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!

The Vampire Diaries: Team...Elena!

You know, sometimes it's easy to forget about Elena. She's one of the three central characters (along with Damon and Stefan) but despite her importance to the mythology of the show, she's so often just a pawn in all the machinations going on. Her circle of friends is increasingly supernatural -- vampires, witches, werewolves, but she remains relatively powerless. Still, early on, I began to realize that she wasn't like that other girl in love with a vampire, and last night's episode solidly confirmed it.

The thing that bothered me most about Bella in Twilight was how quickly and unhesitatingly she decided that she wanted to become a vampire so she could be with Edward forever. She didn't give a second thought about essentially giving up a normal life. But Elena, in an extremely well constructed reveal in last night's episode, emotionally admits to Stefan that she doesn't want--never wanted--to become a vampire. She loves Stefan but she wants to stay human, grow old, have choices. I'd been a little annoyed at Elena recently because of her insistence that she'd rather die than the people she loved but this revelation really brought her up a notch in my estimation.

And of course, Stefan, being the best vampire boyfriend ever, reacted so understandingly. He actually pushed her to tell him, even though he probably already knew that was how she felt. It was just a really tender and beautifully acted scene amidst all the general craziness of the episode.

I don't want to go into too many more details because I still think that everyone who reads this blog needs to go back and catch up with this show, but man, this show has NOT been running out of gas. I'm consistently amazed at how many different insane plot twists they throw in every single week but in a way that still makes sense. Only two episodes left!

Spoiled: Consuming media in the age of DVR, blogs, and wikipedia

I started really getting into television because of a combination of two things: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the internet. They came into my life at about the same time when I was in junior high and they really fed into each other. I had friends in real life that watched Buffy too but they weren't quite as obsessed as I was, so I turned to the internet. I became a regular at the official Buffy "posting board" (an early message board/chat room type thing) where fans from all around the world discussed and dissected the show and our obsession with it. In those days, I had a VCR that I could record episodes on but I generally watched the show live and got onto the PB immediately to see what everyone else thought.

Spoilers back then had a slightly different meaning to me...they were generally information about future episodes, gleaned from casting notices and people who were extras and stuff like that. I knew that reading spoilers in a lot of ways ruined the effect of the show, but I just wanted to know everything. I would occasionally go through these stages where I'd endeavor to remain "spoiler-free" and I'm pretty sure that I enjoyed the show more but eventually I'd go back to old habits because I so badly wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Then a few years ago, something else happened: I got a DVR. In many ways, this was one of the best things to ever happen to me (I'm not exaggerating). I wasn't tied to network airing schedules anymore, I could record two things at once, and I could fast-forward through commercials (and boring parts of shows like American Idol) among other things. I can't imagine my life without it.

But there's a side effect to the wonderfulness of the DVR: I now rarely watch shows "live" or right away. Depending on what day it is and how much I like the show, I watch most shows a day or two later, or in some cases, weeks later. Which means that spoilers now have a different definition: it's what happened on a show that's aired already but that I just haven't watched yet. And yes, I still read them!

It's especially bad with reality shows. For example, Top Chef airs on Wednesday nights at 10PM, which is past my bedtime (yes, I go to bed that early). So right when I wake up on Thursday morning, there are the recaps from various blogs in my Google Reader, which of course I have to read. I try to skim and just see who won and who was eliminated but I mean, what else is there? I then generally watch the show after work that evening and the suspense is completely gone.

Horrifyingly this behavior has now spread to movies and books, thanks to wikipedia. I've never been very timely with these...I rarely see movies in the theater and I generally wait for books to get to the library. I have been known to sneak a peek at the ending of a book before reading the whole thing (confession: I read the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because I was so afraid that someone important was going to die) but now I can go to wikipedia and read the entire summary of a book before I even have it in my hands. It's especially bad with books that are in a series, like the Hunger Games and Steig Larsson's Millenium trilogy. The same goes with movies. It's just too easy!

So I think I'm going to embark on another spoiler-free experiment. There is actually one TV show that I've already been spoiler-free on: The Vampire Diaries. I watch it pretty much live every Thursday night and because of the huge amount of twists and cliffhangers (VD has a cliffhanger practically before every commercial break), I'm always so glad that I didn't know what was going to happen beforehand. The few times I couldn't watch it live and read spoilers, my enjoyment was definitely diminished.

I'm not going to change my viewing habits...I'm just going to really restrain myself from reading recaps and avoid spoiler-y blogs and websites. A lot of scripted shows are on hiatus until April, so for now my two main challenges will be Top Chef and The Amazing Race. Wish me luck, and I'll report back in a month or so!

