Plans, plans, plans and TV meme
Comments on So You Think You Can Dance so far: Well, okay. I knew about all the changes ahead of time. I remain skeptical of the idea of having former contestants as all-stars to partner the current contestants. I mean, it could go either way. I can see the wisdom in only having one half of a partnership competing. And also to ensure having a partner who's a specialist in whatever style, so that two total newbies aren't both trying to learn salsa at once, for example. If you've never done cha-cha before, it'd be way less stressful having someone like Pasha for a partner than someone ELSE who's never done it before, plus your partner can help you learn. On the other hand...what if the all-stars totally outshine their partners? I'd hate to be a contestant having to share the stage with someone like Neil Haskell and trying to stand out and get noticed by the audience. We're all going to be watching Neil. That could be up to the choreographers to design dances that showcase the competing contestant and not their all-star partner. And some of these all-stars are like, really? Comfort? Courtney? If they wanted a girl b-boy dancer they needed to get Sara. But for the most part I think the choices were good. I just don't like Courtney Galliano. I do wish they'd gotten Melissa back so we could see Alex Wong do some real ballet with her.
The chosen contestants all seem pretty amazing. I was amused by Nigel's difficulties getting to Waupokaneta (which isn't far from where I live). I totally knew where he was on Hwy 33. It was so familiar! I was sad that Russell didn't get picked. Not sure why they chose Kent Boyd over him. But Adechike, Billy, and Alex are all phenomenal. I was sad to see Adrian Lee not make it, too. The girls are awesome, too. Alexie and Lauren especially impressed me.
I liked the new thing of the judges going to visit the contestants. It was nice to see them with their families and their reactions, honestly, although that wait had to have been agonizing.
Moving on. I've decided to take the plunge and do the 5K on Saturday even with a hike planned on Sunday. What the hell. Of course the weather isn't looking promising, both events may be cancelled due to thunderstorms. We'll see. My other plan for the weekend: make my own jerky! After spending roughly eleven million dollars on jerky in the last nine months I'm going to give it a try and see if it's any cheaper. I'm going to use Alton Brown's box-fan method. Eric does own a dehydrator but I want to try this and see how it works. I will take photos of my jerky experiment and post about it, I'm sure!
Tonight I'm going to set up a tomato planter of some kind. I have a lead on one kind of upside-down one (not the hanging kind) that got really good reviews at a gardening site. Thanks for the tips regarding moisture-control potting soil, will definitely get some of that. I need to get in a Couch to 5K session tonight, too. Moving on to week 3 now! It's a beautiful day outside, I wish I could knock off early and go do that, but alas there is work to be done.
TV meme time.
Day 01 - A show that should have never been canceled - Deadwood I can think of a bunch of shows that I was sad were canceled. "Firefly" springs to mind, but sadly I can see why it was and that maybe it ought to have been given that Fox was unwilling to support or promote it. But the one show that definitely, positively, without a doubt should not have been canceled is "Deadwood." Milch had a five-year plan for that show to naturally conclude it, but the Hooplehead Box Office canceled it after three years. It had decent ratings and God knows it was adored by critics and fans, but speculation is that it would be impossible to syndicate given the crazy amount of swearing and sex and nudity in it and also that it was an expensive show to produce given the necessity to maintain and keep upgrading an entire town set. Nothing about that show was ever unsatisfying, it never declined in quality, it was always as awesome as ever and then it just WENT AWAY.
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching - RuPaul's Drag Race I had a hard time coming up with this one. I don't actually watch all that many shows, believe it or not. CM, Mentalist and Castle, my procedural trifecta. Mythbusters. Intervention sometimes. Justified and Fringe. Friday Night Lights, which I download (haven't done yet this season, need to get on that) and usually whatever premium-cable is airing at the moment (none of mine are right now). So most of the shows that I do watch, plenty of other people are also watching. But I keep singing the praises of RuPaul's Drag Race, which is the awesomest reality show ever omg. It's like a cross between Top Model, Idol and Runway. The queens are awesome, RuPaul is hilarious and the whole thing is delightfully self-aware but earnest in a way that appeals to me. This season's favorite contestant (not the winner, though), Pandora Boxx, was in Columbus performing last weekend while I was in Hocking Hills. I would sooo have gone to see her if I'd been in town.
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this t.v season) - Justified This is by default since I believe it's the only new show I have watched this season. I watched zero new network shows, although several were new to me (like Castle and Dollhouse). I love me some Timothy Olyphant and the show had a mildly shaky start but has gotten better and better. He has been less and less Bullock-like as the series progresses and I like the relationship between him and his ex-wife. I wish we'd get more on the other Marshals in the office, though.
