For quite a number of years now I have had television and movie-themed calendars on my walls. Mostly about TV shows I enjoyed at the…
Tag: Friends
Purchase Diary 2014 – May / June
Friends: The Complete Series (1994 – 2004)
May 2nd – €53.20 (CA$84.99) @ Amazon.ca (paid partially via gift certificate)
Collection no. 12686 – 12705
But I’m a bit disappointed. It’s really my fault because I didn’t check this beforehand (I just didn’t expect it): It’s only the broadcast version. As someone who knows the key episodes in their extended version basically by heart, it’s like an audio CD with a few scratches and the music suddenly jumps in the middle of the track.
I bet they pull a Lucas and in a few months / years there will be a Blu-ray Extended Edition…
Cottage Country (2013)
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May 3rd – €7.99 @ Drogerie Müller
Collection no. 1114
You Again (2010)
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May 3rd – €7.99 @ Drogerie Müller
Collection no. 1115
Pretty Woman (1990)
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May 3rd – €7.99 @ Drogerie Müller
Collection no. 1116
The Proposal (2009)
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May 3rd – €7.99 @ Drogerie Müller
Collection no. 1117
Chuck Lorre, Where Art Thou?
I used to love Chuck Lorre shows.
I loved them back in the days of the first few seasons of Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory and even the beginning of Mike & Molly.
But now? Not so much. But let me break this down by series.
Two and a Half Men
Let me preface this by saying I don’t care what happens behind the curtains. I never did. Not with this show, not with others. What I care about is what happens on the screen.
TaaHM used to be funny. Back in the days when Jake was still a cute kid, back when Charlie wrote things like the Oshikuru theme song, back then when Alan had no success with women.
Long before Angus T. Jones grew up and pulled a sort-of Kirk Cameron, Jake was used less and less and had to endure the fate of many a sitcom character: His character traits were exaggerated until (in his case) he was basically too dumb to live. Does anyone remember that cool kid from the Pilot who out-bluffed grown men at the poker table?
Charlie (the on-screen character) didn’t change all that much over the season until he was killed off-screen.
And Alan? I found Alan never that funny to begin with but his ability too mooch and his inabilty to find a decent job (has he been working at all in the past two seasons?) have just stretched way beyond the breaking point.
All in all, I’m going to cancel TaaHM for myself at the end of the season.
Amazon (again)
In recent months Amazon has become quite a controversial topic in Germany.
It all started with an “undercover” documentation for one of our TV stations. I watched the docu online after everyone and their dog wrote about it and the first “Boycott!” outcries were made.
I don’t know if what the docu claimed was actually true because I found it to be severely lacking in the objective journalism department. If you understand German, you can read my commentary here: ARD vs. Amazon.
The general gist of the controversy is that Amazon hires seasonal workers for the Christmas time and then fires the workers around New Year’s. And they also pay according to the union labour contracts for the logistics trade and not the retail trade where the workers would get higher salaries. They can do that because the retailer Amazon EU is based in Luxembourg (mainly for tax avoidance reasons) and what is called Amazon Deutschland is just the fulfiller that operates the deployment centers.
Anyway, two recent events have once again proven to me that Amazon is a great business partner:
#1)
A few months ago I wanted to order the first season of The Newsroom at Amazon.com. Usually the shipping costs for a season are $6.48. For some reason the system charged me $29.52 for a season that only cost $17.99.
It happens, even computers have hiccups from time to time. I contacted the support, they gave me a refund, end of story.
Now it happened again, this time with the sixth season of Burn Notice ($17.11 shipping for a $11.98 product). I contacted the support again and got this reply:
Quote:
Hello,
I sorry[sic!] to hear that you’ve been charged an incorrect shipping charge.
To make this right for you, I’ve waived the total shipping cost of $17.11 for your order.
What can I say except “Thanks”?
#2)
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TV Junkie: A History
I watched a lot of TV shows over the years. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. And I watched accross the board.
Keep in mind that I’m only 35 years old.
I watched The Guiding Light for two years straight (it’s a soap opera whose German title was the Springfield Story). I watched medical shows like Trapper John M.D. and lawyer shows like L.A. Law. I watched the 80s action shows from MacGuyver to Riptide. I even watched Love Boat every weekday on one of the first private channels in Germany: Sat.1. I got up at 6am on every Saturday morning to watch Rawhide (Tausend Meilen Staub, lit. “A Thousand Miles of Dust”) with a very young and pre-Fistful Clint Eastwood. I knew who Daniel Boone was around the same time I met the Cartwrights as well as the men from the Shiloh Ranch.
