An Inside Scoop

Opinions on television programming are as varied as television viewers. One person can watch a show and be bored senseless while another is sitting white knuckled on the edge of their seat. A single line can evoke a cheer, a groan, or a blank look of confusion, depending on who's sitting on the couch. A glance between two characters can be the most meaningful moment of the episode, or a complete waste of screen time based purely on interpretation.

Middle school morals teaches us that every person's opinion is their own, and every opinion is valid. High school teaches us that differing opinions are important for growth and development. With both of those in mind, when I'm reading about television I like to know which reviewers have viewpoints similar to, or extremely different than my own. The former saves me time when I'm trying to decide if a new show I haven't watched yet is worth checking out, and the latter will potentially help me to see something about a show that I already watch in a new and interesting way.

So, being an avid reader of television reviews, and someone who likes to share my opinions, I often try to clarify my own point of view just for my own understanding (Not just about TV, but for the sake of this article, I won't delve into my opinions about the current government shutdown or the state of the catholic church...).

It's usually pretty easy to clarify what my opinions are. I like this show, I don't like that one. Done. The real challenge comes in trying to understand why I enjoy the shows I like, and why I can't connect with the shows I don't.

There are many conclusions I've come to over the last few years.

I tend to come to my hour long dramas/comedies through the actors. I started watching White Collar by following Matt Bomer over from Chuck, and I first watched Castle because I was missing Nathan Fillion after Firefly. I got into The Walking Dead only after discovering that Daryl was played by Boondock Saints star, Norman Reedus. If they don't have a recognizable actor, my hour-longs tend to have an intricate mythology, but a fast-moving plot arc. I don't enjoy shows like Revolution that tie you down in layer upon layer of confusion for the sake of mystery, but a show like Arrow, which comes pre-packaged with a set of recognizable characters and a fully formed world to explore and evolve within, can keep me hooked for years. I can appreciate a drama that's lighthearted or heavy in equal measure, but both have to have moments of their opposite or I quickly lose interest.

Interestingly enough, the new drama of the season that I'm most enjoying is The Blacklist, which doesn't fit my model at all. On the flip side, Sleepy Hollow, a show that seems tailor-fit to my "intricate mythology and fast moving plot" requirement hasn't managed to hook me yet.

When I look at the half-hour comedies that I like, I prefer them more clever than not. Shows like Arrested Development, or Community are always going to top my lists of favorite shows because they give me plenty to talk about with other fans week after week. Most of the time the comedies I enjoy are heartwarming, but they also need to be quirky. Shows like last seasons's short-lived Ben and Kate, the perennial Modern Family, or my oft applauded Raising Hope are rooted in their family values, and every week gives you a couple of obligatory "awwww" moments, but they're part of the grander episode, not the purpose of it. This season, The Michael J. Fox Show comes to mind as one of the shows that's too focused on its own charm, and I find myself disinterested in the premise after only four episodes, but The Trophy Wife has me fully engaged and eager for more because it refuses to take itself too seriously.

These are all things I've known and understood about myself for a long time, but recently I came to another self-realization. When it comes to television, I can be annoyingly hipster in regards to my viewing habits. I tend to like shows that aren't too mainstream, or at least shows that I "discovered" before they were popular. While this is never a reason, in and of itself, that I can't enjoy a show, I find myself noticing the pattern more and more. Many of the shows I tried (or am still trying), but didn't love, are popular: Breaking Bad, Weeds, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, etc. More importantly, they're all shows that were already highly acclaimed before I started watching. I think this probably has something to do with the reality versus the expectation, but it certainly doesn't always hold true. I never got into Parenthood or Glee although I watched both pilots on my television live as they aired, and two of my favorite shows currently still on, The Walking Dead and Modern Family, I only started watching more than a full season deep after reading a favorable review from a critic I respect.

Which brings me circling back to my original point. It helps me, when reading a review, to color it with a little background on what the reviewer's likes and dislikes are. So now you've gotten a small taste of mine, and maybe it will give you a better picture going forward.

Community and the Brilliant Hiatus

Back in November, NBC announced its mid-season line up. Fans of the network's cult followed comedy, Community were outraged to find it not on the list of shows. A midst the uproar from the small but vocal fan base, NBC officials were quick to make it clear that the beloved comedy had not been cancelled. Fans demanded a premiere date for the rest of season 3, but NBC would not give in, saying that they were unsure of the return date. It was merely on hiatus for an indefinite period of time. This may have been the most brilliant marketing ploy by any broadcast network in the last decade.

