I used to be one of those annoying people who was proud of not really watching any television. Back in the day, I used to watch shows, but then in the course of one year, my favorite shows (and cartoons) all got cancelled, and I said, "to hell with this," and didn't watch much of anything for like, five years. Then, I started watching the Simpsons, and I did that for a while. Of course, Fox being Fox, I ended up watching some of whatever was around the Simpsons, too. When we moved to Pensacola, C & I started watching Alias together, and my slippery slide began. Now, while it is still my belief that I watch a lot less TV than most people I run into, I do watch shows, cartoons, sporting events, and all kinds of things on TV. I have recently caught myself not muting commercials. I will recover, but in the meantime, thought I would talk about some of what I have seen on TV lately.
Justice - Yes, initially, I was only watching this because of Victor Garber. On the first night, though, when I watched it and saw Eamonn Walker and a Warren Zevon theme song, I decided I was really going to like the show. So far I have, though C and I have begun, after four episodes, to be able to predict what's going to happen. If 5 surprises us, we'll stick with it. I like the speed and pace of the show, and the acting is very good for the most part.
NFL on NBC - John Madden and Al Michaels are calling the games, and aside from being on Sundays instead of Mondays, who the fuck cares what network it's on? I've enjoyed the two partial games I've watched this season, and I'm glad that network TV (as opposed to ESPN or the NFL channel) has gotten some of the good matchups.
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century - One of Max's and my favorite shows on TV right now, and it tunrns out that it was cancelled in 2001. The fact that it's running in syndication means you often get two of them back to back, though. The concept is pretty obvious and the title sucks, but they do Holmes stories that you'll recognize if you've ever read Doyle. And Watson is a robot, which is cool.
Studio 60 - Warren Ellis put the clip of this on his blog months ago, and I decided to watch it then. I was not disappointed with the premiere, I thought it was super fast, funny, and fairly intelligent, but what I most liked was all of the inbred pop culture reflexivity being dumped into the content and characters of the show. When you have the "new" replacing the "old" and you use Perry and Whitford instead of Judd Hirsch and Ed Anser, that's deliberate. I will be very curious to see if this can sustain not only its own momentum, but my interest.
Talk Show with Spike Feresten - I think this is funny. I love the concept, the stripped down, red-headed stepchild of late night TV, and it's only on Saturdays, which means the staying power is increased. Anyway, I prefer this to most of the real sketch comedy shows out there. This guy used to write for Letterman, the Simpsons, and Seinfeld.
Viva Pinata - The stupidest thing I've ever seen on television, and it turns out it's just Microsoft marketing for some Xbox shit coming out, which explains a lot. The characters in the cartoon aspire to go to parties, where they will presumably be bashed apart and have their entrails consumed by hyper children.