Jennifer's frustration-minimizing American Idol viewing strategy

I've expressed the many, many issues I have with American Idol multiple times. But as a self-professed TV/media/entertainment fan, it's a FORCE that's just hard to ignore. Of course, now that Simon Cowell is leaving the show, who knows what's going to happen? But last season I hit on a formula for keeping up with the show that requires a minimal amount of my time and frustration, so as season 9 begins, here's the plan:

1. Skip the audition rounds. It just takes up too much time and there's too much of the judges and Ryan Seacrest and well, cringing. Unlike on So You Think You Can Dance, where there are talented people that "aren't right for the show" that are worth watching, on Idol bad singing is just bad singing.
2. Once performance rounds start, either start watching late from DVR in order to fast forward through filler, bad performances, and judging; or better yet, just watch clips on the Internet the following morning of people/songs that interest me or that I read were good.
3. Skip the results show entirely. In my experience, there's absolutely nothing interesting that happens on them. Wikipedia gets updated with who gets eliminated pretty much instantly.
4. Watch Idolatry on EW.com. This is actually my favorite part. It fills in the holes (from things missed during all the stuff I didn't watch above) and it's just hilarious. I love Michael Slezak and the editing is genius.

I actually thought last season was an improvement in terms of the actual contestants. Kris, Adam, and Allison were closer than ever to the kind of music I listen to in real life (though I doubt it'll ever really get there...) Will this trend continue?

Thursday Talk Week 1

So in an effort to wake up this blog, Mira and I will be posing questions and answering them on Thursdays. Feel free to add to the discussion (or pose other questions) in the comments!

Which new/returning midseason shows are you looking forward to?

Jennifer - The new show I'm most looking forward to is Life Unexpected on the CW. It's been described as having an old-school WB feel, kind of along the lines of Gilmore Girls/Everwood rather than Gossip Girl/90210. It is slightly weird that Shiri Appleby is playing the mother of a teenager though...on Roswell she played a character a year younger than me! I'll also be checking out Caprica (the Battlestar Galactica prequel/spinoff) and Parenthood. Returning shows I'm looking forward to are Chuck, Greek, and Damages.

Mira - I'm on the Glee bandwagon. Though, I'd like to qualify that I saw the premier back in early summer when it first aired and was sorely disappointed to learn afterward that I had months to wait before I'd get to watch more! And now I'm stuck waiting yet a few more months before it comes back for the second half of its first season. ::sigh::

New Year's Resolutions

Happy 2010! Here are some of my entertainment-related resolutions for this year:

1. Aim to blog at least once a week.
2. Stop watching trashy TV, e.g. The Bachelor, most things on MTV .
3. Catch up with Lost before the series finale (yes, I started watching it again, but more on that later. I just started season 5).
4. Catch up with Doctor Who (currently on season 4) and Torchwood (still on season 1, though I watched Children of Earth).
5. Make a better effort to attack my Netflix queue (currently nearing 300) and stop keeping discs over a month (waste of money).
6. Read more, especially books that I own but have never read/finished.
7. Go to at least 1 concert this year. Everyone makes stops in DC but I haven't been to any shows since I moved down here.

mira's favorites of 2009

This will be my attempt to narrow things down to only ONE...

Favorite New TV Show: Glee

Favorite Old TV Show: Grey's Anatomy

Favorite TV Episode: The Office, Pam & Jim's wedding

Favorite TV Dance: Top 20 dance, choreographed by Wade Robson (to The Revels's "Comanche.")

Favorite Movie: 500 Days of Summer (keep in mind I only saw like... 6 movies in the theater this year...)

Favorite Song: "I Gotta Feeling," Black Eyed Peas

Favorite CD: Everything, Ingrid Michaelson

Favorite Book: (that I read this year) Water for Elephants

Favorite Videogame: tie -- Rockband 2 (PS3) & New Super Mario Bros (Wii)

So You Think You Can Dance Season 6 Postmortem

And you thought the blog was dead....of course So You Think You Can Dance brings us out of dormancy. Although, I mean, the last two posts here were about SYTYCD too!