Community has never been a heavy hitter for the network. Its ratings numbers have always been just this side of pitiful. So it was no surprise to anyone that the Community fans immediately assumed that their favorite comedy was teetering on the edge of the cliff called cancellation. Immediately Twitter lit up with the #sixseasonsandamovie hashtag, a reference from the second season of  Community. Equally popular, though less laden with inside humor, was the #savecommunity hashtag. Fans organized protests outside of NBC headquarters wearing felt and paper beards in reference to the darkest timeline from one of the best episodes of Community in season 3, "Remedial Chaos Theory." They created fan art depicting the Community cast as other famous characters - Batman and villains, Street Fighter, the Xmen - to try to draw some cross-cultural attention to the show (and themselves). Every person who had ever seen Community went to all of their friends with a rally cry, begging them to start watching the show if and when it came back on the air.

We did everything short of writing our congressmen asking them to write a law guaranteeing the show another season (although I wouldn't be surprised if some fans actually went that far). If you want to know how widespread the panic was, just do a google image search for the phrase "darkest timeline" and look at the number of people who added little black goatees to their profile pictures.

 Twitter and Facebook were alive with the news of imminent cancellation, and the young demographic that NBC wants so badly to get a hook into, was talking about one of their shows in a positive way. It was loud. It was worldwide. It was an epidemic.

And best of all, it was completely predictable.

Community's fan base, while small, has always had a strong presence on the internet. Dan Harmon, the show runner and creator of the comedy, has an active Twitter persona, as does almost the entire cast, several of the writers and even a production assistant or two. All NBC had to do was convince the internet based fan community to stop being apathetic about the show. What better way to do that than with the very real and dire threat of cancellation?

Here's what I think happened in that backroom smoke-filled office where NBC execs debated their mid-season lineup. Many factors were considered, and they decided that they wouldn't have a spot for Community in the winter. Maybe they just didn't want it to have to compete so directly with the much-more-ratings-solid Big Bang Theory. I couldn't even begin to guess at their reasoning, but whatever it was, they decided that they would wait to air the back half of season 3 until March 15th when they were planning to premiere a couple of new shows (Bent, Best Friends Forever, and Betty White's Off Their Rockers) anyway. Yes, I think they knew exactly when Community would return way back in November. They just chose not to tell the public because they knew it would provoke exactly the sort of reaction that it did.

Had NBC announced in November that Community would not be in their mid-season line up, but would return on March 15th, the response would have been entirely different. Most likely, fans would have grumbled about it in disappointment for a week or so, then moved on to wait impatiently for mid-March. Instead, by keeping it secret, NBC got several weeks of active protest, and a solid three months of Twitter hashtags and Facebook profile pictures with evil goatees. Now, NBC gets articles like this one, touting the return of Community as headline worthy material, and selling their other premieres in the process.

I think the "indefinite" hiatus was one of the most brilliant marketing ploys by any broadcast network in recent years to save the life of a struggling series. It certainly was the most brilliant marketing ploy by NBC, and they definitely need it, with shows like Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea? clogging up their lineup. I know it got me even more excited for the March 15th return than I would have been otherwise, and that's saying quite a lot.

So kudos NBC, you did something right.

Harry's Law: Revisited

"Television, at its heart, is all about the story. And that's what I love. "

This pretentious self-quotation headlines my blog. It can be seen on every post, and in every link I make to the site on Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere. There's a reason I put the quote in a place of such high regard on this collection of thoughts. I give a lot of thought to stories. Trying to analyze what makes one good or bad, what makes one more interesting than another, where their power comes from and what kinds of messages they're being used to send.

Another matter I have considered quite a bit is what goes into a story, and realized that there are two key elements. These are what get criticized or praised depending on the quality of the tale. Good stories have both, bad stories have neither, and the mediocre have one or the other, sometimes in alteration.

The first is content. The second is method. The story told and the storytelling.

Harry's Law airs Wednesdays at 9:00pm Ea

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have not been watching NBC's Harry's Law this season because of Hulu's ridiculousness. Well I have recently caught up on season 2 and am shocked at the dramatic change in the series this season. Both the content and the storytelling have dramatically shifted, and I have yet to determine if it's for the better or worse.