The Vampire Diaries: Team Stefan!

It's official: Stefan Salvatore is the best vampire boyfriend ever. And also, a really damn good friend.

I think it would have been easy for Stefan to be sort of blandly "good," especially when compared to the deliciously bad and conflicted Damon, but man, he's been in fine form lately. I love love love his friendship with Caroline and how he knew that even though she's a tough vampire now, that she still needed her friends after the horrifying torture she just went through. It was so sweet how he brought over Elena and Bonnie to her house and I totally melted when he mouthed "I love you" to Elena. Seriously, all you delusional Edward Cullen people out there? Meet Stefan Salvatore!

Anyway, I haven't properly blogged on The Vampire Diaries much because it's such a plot driven show and I want people to watch the show from the beginning without being too spoiled. But I'm happy to report that there's been no sophomore slump at all. I'm enjoying the pace at which they're revealing and developing the storyline with Katherine and how it ties in with the werewolves, but I'm also glad that the show has definitely not shied away from the shocking deaths and crazy cliffhangers that have come to define it.

Caroline as a vampire is super fantastic, and I'm loving the addition of new witches and vampires and werewolves to fill out the world. I do wish that poor clueless Matt and Jenna would finally be brought into the secret and that Alaric had more to do but overall I've been really happy with the directions of all the characters. There's just so much going on every week and it's always a blast. I'm glad to see that critics too are finally realizing what a ridiculously entertaining ride this show is. Still the best show you're not watching!

Reminder: Watch Vampire Diaries!

The Vampire Diaries had its second season premiere last night and I'm happy to report that it has not lost any steam and is just as fantastic as we left it last season. The show is somewhat mythology heavy so I don't know if you necessarily would want to pick it up cold now but the last couple of episodes from season 1 are streaming on the CW's website so that would be better than nothing. The first season is also out on DVD for you Netflix-ers.

If you haven't already, go read my my post on the show from last spring. Watch this!

The Vampire Diaries: The Best Show You're Not Watching

I'm totally serious about this. No, The Vampire Diaries isn't innovative or groundbreaking or anything new really, but in terms of entertainment value, characters you actually like and care about, storylines that actually progress and pay off, twists that make sense but that you don't see coming? The Vampire Diaries has totally been knocking it out of the park.

I admit that I dismissed the show at first. I know that the recent resurgent popularity of vampires with Twilight and all that probably led to this show being made in the first place (it's based on a series of books first published almost 20 years ago) but I was wary of another vampire romance, especially another triangle, this time with the girl, Elena, caught between two vampire brothers, Stefan and Damon.  And the first couple of episodes really weren't that great. I felt like it was trying a little too hard to be "shocking" and a lot of the supporting characters felt useless. But things started to improve, and actually the show turned out to not even really be what I assumed -- yes, there is the romance, but the triangle hasn't quite manifested yet (though it'll probably go there eventually), and there's just a lot more going on with the town's history. It's doing what I think vampire stories should always do: take advantage of the vampire characters' long pasts. Plus, the show totally has guts: it's not afraid to kill off people, even main characters.

By the midseason break I was definitely enjoying the show but it wasn't yet on my weekly viewing list. For awhile there was this situation with Damon "compelling" Caroline, one of Elena's friends, that I thought was just kind of unpleasant, and also it felt like every week Damon doing something bad and Stefan wanted to kill him but then didn't. There's also this "Founders' Council" of various town officials and descendants of the original founders of the town that knows about the vampires that I thought was generally kind of lame, and a lot of the more "regular" high school type stories were just falling flat.

But then the second half of the season really amped things up. This tomb was opened up, releasing a group of vampires trapped there in the 1860s (when Damon and Stefan became vampires), and all the history stuff became completely relevant. I don't want to spoil too much for those of you who haven't watched at all, but I really can't believe how much has actually happened. While a lot of shows would drag out questions like who Elena's real parents are or will Jeremy, Elena's brother, actually become a vampire or where's Katherine (Elena's vampire doppelganger)...we've already got answers! Yesterday's season finale upped the body count yet again and ended on multiple cliffhangers but it was still really satisfying. I can't WAIT until next season!

Of course, besides story, the other thing that really makes a show is the characters and the acting, and the three leads are doing a pretty fantastic job. The biggest revelation in the cast for me has been Nina Dobrev as Elena. I kind of hated her on Degrassi but was pleasantly surprised that I actually really like her here. Elena is definitely more Buffy than Bella in terms of being in love with a vampire. She doesn't have any special powers of her own, but she's not helpless, she's not obsessing over the future, and even as she gets more and more embroiled in vampire drama, she still cares about being a good sister and friend.