First of all, congratulations to Russell! I personally was more a fan of Kathryn/Jakob/Ellenore but I predicted his win and am not at all disappointed. Overall, I thought this season actually had really a lot of great dancing. Sonya did some great stuff, Jason Gilkison was a welcome addition to ballroom, they finally brought Sean Cheesman and Afro Jazz onto the show (from the Canadian version) and Travis Wall is really growing nicely as a choreographer. If nothing else he has totally fantastic taste in music though...I loooooved that he used the Stars song "My Ex-Lover is Dead" and Portishead's "Machine Gun."

The dancers had more personality and I grew to like, or at least appreciate, all of the top 10, even Mollee. Kathryn/Legacy was probably my favorite couple since Katee/Joshua and I think Kathryn's actually my favorite female dancer of all time on the show. This was a huge surprise since Vegas Week cast her as the annoying squeaky crying girl that would probably be kicked off early. But I don't think she had a single bad routine, and I wish we had gotten to see more of her solos. The 2 she did I LOVED, which is odd because usually I think contemporary girls are all kind of the same, but I found her poise and grace to just be really gorgeous. I also really grew to really like Ashleigh, though I still contend that most of her partnership with Jakob involved posing gracefully while Jakob did all the jumps and turns and such.

Oh, and I really liked the "Meet the Top 20" performance show. It was really great seeing everyone in their own styles before beginning the competition. I hope they keep that idea going in future seasons.

But honestly, this season was really kind of a mess. There were just so many weird/bad/disappointing things that happened...
- Mia Michaels quits
- Ryan Kasprzak eliminated in Vegas
- Paula Van Oppen turns down Top 20 spot
- Billy Bell falls ill and drops out (hopefully we'll see him in Season 7 though!)
- Brandon steps in for Billy and promptly gets kicked off. (At least Nigel said he could come back too)
- No rotating judge (I do like Adam Shankman, but I'd like to see Debbie Allen and Lil C once in awhile)
- Noelle injured
- Ashleigh injured
- Russell injured
- No results show and voting for the first 2 weeks because of baseball
- Three tappers make it to the Top 20...and all are voted out by Week 3. So much for the season of the tapper
- Top 6 finale. Performance show was only 1 hour long, had no solos, no girls/guys routines, no rehearsal footage
- So there were only 6 voting weeks, as opposed to the usual 9
- Technical difficulties and taped replays during results finale (though Cat handled it all quite well)
- And last but not least, NOT A SINGLE MENTION OF TOUR! I don't know if they haven't settled the dates yet or if they're afraid the bad ratings means people won't buy tickets or what, but I mean, how are they going to advertise it now? I can't believe they would just cut it out completely, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see? I do follow basically everyone SYTYCD-related on Twitter so it's not like there's any danger I won't hear about it...

So still a great show, but in terms of programing, in general, this fall season experiment was kind of a failure and I hope they put it back in the summer where it belongs...

sytycd season 6 - top 14

I am seriously starting to really like Ashleigh and I really loved her and Jakob's NappyTab dance tonight. Ashleigh performed the heck out of it in my opinion. My only issue with her -- she keeps talking about this life-threatening illness that took her away from dancing for 6 years... WHAT WAS THE DISEASE?!?!?!?! I want to know!! :)

Kevin and Karen doing broadway was soooo awkward to watch. Plus, her underwear was a bright blue that didn't match her dress at all and didn't match his pants either -- very distracting! And his pants went up to her neck. It was weird; when they were dancing together, she didn't look so tiny, but when they were dancing separately in unison he looked like a giant!!!!! (I have a feeling Kevin may be going home.)

Noelle and Russell -- he got ballroom/foxtrot again!!! (At least without fat Melanie!) BTW, on Noelle and Mollee's former best friendship -- they used to tweet about loving each other and missing each other and that good best friendsy stuff, but that's stopped and they barely even hang out with each other according to Twitter!!! I believe it was all a gimmick to get more camera time going into the Top 20!!! Anyway, forget them, I still love Russell!!!

