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.

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TV Season 2010/2011 Diary #8

Better With You 1×01 / 1×02 Pilot / Better with Firehouse
I watched the first two episodes but I don’t really get it. I think it has to do with the fact that I don’t see the irony in not being married and why that’s supposed to be a source for humour.
What also doesn’t work for me are these scenes where they show all three couples doing the same thing – just differently.

Community 2×02 Accounting for Lawyers
Jeff in his natural habitat. It was cool to see the lawyer from the pilot episode back and how he could twist anything to his liking.
It was also cool to see them all in formal wear and going on a Mission Impossible. πŸ˜‰

$#*! My Dad Says 1×02 Wi-Fight
Shatner as the grumpy old man totally works for me. I’m not sure about the older brother and his wife though. Maybe they need a bit more time to find their pace. They are lucky that they have Shatner and I am willing to give them that time.

Melissa & Joey 1×08 Dancing with the Stars of Toledo
It was an OK episode. I really loved the all-male Tango, it was incredibly funny to watch them dance and they really pulled it off. I also liked the drug-induced dream sequence. It’s of course a staple of these kinds of sitcoms but you also have to find two people that can actually pull it off and I think these two can.

Raising Hope 1×02 Dead Tooth
Even the show acknowledges that it’s weird. And as the cast is getting wider, more weird people come into it. But it also shows the genuine care between father and daughter.
What makes it more fun for me is the fact that I can’t stop seeing Garret Dillahunt as the Terminator from The Sarah Connor Chronicles and then to watch him here.
And Sabrina reminds me a lot of the young Ally Sheedy from WarGames.

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Those that came …

Deutsche Version | Those that came … those that wentthose that did bothand those that did neither nor

Community

A cool sitcom (without laugh track) about a bunch of students in a Community College.
As with most shows, it needs a few episodes to settle in, but I really liked it from the start. The dynamics within the group is so great because they have such heterogeneous backgrounds. If it weren’t for that college, these people probably would have never met. That’s were a lot of the fun comes from.

Cougar Town

A sitcom (again without laugh track) about a divorced mum, her teenage son, her ex-husband, her neighbour friends and her assistant/friend.
The show started out as exactly what it says on the tin but moved quickly away from it. Which was a good idea. They are probably going to rename it next year. All the characters are very quirky with Jules being the queen.

Glee

The Glee Club at a high school.
I’ve watched the first two episodes but it just wasn’t my terrain. It seems to be a big hit in the U.S. but I simply can’t see the appeal.

The Good Wife

Alicia Florrick is the wife of a former D.A. who has been charged with crimes regarding the misuse of the powers of his office. Now Alicia has to work again and she starts as a junior associate at a law firm of an old friend.
I really enjoyed this year, it was a good drama show with a lot of interesting characters. And it’s never clear-cut, not black/white. Just like reality.

Human Target

Christopher Chance (not his real name) works for people who need a bodyguard of the special kind.
This is a popcorn show. You watch it, you enjoy it and you don’t think about it. If you watch it, you’ll enjoy it most of the time. If you don’t watch it, you haven’t missed anything.

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TV Season 2009/2010 Diary, CW 02-04

Deutsche Version | CW 01-02 | CW 04

Human Target 1×01 Pilot
The pilot episode certainly looked interesting. The action was well balanced above realistic and below unrealistic. It looks like as if it’s going to be Die Hard or Lethal Weapon in a series format and I certainly will watch more episodes of it.
“You wore a vest? Where’s my vest?” – “I’m your vest.”