Stefan and Damon are kind of like what Angel and Spike from the Buffyverse would be like as brothers. Stefan is the "good" brother, brooding and tortured, and Damon is the snarky "evil" one who starts coming over to the good side because of Elena. Paul Wesley as Stefan doesn't get to have as much fun as Ian Somerhalder does as Damon, but I do really like their dynamic. There was this one plotline where Stefan temporarily loses control and their roles are kind of reversed that was really good. Oh, and I definitely don't mind that the show seems to relish opportunities to get these guys shirtless...

So yes, the Vampire Diaries is still basically a teen soap, but what it does, it does really well. Hopefully the show can keep up the momentum next season!

Snowy weekend viewing

Snowed in for Snowmaggedon here in the DC/Baltimore area, I spent the weekend catching on some of my "second tier" shows -- shows that I like and enjoy but don't necessarily watch on a week-to-week basis. Every once in awhile they pile up on my DVR or they start expiring on hulu.com so I have to clean house.

Castle: I know my first review of this show was lukewarm but against all odds it's started to grow on me. Over the summer I mused on why I like British mystery shows but not American ones and it seems that I just had to find the right formula and I think Castle has it.

A big part of it is definitely Nathan Fillion, who I really love and who fits perfectly into the role of Rick Castle. I think the show does a nice job balancing his family life (his mother is a hoot and Alexis is one of the sweetest, least annoying teenagers on television) with the murder-of-the-week. I like the second-banana detectives, Esposito and Ryan, who have this funny sort of buddy-cop thing going, and Beckett has probably grown on me the most. She and Castle are of the classic will-they-won't-they dynamic but I'm not in any hurry to see them get together. The murders can get kind of quirky and outlandish, but somehow with the premise that Castle is a mystery writer, i find it all easier to swallow.

Bones: I know, another procedural? I've been lying all this time when I said I couldn't watch them! But actually I've been a fan of Bones for awhile. Again, it's murder mysteries, and while I guess the science-y stuff kind of appeals to me, it's really the characters that drive this show, not the mysteries. They actually have kind of a meta joke about it, with Edison, one of the rotating interns, always getting uncomfortable with the team being so open about their personal lives at work. But that's really the fun part. Cam and Angela and Hodgins and Sweets are all really fun and while I hated how Zack got written out of the show, I actually do really like all the rotating interns and how we're getting bits and pieces of their personal lives too (Wendell's my favorite though...because he's cute and I'm shallow).

Again though, we have a will-they-won't-they partnership at the center of the show with Brennan and Booth. As the show has gone on, you can see how the partnership has changed both their characters. They obviously have feelings for each other but who knows how long they're going to stretch out the sexual tension (hey, they did it for almost 10 years with Mulder and Scully on The X-files). It's funny though, my all-time favorite TV show is Buffy and David Boreanaz should be Angel in my head, but actually I think Booth is a much better role for him. He gets to be a bit more humorous, which he's actually pretty good at.

The Vampire Diaries: At first I didn't really like this. I'm kind of wary of all this new-wave vampire stuff (I obviously have issues with Twilight and True Blood is too gory for me), I was predisposed to not like Elena because Nina Dobrev annoyed the heck out of me on Degrassi and I thought the first two episodes were kind of boring. But my brother of all people told me that he was actually really liking it so I decided to give it another shot, and he was right. It's a pretty interesting little show. Yes, there's a doomed vampire-human romance at the center of it (Elena/Stefan), but it's not nearly as annoying as Bella/Edward, mostly because, to my surprise, Elena's kind of level-headed. Also, Damon, Stefan's brother, also a vampire, is the ambiguously evil foil to Stefan (the "good" vampire) that kind of keeps the audience guessing.

The side characters have also been improving. I could probably do without Caroline, one of Elena's friends, who was caught up in some gross stuff with Damon and now is dating Matt, Elena's ex-boyfriend, and Jenna, Elena's aunt, who just seems to be a a ditz who gets attracted to ALL the wrong guys in town. But Bonnie, Elena's best friend, comes from a line of witches, which is cool, and I've liked Jeremy (Elena's younger brother) and his arc, especially with Vicki dead.

The history/folklore angle is also kind of interesting. The town they live in, Mystic Falls, has a history of vampires and the townspeople knowing about it and fighting back. Elena herself is a look-alike of a vampire that Stefan and Damon knew (and fell in love with) in the 1860s when they were both "turned." The period flashbacks are kind of cheesy but the actors are obviously have fun with it.

Oh, and Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley are really pretty. I'll take them over Robert Pattinson any day!