The Weekly Championing
I listen to three different podcasts from Slate: The XX Podcast, the Culture Gabfest, and the Political Gabfest. I love all three for various reasons, but one reason that all three share is their weekly recommendations in the form of Coffee Talk, Endorsements, and Cocktail Chatter. They tell the audience about cool things they're reading or watching or experiencing or thinking about that week.
I thought I'd steal it and make my own weekly recommendation in the form of Championing.
The inaugural Weekly Championing will have two recommendations.
The first goes to the Valentine's Day episode of The Office entitled PDA.
The Office has had a pretty uneven two or three seasons, but last Thursday's episode was a step in a great direction. It was total classic Office humor. All three story lines were pitch perfect in their execution. Michael and Holly's gross PDA was whacky enough to be hilarious and had enough heart behind it to be genuinely touching. Erin and Andy's treasure hunt was sweet but not so cloying that I wanted to change the channel. Jim and Pam had their most suggestive screen time ever, too, and that includes the fact that they had to have had sex for Pam to have been pregnant. For one of the classic television couples, they've rarely had any heat in their relationship, so it was a real treat for it to be so on display after seven years of watching these two interact together.
Props to the team over there for creating the first truly memorable episode this show has seen in a long time.
My second Championing is for Lucy Lawless' performance in Friday's episode of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Beneath The Mask.
I know, I know. Why should you believe that this performance was anything special? Don't I have a tendency to be madly in love with Lucy Lawless? Yes. I do.
But . . . Her performance in the last episode, particularly in the final two or three scenes, was really something truly wonderful to watch. I've enjoyed Gods of the Arena well enough, but I was getting kind of tired of Lucretia's lack of substantial story line outside of having sex with Gaia (not that I minded that, really). Beneath The Mask finally gave me hope that Lucretia's going to really go ape shit just in time for the final two episodes of the prequel and we finally got a chink in the armor that explains how to gets to be who she is in Blood And Sand. Furthermore, the last part of the episode made me even more excited for the Blood and Sand second season, which is supposed to start filming this coming April, because it's reminded me of how awesome Lucy will be when her character is actually given something to do.
I'm so pumped for next week's episode that I can barely contain myself.
I thought I'd steal it and make my own weekly recommendation in the form of Championing.
The inaugural Weekly Championing will have two recommendations.
The first goes to the Valentine's Day episode of The Office entitled PDA.
The Office has had a pretty uneven two or three seasons, but last Thursday's episode was a step in a great direction. It was total classic Office humor. All three story lines were pitch perfect in their execution. Michael and Holly's gross PDA was whacky enough to be hilarious and had enough heart behind it to be genuinely touching. Erin and Andy's treasure hunt was sweet but not so cloying that I wanted to change the channel. Jim and Pam had their most suggestive screen time ever, too, and that includes the fact that they had to have had sex for Pam to have been pregnant. For one of the classic television couples, they've rarely had any heat in their relationship, so it was a real treat for it to be so on display after seven years of watching these two interact together.
Props to the team over there for creating the first truly memorable episode this show has seen in a long time.
My second Championing is for Lucy Lawless' performance in Friday's episode of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Beneath The Mask.
I know, I know. Why should you believe that this performance was anything special? Don't I have a tendency to be madly in love with Lucy Lawless? Yes. I do.
But . . . Her performance in the last episode, particularly in the final two or three scenes, was really something truly wonderful to watch. I've enjoyed Gods of the Arena well enough, but I was getting kind of tired of Lucretia's lack of substantial story line outside of having sex with Gaia (not that I minded that, really). Beneath The Mask finally gave me hope that Lucretia's going to really go ape shit just in time for the final two episodes of the prequel and we finally got a chink in the armor that explains how to gets to be who she is in Blood And Sand. Furthermore, the last part of the episode made me even more excited for the Blood and Sand second season, which is supposed to start filming this coming April, because it's reminded me of how awesome Lucy will be when her character is actually given something to do.
I'm so pumped for next week's episode that I can barely contain myself.