24 8×01 – 8×04 4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Dammit. I should have known better. I decided to watch the season en bloc when it is over. But I just had to peak a little and was already drawn back in…
I love Jack’s new “Are we done here? Can I go home now?” attitude. Of course they aren’t done and Jack can’t go home.
When I read that that Freddie Prince jr. (Wing Commander, Scooby Doo) – He married my Buffy, dammit!!! – would take the part of the leading CTU Field Officer I was a bit worried. But he has gotten older and looks like he can pull it off.
Of course there are again the typical 24 plot points like the incompetent CTU boss, the CTU member who has private problems and I am already wondering who the mole is – but that’s OK, it’s 24 after all.
What I also like is that – aside from the 24 alumni who have returned this season – these episodes feel like a huge School Reunion party: The aforementioned Freddie Prince jr., Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica) – looks gorgeous btw -, Paul Wesley (Stefan in The Vampire Diaries), Cliff Simon (Ba’al in Stargate SG-1), David Anders (Takezo Kensei / Adam Monroe in Heroes, Julian Sark in Alias), JΓΌrgen Prochnow (Dune, Das Boot) and according to the CTU files Callum Keith Rennie (Ray in Due South, Leoben in Battlestar Galactica) will also appear anytime soon. πŸ™‚

Life Unexpected 1×01 Pilot
I was made aware of this series at least twice. The second time was a few days ago when blogs reviewed the pilot episode. But I’ve seen bits and pieces of this episode before – most likely in a trailer a few months back. And even though I had forgotten the show in the meantime I now remember that I decided back then that I’d give it a try.
I really liked the pilot. The characters are believable and down-to-earth. Even though the show runs on The CW this isn’t Beverly Hills 90210 or Gossip Girl, this is different. As with every show it now depends on what kind of storylines they are going to tell and how this triangle+attachments is going to work out.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand 1×01 / 1×02 The Red Serpent / Sacramentum Gladiatorum
Lots of nudity (male and female). Even more blood. Better you put a bucket below your telly in case it spills out of the screen. The optic leans more towards 300 than Gladiator, especially when there’s blood flowing. The problem is the story. These first two episodes show how Spartacus became a Gladiator but it didn’t give the viewer an idea what the entire show is going to be about. And that’s why I am not yet convinced. To quote Buffy‘s Spike: “I love a good slaughter as much as the next bloke” but I also need a real story in between.
Time will tell … at least you now get the chance you never got with Xena: To see Lucy Lawless in the nude. πŸ˜‰

Chuck 3×04 Chuck vs Operation Awesome
The only thing I’ve ever seen Brandon Routh in was Superman Returns but here he didn’t remind me of his character there. I like him as addition to the team because he could stir things up a little.
I don’t know if it’s just my imagination because they announced it but the show actually feels a bit less funny and a bit more serious. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an Action Comedy and there’s plenty of fun in it. But the general tone during the spy action seems to have darkened a little since last year. I’m not complaining – I like it.

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TV Season 2009/2010 Diary, CW 46-50

Deutsche Version | CW 47-49 | CW 50-01

The Big Bang Theory 3×10 The Athens Recurrence
I do that very rarely but I watched the scene where Penny recites the physics stuff three times in a row. It’s so great to see her keep a straight face and the others get dumbfounded. Sheldon can be so proud of her.Β  Clap
I also really liked the reference to the pilot when Penny explained why Sheldon sits where he sits.

Two and a Half Men 7×10 That’s Why They Call It Ball Room
This was a cool episode, it had many scenes that made me laugh, for example the couch incident or Alan’s wedding video or the dance lessons. I also liked that Jake had a few more scenes but I still feel they should make at least one entire episode about him again sometime soon.

Bones 5×10 The Goop on the Girl
“You look like sisters.” πŸ˜€ I really liked Zooey Deschanel’s appearance on the show, it was really funny. It also kinda answers the question why Brennan behaves the way she does even when she had a normal childhood until the age of 16. It must be a gene running in the family. πŸ˜‰
What I didn’t like was Booth dissing that radio man for having a negative opinion of the U.S.. But I think that’s a cultural difference. In Germany we’ve come to love criticizing our country and everything the parliament (we elected) does.

Castle 2×11 The Fifth Bullet
This one had a really nice assortment of guest actors: Marc Blucas (Buffy‘s Riley), Anne Dudek (House‘s Cutthroat Bitch) and Carlo Rota (24‘s Morris O’Brian). I especially like Carlo because he often plays (he was recently on Stargate Universe, too) these somewhat grumpy character’s that aren’t really likeable (because they aren’t really supposed to be) and he does a great job with them because you actually don’t like the characters but you don’t transfer that to the actor.
But I also liked Marc Blucas in his amnesia role, he was a nice guy.

