Sunday, January 27, 2008

Strike viewing: what I'm watching

Despite the strike depriving us of new episodes of so many shows, I really haven't gotten to the point where I'm running out of things to watch. Not to say that I'm not worried about things later on down the line, but here are the things I've been keeping myself happy with:

Quarterlife: It's from the executive producers of My So-Called Life so I thought that this might kind of do for twenty-somethings what MSCL did for high school, but at first I really didn't like it. I mean, there was Dylan, the aspiring writer, saying all sorts of ridiculous things like "I have to tell the truth, it's my curse" whilst videoing and talking about her friends with their real names on her videoblog without asking them first, and all these scenes with Lisa getting seriously demoralized by her acting teacher in front of her whole class, and Jed and Danny, the aspiring filmmakers, worrying about selling out while making a commercial for a local car dealership...all the artsy-ness and philosophizing about "our generation" was just kind of too much for me. As a engineer with really no friends who have artsy aspirations I just couldn't really relate.

But as they've sort of dropped trying to make the show so much about how people our age are tied to the Internet blah blah, I've really started to like it. I don't think it's really ever going to be as brilliant as MSCL was, but it's a fun little show. Dylan's stopped saying so many ridiculous things in her videoblog and now she has this thing with Eric, her roommate's friend from college that's just really really fun to watch. And Majandra Delfino (Maria from Roswell) has been in the last couple of episodes and I haven't seen her in anything in forever. (She's married to Devon Gummersall, who was in MSCL and who's writing some episodes of Quarterlife too.) It started as an online only show, but it's scheduled to air on NBC sometime in February I think. I like watching it online though...new episodes (like 13-ish minutes each) are released twice a week. I'm not sure how much they already have filmed but I'm definitely enjoying it.

Doctor Who: I've been meaning to catch up on this for ages, and now I'm finally doing it. I watched season 1 (with Christopher Eccleston) awhile ago and totally loved him, but I think I might actually love David Tennant even more. I'm a couple of episodes into season 2 and it's just wonderful. I just watched "The Girl in the Fireplace" and I loved loved loved it. Also saw "School Reunion" today and wow, was that robot dog cute or what? My only gripe is, why are the DVDs so dang expensive??

Life of Ryan: I barely knew who Ryan Scheckler was before deciding to randomly watch this show, but now I'm totally into it. At first I thought it was just going to be another MTV show about some rich teenager, and I mean, yes, Ryan's rich, but there's kind of a lot more here. Ryan's a pro skateboarder who's earned all of his money and was pretty legitimately famous before doing the show, and he's really got a ton on his plate. There's the demands and pressures of his career, including a ton of travel all across the US and to places like Spain and Japan and Dubai, and then at home, he's dealing with his parents' somewhat ugly divorce and trying to be "man of the house" and a role model to his two younger brothers, and then the poor guy just can't get a girlfriend. He's really likable and there's lots of cool skateboarding and his friends are really normal kids and his relationship with his youngest brother, Kane, is super cute. Although, yes, it's not exactly surprising that MTV has hooked me yet again...

1 comment:

mira said...

what i also like about quarterlife is that they're people who are our age. who actually are supposed to be our age. except that they're depressingly artistic and idealistic. but i guess that supposedly is supposed to be our generation.

except i don't think i'm THAT much of a slacker or a drone, am i? hahaha.