The show is still a law procedural, but the shoe store is more or less gone, as is Harry's central position as a lawyer for the poor and disenfranchised in the middle of inner city Cincinnati. Now she's just a lawyer handling tough cases that bring up questions of morality and social responsibility. Sound like any other law shows you can think of? How about all of them?

Wait... Harriet's law firm is associated with a shoe store?

The characters are different too. Of the original four main characters, only two remain. Malcolm is already gone and Brittany Snow's Jenna leaves by the end of episode four. Nate Corddry's character, Adam (which was the entire reason I kept watching this show in the first place) seems like an afterthought. So much so that his own character notes it in episode four, claiming he has been marginalized this season, appearing in the first few episodes only as a part time player. Insane Tommy Jefferson is back with a vengeance and last season's guest stars pop in and out, but there are also two new full time characters, Cassie and Ollie, who have been thrown into the show with almost laughably minimal backstory or explanation.

Basically overnight, the full time cast went from this:

  To this:

You may also have noticed a difference in the style of the cast photos above. It's because the style of the show has also shifted, towards the dramatic. Long camera shots linger on people's faces to show the "dramatic tension" at almost every beat in the narrative. The dialogue makes a wild stab at an attempt towards "natural speech," by having characters repeat every other line of their conversations, but it doesn't seem to serve any purpose, both because it doesn't feel natural at all, and because the rest of the show is so contrived that these moments seem out of place.

The once episodic show, with more or less standalone episodes, now airs in pairs or trios of episodic plot arcs, meaning if you miss one, you're not going to understand any of them without watching the almost two minute long "previously on" at the top of each episode. The light-hearted nature of the show, which originally led me to believe it was a parody, is completely gone, but the show still seems to be trying to maintain its "sense of humor" by having sweet old lady Kathy Bates constantly saying things that are as caustic and rough as possible, or by forcing absurdly characterized moments with Tommy.

Change is a natural part of television. As I've mentioned before, one of the greatest challenges it poses as a storytelling medium is its length which can be indefinite and expansive. I'm used to seeing good shows change tones or plot lines between seasons. Fringe would be a perfect example. In and of itself, change doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when I can't figure out why it's happening. What was wrong with Harry's Law in season 1 that David E. Kelley felt needed to be changed? And if it was wrong in the first place, why didn't NBC just cancel the show like so many of it's other failed one-season-wonders last year? More importantly than why, though, is the question of "Where?".

What direction are these changes trying to take the show, because right now it just seems disjointed and unsure of itself. Does anyone else have any idea what the show is trying to accomplish by making such sweeping and drastic changes?

Does anyone else actually watch this show too?

I enjoyed this, thought I'd share

http://boobtubedude.com/index.php/2011/10/20/theories/funny-business-critical-analysis-of-television-comedies-part-1/

Geekdom

It has been said that we are in the midst of a "new" age: The Age of the Geek. Shows like Big Bang Theory and Chuck, which idolize the nerd and make him a hero for the everyman, are common place. Now stories like Game of Thrones, which formerly were known only on the fringes of society are becoming mainstream. As we reach the apex of this age, all different forms of geekdom are colliding with each other, competing for their place on the fleeting throne of popularity. And in the game of thrones, you win or you die.

Today I finally watched last week's Big Bang Theory, which opened with Sheldon and Leonard debating whether or not to purchase a sword from the Game of Thrones. Among the arguments for not getting the sword were that it wasn't a great enough sword to start a collection with, when compared to something from "Lord of the Rings" or to Arthur's sword of legend, Excalibur. Immediately after the boys purchase the replica of the lesser mythological blade once wielded by bastard Jon Snow, Wil Wheaton, who played Ensign Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, enters the comic book shop and completes the geeky picture. It's a mash up moment of sci-fi and fantasy that creates a nerd's paradise. It's a moment the Big Bang Theory has managed to perfect.

This super geek moment came right on the heels of a marathon viewing my roommate and I had just finished during which we'd re-watched all of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, and the moment in the comic book shop rang particularly true for me. So I was inspired by the movies, the show, and the age of the geek to quote for you some of my favorite speeches. I call this small collection the Epics of Geekdom.

Enjoy.

