J: TV of 2011

So the Golden Globe nominations were announced about a week ago and I came to the possibly sad realization that despite the fact that I have a TV blog and my DVR spent most of the year over 80% full, I watch precious few of the nominated shows (only Modern Family and New Girl in the Comedy/musical category, and none of the dramas). I guess I can put most of it on the fact that I don't have premium cable...and the rest on the fact that the Golden Globes are just dumb! Here's the TV that I thought was worth watching this year!

1. Downton Abbey - SO addictive. On the surface it seems like just your run-of-the-mill British costume drama but actually it's on steroids. I'm so frickin excited for season 2 to start on PBS in January!
2. Friday Night Lights - Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose! I was so excited that the show was finally recognized by the Emmys also!
3. The Vampire Diaries - The craziness continues. I don't know how the writers manage to keep pumping out story at the pace that they do. I was initially worried about how big a role they were giving Klaus this season but I shouldn't have been -- the way they've tied Stefan and even Tyler in the storyline has been surprising and as always, a whole lot of fun.
4. Parks and Recreation - There's just so much here -- Ron Swanson of course, Andy and April's wedding, Leslie and Ben finally getting together and then breaking up and getting back together, Entertainment 720, Lil Sebastian...it's smart and funny and maybe most importantly, really cheery and optimistic. Leslie Knope for America!
5. Community - Maybe one of the most daring and creative shows on TV because of the way it plays with structure. It doesn't always work -- sometimes it falls of the edge into complete wackadoo (I did not find Pierce's father to be funny in the least) -- but when it does, it's brilliant. They're still finding new and interesting dynamics among the characters (like the recently discovered shared past of Jeff and Shirley) and have found a good balance between all the weirdness and the sentimental stuff lying beneath the surface.
6. Justified - I still find it hard to explain why in the world I love this show about a US Marshal in Kentucky who wears a Stetson hat. But man was the show good this season. Mags Bennett was one of the freshest TV villains in years.
7.  Doctor Who - I finally caught up to the Eleventh Doctor this year and he might actually be my favorite. And I totally want to be Amy Pond!
8. Cougar Town - It hasn't returned this season yet but in the spring it was one of my favorites. It's so silly but with a good dose of heart.
9. Love in the Wild - Every once in awhile a reality show just totally hooks me. Thanks Mira! And the top two couples, Samantha & Mike and Heather & Miles are still together! Take that, The Bachelor/ette!
10. Greek - I'm so happy that the show got to have a proper ending. Most people probably saw the show as pretty inconsequential but I was always really impressed with its continuity and attention to detail and just all the really fun characters it produced like Cappie and Rebecca and Katherine and Dale...I wish my own college experience had been that fun!

J: 2011 Resolutions - How Did I Do?

Once again, back in January, we made some blog-related New Year's resolutions. Now that it's almost the end of the year, let's see how I did!

1. Keep track of the books I finish reading. And try to finish more books in general. I have a terrible habit of borrowing too many books from the library at once and then returning most without finishing them. 
Well, I did keep track of all the books I read this year. (I used Goodreads.) I'll do another post with the complete list but I read 38 books this year and listened to 6 audiobooks (so far, there's still a few weeks left). As for the second part, given that I've never counted before, I don't know whether that's more or less than in the past...but I'm going to claim success on this anyway.

2. Start/catch up on at least some of the following TV shows: Doctor Who, Breaking Bad, The Pacific, The Wire, Treme. 
I totally caught up with Doctor Who! Well, I haven't yet finished the current season, but still. I didn't touch any of the others though. So I guess technically I can claim success on this but really I don't feel good about it.

3. Tackle Netflix queue. Carried over from last year. I'm hopefully going to get a Blu-Ray with Netflix streaming sometime soon so perhaps that will help. I'm at 338 and adding more all the time...
FAIL. But not completely my fault! When Netflix stupidly split up their DVD and streaming plans, I cancelled DVDs, and then recently I put streaming on hold too and subscribed to Hulu Plus instead because I can't even keep up with current TV, never mind old shows on streaming (see previous resolution). Sooooo yeah. I won't be repeating this one next year, I think it's just kind of hopeless...

Doctor Who: I should have been British

It only took me like three years, but I'm finally caught up on Doctor Who! Resolution #2 technically fulfilled!

You know it's funny, as a huge Anglophile as well as a sci-fi geek, it makes perfect sense that I would be a fan of this show. And I mean, the concept is so great. Time and space travel allows for both fun ventures into the past as well as dreamt up visions of the future and other planets, the Doctor "regenerates" so the series can continue even with different actors playing the role, companions come and go...it's so sustainable. But somehow it took me awhile to really warm up to the show, and while there were plenty of superb episodes in the first four seasons and truly great performances from David Tennant and Billie Piper and Catherine Tate, among others, I don't think I really became a devotee until season five when Matt Smith took over as the Eleventh Doctor. It's probably not the most popular opinion, but he's definitely my favorite so far. Maybe it's because he's a little younger, a little less manic but a little more geeky?

And um, I kind of have a huge girl crush on Karen Gillan (the Doctor's companion, Amy Pond). She's Scottish, red-haired (or ginger as the British say), tall, gorgeous...I kind of want to be her. And I love love love Amy's husband Rory, too...they're so adorable together. Traditionally the Doctor has just a female companion so it's a nice change of pace to have a couple as his companions. There's been reference to them being his "best friends" which I find just really cute because the Doctor, despite his love of humans and interacting with them, is inherently a solitary guy (last of his race and all). Ok...girly ridiculousness over.

Also really interesting has been the development of River Song (played by Alex Kingston). She first appears in season 4 as a fellow time-traveler whose timelines intersect with the Doctor but in roughly reverse order (the last time she meets the Doctor is the first time he meets her). Apparently this storyline was actually inspired by The Time Traveler's Wife (which we're fans of on this blog) and River and the Doctor both keep diaries to keep track of their meetings and avoid, as River often proclaims, "spoilers!" Recently a big piece of River's identity was finally revealed, but there's still plenty more to explore, especially hints of a future romantic relationship. Alex Kingston is quite a bit older than Matt Smith but they have a fun, flirty chemistry that really just works.

I love that BBCAmerica is airing new episodes concurrently with the UK, and even better, they're available on demand in HD! Netflix has seasons 1-5 on streaming too!

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...