I really adore Tyce. I dunno why cuz he's so bitchy sometimes, but it cracks me up. I liked the blackbird routine, and I was totally expecting this song when Tyce talked about them being blackbirds, but definitely not THAT musical representation of "Blackbird." :) Tyce can be so weird and yet it works for me. I would've called for this routine. Victor actually showed personality this week though!

Oh no... So if Legacy and Kathryn got Paso Doble... That means Mollee and Nathan got Travis's contemporary and that's who Travis has been raving about on twitter. DAMN. That means they're safe yet again. Wait... No Ryan and Ellenore have yet to go, too. I really hope Ryan-Ellenore got Travis...

Okay onto Kathryn and Legacy... Pretty good. I much prefer the Paso Doble without crazy wigs or weird hair... And Legacy seriously cracks me up! I'm so glad the dancers this season have personality! Oh, but he's super duper skinny with nice arms.

Yay! Cat Deeley imitates Travis's Fozziebear voice. Travis's choreography is seriously filling a void I thought Mia's departure would leave. And I need to go download that song on iTunes now!!! :)

Mollee and Nathan... Meh, it was good but nothing special for me. Plus I hate Lady Gaga. I am starting to feel sorry for Nathan. I feel like he's such a little boy, but you can see that he is just that young and it hurts him emotionally!! Aww, what a cutie. :) But, I was really expecting them to scream during the dance... Hmphh.

Bottom 3 predictions? Kevin-Karen. And... I have no idea.

My favorite dances tonight: Ellenore-Ryan. Ashleigh-Jakob.
Next tier of dances I liked: Channing-Victor. Russell-Noelle. Legacy-Kathryn.

Oh well, we'll find out tomorrow. And GLEE tomorrow night, too! Yay!

sytycd fall 2009 - initial thoughts

Channing & Phillip: The Jitter. I felt this looked so amateurish. Kinda what I expect on DWTS, not on SYTYCD! Not a huge fan of Phillip, he seems so... I dunno, but like he likes himself a lot. I liked Evan's brother Ryan way more. :( I think I could like Channing, but to me it looked like SHE was leading the dance sometimes.

Ashleigh & Jakob: I've disliked Ashleigh from the beginning because she seems so fake and one-dimensional. But I gotta say, she was really, really awesome in this dance. This DANCE was amazing (love Tyce!) and... Jakob was incredible. I think I definitely have my season favorite already.

Ariana & Peter: I actually really liked the dance. It made me happy to see better hip hop already this season from NappyTabs. But I do agree that the two looked like they were doing different dances, but man... that was really fun choreography!!! Yay for fun hip hop! The two dancers I may not remember. (But I do think they danced better than the first couple!)

Russell &... Fat Melanie?!?!: Okay Noelle has the most annoying voice ever, though she's not as bad as hysterical girl. Is she the one that's precocious Molly's new best friend? Russell was my favorite coming into the Top 20's, and he's STILL one of my favorites. He was awesome. I really don't like this Melanie filling in business though!!! (Foxtrot was yawn for me, though.)

?!?! I'm MISSING FOUR DANCES!!! (My DVR screwed up somehow...)

Victor & Bianca: (watched on rickey.org) It's really interesting how talented the guy contemporary dancers are this year, but it's not a in your face Brandon/Will type of incredible but a quiet, beautiful lines and amazing movement incredible. Makes me happy. I really liked a LOT of elements that Travis used in this dance, way more than the necklace dance last season. Like Bianca tumbling in sync with Victor walking; the lift where he was holding her perpendicular from him; I don't even know how to describe some of the dance movement, but I liked!!

Karen & Kevin: Truthfully, I probably won't remember them much when next week rolls around. She got lucky cuz it's her genre and she definitely reminds me of Anya. But still, nowhere near as awesome as Chelsie Hightower was, in my opinion. :)

Ryan & Ellenore: Ellenore was my favorite female going into Top 20. Truthfully she just got lucky to get yet another dance with Sonyah... It was good, they were awesome, I enjoyed it... but I probably won't remember this one. Just nothing by Sonyah has particular seemed awesome to me since The Garden with Courtney & Mark... :) BTW, I didn't even realize who Ryan was until the end -- quite impressive, Mr. Ballroom/Husband-guy.

