trh tv – Page 2 – my tragic right hip

TRH Ramblings Version ’08

I might have mentioned that I’m a band widow this week as my RRHB is up north recording. It’s been a productive time. Managing to keep to my page-a-day challenge, and being in the middle of approximately 5 books, many of which I intend to finish before he gets back, it’s nice to have some alone time, even if I do get a bit lonely. And I also haven’t been sleeping all that well, and only managed about four hours last night — even so, I’m surprisingly not cranky. Instead, I woke up ready to write a list about all of the things I am thankful for on this gray, rainy Saturday morning:

1. Last night’s episode of Friday Night Lights. I watched it in real time after I put my nephew to bed (I was babysitting), which only reminded me how much I hate commercials. There were so many reasons to like what was happening: the way Lyla reacted to her mother’s engagement, Tim’s experience with being the boy who cried wolf too many times, how he flourished in a sense in a family environment, and how it was Coach that made the mistake. But what I liked most of all is the fact that the show doesn’t turn to stunts to drive up the ratings and melodrama, like, ahem, others. While there was a tornado in town, it didn’t become the centrepiece of a ridiculous rescue mission. Instead, it was a source of conflict when Laribee was forced to bunk in with Dillon for football practice. But more so, it was the everyday tragedies that followed that really drove the story forward. I was up for the good portion of last night thinking about the idea of everyday tragedy. Damn you FNL (but in a good way).

2. Hearing a song that you weren’t expecting and having that make you dance around your writing room singing “You’re my wonderwall.” And then putting it on repeat. And maybe repeating it again, oh and listening to Neko Case in the car on the way home from brunch.

3. The power of imagination and text messaging to keep you company when you’re so tired you can barely think.

4. Going to the movies in the afternoon. With gift certificates.

5. Brunch. This blog. And Q-tip. In that order.

Santa, Baby!

Last Friday, before the illness felled me like a giant tree, we had our holiday party for our group. There was a Kris Kringle involved, with a limit, and while I missed the present opening part of the evening (we went to go see Christine Fellows), I did end up receiving my gift on Monday morning.

What did Santa deliver?

Only the A&E mini-series, Pride and Prejudice, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. For those of you whose memories are as jammed full as mine, I’ll remind everyone that I caught all kinds of flack at our last sales conference for coming out on the “pro” side of the Keira Knightley / Joe Wright version. Someone out there not only remembered, but has since decided to school me by making it impossible for me not to also watch the earlier version.

I tried to convince the RRHB that we watch it last night (oh, sure, he was all in the “why don’t we watch Pride and Prejudice niceness while I was sick, but now that I’m just about back to normal, he’s no longer so inclined) to no avail. Anyway, he’s away at the beginning of January recording, so I’ll have the television all to myself, and with the writer’s strike, I’ll take the protest even one step further and cut myself off from the networks entirely.

Well, that might be a bit harsh.

But still…Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, how exciting!

Happy Christmas to me.

Friday Night Lights

Most of my being tired last week has completely to do with the fact that I absolutely stayed up way, way too late (like 2 AM most days) watching the first season of Friday Night Lights. There are many reasons why I like the show, not the least of which is the fact that the adult storylines are given as much, if not more, importance as those belonging to the teenagers. But I feel a list would be far more appropriate:

1. I know nothing about Texas or football. This does nothing to dissuade my obsession with the show. In fact, it’s kind of irrelevant.

2. I’m old but I still remember what it’s like to be a teenager. I think, anyway. And there’s a lot of what Matt Saracen goes through, being somewhat parentless, dealing with a lot of adult situations, and the pressures of always trying to do the right thing, that I can absolutely relate to. This is no comment on my upbringing but rather what it’s like to grow up without parents who can see to you on a day-to-day basis.

3. Riggins is hot. Like, really hot.

4. There’s something about portraying the ins and outs of everyday people, granted they are in quite heightened situations (paralysis, murder, Swedish potheads, new babies, sexual assault), in the style the show is shot (a lot of hand-held cameras) that seems to work.

5. It’s compelling. See #3.

6. There are enough characters to keep it interesting but not too many that you start not caring. It would be good if they didn’t drop storylines as often as they seem to do, see Matt’s grandmother’s caretaker, but I know it’s hard to tie up all the threads so people keep watching.

7. Television on DVD is dangerous, primarily because for obsessive-compulsive people like myself, it’s almost impossible to stop after just one episode. I mean, I can barely stop after five, six, seven and it’s 2 AM and I’m thinking, “hell, just one more, I’m already tired, what’s the big deal?” Note to self: I own the DVDs, so I can go back to it at any time. I don’t need to suck it all up real quick and then get a version of TV brain freeze. However, it does give you quite an appreciation for quality storytelling if it can stand such vigorous viewing. In a way, that’s how I know the writing for the show is really good — it builds over time, but it also sustains like a film.

