Writing Update – September 10, 2011

Not a lot of work on anything.  To be honest, I got sucked into Fringe when I saw Season 3 was out on DVD.  This tends to be my practice with Fringe.  I end up not being able to keep up with the series when it actually airs because of lack of time and work (working nights will do that).  So I will wait until the season comes out of DVD and power run through the episodes.  Probably by the end of the weekend I’ll be on disc three or four.

I’m starting to get ideas for scenes for my November project.  They are still random scenes stuck in my head.  But they will most likely show up on the page in November, along with some of the details about the characters that are floating around.  One thing is for sure, this year’s project is pretty much one just for me since it is going to pull from so many different pop culture sources.

Worst Part of a Good Series on DVD

The worst part of picking up Fringe Season 3 on DVD is the strong desire to watch the entire season, even though it’s 3:30 am.

Shows I Gave a Second Chance To

We all have them.  Those shows that we didn’t watch the first time around, but now, for some odd reason, we love them now.  There have been a lot of different reasons why we never stuck with them, but we all have shows like these.

Fringe – For me, Fringe is a special case of second chance shows.  I really liked Fringe when I saw it the first time.  And, I really tried to keep up with it, which was not easy for me since I worked nights.  While I tried using Hulu and Fox’s sight to keep up with the show, it eventually fell by the wayside for me since the plotlines were very complex and often continued through multiple episodes.  The second chance for Fringe comes with DVD sets.  I have purchased Seasons 1 and 2 and have powered my way through both over the course of a week each.  Now I just await Season 3 to do the same.

Firefly – Firefly failed to catch my interest the first time around mostly because of FOX, which decided to not broadcast the pilot first, but the second/third (depending on whether you consider the pilot one episode or two).  At that time, the series did not click for me.  it was not until the Sci-Fi Channel picked it up for syndication and aired them in the correct order than I really appreciated how good the series actually was.

Eureka – Eureka was a victim of my ill-conceived “Siffy” boycott (when I decided I was not going to watch the Sci-Fi Channel because the changed their name to Syfy).  I really liked Eureka, mostly because it was just the right amount of quirky to really draw me in.  I got pulled back in during the last season when a trip to the past altered the reality that was Eureka.

Doctor Who – Yes, surprisingly, Doctor Who is on this list.  Not the new series Doctor Who episodes, but the classic ones.  I started watching it when our local PBS station scheduled it in the afternoon.  I really liked it, and kept watching.  But then I ran into a problem, one called pledge break.  This particular pledge break lasted for the whole half hour that Doctor Who was supposed to be on.  And when the next day rolled around, I found out that the whole episode that was not aired for the pledge break was still not aired.  It kind of stunk to miss part 3 of a 4 part story.  After that, I just could not keep track of when it was on, or who was the Doctor (I was a kid, I didn’t know about the who regeneration thing until The Five Doctors aired).  Now, with the new series going strong, a lot of the older stories are finding their way to DVD, which has been a real boon to me.

Family Guy - I love Family Guy, except maybe those first episodes where the art was not quite right, and the stories were fairly mundane (much like the Simpsons).  However, I just don’t get the time to really sit down and watch it when it is first run.  For me, I usually catch up with it either on Hulu when I’m bored late at night (when Coast to Coast AM does not have anything interesting on) or when I just need a laugh.

How I Met Your Mother – Another show that I don’t really watch when it airs on CBS, but often end up watching it when it airs in syndication.  Unlike Two and a Half Men, which got tiring after the second or third viewing, How I Met Your Mother still remains watchable to me.

Psych – When I first watched Psych, I had a real problem with it.  it was not the whole concept of a really observant guy pretending to be a psychic, it was Shawn, the guy pretending to be a psychic.  In the early episodes, Shawn just always came across as unlikable, pretty much a major jackass.  And, unlike House, none of the other characters were likeable enough to counter the jackassery (if it isn’t a word, it should be) of the main character.  I have caught a few episodes since that first season and it seems that they’ve really toned Shawn down.  He’s still a jackass, but he isn’t that big of one.  I probably still won’t plan on watching an episode, but if one was on, I probably would not be searching for something else to watch.

Thank God for DVD (or, When’s That Set Coming Out?)

Having already covered the shows I hated, I thought it would be cool to talk about the shows I liked. That way, I don’t sound like a lonely bitter pathetic old man who hates everything (after all, I’m only 33, I’m not old).

