  Turns out it was Doctor Who (the beginning of Series 3)!  It's finally running on Scifi.  Series 1 w/ Christopher Eccleston it turns out is also running currently on BBCAmerica, so get some of that if you missed it.  I almost watched it just for fun, but K wanted to do something else.

I am trying to gather the proper items to be able to download pictures from my phone.  I got the phone super cheap with some promotion (and a 2yr contract with cingular).  It came with 2 chargers (home and auto), and a spiffy pleather cover.  However, it did not come with any software to make the phone talk to the computer.  Nor did it come with a data cable, which I bought at the mall yesterday, in preparation for this project.  Tried downloading the phone tool software, only to discover it is in some proprietary format which I can't unlock/decompress/read/whatsoever.  So.  Trying again, with ISO version (which I know I can access).

And to update the PVR dilemma -- turns out one of the the unit's two tuners had gone bad, and was thus unable to decode the digital cable.  Technician came (again) last week and swapped us in a new unit.  Sadly, I lost some eps I hadn't watched yet (House, Eureka, Life on Mars -- oh wait, Mars had been trash from the bad decoder).

I don't know if the PVR is making me a TV junkie, or if the new crop of shows just looks good to me, but there's a ton of stuff I have programmed to watch, and I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with it all.

Anyhoo, Go Illini!  Go LSU!  (both winners today.)