Pauline & Brandon: Haha, I totally agree with Nigel... That was totally prom couple... I feel bad for Brandon because he totally had everything stacked against him, since he wasn't supposed to be in this Top 20. Hopefully Nigel can get him a fair chance back next year.

(And now the rest was on my DVR...)

Kathryn & Legacy: Hysterical Girl. I'm amazed she was able to talk a full sentence without breaking into tears. Legacy irritated me during auditions because he kept talking about himself in third person, and his name isn't even a name!!! Legacy got so lucky getting hip hop his first week, but man Kathryn DEFINITELY surprised me. More fun hip hop, YAY!!!!

Molly & Nathan: Haha, they look so young, and I know they ARE young... but they look their ages which is kinda funny for me watching them disco. Disco on this show has become quite a thing to watch. Lotsa fun. But I felt like I was watching HSM does disco...

My bottom four would've been: Phillip, Brandon... uh, I don't know what girls. I guess, who they picked. NOT RUSSELL! It's not his fault he danced with FAT MELANIE!!

Anyway, not particularly sad by results. First few weeks are just kinda "huh?" weeks anyway. As in, "Huh? Who was that?" :)

Yay for SYTYCD! (Sorry for the long, boring post...)

fall 2009 - initial thoughts

My DVR is still full of shows that I need to catch up on (both from last season and this season) but because it was getting so full, there were many shows I had to catch up on to open up space for more recording... :) In any case, I had a few initial reactions to shows, old and new, that I've been following this season.

Old:
-- 90210: So very angsty! I think it's because Darcy... or whatever her name is, Annie?, is so very angsty this season and she was all sunshine and optimism last season. I'm not sure I like it, but I do like the strong bond forged between Naomi-Adrianna-Silver. Actually I've gotta say that as a whole I kind of hate it, but there's something about high-school angst tv shows that draws me in... Oy.
-- So You Think You Can Dance: Having to watch audition episodes week after week after week is kinda getting sucky. Plus, it's so weird to have a new season of it SO SOON. Especially since last season, while it had its moments, for the most part it was underwhelming. But, I'm glad to see that there are breakers and well, non-contemporary and non-ballroom dancers auditioning! Plus I'm still waiting for Natalie to come back!!
-- How I Met Your Mother: This show is so reliably fun. I really do hope we finally get to meet the damn mother this season. I'm not sure how many more seasons of NOT meeting the mother I can go through. But I do love Barney. And it'll be interesting to see how Barney-Robin develop, but I really hope that doesn't become the focus of the show.
-- Greek: I caught up with all the old episodes right before this season started. SO much fun. This is my happy show of the moment.

New:
-- Melrose Place: Not really sure why, but I'm enjoying this show. Maybe it's just that I never get to watch soap operas anymore and this show is the perfect night-time soap opera: psychotic characters, tons of secrets, murder, betrayal, and good-looking people. Plus the character that's the most fascinating to me is Ella, who I sort of see as a new generation Heather Locklear. BTW, I didn't actually watch the original MP when it aired back in the day, though I've caught a few episodes of it here and there on Soapnet in the past few years.
-- Glee: I was expecting this to be my happy show of the moment, but no, it's definitely a lot darker than a happy show can be. I love the musical numbers and truthfully, I watch just in anticipation of those. I like the main teacher-guidance counselor romance undercurrent, hate the psycho wife, love the psycho cheerleader coach, and am very amused by the awkward football coach. I could care less about the kids, but the gay kid is the most interesting by far.
-- The Beautiful Life: This show has already gotten canned, thank goodness! Well, it's mostly a thank goodness because if it didn't get canceled, I would probably continue to watch it. So, I really am glad that the network is taking this off of my insane list of tv shows I watch. :)
-- Community: I had high hopes for this show but so far it's been amusing at spots, still has good potential, but hasn't really delivered. We'll see.
-- Accidentally on Purpose: One episode was enough, I do believe I have the willpower to stop watching this show.
-- Eastwick: Uh, I might continue to watch this, but mostly because it kinda satisfies the part of me that was sad to lose Cashmere Mafia and Lipstick Jungle (and yes, I may be the only person in the world that was sad to lose those shows).