And last weekend I binge-watched the first Netflix show House of Cards (Big recommendation! Kevin Spacey is a brilliant Magnificent Bastard!) and I got curious as to how many shows I watched intently over the past two and a half decades.
With the help of the list on the German site Wunschliste.de I created a list of “my” shows.
I only counted live-action fiction shows, no animated shows may they be Saturday morning cartoons like Yogi Bear or Scooby-Doo or evening shows like The Simpsons or South Park. No scripted reality (which I’m avoiding to 99% anyway with the exception of Comic Book Men). In this list are only shows which I followed for more than a year unless the show itself didn’t last that long.
And the answer was: 244 246 247. Two hundred and fourty four six seven different shows I watched with active interest since I’ve started watching television. And the worst thing is: Of most of these shows I watched 90% or more episodes at least once.
TV Season 2009/2010 Diary, CW 18
Deutsche Version | CW 13-17 | CW 13-19
Chuck 3×15 Chuck versus the Role Models
Again, I’ve enjoyed this episode very much. Loved the tiger even without Mike Tyson.
I also liked the hint to an oncoming arc in the end. I strongly suspect that the Chuck gang and the Awesome family will soon cross paths again.
And I loved this little spoof of Hart to Hart (not to mention the blink towards LOST at the end) (warning: contains spoilers if you’re not up2date):
And here’s the original:
LOST 6×14 The Candidate
Just like with Supernatural they seem to be cleaning up the game board for the Grand Finale.
What disturbed me most about the Kwon’s death was not that it happened after they reunited after being apart for three years (bad things happen…) but that neither Jin nor Sun thought about their daughter at that moment, a child that will now be raised without parents. I understand that a little more from Jin’s perspective since he never saw his child and it was three years since Sun had been pregnant but Sun should have said something!
The Big Bang Theory 3×20 The Spaghetti Catalyst
I loved it how Leonard and Penny behaved like divorced parents (IMHO with switched gender roles – she takes him to Disneyworld and he has to deal with his nightmares afterwards) and how Sheldon – who loves them both – has a hard time deciding of whom to hang with.
How I Met Your Mother 5×21 Twin Beds
This story was not well constructed. I get that Barney and Ted might have regrets but how it played out was not well executed IMHO – especially since Don is basically an unknown to me. How often have we seen this guy? Three, four times? And now I should care about him?
I also didn’t like the twin bed story, it felt contrived.
Community 1×23 Modern Warfare
I can’t even count how many references this episode alone had – and still was able to tell a fully fledged story: First there were the named references to Friends and Cheers then it seemed like a post-apocalyptic movie, then Abed quoted The Terminator and fought like in The Matrix (including bullet-time at a later point), then there was this doomsday movie scene where people are warming their hands over a burning barrel in the midst of destruction (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow), the mention of the Neutral Zone (Star Trek), The Prize (Highlander), the gun taped on the back (Die Hard) and I’m pretty sure Señor Chang’s golden guns were from some movie, too.
I’m also sure I did not mention every reference here nor do I think that I caught all of them. Two words: Absolutely hilarious.
TV Season 2009/2010 Diary, CW 50-01
Deutsche Version | CW 46-50 | CW 01-02
How I Met Your Mother 5×11 Last Cigarette Ever
I am soo glad I never started smoking… It was an OK episode but except for the “time travel” nothing noteworthy happened.
The Big Bang Theory 3×11 The Maternal Congruence
That was a great episode, Leonard’s mother (Diane Lockhart in The Good Wife btw) is a great addition to the gang especially because of her relationship to both Leonard and Sheldon. And I loved her observation of Raj’s and Howard’s “relationship” because it isn’t entirely unfounded if you have watched the previous episodes. 😉
Two and a Half Men 7×11 Warning, It’s Dirty
Another great episode I enjoyed a lot. Too bad Charlie Sheen seems to be an entirely different personality in real life. 
The Good Wife 1×10 Lifeguard
I don’t really know what to think about this part of the American judical system: That every important position is decided by an election where not necessarily the more competent person wins but the more popular. Like they pointed out in this episode: She has a disadvantage with the voters because she has an English surname. WTF has the surname to do with the ability to be a good judge?!
But the episode was really great. As I often pointed out I am normally not too much into here-and-now-realism shows, I like it a bit more “extravagant”. But every now and then I get drawn in by a show with a “normal” story and The Good Wife certainly belongs on this list.
The Good Wife 1×11 Infamy
Another really good episode and argument about the First Amendment. I liked both cases and I am getting ever more curious what the case against her husband is really about. I also learned something new today, namely that the judge can overrule the jury’s verdict. Why then have a jury in the first place?