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like. That is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up." - The Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who) 

"Men of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails. When we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of woe and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down. But it is not this day. This day we fight. By all that you hold dear on this good earth. I bid you stand! Men of the West!" - Aragorn ('Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)

"Well then, what shall we die for? You will listen to me. Listen! The brethren will still be looking to us, to the Black Pearl to lead, and what will they see? Frightened bilge rats aboard a derelict ship? No. They will see free men, and freedom. And what the enemy will see is the flash of our cannons. They will hear the ring of our swords and they will know what we can do! By the sweat of our brows and the strength of our backs and the courage of our hearts. Gentlemen, hoist the colors." - Elizabeth Swan ('Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End')

"Hello Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica takes the universe. But bad news everyone, 'cause guess who. You lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I! AM! TALKING! Now question of the hour is who's got the Pandorica. Answer: I do. Next question: Who's coming to take it from me? ... Come on! Look at me. No plan. No back up. No weapons worth a damn. Oh, and something else I don't have. Anything. To. Lose. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship with all your silly little guns and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who's standing in your way. Remember every black day I ever stopped you. And then. AND THEN! Do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first." - The Eleventh Doctor (Doctor Who)

"By rights we shouldn't even be here... but we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. Sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. The folk in those stories, they had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding onto something.... That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for." - Samwise Gamgee ("Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers")

Didn't see your Epic? See if it's featured here in this video.

Want to share your favorite geeky epic movie speech? Post a comment below!

Confession

I have a confession to make. Up until just recently, I have been hiding something from my friends and readers. I had a habit I've been rather ashamed of. As I imagine a drug addiction would feel, I found both enjoyment and shame in my habit. You see, I'd been watching certain videos, late at night in my darkened living room, after my roommate had gone to sleep...

No! Not that kind! Get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about ABC's new drama, Revenge.

And no, that's not a typo in the network name. The show, at first glance, looks like it belongs on ABC Family, Disney's soapy, cable network bastard child, or the CW, both known for shows about pretty people with the pettiest of problems. They are the tabloids of television shows. A complete lack of substance is made up for with flash and gossipy stories. For the most part, I find myself too much of a television snob to appreciate these kinds of shows, and so I shun them, as do many of the more serious professional television critics. So I almost didn't watch Revenge when its pilot aired this fall, because I felt like it was another CW creation, despite its broadcast network sire. The reason I didn't though, was a commitment I made to myself during premiere week last fall. I decided then that I would watch every new pilot on the four major broadcast networks, and decide for myself which shows I would continue to follow. And so I watched the pilot of Revenge.

I was instantly sucked in. Despite my arrogant claims of superiority, I succumb to a good bit of gossip as readily as any other human being, and this show felt like the best kind. It had love and lust, murder and betrayal, secrets on top of secrets, and a beautiful leading lady. At least if I was going to fall victim to a soapy show, I had picked one that was going to go all out. And so, reluctantly, I gave into myself and put on the second episode. By the end of episode two, I was still cringing as I watched, cursing myself for so deeply enjoying what I still believed to be a travesty of a television show.

The lead actress, while gorgeous, seemed talent-less, playing every scene she was in without emotion, her eyes completely dead of any connection to life, let alone to those around her. Both episodes had ended with flashback reveals to what I could only assume were supposed to be secret "surprise twist" moments in the episodes' plots, but were so integrally crucial to the basic concept of the show - that Amanda  was manipulating the lives of the Hamptonites to ruin them - that their absence seemed like a forgetful omission that I then glossed over. I assumed that somehow Amanda had caused Conrad Greyson's faux heart attack, and that it was an element of the plot that the writers just hadn't bothered to flush out. The entire take down was so well tied together that the end of episode reveal, that she had slipped in as a maid and drugged his soup, couldn't possibly have been a surprise to anyone.

And there were plenty of other little details that didn't seem right with the show, but for some reason, like the worst of highway side collisions, I found I just couldn't look away. Worse though, was that I was smiling as I watched. I couldn't figure out what it was about the show that kept me so enthralled, and so I assumed it was my baser mind coming to the fore, and overcoming my education and refined viewing palette. A possibility I had not considered was that my subconscious mind had recognized something that my conscious mind could not fathom. That this show had quite a bit of potential.