Still waiting to be watched on the DVR:
-- Grey's Anatomy
-- Gossip Girl
-- Heroes
-- House
-- The Good Wife
-- Cougar Town
-- Modern Family -- have high hopes for this one!!
-- Flash Forward

Inspector Lewis - Masterpiece Mystery!

As a huge Anglophile, sometimes I wonder if I like things just because they're British. Take Inspector Lewis, the current series airing on Masterpiece Mystery on PBS. On American TV, I've never been the least bit interested in police procedurals (though I did kind of start liking Castle last season, mainly because I love Nathan Fillion) but give me a British one and I'm totally loving it. And I mean, now that I think about, I claim to like reading mystery novels, but honestly I think the only mystery writer I've really gotten into is Agatha Christie, also British! Am I being too...snooty? Do I need to give like CSI and Without a Trace and Criminal Minds a chance?

One of the things I love most about Inspector Lewis is that it's set in Oxford, which makes for just a really beautiful setting that I don't think any of the American shows can beat. All the wonderful old buildings of the university are pretty spectacular; I definitely need to go visit someday. And being a university town, many of the characters involved in the mysteries are students and professors, which makes a lot of the cases pretty intellectual, dealing with history and literature and religion, which I guess appeals to me more than drugs and gangs and stuff like that. Or am I being snooty again?

I do also love the team of Inspector Lewis and Sergeant Hathaway. I never saw any of the series that this one was spun off from, Inspector Morse, where Lewis was the sergeant/sidekick, but I imagine I would probably like that too. I gather Lewis comes from a more working-class background, and he doesn't feel like he really fits in with the intellectuals that populate Oxford and is often frustrated by their entitled and morally questionable behavior. His sergeant, Hathaway, is also a little bit of an outsider, but for different reasons. He is a Cambridge graduate, is very well read and knowledgeable, and was studying to be a priest, but left to join the police. As the series goes on, we learn more of why he gave up that career path. Hathaway comes off as cool, unflappable, and a little acerbic, so it was really interesting to get a little deeper into his character. Also I think Laurence Fox is kind of hot (I know, crushing on a British actor, what else is new?)...

So what do you think? Maybe I'm just as bad as the Oxford intellectuals that Inspector Lewis can't stand!

My favorite songs of the 2000s

Isn't it crazy that 2009 is nearly over, and in turn, the first decade of the 2000s is coming to a close? Pitchfork and a lot of other blogs have been putting together lists of the best songs/albums of the 2000s so I thought I'd give it a shot as well.

I didn't start caring about music much until late in high school (I graduated in 2001) so the 2000s actually represent most of my music-listening life. Of course, not everything I've listened to has been released in this decade, though, so I've limited this list to the songs that were.

I wouldn't say this is a list of what I'd consider the "best" songs, as I don't claim to be any kind of music expert, but more the songs that at one point I listened to over and over and didn't get tired of, and more importantly ones that I still love years later. I had enough trouble picking these out, so I didn't bother ranking them, they're just listed chronologically. I apologize for the random number in the list also...I thought I was going to get to 50 but fell short. I'll probably add/edit the list as I remember others...

1. New Found Glory - The Glory of Love (2000)
2. Midtown - No Place Feels Like Home (2000)
On a post-high-school-graduation trip to Six Flags, a friend of a friend that I met for the first time that day told me I should listen to New Found Glory. For some reason I took this recommendation seriously and I ended up being very into pop-punk/emo for through the first half of college. And yes, The Glory of Love is a cover of the Peter Cetera version from the movie The Karate Kid, neither of which I'm huge fan of, but I think the cover is awesome.

