TV that I watch

It seems a bit weird to start writing again and make it all about television but since I haven't been writing I have been watching a lot of tv and reading a lot of books. That means I'm going to have reviews to toss out. And rather than giving these my usual +5 to -5 rating I’ll be judging them by current watchability:

LOVING IT

SOLID

GOOD ENOUGH

HANGING ON

NEARLY DONE WITH IT

QUIT

PS These are shows that are currently airing. I held back on things that are between seasons or between partial season or whatever the hell the networks do with their shows.

• Monday
• How I Met Your Mother – NEARLY DONE WITH IT
• Not happy with this once clever show. For the full story take a look here.
  
• House - SOLID
• Most of the people I know who used to watch this have given up. I am honestly enjoying what they’ve done with the character of House recently. I thought that the stint in prison was really good and I like that one of the members of his new team is pushing him right back. I’m a little confused as to why Chase is still around. He’s had the longest residency I’ve seen and after his divorce they really haven’t done anything with him. He’s just – there.
• Adventure Time with Finn and Jake – LOVING IT
• Adventure time! A post-apocalyptic cartoon about the last human and his adopted brother, a shape shifting dog.
  This show is amazing. The music is great, the animation is adorable and the humor funny and bizarre. I’m pretty sure this is one of those shows where you immediately love it or hate it. So far I only know of people who love it or have not seen it. Check out an episode.
• Terra Nova – GOOD ENOUGH
• It’s OK. To be frank, it’s Avatar painted with Jurassic Park. It’s derivative, the special effects range from passable to cringe inducing, and some of the characters feel like they are trying to fight against developing so they can continue playing generic tropes (all the kids come to mind). Why am I watching this? It’s fairly entertaining and it’s science fiction.
• Tuesday
• Wednesday
• Todd and the Book of Pure Evil – LOVING IT
• A metal loving high school kid uses the Book of Pure Evil to become more metal and get the girl he lusts after. He nearly kills everyone at his school. His plucky one-armed friend and the girl stop him but the book flies away. It does that. They band together to find the book. Oh, and did I mention that the girl’s father mysteriously vanished while investigating this book? Because he did and it’s totally mysterious. But I’m pretty sure the evil guidance councilor had something to do with that. Because he’s evil.I am so in love with this show, though I’m still just in season 1. It’s like Buffy and Evil Dead 2 and Middle Man had a beautiful, bloody, foul mouthed three way baby. The only thing I’m not crazy about is that it’s a half hour show so each plot is wrapped after 22 minutes instead of 40-something. I suppose that’s a trade off. While some episodes seem too short it also means I’ve made it through an entire season and not a single episode has dragged.
• American Horror Story – SOLID
• Re-titled Ghost Fucking
  This show is so cheese it’s wonderful. My wife flat out likes the show a lot. I don’t know if I can make that claim but I do find it highly entertaining. The “name that horror reference”, which was so distracting early on, has dropped to a much more tolerable level. A lot of camera angles and soundtrack cues are lifted directly from horror films so at the very least it’s an impressive meta-analysis of the horror genre.
  
  More recently in this season it has come into its own as a standalone horror story. It took a while for the mythology of the house to get rolling, and while there are still a few hiccups in their world building (what exactly is the rule about ghosts leaving the property?) overall it is really rolling.
• Thursday
• Big Bang Theory – QUIT
• Much like Leverage this is another show I didn’t choose to stop watching. The references are nerd-catnip and some of the performances are really good (though Howard is beyond done). But when it comes down to it this show is basic sitcom. The references usually don’t actually show much more understanding of a geek subject than Wikipedia and the show never tries to rise above the standard sitcom format. I guess I just felt like it wasn’t offering anything more than what I get from my real friends.
• Bones – HANGING ON
• It seems that wherever I tune in another show has decided to infect the cast with a little bundle of ratings. I could be wrong but wasn’t the addition of a baby to a show usually a kiss of death? Perhaps that was just for children characters and baby’s don’t actually count. Whatever the old rule was it is clear that babies are now in vogue. I was actually interested to see what would happen with Angela and Hodgins' baby. It’s Bones’ pregnancy that I’m annoyed with. Her gimmick was being so logical as to alienate people. Now it seems that they’re just playing that against the “hormones hormones hormones” of pregnancy to make Bones comedic and possibly insane. The writers couldn’t find another way to get Bones and Booth together? I’m still watching the show but I will admit that the episodes tend to sit unwatched for longer periods of time.
• Person of Interest – HANGING ON
• I officially dropped this show but then went back to it. Not because I read that it was doing something good and I wanted to see. Only because it’s produced by JJ Abrams and every time I give up on it out of boredom I get the sneaking suspicion that, since it’s an Abrams show, it has some sort of big picture that it will get to. I have now admitted to myself that I will follow the first season but if no long term plot peeks its head out by then I’m probably going to call it quits.
• Mentalist – between SOLID and HANGING ON. Hanging on and a half?
• This show is definitely in the “OK, not great” zone. Last season: “Yay they took care of Red John. Boo, they didn’t solve anything with Red John.” The show has become a string of competently written one-off crime stories. The bad thing is that the series is now just treading water from week to week. The good thing is at least it’s with characters I still like.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia – LOVING IT
• If this show were simply a weekly monologue of Danny Devito shouting the word “who-er” for half an hour I would recommend it. What’s even better is that this show is so much more than that. While things this season haven’t touched on the greatness of The Nightman Cometh it has still been some of the best comedy on television.
• Friday
• QI – LOVING IT
• Quite Interesting – a very funny trivia panel discussion hosted by our lord and savior, Stephen Fry.
  Delightful as always. I now am usually a week behind because I’ve since switched over to the QI XL format.
• Supernatural – SOLID
• This season hasn’t been great. They wrote off Cas and I miss him in the show far more than I expected. Plot wise it felt like these villains had no aim and when it did come out I immediately recognized it as the exact same idea that the Alliance used in the movie Serenity. Exactly the same. And some of the writing has come across as a little lazy.
  
