Welcome to part 3 of my attempt at extreme behavior modification via the therapeutic embrace of consumer electronics. Such modification is necessary because I am a television addict who has 50 shows programmed into his DVR. To solve my problem, I am going through the list one by one to decide which shows to keep, and which to cut.
Here are the ground rules:
- My goal is to get this list down to 30 shows, which will make me less of a social liability. So far I have cut 7 shows, which means I have 13 to go.
- Reality shows are automatically cut unless there is a VERY good reason to keep them.
- anything that Kristen watches is automatically cut.
I have already broken the last two rules, which does not auger well for the rest of the list. One warning; things are about to get pretty obscure around these parts, and, as we saw from that David Lynch reference last time, obscure shows mean obscure references. Fortunately, unless I am very, very wrong about how blogging works, all three of you are using the internet to read this entry. That means Wikipedia is only a short click away. Don’t make me do all of the work for you, people!
Without further ado, here are 21 - 30:
21. Heroes - Oh god, we‘ve gotten to the self-loathing portion of this exercise, as I don‘t feel good about having to admit that I still watch this show. Don’t get me wrong, I really loved the first season; scroll down a few entries into the blog archive, and you can see my slightly overenthusiastic review of the first few episodes. Boy, I could really sling some bullshit back in the day, huh? In my defense, I believed (and still believe) that the first season was special. But then it stopped being good. Abruptly. I won’t get into what was wrong with the show. Okay fine, the characterization was painfully inconsistent and the constant use of time travel and resurrection made dramatic tension impossible. We’d get one good episode every 2 months or so, and I’d perk right up and announce that it was good again, only to have the Amy Jo‘s of the world shake their heads at me in disgust. It’s cancelled, so it’s automatically cut, but it really would have been cathartic to rid myself of that particular albatross before someone else cut it off of my neck. Cut.
22. The Sarah Silverman Program - A negative review from Matt Roush of TV Guide described the show as “Feminist Frat Boy Humor” which is as good of a description as any. But its offensiveness belied a lot of very progressive qualities: the star was a woman, and for the first time, allowed her to be the catalyst of the show’s raunchiness rather that the victim. And Sarah’s sidekicks were a relatively progressive gay couple, and was actually nominated for a GLAAD media award. But for the most part, it was an offensive mess of a show that I loved. Recently cancelled, which is a shame, because it consistently made me laugh out loud. Cut due to cancellation.
23. Friday Night Lights - Let’s get this off of my chest right now, I hate every goddamn one of you for not watching Friday Night Lights and making me have to constantly worry about it being cancelled. As with many of my favorite shows over the years, it stars a fictional family that I wish would adopt me. Having Coach Taylore as my dad means that I’d finally learn to throw a decent spiral, I’d be in the same high school class as Minka Kelly and Adrianne Palicki, and would definitely be a grateful and happy child, unlike that selfish ingrate Julie Fucking Taylor. But I digress from my main point, which is that there is a special place in hell for everyone who doesn’t like Friday Night Lights. Keep.
24. Scrubs - First, an apology for the last entry; your utter refusal to embrace the awesomness that is Friday Night Lights does make me emotional. Scrubs was a very underrated sitcom that probably had one of the best endings that I had ever seen; a montage of Zach Braff’s idyllic future interspersed with cameos from all of the guest stars that had ever appeared on the show. It was surreal, yet touching, and in hindsight, kind of reminds me of…well, Lost. All’s well that ends well. Except not. Because it came back for another season, with half the cast replaced. And instead of replacing them with characters that were talented and insecure and endearingly quirky, which is the entire charm of the show, they replaced everyone with assholes. An alpha male asshole. A blonde asshole. A frat boy asshole. An airhead asshole. A school full of assholes engaging in constant assholery. Kind of tough to like a show where I hate everyone. Cut.
25. Top Chef - It’s a reality show; that’s one strike against it. Kristen also loves this show, so there’s strike two. Final question - are any of this season’s contestants someone I knew when I was in high school? Because that would be a compelling reason to keep it. No? Not this year? Then cut.
26. United States of Tara - I was unable to think of anything funny or insightful about this show. It’s fine, I guess, but nothing special. Since I’m so un-inspired, I will steal my brilliant friend Jeneen’s controversial theory about the dialogue in the movie Juno, which was written by the show’s creator, Diablo Cody. The first ten minutes of Juno were incomprehensible, and turned a lot of people off to the movie before it even got rolling. I could barely understand a word that anyone said. And then, as we got settled in, the syntax of the movie started making sense. This raises the question: did we simply stop noticing the poor dialogue, like in a movie with subtitles or strange accents? Or did someone notice how horrible the writing was after the first ten minutes and tell Diablo Cody to knock it off and stop writing like a jackass? As far as the show goes…keep.
27. Dollhouse - Here’s a formula for success: create a role that would be a difficult for even the most talented actress, but would also guarantee five years worth of Emmy nominations for the woman that pulled it off. Then, take that part and cast it with a wooden, one dimensional actress like Elisa Dushku, which happened because you have some kind of unhealthy sado-masochistic fascination with said actress. I am a admitted Joss Whedon fan, but come on, Elisa Dushku? Next time, try to focus your sick fantasies on someone who can actually act. Oh, who am I kidding, when his next show comes out in two years starring Hayden Panitierre as a Gulf War Vet who hunts and kills cartoon cereal mascots, that show will also end up on the DVR. As this show is cancelled, cut.
28. Ashes to Ashes - This is one that I know that you never heard of. It’s a British show about a police officer who is shot, goes into a coma, and awakes to find herself in the early 1980’s. The show does not explain how or why this happened. And even though it’s filled with cop show cliches and self serving jokes about the 80’s, and isn’t really that good, I HAVE TO FIND OUT HOW IT ENDS. A fun legal fact that I learned from this show: apparently accused criminals in England have no rights whatsoever. A good ten minutes of each episode involves one or more of the police officers beating the hell out some victim to get them to talk, or because they got in the way, or because they looked at them funny, or because they looked at them sexily, or because they were there. Thankfully, most are actually innocent. Come for the mystery, stay for the graphic police brutality. Keep.
29. Better Off Ted - I’m depressed even talking about this show it was funny and smart, but still had enough dick jokes to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It’s cancelled, so cut, but I’m still annoyed.
30. Krod Magnon and the Flaming Sword of Fire - Kristen! What kind of nonsense show did you add this time? I’m just kidding, I can’t blame her for this one, this is my folly. This is the stuff of which television addictions are made, and symbolizes the whole point of the list. Cut, but not in time to salvage my self respect.
So the tally for this round is an amazing 7 shows cut! Add this to last week’s total, and I’m at 14 shows cut! I am officially 140% more efficient than I was at the start of last week.
Next time, part 4! Plus, a sinister menace threatens to derail our hero’s progress!
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