But when I put on the third episode, it started to dawn on me. Maybe this actress wasn't so terrible after all. It's possible that her dead, lifeless eyes are a character choice. After all, Amanda Clarke is dead inside. Psychotically so. It makes sense that this girl, while smiling, or looking embarrassed, or crying over her dead father, would never let the emotion touch her eyes, because all emotion is put on, and for show. The Hamptonites, so focused on appearances, don't notice what's lying in wait beneath the surface of Emily Thorne, but we do. It's actually the central point of the show, that the viewers can see what the people in the world can not, the inner workings of Amanda Clarke's mind. Maybe we're not just seeing it in her duplicitous actions and manipulative schemes. Maybe we're seeing it in her eyes.

As the third episode drew to a close, I noticed something else: a conspicuous lack of the poorly executed Leverage-esque end of episode reveal. This time, it seemed, the audience had been allowed to see all of Amanda's tactics in the order that they happened without the pitiful attempt at trickery displayed in the last two episodes. Thinking back, I realized that there had been a marked rise in the continuity of the plot in this episode as well. Whether or not it was simply because there didn't seem to be a chunk missing from the middle, I can't say for certain, but that's my opinion.

Apparently the head writer on Revenge, a man named Mike Kelley, recognized the problems with the show's format and made the appropriate changes. Kudos to Mr. Kelley, for doing what so few executive producers are willing to do with their shows. Change them.

After watching the fourth episode with my new, more positive outlook, I am becoming fully addicted, and loving it. I am no longer ashamed to like the show because, despite it's soapier surface tendencies, there is a high quality foundation at its base.

Now it seems that new rules have been established. Before now, Emily's take downs had been limited to people in the company picture in her locked chest. Now, apparently, anyone from Amanda's past associated with the dissolution of her childhood, whether directly involved in framing her father or not, are fair game. The playing field for Amanda's revenge has broadened, and the story is expanding with it. I'm curious to see if she ever makes a mistake, and takes down someone innocent of wrongdoing. Heck, I'm just curious to see what happens at all.

I had been worried that the show would have trouble reaching past its first season, both because of the limited number of people available to be taken down, and because of the already established ending which was provided for us in the opening minutes of the pilot episode. Now I'm content to just sit back and enjoy the ride, knowing that the story can sustain itself as long as the show can sustain its viewership.

Speaking of ... Speaking of

Brought to you, courtesy of Dan Harmon, the showrunner of NBC's Community

Heart

Television this week has been strong in the soul department. I just finished watching yesterday's Raising Hope, which found Burt offering Virginia the idealized Vegas wedding she'd dreamed of since she was a child. Meanwhile, Jimmy brought Sabrina along for the ride, hoping for a little "happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" type hanky panky. Instead, he spent the entire episode trying to help his father raise money for the perfect second wedding. Even at the end of the episode, he gives Sabrina her "wild" moment with a slow dance on the roof. It was truly adorable, and it was exactly the kind of heart melting comedy that Raising Hope has somehow managed to perfect.

At the core of the show is the Chance family, one of the most loyal, loving families on modern television. As Jimmy says to Sabrina in the episode, "you've only ever seen dad Jimmy. You've never seen sex in the back of the van with a serial killer Jimmy." But we, the viewers, have. What Raising Hope does weekly is give us a heartwarming story of love and fellowship, while subverting our expectations for comedic value. True, the show is a class comedy, and has its occasional poorly written (but never poorly executed) one liners about how hilarious uneducated people are, but nine times out of ten, the reason you laugh is because the unexpected, but never absurd, just surprised a laugh from your gut. Classic sitcom plot says the protagonist (Jimmy) takes his love interest (Sabrina) to a place of debauchery (Vegas) with the end goal being some sexy fun. In the end, he realizes he's a good guy and doesn't go through with it. You've seen it on Friends and How I Met Your Mother, and Chuck, just to name a few off the top of my head. It's the 'Superbad' plot, in a nutshell. Essentially, that's what happened in this episode, but it never felt like a cliche sitcom staple. It felt like a new story, because the episode wasn't about Jimmy. It was about Virginia, as so many of the best Raising Hope episodes are. I laughed so hard when Virginia showed up in spray-tanned black-face, despite the best efforts of my middle class white guilt and even harder when Burt actively commented on its all too predictable disappearance. Then I almost cried during the end-of-episode voice over (during a VOICE OVER!) as Burt and Virginia danced in the corner of the ballroom. The best episodes of television should make us do both, and sometimes I think we forget, and settle for a couple of half-hearted laughs, or a bit of suspense.