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Whoa. This one is hard. I'm not sure. I have very strong attachment to the Trek series, also Doctor Who, Buffy, Twin Peaks, West Wing, Friday Night Lights, Deadwood...man. West Wing is the show I can rewatch the most and have rewatched the most. Buffy is the show I think had the overall highest quality of storytelling and most enjoyment as a whole. But in the end I think I have to go with DS9. That's the show I can recall having the strongest emotional reaction to, as in the anticipation of watching it, the investment in what happened onscreen, the attachment to the characters, and so forth. It also contains my favorite canon ship of all time. Buffy would be a VERY close second. In fact, I think I'm going to give that one an honorable mention.
Day 05 - A show you hate - Sex and the City With the caveat that I've seen about three episodes of this. That was plenty. I do not get the appeal of this show. I mean, fashion is fun and we all love our shoes, but when I watched it, I found the writing clunky and campy, the acting horrific, the characters unappealing and the whole thing very off-putting. Chacun a son gout.
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite t.v show - In the Pale Moonlight One of the reasons DS9 got that top spot is that it wasn't afraid to be morally ambiguous, to put its stalwart Trek characters into murky situations and have them not always come out like knights in shining armor. It was conflicted, it was shades of gray, it acknowledged that in war there is often no right answer. There were consequences. There was fallout. This particular episode finds Captain Sisko attempting to persuade the Romulans to join the war against the very powerful Dominion on the side of the Federation and the Klingons. Sisko finds himself participating in a plan to fake evidence of a Dominion plot to assassinate a Romulan official in order to get them to go against the Dominion. He is very conflicted about this but seeing the death rolls of Starfleet officers dying in the war when there is (legitimately) just as much danger to the Romulans, who are content to sit there and watch the Federation get its ass kicked...he resorts to less than savory means. The episode is framed as he is dictating a personal log entry chronicling his involvement, how it came about, how it seemed to fail but then succeeded. The episodes ends as he tells his log that he knows what he did was wrong, and he can live with it. Then he says, "Computer, delete that entire log entry." It's nearly a perfect hour not just of Trek or sci-fi, but of television.
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite t.v show - The Sound of Her Voice This one's hard because like any long-running Trek series, DS9 has its fair share of truly terrible episodes. I don't think ANY of the romance-of-the-week episodes were ever any good. But this one takes it for me (despite some pretty cute Odo/Kira dating stuff) because of purely squandered potential and sheer boredom.
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch - Twin Peaks This may seem an odd choice. Or not. I was also unsure if the question meant "watch that's on right now" or "watch, period." Obviously I went for the latter. I had some other options in mind. West Wing. Friday Night Lights. Gargoyles (that one was a real close second). But while it's said about a great many shows, Twin Peaks really did change television. It aired twenty years ago and people are STILL trying to recapture it and recreate it. It burned so bright and flamed out so hard, but it's only 27 total episodes so not that serious of a time investment. People said it got too weird. It definitely got weird. The weirder it got, the better I liked it. Twin Peaks dared to do things I still can't believe they did
Day 09 - Best scene ever - You can all get your fat asses out of my White House. Oh, man. This was tough. A few things spring to mind. Agent Cooper's throwing-rocks-at-trees investigative method scene in "Twin Peaks." The Buffy-and-Spike "death is your art" scene in "Fool for Love." But I am going to have to pick a scene from West Wing for this. And there are many to choose from. But the best scene ever is Martin Sheen's first ever appearance on the show as President Bartlet, when he walks into a meeting between CJ, Toby, Josh and some right-wing religiosos and soundly takes them to task for their methods. It's a real stand-up-and-cheer moment, and I think for those of who love WW, that was the moment when we all kind of went "Yeah, this is going to be good."
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving -- Project Runway I had a hard time coming up with candidates for this one. Generally if I think I won't like a show I don't watch it. There have been shows where I was dubious about the premise or didn't think I'd like it, but then heard such good things about it that I was moved to give it a shot, like Friday Night Lights, but that isn't really what the question is asking about. I started watching Runway in season 2, and I didn't think I'd enjoy any kind of reality competition show, but purely on a whim I watched one episode and was hooked. Forever.
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you -- Star Trek: Voyager This one was a no-brainer. And it's made all the worse by how promising was its beginning. Voyager started when I was a senior in college, and we all had such high hopes for it, and the initial run of episodes were so good. Into the second season it was maintaining its quality and becoming more complex. Then it all went to hell. Quickly. They squandered the oh-so-interesting romantic tension between Janeway and Chakotay, neglected the secondary characters, wasted intriguing plotlines, and gave over the show to Borg Barbie. Seven of Nine was actually a good character and well played, but how they handled her was spotty at best.