  Despite all of that this show is still good enough to get me watching each week. The brothers Winchester are still good enough characters to hold the show together on their relationship alone, which is what they’ve been doing. Hopefully the writers will start to bring Dean to a boil, as he’s been simmering all season and something needs to happen to trigger him.
• Grimm – HANGING ON
• This one is just hanging on. I’m not sure if it’s sticking around on its own merits or strictly because it is better than Once Upon A Time. That said, the main character and his sidekick are boring. The sidekick is slightly comically slightly awkward. The main character, who’s name I can’t even recall, is beyond bland. He came prepackaged with an interesting lineage of creature hunters called Grimms but it seems that was enough for the writers. The touch on him trying to do research every so often but really he’s just there because there is a conspiracy that involves his somewhat more interesting family. The only reason to watch is the big bad wolf character. The show really should have been about him, perhaps with a Grimm sidekick trying to find his place in the world. Now that I think about it, that would have been a much better narrative frame.
  
  And speaking of framing, it seems odd that every police case this guy has investigated since he learned monsters exist has revolved around monsters. So how the hell did he solve a single crime before? Did he just spend his career until now putting innocent humans away? That’d be an interesting show.
• Saturday
• Would You Rather –
• This show hasn’t actually premiered yet but I’m really looking forward to it. It’s the classic game where you are presented with two unwanted options and need to choose one. What looks really fun is that it’s hosted by Graham Norton and the guests look really good. Examples? In the first two episodes they have Cyndi Lauper and Stanley Tucci.
• Sunday
• Misfits – LOVING IT
• A crazy ice storm hits London and lots of people find they now have super powers. This show follows a group of juvenile offenders so they aren’t exactly heroes.
  
  So we’re now into the third season and this show is still brilliant. They’ve taken some risks, like switching out everyone’s powers, and they’ve hit some hurdles, such as fan favourite Nathan leaving the show. It’s still good. Really good. The Hitler episode was miles above when Doctor Who pathetically tackled that gimmick and some of the things they are doing with gender is really interesting. They handle pretty intense issues with thought rather than disgust and fear. And while it’s often funny and definitely British this show is not No Heroics. And it’s certainly not Heroes. Maybe if you took the quality of Heroes’ first season, removed a lot of the borrowed storylines from Marvel and DC and made the characters less mopey. So not really Heroes at all I suppose.
• Penn and Teller’s Fool Us – LOVING IT
• A number of magicians go on stage in front of Penn and Teller. They perform a single trick. If Penn and Teller cannot figure out how it’s done they win a slot opening for Penn and Teller in their Las Vegas show.EDIT Just noticed that this show is between seasons so don't look for new ones just yet.
  This show might not have the gravitas of Bullshit! or even Tell a Lie but this show brings me joy. Flat out joy.
  
  They are going on stage to trick two amazing magicians so you know that they are going to be bringing their best. Not only that but a lot of these tricks are different enough that they contain an illusion or method Penn and Teller might not know. In addition to some jaw dropping skill you also get the wonderment of P&T when they don’t solve it. When they figure it out there’s a comfortable and friendly nod of understanding but what I love is a trick so good that not only do I not have the slightest clue but neither do the experts. They are impressed. They are mystified. Sometimes it may be a trick I think I know and it turns out that it’s not done in the standard way. And it’s amazing.
  
  Magic tricks can fulfill on two levels: 1) a show of skill and 2) mystery. Penn and Teller’s Fool Us usually delivers on one of these and sometimes both. It’s in those moments, when I can rewind, watch in slow motion and the only thing I can discern is that I don’t know what’s right in front of me, that this show brings actual wonderment. And I love it for that.
• Walking Dead – SOLID to LOVING IT
• The end of this season was the kick in the pants it needed. Recently things have slowed down and it hasn’t been great for the show. They’ve been staying at the same farm for most of the season, they’ve been looking for an unimportant stock character for even longer than that, and the show has been light on zombie kills. Well, until the massacre for the mid season finale. Finally, the little girl search is over, Hershel’s farm has come to fruition, Shane has completely lost it. It’s fun again.
  
  I admit, earlier on this season I was skeptical. I could feel the shift in writing, the lack of Frank Darabont, and the lower budget. The mid-season finale was a killer and I hope it means they’ve found their footing. At the very least they won’t be looking for Sophia anymore.
• Once Upon A Time – QUIT
• I just officially gave up on this one. I don’t buy Jennifer Morrison as a bounty hunter; she was tougher when she was a doctor on House. The kid that this whole concept hinges on is crap. He has no personality of his own and isn’t a terribly good actor. The whole thing reeks of one of those ABC miniseries that has been dragged out far past its welcome.
• Leverage – between HANGING ON and QUIT. Quit and a half
• I didn’t make a choice to stop watching this, I simply stopped caring enough to catch missed episodes sometime last season. Every now and then there will be a stand out fantastic episode, and the guest stars are usually a treat, but the show itself just didn’t hold up enough to keep me engaged. This is towards the top of my “Frak, there’s nothing on. What should I catch up on now that all TV is on mid-season hiatus?” list so I may come back to it. It never got bad while I was watching, just stopped being good enough.