BrockLi Soup

I can’t help but wonder if other people do this: any time I find a TV show, or podcast, or book or magazine or any kind of media that I like, I feel compelled to catch up on all back issues before I move ahead. Like, if I catch an episode of an interesting TV show, I want to watch all of the previous episodes before seeing any more new ones, so I know the back story. When I find a new podcast, I want to listen to all the previous episodes, and the same with books by some author. I feel like I’m missing something if I don’t get the whole back story.

Arrested Development is a great explanation for this. That show constantly referred back to previous events and made countless in-jokes and callbacks. People that didn’t see the previous episodes would miss half the jokes, and that’s probably why it failed - people who watched the show were undying fans, but anyone who came into the middle of the series wouldn’t find it entertaining.

Increased serialization of TV shows may lend to this. For example, I wouldn’t bother to start watching Lost, or Heroes, or The Wire without catching up on the old episodes, because I would be missing big parts of the back store. This seems to be true of most popular shows these days, and not just those that are generally considered to be serials like that - even sitcoms like The Office and My Name Is Earl have a good deal of back story that come up in jokes and plot lines again and again.

Maybe other people don’t feel the need to catch up like this, but I almost never take people up on it when they recommend a TV series to me, because I know I won’t be able to enjoy it without first putting in the time to get caught up. Entertainment is hard work.

Dear NBC,

Thank God You’re Here would be about twelve times funnier if you got rid of the host and the judge - who, incidentally, are far more irritating than entertaining - and gave the time to the four guest stars, who are usually hilarious. The final sketch, with all four of them, is the funniest part, and every time that Canadian dude hits the buzzer, I just want to drop a deuce on the floor of his green room.

Hearts, Brock

Dear Black Donnellys,

I like you, I really do. We had some good times together, but…well, there’s someone else. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Irish-Sopranos idea, but there’s just something about a cross-dressing Englishman.

I’m leaving you for The Riches.

I know, I know, Izzard wears pants and a goatee, but still, can I deny my love? And Minnie Driver! And the chick that plays the daughter! How can I say no, Black Donnellys? Sure, I could watch you both, but who has that kind of time on Monday nights?

If it’s any consolation, I’ll be keeping an eye on the lovely Olivia Wilde. The episode where Jon Tucker takes off his shirt was a doozie, but he’s no Olivia.

I hope that things go well for you, Black Donnellys. Perhaps we can even share time together again someday, once these wounds have healed and you’re out on DVD. But for now, I feel it’s best that we part ways.

Goodbye, Black Donnellys.

I’ve seen one full episode, and half of tonight’s show, and I still don’t understand how a show with guest stars like Will Ferrel and Dax Shepard can be so awful. I give up.

For all the advertising Comedy Central has been throwing at The Naked Trucker and T-Bones, I kinda figured it would be funny.

I’ve never watched commentaries on DVDs, because I would rather watch a movie I haven’t seen than hear someone talk about a movie I have. NBC has been showing the cast’s favorite episodes for the past couple weeks, with their commentaries on the NBC site.

This week, Cox and Janitor are doing the commentary, and it’s a lot more entertaining than I would have expected, and it’s cool to listen to it while it’s actually on TV. I hope they do it again next week.

And since when is the Geico lizard Australian?

Before I saw Serenity, someone described it to me as a space western. Having seen the movie and the first four episodes of Firefly, I can’t think of a better way to describe it. Hell, the episode I’m watching right now features a cattle drive - IN SPACE! I almost fan-boyyed the other day when we were talking about it, it’s so great. I don’t know where I’d be without Netflix.

This quarter’s going to be unpleasant. I really don’t want to be taking any of the classes I’m in, but I don’t have any options at this point. Networking (4002-342) might be alright, but I haven’t heard anything good about this prof. Needs Assessment and Tech Transfer will both be easy, but a pain in the neck. Hayden and Mozart is just going to be frustrating, because there’s going to be a fair bit of reading that I don’t want to do. I want to rearrange things to get a different prof for Networking and make my Tuesday and Thursday end earlier, but two of the sections I would need to switch into are full right now.

I can’t even procrastinate in front of the TV any more. We had Sharon’s for the summer, but BP and I took it back the other day. I think BP is planning to buy a new one on payday. Fonny drew us one for the interim, but we can only watch The Dukes of Hazzard.

On the upside, I’m taking racquetball. At the first class today, a number of rules were clarified; our version was pretty close to right, but with a few key differences regarding serves.

I should be OK this quarter, but I know it’s going to drain me. I’ve never been able to handle classes I don’t want to take; last winter, when I was taking Genetic Algorithms and Artifical Intelligence, was absolutely miserable. I know I’m just going to put off the stuff I don’t want to do, and this time I don’t even have a fun class that I can focus my energy on. I shouldn’t have saved all this crap for last.

My TV viewing habits are not your garden variety ER addiction. I almost never watch shows on TV, because I can find the good ones online the day after they’re on.

Plus, I never remember when shows are on.

This affords me a fair bit of flexibility. I can, for example, watch an episode of Arrested Development during my lunch break, or watch seven consecutive episodes of Family Guy if I’m putting off a final project. I go on streaks where I’ll watch all existing episodes of a particular series - my second year, it was That 70’s Show, last year was Friends, and this year was The Simpsons. Somewhere in there, I’ve seen Arrested Development and Scrubs all the way through twice each.

BP has been making a run through Scrubs again, so I’ve been watching some of them with him. Somehow, we wound up a season apart, so I started over from the beginning. I guess this is my series for the summer.

My guilty pleasure lately has been bad sitcoms. I don’t have any justification for my actions - sometimes, you just need to watch mindless TV.

It started with the Friends spin-off Joey. I only watched it the first time because I was so into Friends last year. It’s really not a good show: Joey is the only one from the original cast, he moved from New York to LA, and the episodes thus far really don’t make the viewer care about the characters.

Regardless, I can’t stop watching it. It’s like some cheap drug that makes you giggle for half an hour. Even as I watch it, I’m thinking This is crap, but I download a new episode every week.

My most recent addiction has been Life on a Stick, starring the burger punk from Super Troopers. No one that saw the commercial thought it would be any good. This show is so scripted and so canned that I can’t help but enjoy it. It’s like a half hour of one-liners: none of it feels like conversation, but it’s still watchable. Most of the actors seem to realize their lines are absurd and deliver them the same way most of my friends would deliver a deliberately corny joke. There’s no flow and it’s mostly crap, but I love it anyway.

There are only about a half-dozen shows I watch on a weekly basis - Arrested Development, Malcolm in the Middle, The Simpsons, and Scrubs fill out the list - so these are the only two that I divulge in for now. I’ll keep you posed on crap TV you just can’t hate.