Day 12 - An episode you’ve watched more than 5 times -- Sex, Birth and Death (Criminal Minds) There are a TON of episodes of my favorite shows that I've watched more than five times. I watch shows while I stitch, so the episode counts really rack up. I chose this one because it's one that I always watch in its entirety, without just fast-forwarding to my favorite parts. It's a second-season episode guest starring future Chekov Anton Yelchin as Nathan Harris, a teenaged boy who approaches Dr. Reid, the show's most reliably interesting character, because he's afraid that he might become a serial killer and wants Reid's help. It's an illuminating character study for not just Reid but the other characters, a great guest star, a compelling actual UNSUB who really is killing, and a heartbreaking ending that's ambiguous. One of my favorite episodes if not THE favorite.
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show -- Scarecrow and Mrs. King Anybody who's read my journal for awhile ought to have been able to guess this! I was also a big childhood fan of Dukes of Hazzard, heh. But Scarecrow, that was my shit, yo. I blame it for programming my brain to be shippy.
Day 14 - Favorite male character -- Al Swearengen (Deadwood) A number of candidates for this spot. Spike. The Doctor. Odo. Data. Matt Saracen. I seriously almost went with Dr. Spencer Reid. But Al? There's something special about Al. Al is a very bad man. Al will kill you if you get in his way. But somehow, Al is not evil. He will ONLY kill you if you get in his way, not just out of malice. Al is a man of many layers. He wants things and will do what's necessary to get them, but if he can get out of being evil about it, he usually will, acting put out about it. He has the capacity for mercy and kindness but would rather that nobody know about that. He has feelings but wishes he had the power to make them go away. Al continually just has to Deal With Shit That Goes Down, and damn, it's exhausting. Al is one of the most complex characters ever conceived for television and was played by Ian McShane with the kind of subtlety that made you hate and love him at the same time. So bow down, cocksucker.
Day 15 - Favorite female character -- Tami Taylor (Friday Night Lights) I wish the meme had a "Favorite marriage" option because Tami and Coach would be the hands-down winner, but I'll go with her here. I almost picked Kira Nerys, but Tami is such a realized person that I couldn't pass her up. I kind of want to BE Tami. Tami is down-to-earth but has her freakouts, she is competent but insecure, she loves her husband but fights with him, she struggles with her teenaged daughter and you can tell she can't believe she has one...she's a real person, more than just about any TV character I've ever seen. Her discussion with Julie about sex in season 1 is one of the great TV moments ever and so real it's painful. The character is brilliantly written but a lot of the credit goes to Connie Britton.
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show -- Stupid Criminals and their ilk Huh. This one's tough. I'm not sure I have one. I don't watch Top Model anymore. I guess I do rather enjoy those dumb criminals shows, like World's Wildest Police Chases. I don't watch them often but sometimes I'll flip channels and watch some. It's amusing in a rather shameful way.
Day 17 - Favorite mini series -- North and South (the Civil War one) This one was easy, too. There have been other fondly-remembered miniseries...Thorn Birds, anyone?...but this one has a special place in my heart. Starring Patrick Swayze and a cast of thousands, it originally aired in 1986 as a twelve-hour behemoth, which my parents taped. Oh VHS! Ooooooh. And over the years we watched it approximately eleventy billion times. I used to put it in when I needed viewing to accompany my stitching. It became a family tradition. Also included is the second, equally good in a cheesy way twelve-hour installment. I can still spot people now who were in North and South. It also had a TON of little bit-part appearances by luminaries of the day. Morgan Fairchild! Elizabeth Taylor! Lee Majors! Lloyd Bridges! The list goes on and on. Classic. The third miniseries was JAW DROPPINGLY AWFUL and I recommend avoiding it at all costs. This came out on DVD five years ago or so and needless to say my mom and I both acquired it POST HASTE.
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence -- True Blood I love title sequences. In films and in TV. I love it when the creators go to some trouble to make it interesting. It's more important for TV shows, obv, because we see it repeatedly. So many shows now have a cold open that the old-fashioned "theme song with cute shots of the cast" style sitcom title sequence has kind of gone the way of the dodo. Maybe that's a good thing. How sick did we all get of the damn Friends theme song? Soooo sick. Premium cable shows have mostly gone to instrumental-only evocative-style opening titles. Six Feet Under's were great, Dexter's are creative, Deadwood's were moody. I love Friday Night Lights' title sequence. Trivia fact...although Austin-based instrumental band Explosions in the Sky provides a lot of incidental music for FNL, they did not write the title score. That was written by longtime TV score composer W Snuffy Walden (who also wrote the West Wing title score) in the style of Explosions. Which it is. And I love it. But for sheer appropriateness and really keying in on the mood and tone of the series, I have to say that True Blood's title sequence outdoes pretty much any other show I can recall. It nails the whole grotesque-Southern-Gothic-sex-and-religion viscerality of the show's setting and gets you right there in the mood.
