Episode 702

My will power lasted for one post, but I can't hold it in any longer.  I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  That means it's official: middle-aged men are not the only ones who love Buffy.  I can't quite put my finger on what is so attractive about the show, but it's like a drug.  It has the quippy dialogue of Dawson's Creek, the teen angst of, um, Dawson's Creek, and the cast of, well, Dawson's Creek (as far as guest stars go, at least).  But Buffy came first.

Yes, Buffy can do more tricks than Kerri Strug.  Yes, vampires always wait just one second too long to bite their prey and then end up getting killed by the Slayer.  Yes, Giles and Buffy have a really inappropriate relationship that has probably turned many a school librarian into pedophiles.  But the excitement!  The gore!  The bad 90s effects!

That brings me to my final point.  My old friend, Swank, suggested that I go as Buffy for Halloween.  I thought about it and I was stumped: there's no way to go as Buffy.  I could go as Joey Potter in a second: long and lean jeans with a tank top that's just a hair too short.  Done.  But Buffy? Black pleather pants and an orange spaghetti strap tank top?  A schoolgirl skirt with knee-high boots and a sweater?  An off-the-shoulders Ann Taylor style shirt with a bright red choker?  Too many options!  Basically, in order to dress up as Buffy, you just need to wear clothes, be super hot, and be a total freakin' bad ass.

Episode 701

I'm pulling an Archer and having a quick off-season run.  Since I seem to have blogitment phobia (yes, I realize how much that didn't work), I might just start employing a post-as-I-please attitude, and see how it goes.  By now, the fall line-up has had time to show its true colors - I have a lot to say about it, but I'll start small.

New Girl.  This show is causing me some major emotional turmoil, which is odd, since it's probably the least emotionally complex show on TV (though I haven't seen Ringer yet, so I'd expect to be proven wrong there).  The issue is this: Zooey Deschanel's character (and Zooey Deschanel, for that matter) is freakin' adorable.  She's sweet, she's funny, she's charming, she's hilarious, and she's beautiful.  But if she existed in real life, she would be, by far, my least favorite person on the planet.  This is my impression of real-life Jess (much better live, but you take what you can get): "What?  I'm being quirky? I didn't even realize!  This is just how I am!"  NO IT'S NOT.  You're putting on a show.  Ahem, anyway: she'd basically be the worst combination of a hipster, a flake, a poser (do people actually say poser anymore?), and a hippie.

But I love her.  And therein lies the rub.

Interlude

Just to make sure everyone's still watching TV when the brilliant 2011 season opens:

1) Truer words have never been spoken.

2) My TV fairy godfather (and Godfather) has changed my life with a tiny little miracle called the Roku.  In doing so, he's changed your lives, too, because I now have so much more material (which will start up again at a date TBD).

3) A list of the top 10 shows I am watching this fall, and you should, too (for those of you new to these posts, this will also help familiarize you with my tastes, and get you running straight in the other direction):

New:
Suburgatory
Person of Interest
Free Agents
Up All Night
2 Broke Girls

Returning*:
The Office
Parks and Recreation
Modern Family
Parenthood
90210

*Please join me in honoring the art of television and don't watch Glee.

P.S. Don't forget about the Emmy Awards on Sunday.  GO PANTHERS.

Episode 622

One final installment before I go on official hiatus (as opposed to the unofficial hiatus of the last month).  This time, I have a good excuse: HBO GO.  So many shows at my fingertips, there won't be much time for anything else.  Except Bachelor Pad.  It turns out the premiere was three hours long, and it turns out I watched the whole thing.  If it redeems me at all, I did delete Jersey Shore from my DVR approximately three minutes into the first episode (I had to record it since it was in Florence, but it wasn't even close to worth it).  In any case, all of my summer reality TV will be made up for by the high class shows that HBO has to offer.

OH WAIT.

Granted, I maybe didn't start at the top of the critically-acclaimed list, but what on earth is so great about True Blood?  I only made it halfway through the third episode of the first season before I decided to call it quits.  My main issue with it is this: Anna Paquin.  And the rest of the show.  And I think that's all.

So, until next time, I leave you with my top pick for the new fall line-up: Suburgatory.  No particular reason, I just have a feeling it's going to be a game-changer.

Episode 621

The other night I was at a karaoke bar (please don't stop reading) and while my Swiss-philosopher friend was singing a choreographed version of "Larger Than Life" by the Backstreet Boys (seriously, please stay with me), he noticed that Friday Night Lights was playing on the TV in the bar.  A Giants game had been airing on NBC earlier that night - which, by the way, had given me an inflated sense of confidence about my rendition of REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Lovin' You" because of the intermittent cheers - and the TV was still tuned to that channel.  Needless to say, Coach and Tammy were a bit distracting, but even more problematic was this: having your eyes well up at the opening credits of melodramatic TV show is not exactly the impression you want to give at a dive bar.

In any case, one of the other people we had come with was only two seasons in to Friday Night Lights so I implored her not to look at the TV, for fear that she would see the nuclear missile hit Dillon, Texas and kill all the main characters.  (Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)  She didn't listen, though, and the next thing I know, I hear "Uh oh, it looks like Tim Riggins is under deposition."  Luckily, no one is surprised to see that Tim Riggins is in trouble with the law.

Because there is no point to this story, other than to reminisce about Friday Night Lights, I will take this opportunity to say that even on mute, those characters convey more emotion than most actors could with all the words in the world.  If Kyle Chandler does not win the Emmy this year, heads will roll.  Or at least eyes will roll.  After giving Jim Parsons an Emmy last year, the Academy owes us one.  It actually owes us several.

Episode 620

I have resisted the temptation to write about The Bachelorette for precisely five weeks.  Self-editing is a virtue: a lesson Ashley, this season's per-fect (does anyone else notice that she pronounces that word too phonetically? - yes, I'm a very tolerant person) Bachelorette, needs to learn.  For those of you who have avoided ABC, People Magazine, and humanity for the past month or so: this season, Ashley fell immediately for Bentley, a seriously deranged lunatic who trashed her on national television and then left the show, claiming that he couldn't be away from his daughter.  Yes, this man is a father.

When he left, Bentley said that their love story wasn't over - instead, there was just a "dot-dot-dot."  (Deep, I know.)  Boy oh boy, did Ashley hang on to that one.

It would be exhausting and violence-inducing to count the number of times the name Bentley has been spoken this season on the show - I would estimate around two hundred (and we're only six episodes in).  What I can count, though, is how many times the word - oh wait, not word, totally ridiculous and meaningless phrase - "dot-dot-dot" was spoken on last night's episode: seven times.  That's twenty-one "dot"s in 79 minutes of television.  (Full disclosure: I fast-forwarded through all of the "coming up on The Bachelorette" clips, which constitute about 85% of the show, so my count doesn't even include those occurrences - I'd say we could safely double it.) 
 

Luckily, Ashley finally came to her senses and ended the madness using a well-deserved Cee Lo style farewell with three dots of its own: "f*** you."

Episode 619

Everything reminds me of The Office.  Everything.

An article on economic history?  Yeppers!

A Lady Gaga song on the radio?  Yesh!
 

Any situation in which someone counts to three (or the go that's after three)?  Absolutely it does.
 

The list goes on, and becomes more and more banal (I can't even go to the dentist or hear someone say "as well" without a little chuckle). I won't describe which scene in The Office each of those things reminds me of (though if you're reading this, you probably already know).  And in return, I'll ask you not to tell me which Swiss philosopher has informed your most recent relationship decision. 

Everyone has their own frame of reference - mine is TV.  And, of course, post-Foucauldian social theory.