TV Shows – A Decade in Retrospect
Since everybody seems to be starting to count at zero instead of one the first decade of this century and millennium is now over. So it’s time to recap these past ten years and take a look at the TV Shows it has given us.
Let me give my résumé at the beginning: Of the four decades I know TV Shows from (70s – 00s) this was without question the best decade for us TV junkies. When you read my review you might say in the end “Hey what about <insert your favourite here>?” (e.g. The Sopranos, Dexter, The Wire, Six Feet Under, …) but that’s exactly my point. This decade has given us so many outstanding shows that it was impossible to watch them all. Also, everybody has a different set of favourite genres but I’d say that every genre got their fair share of excellent series in the last years.
But let’s face it: There’s rarely any series (if there’s one at all) that could keep up the quality and its appeal for its entire run. Some had a bad year in between, some fell short at the end. But even in these “bad years” they had more quality episodes in it than entire shows from previous decades. So all the shows I am going to name have of course aspects that can be criticized and I invite you to do so.
For me the most outstanding characteristic of this past decade’s shows is that they are more often than not more about the “journey” of the character(s) than the actual events. It’s not the character who shines a light upon the unfolding events but it’s the events that shine a light upon the character and his development. I have to say that shows (hereby excluding comedy shows that work with stereo- and archetypes) that don’t have a real character development don’t interest me at all. But if the character development is interesting I might even watch shows from genres that usually don’t interest me at all.
If the character development is interesting enough I might even set the fact aside that my second favourite characteristic is missing: A real story-arc. The first TV Show in my TV universe that had a real story-arc, was Babylon 5. Later Star Trek: DS9 did the same albeit not in that quality and complexity. But these shows were two of the rare exception in the 90s (another famous exception would be Twin Peaks, but I never watched it). It seemed that viewers weren’t interested in either developing characters or story-arcs.
TV Season 2009/2010 Diary, CW 37-46
Deutsche Version | CW 45 | CW 40-47
The Good Wife 1×06 Conjugal
I love the unusual (and yet serious) way how they solve their cases and I like how they often find a way to involve Alicia’s husband in the case even when she has to sacrifice his reputation in the end.
Two and a Half Men 7×07 Untainted by Filth
Charlie’s going to marry! The world comes to an end even before 2012! Loved the flashback to the “threesome” and how he managed to disguise his uncomfortableness by telling his mother’s story. One story worse than the other. 😉
House M.D. 6×06 Known Unknowns
Loved Cuddy, Wilson and House at that conference, especially the the (19)80s party and House being totally serious when he held Wilson’s speech and keeping his friend out of trouble. As usual, I didn’t care too much about the actual case.
The Big Bang Theory 3×07 The Guitarist Amplification
Penny’s and Leonard’s first real argument. How cute. But once again Sheldon stole the spotlight from all of them. I am quite sure when the writers invented the show they didn’t imagine Sheldon becoming basically the comical center of the show but that’s how it turned out. Unfortunately I slowly get the feeling that the other four are slowly becoming supporting cast to give him an anchor for his lines.
Supernatural 5×08 Changing Channels
One week’s worth of television in one episode. So cool, especially the CSI parody. But one thing I haven’t understood: Was the Trickster we’ve known before never a Trickster and always Gabriel? Or did Gabriel choose the face of the Trickster for some reason afterwards?
The Pilot Marathon Part 8
Deutsche Version | Part 7 | Part 9
True Blood
What’s the show about?
Based upon the “Sookie Stackhouse” book series by Charlaine Harris. Sookie is a waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana and she can read minds. She’s fallen in love with a Vampire who has been around since the Civil War. The Vampires have come out of the coffin since the Japanese have invented artificial blood and Vampires need no longer feed off of Humans. The new stuff is called Tru:Blood.
“Strange Love”
Sookie Stackhouse is totally excited when her first Vampire walks into the bar where she works. And the best part of it: She can’t read his mind. The thoughts of all the people around her are constantly raining upon her but he is totally quiet. But she’s not the only one who has identified him as Vampire. So have the Rattrays and they pin him down and try to drain him dry for his “V” – Vampire blood, an aphrodisiac for Humans.
My Opinion
A bit lengthy at times but otherwise very interesting and sometimes disturbing. The show is very open about a lot of topics and also very (very, very!) visual. And except for having Vampires living openly amongst Humans the show also shows other mystical abilities like Sookie’s mind-reading and someone else’s shape-shifting. The interesting part about this show is the fact that Vampires aren’t a secret and how both sides try to deal with that fact (Vampire rights, racism, …).