Day 19 - Best t.v show cast - The West Wing Whoa. This one is tough. How do I pick? The cast with the best actors? The one that gels the best? The one with the fewest weak links? Dang. In the end there's really only one choice for me. There was not a weak link in WW...well, maybe Rob Lowe, who I was never too nuts about, but even he is far from bad. And it's always a sign of a strong cast when supporting characters end up being more compelling for the people playing them (see Toby Ziegler and Donna Moss, for example). All of these people are a delight to watch and we see a LOT of them since the show is so focused so intensely on the main cast, their interactions and their conversations. An hour of West Wing is a LOT of exposure to the actors, more so than in most shows, because it's so talky.
Day 20 - Favorite kiss - Sheriff Bullock and Alma Garrett (Deadwood) Hmmmm. That's a tough one. Odo and Kira's first kiss on the Promenade in DS9. Buffy and Spike's first kiss at the end of "Once More, with Feeling" (although that's actually not my favorite of their kisses, tbqh). Josh and Donna's first kiss (omg finally) in "The Cold" episode of West Wing. Mulder and Scully kissing in his jail cell in the XF series finale. Tim Riggins and Lyla Garrity kissing in the rain in Friday Night Lights. Buuuut I'm picking this one for the sheer rawness of it and how it was built up. These two characters, her recently widowed by the death of her husband who she'd only married for his money, and him awaiting the arrival of his wife and son, who were actually his brother's wife and son who he'd taken as his own upon his brother's death out of obligation, had met about halfway through the season and the attraction was immediate and obvious. Watching them dance around each other and maintain propriety of the time in this lawless, raw place was so satisfying, and when he finally came to her, he said "I stand before you a married man." And she said "To your brother's wife." They knew the score. They knew he didn't love his wife and she hadn't loved her husband. They also knew that they loved each other, but that they couldn't ever be official, and if they were going to start something unofficial, it had to be now and it would have to be short-lived. Watching them give in and all the awkwardness and passion and strange politeness of it all was...well, it's kinda something.
Day 21 - Favorite ship - Reid/Prentiss (Criminal Minds) Oh man. Where do I start with this? What's the ship I felt the most passionate about? Buffy/Spike. What's the one I felt was the most well-supported, well-rounded and meaningful? Odo/Kira. What's the sentimental favorite? Amanda/Lee (from Scarecrow and Mrs. King) or Kid/Lou (from Young Riders). I was into Mulder/Scully as it pertained to the show but it never pushed me into fannish areas, yanno? So I'm going to go with this ship, which might seem a weird choice. And it kind of is. It's only getting the spot most likely because it's a current ship. And this is the first time I've ever shipped a rare pairing (its rarity still kinda surprises me, tbqh). So this is probably not my Ship to End All Ships. I don't even KNOW what that would be. But I'm going with it.
Day 22 - Favorite series finale -- Six Feet Under This is by far the easiest answer. There has never been nor can I imagine there will ever be a more fitting and perfect series finale. Period.
Day 23 - Most annoying character -- Mandy, West Wing
This was really hard. I had a difficult time coming up with an answer. If a character seriously annoys me I usually end up not watching the show. But Mandy. Mandy was annoying. She was clearly intended to be a romantic foil for Josh but ended up just being shrill, pointless and having to be shoehorned into various scenes where she didn't fit. They were constantly having to come up with things for her to do that didn't feel organic. It wasn't a surprise that the character was unceremoniously dropped with no explanation and that nobody missed her.
Day 24 - Best quote - "The president, while riding a bicycle on his vacation in Jackson Hole, came to a sudden arboreal stop." (West Wing)
I thought about trying to go deep and meaningful, or creative and artistic for this. Al Swearengen has provided more quotables than I can number. But this quote, I think, coming like six minutes into the WW pilot episode, let us all know what kind of show we were in for. Creative and smart and funny.
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new) - Mad Men
I have some of it on my computer. And there's Netflix. I just haven't gotten to it yet. I also plan to watch all of "Lost." After I lost track of it in season 2ish, I planned to wait until it was over then watch the whole thing.
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First t.v show obsession
Day 29 - Current t.v show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death