FlashForward 1×10 A561984
So Dominic’s character doesn’t actually belong to the evil bad guys. But he was still the most interesting character in this episode. I honestly don’t know if I will even remember this show when it starts to air again in 4(!) months.

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Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods – Final Cut

Deutsche Version

Children of the Gods is the movie-length pilot of Stargate SG-1. It is said that there were creative differences between the producers and the networked “Showtime” chipped in, too. Additionally due to the story-telling of the series some aspects don’t make sense anymore.
Thus someone decided to create a “Final Cut” version of the pilot where scenes are reordered, shortened and the FX were enhanced.

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MacGyver

I was getting in the mood and have started watching MacGyver again, starting with the first season from 1985/86. And I love to see so…

Farscape: Season 1

Deutsche Version | Farscape Marathon | Season 2: Disc 1

Disc 1

Premiere

Synopsis: John Crichton is a scientist and an astronaut and he wants to prove that one can use Earth’s gravitational pull to accelerate a spaceship. But something goes wrong and his tiny ship “Farscape-1” is sucked into a wormhole and John gets stranded … somewhere. He’s thrown directly into a fight between a Peacekeeper command carrier and a prisoner transport ship: Moya, a Leviathan, a living ship. Aboard Moya he meets the hynerian Dominar Rygel XVI, former ruler over 600 billion people, the delvian priest Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan and the luxan warrior Ka D’Argo. Unfortunately for him he looks like a Sebacean – a Peacekeeper. And he gets imprisoned with another Peacekeeper: Peacekeeper Special Command officer Aeryn Sun.

My Opinion: Just like John we are simply thrown into the story and have to figure out what’s going on. I liked the idea of “translator microbes at the brain stem” for the translation issues. The problem wasn’t forgotten and yet easily solved. I also liked all the “Muppets” (most animatronics were created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop): Rygel, Pilot (Pilot is the pilot of Moya, living in a symbiotic relationship with her) the aliens on the first planet John visited. I also liked that Aeryn didn’t simply switch sides “just because” but was forced to run.

Disc 2

I, E. T.

Synopsis: John has still a hard time getting accustomed to this whole new universe when they find a homing device deep in Moya’s guts that has been activated recently. To remove it would be too painful for Moya and so they have to land on a planet and sink the ship into a swamp to dampen the signal. They have to find a way to anesthetize the entire ship in order to remove that device. And suddenly Crichton finds himself in front of people who have never seen an alien before.

My Opinion: With this episode Crichton’s tradition of making cultural references has begun. In this case it was Dagobah and Yoda. And it was funny to see John (who has just learned that Humans aren’t alone in the universe) explain to a woman that her race isn’t alone in the universe and that he can fully understand how she feels right now.

Disc 3

Exodus from Genesis

Synopsis: Some sort of space bug has entered Moya and is crawling through the walls. They begin to disturb Moya’s operations and they are somehow turning the heat up. John is able to capture and kill one and Zhaan dissects it. But soon after copies of the crew members begin appear and start to attack the real crew. And Aeryn’s condition worsens because Sebaceans can’t stand heat and their body functions begin to break down. As if this wasn’t enough a Peacekeeper Marauder closes in and tries to re-take the ship.

My Opinion: This episode introduces another common theme of the show: That not everything is as it appears to be and that such misunderstandings can have fatal consequences. I thought it was a great idea of John’s that he tried to convince that Peacekeeper that Humans can multiply by thousands in no time (nobody knows Humans after all) and that Crais (the command carrier commander) should stay out of his way. πŸ˜€

Disc 1

Throne for a Loss

Synopsis: Rygel is pretending to be still the monarch of his people to get a contract for a transport job. But then he is kidnapped because of his “importance” and Moya couldn’t leave orbit even if she wanted to because Rygel used a control crystal as “jewel” in his scepter. D’Argo, Aeryn and John try to get him back and for this they use a strength-enhancing gauntlet which they got from one of the attackers. But unfortunately it makes one not only stronger but also hightens one’s aggresive traits.

My Opinion: This was an average episode. But it started another Farscape tradition: The usage of nicknames, especially by John.
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