3. Modest Mouse - 3rd Planet (2000)
4. Radiohead - Idioteque (2000)
I started getting into more indie type music my sophomore year of college, and I found out that there was just SO MUCH to catch up on. I'll admit took me awhile to "get" Radiohead but now they're one of my favorites.

5. Bright Eyes - I Will Be Grateful for this Day (2001)
Yes, I started listening to Bright Eyes because of Seth Cohen (the OC)...

6. Weezer - Island in the Sun (2001)
I remember playing this in my dorm room all the time first semester of college. It was one of the few things me and my roommate actually agreed on.

7. Brand New - Jude Law and a Semester Abroad (2001)
This song cracks me up, the anger in it is so random and ridiculous.

8. Sigur Ros - Untitled #3 ("Samskeyti") (2002)
I didn't actually listen to Sigur Ros at all until I heard it used on the British show Skins. This one is gorgeous.

9. The Flaming Lips - Fight Test (2002)
The song that led me into "quirkier" types of music.

10. Dashboard Confessional - Hands Down (2003)
Even back then I sometimes got annoyed at Dashboard's earnest angst thing but this song is an exception. I always have to sing along to this one.

11. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak (2003)
My friend Ann and I sort of made the transition from emo to indie music together. Ted Leo was one of our early favorites and we got to see them live at a show at our college and say hi to Ted Leo afterwards!

12. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps (2003)
One of my all-time favorites, as I'm sure is true for a lot of people. Just a really beautiful song.

13. The Format - The First Single (2003)
14. Jimmy Eat World - Kill (2004)
15. Jimmy Eat World - 23 (2004)
Bleed American was released in the 2000s also and I know it's their most popular album, but nothing on it really stood out for me like these two. I saw them live in 2005 and it was pretty amazing. The Format was one of their openers.

16. The Killers - Mr. Brightside (2004)
17. Modest Mouse - Float On (2004)
Both ridiculously catchy.

18. Arcade Fire - Wake Up (2004)
I was completely obsessed with Arcade Fire for a pretty long time. I got to see them live at my college before they really got big and it remains to this day the best show I've ever been to. It was in this relatively small multi-purpose room above a dining hall, the "stage" (just a raised platform) was too small for all the members and their instruments, and Richard Reed Parry was pretty much right in front of my face going crazy. At one point he started banging his drumsticks on the ceiling and pieces of plaster were coming down. I saw them again a couple of years later at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia, and while the music was still great, I don't think anything will compare to that first time I saw them.

19. Tegan and Sara - I Know I Know I Know (2004)
I didn't actually start listening to Tegan and Sara until I heard this song on an episode of Veronica Mars.

20. Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan (2005)
I had a hard time picking a Death Cab song from the decade...

21. Bright Eyes - I Believe in Symmetry (2005)
For awhile, every time I heard this song I would think to myself, "I really like this, what is it?"

22. The Bravery - An Honest Mistake (2005)

23. Mates of State - For the Actor (2006)
I have this distinct memory of being stuck in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) in Philadelphia and being pepped up by this song.

24. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (2006)
25. The Killers - When You Were Young (2006)
26. The Album Leaf - Always for You (2006)
27. Band of Horses - The Funeral (2006)
28. Hot Chip - Boy From School (2006)
29. Midlake - Roscoe (2006)
30. Ratatat - Gettysburg (2006)
31. +/- - Leap Year (2006)
Apparently 2006 was a good year for music. I guess it helped that I listened to Internet radio pretty much all day every day at work.

32. The Veronicas - Untouched (2007)
Not ordinarily my kind of music but I first heard it on So You Think You Can Dance and loved it. (Not as big a fan of their other songs though.)

33. Lavender Diamond - You Broke My Heart (2007)
34. Blonde Redhead - 23 (2007)
I guess 2007 is the year I finally started to like more female voices.

35. Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper (2008)
Just a really great rock song. I love the emotion in the vocals.

36. MGMT - Time to Pretend (2008)
37. Passion Pit - Moth's Wings (2009)
38. Phoenix - Lisztomania (2009)