Speaking of suspense, I followed up my Raising Hope viewing by finally catching up on Castle, and this week's episode was a doozey. Castle is doing its damnedest to debunk my three season rule. The episode was great for Seamus Dever, who plays the less ethnic half of Beckett's team, Ryan. Once again, the episode started with some bad Castle puns about "concrete evidence" that reminded us of the show's goofy side, and then quickly took a spin for the dramatic when Ryan's stolen pistol turns out to be the murder weapon. The turn was so dramatic, that the show even attempted a subtly different title sequence. I don't know about the opinions of the rest of you, but I think that this might have been my favorite episode of Castle in the entire run of the series thus far. Certainly the strongest of the season, overthrowing my much praised former favorite, the season premiere.

It's been a good week for TV.

You know, if you ignore NBC.



That's not fair, I haven't watched Community yet. NBC might have an ace up its sleeve this week.

Or so my exploding Twitter feed would have me believe.

Lord of the Rings and Epic Storytelling

Recently, I have taken to rewatching Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings.' I'm on the second of the trilogy, and it actually makes me think of television.

I will defend television as the strongest visual medium of continuous storytelling, but film is the medium of the epic. And I don't mean that in the modern, "that was epic, dude," sense. I mean it in its historic context, that of a long poetic composition. I still get chills watching moments of 'Lord of the Rings,' like the elves arrival, link the moment of Gandalf's return, like the moment Treebeard declares, "The Ents are going to war. It is likely that we go to our doom. The last march of the Ents." These chilling moments are ones I never experience while watching Game of Thrones on HBO.

I attribute the difference in experience to two factors. The first is soundtrack. There is something grandiose about the scores to major motion pictures that the scores of television shows just can't hope to mimic. The second is a difference in scale. Over the course of ten episodes, Game of Thrones amounted to over 400 minutes, almost 7 hours, of air time, yet no single episode had more than 45 minutes to develop and build emotions. Then we were forced to wait a week to watch it again, and start the process over. If you've ever stood on the beach watching the waves build in the distance, only to have them reach the shore with little more force than the ebb and flow of the tide, then you have experienced the emotional arc of epic told in a television show. The emotions rise and build, but never quite have enough time to crest. I would be curious, now that all of Game of Thrones season one has aired, to watch them back to back, like a film, to see if it had any effect. Even without the weekly pause though, I feel like the broken structure of the individual episodes would still be a hindrance. 

As a side note: Talk about moving down in the world. Currently, I am watching the men of Rohan prepare Helm's Deep for the final stand against Saruman's Uruk Hai whilst Merry and Pippin beseech the Ents to join the wars of men. As I watched, I just realized that the actor playing Haldir, the elf captain who brings his archers to the aide of men, later played Darken Rahl in the independent show, Legend of the Seeker, which barely managed to eek out a hilarious two seasons before even its cult fanbase abandoned it as too ridiculous. It was one of my guilty pleasure shows in college, and I used to stay up late on Monday nights with a good friend of mine to watch it on the big screen television in my dorm lounge. I miss those nights sometimes. 

Time

I've come to realize lately that work keeps me from watching the television I'd like to. I was in the office until nine tonight, which meant that I missed both How I Met Your Mother, and Terra Nova out of hand. However, I was excited to get to see Castle when I got home.

Unfortunately, when I made it to my apartment, my roommate was watching a movie, which he had only just started. It was called 'Son of Rambow' and it was an adorable British film about two young boys and their adventures in film making and friendship. It reminded me of some of the films I saw when I took a film class in London, and made me remember how much I love British movies. I'll need to start trying to find some more of them in the near future. Maybe at the library?

Anyway, now it is 11:30pm, and instead of watching Terra Nova, How I Met Your Mother or Castle on the DVR, I am instead going to bed because I have to be at work at 9am tomorrow.

I'm not complaining. I absolutely love my job.

I just wish I had more time to watch TV. I haven't done a review of anything in a really long time. It's because I haven't had time to really analyze and enjoy any of the television episodes I do have time to watch, and instead, I've just been passively watching episodes of Lie to Me as I cook dinner, or spending thirty minutes before bed watching 2 Broke Girls then immediately passing out.

This must be how normal people watch TV.

Not a fan.