1) Emergency
I loved this series as a kid. Sure, the storylines that tied the emergencies together were a bit mundane. But who cared? The real highlights of the shows were the emergencies themselves. From the harrowing to the downright silly (silly in the fun to watch sense). Sure it’s dated now, especially given how far technology has advanced since the series inception in the 1970s. But I still watch when I hear TV Land is bringing it into its rotation. Now, if only they released a DVD set…

2) John Doe
The concept of this show was simple: John Doe knew everything, except who he was. And each week, John would find himself in a peculiar situation that only his unique gift could resolve. Could John Doe have been Fox’s next X-Files? Possibly, if they hadn’t parked it in their Friday 9pm time slot. What’s so bad about Friday 9pm on Fox? Well, given that no series airing in this time slot since X-Files moved has succeeded shows how bad the time slot is. Just look at the carnage. Sliders moved to 9pm, and met with summer cancellation. Dark Angel, a show that had done well at Tuesdays was moved to Friday 9pm for its second, and last, season. And it isn’t just sci-fi that is hurt my the time slot . Boston Public enjoyed 2 successful seasons on Mondays. Third season it moved to Fridays. That season turned out to be its last. Fox could probably put football on Fridays and the 9pm time slot would crash and burn.

In John Doe’s case, the Friday time slot wasn’t helped by poor lead-ins (Firefly at first, which was hurt by out of sequence airing, then Fastlane, which never should have been at an 8pm time slot). So, when John Doe’s numbers didn’t do well, it was cancelled. And when I say cancelled, I mean they put a bullet in its head, then emptied the clip to make sure. John Doe wasn’t shopped around, where it could have been picked up by USA, TNT, or Sci-Fi. When it became less apparent that there were no takers to take up the torch (as Sci-Fi did with Sliders), Fox released a press release, explaining why John Doe was the way he was. It seems he had a near-death experience. Yeah, I thought it was a pitiful explanation for what was going on.

Like Emergency, John Doe has not surfaced on DVD… yet. Fans like me still hold out for hope.

3) Keen Eddie
Fox tried its hand at a quirky cop dramedy with this show. The premise was one we had seen before (American cop in England), but there was a certain charm to the series that, unfortunately, not many picked up on. A lot of its charm comes from the title character, Eddie Arlette (played by Mark Valley). Eddie comes across as a balanced character, with his “new York” ways hiding a very intelligent, albeit opinionated. It comes as no surprise some of the best scenes come when he’s playing off his “roommate,” Fiona, played by Sienna Miller, who happens to be as equally opinionated and intelligent (In one episode, Fiona uses Eddie’s dog in a dog treat ad campaign – keeping the money – since Eddie used her cat to meet an attractive veterinarian).

Thankfully, Keen Eddie is available on DVD. Particularly hilarious is the second episode, where Eddie goes after a horse thief.

4) Monk
Tony Shaloub has found the perfect role with this obsessive compulsive uber-detective. I particularly enjoyed the episode where Monk solves a hit and run and a murder in France just by reading the newspaper (neither of which was the reason why his paperboy was killed).

Like many of the new series, Monk has been seeing release on DVD, and is worth picking up.

5) CSI
Like Emergency did with firefighters and paramedics in the 1970s, CSI does for the criminalists in the 21st century. The setting of Las Vegas is perfect for the blend of cases that Grissom’s team sees over the course of a season, from the gruesome to the downright weird. With its likeable characters (some of which have as many mysteries as they solve), CSI has become “appointment TV” for me, with the VCR set to record the CBS first runs, and the Spike reruns usually on in the background while I work. Needless to say, I have all released boxed sets, and both computer games.

6) Doctor Who
Not every Doctor is a winner for me. I’m not particularly fond of William Hartnell (the First Doctor), or of Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor). But even this lack of fondness derives from lack of real exposure to their performances. Most of the Doctor Who episodes I had seen before the slow DVD releases were from the Fourth and Fifth Doctor seasons (Tom Baker and Peter Davison respectively), and these were through the hard to follow scheduling that PBS delivered. Thanks to DVD, I am getting more exposure to all of the Doctor’s incarnations (though I still think that Hartnell’s Doctor comes across as a bit too “grumpy old man”-ish), and look forward to the eventual (please please please) stateside release of the new Doctor Who series.