8. I actually cheered when the season finale happened. State champs! Yeah.

9. There are bits that deserve to be rewound. See #3.

10. I’ve been missing that one TV show that really hooked me ever since Gilmore Girls ended. Now FNL is only in its second season, and it’s not really slumping (but the whole Landry-murder plot really needs to wrap up; I know they want a key drama, like Jason’s accident, to tie the whole season together, but really, it’s not it), if anything, I think I should have waiting to start watching until S2 is on DVD too, and that way I wouldn’t be reading spoilers and obsessively searching the internet for the next-weeks that the damned Canadian broadcaster refuses to air. Sigh.

10.5. See #3.

Mad Men

Just a quickie post to say that I am utterly engrossed by Mad Men. I love the attention to detail, the wonderful period costumes and situations, the brilliant dialogue, and the bloody fascinating ‘ad men’. It’s not reaching Flight of the Conchords-levels in terms of the actual obsession, but it’s a good, solid drama to take up the place of the bloody awful Grey’s Anatomy that I have now permanently broken up with and will not reunite with this fall under any circumstances.

I am going to desperately try to limit the amount of television I watch this TV season. I found watching more movies (even older ones, shocking, I know for those of you who know me, non-virtually) and picking up more books this summer because we’ve been away from the television has actually been a really positive thing in my life.

It’s a battle I have constantly, the TV-no TV argument, and I can see both sides, but then I sit down and get sucked into a world like the one they’ve created in Mad Men and think, wow, this is a hundred times better than a) that terrible Halle Berry film that the RRHB downloaded for me that I watched on Sunday in a computer coma and b) more engaging than half the films we watched this weekend, yes Fracture, I’m looking at you—while trying to ignore the obvious heat resonating from Ryan Gosling.

And Ethan, yum. And Ethan, ohhh.

Californication

So I Faux-voed the first two episodes of Showtime’s new “comedy” Californication (wherein the only indication of the supposed genre must be in the fact that it’s got the half-hour running time). Partially washed up yet still brilliant, Hank Moody suffers from writer’s block and calls himself a one-hit wonder. His celebrated work of literary fiction is turned into some Hollywood dreck starring Tom and Katie (aren’t we all tired of that joke?), and this seems to have stopped him in his tracks from putting pen to paper entirely. So, he has sex. Lots of it. With anything that walks and waxes.

And if it wasn’t for David Duchovny, the show would be a complete disaster. Yet, he manages to pull it all together, wounding his way through scene after scene totally messing up his life, trying to get his partner back (Natasha McElhone), and being a semi-decent dad to his precocious twelve-year-old daughter. But so much of this show is just plain tired, and I get frustrated when I see full-on scenes cribbed from much better work (anyone who has seen episode two and watched Lovely and Amazing knows of what I speak), and tired cliches (man sleeping with underage girl and then realizing his mistake, yawn) trotted out with more swearing and better shot nudity to be “dangerous.”

On the whole, I’m giving it two more episodes to find some kind of heart, because as great as Duchovny remains solid and utterly watchable with the tired material surrounding him (his dry wit and even toastier delivery are truly engaging), there still needs to be an emotional core to the series that’s sort of missing right now. Who knows? Maybe I’m the one who is jaded and frustrated and taking it all out on an innocent television show. All I know is that it’s no Flight of the Conchords. Now there’s comedy. Ummm, Steve.

Ripped From The Headlines

We’re back from the cottage and I have three books to write reviews for, which I will do the moment I get home from work. However, one of the things I can’t stop myself from doing is reading a news headline and thinking, “Hum, I wonder how long until they use that in an episode of Law and Order.”

The latest, this crazy case of Canadian sailors being kicked out of the navy for cocaine trafficking. How awesome would that be to see the in the original Law and Order? It’s always so dramatic when the NYC cops go up against the military cops.

Sigh.

Oh, and my new favourite show? The Closer. I have to watch it on W Network, which means we’re seeing episodes all out of order and not remotely current, but who cares, Kyra Sedgwick rocks. Thank you!

Rhymenoceros & Hippy-crites

So, last night we (the RRHB and I) went over to have dinner with Scarbie and her lovely hubbie, as she calls him, the Dog. Dinner was delish, of course, but we were talking about The Flight of the Conchords, which has been cracking me up and is now one of my favourite summer shows (the others, in no particular order, are So You Think You Can Dance, Big Love, and Entourage).

The episode we watched the other night included Bret and Jerome chillin’ and illin’ with their hip-hop monikers, “Rhymenocerous” and “Hiphopopotamus.” I can’t even say how much this cracked me up, but as a girl whose favourite joke is “What’s brown and sticky. A stick,” it obviously doesn’t take much.

And then later on in the evening, the Dog referred to himself as a ‘hippy-crite’ — one who knows what they’re doing to the environment and feels bad about it almost instantly, but still goes ahead and does it anyway. And again, we cracked up. So if that’s not a contender for the Urban Dictionary, I don’t know what is. They we got into a heated discussion about carbon credits, because I’ll often make the argument that yes, I did get my hair dyed, but then I donated x number of dollars to David Suzuki to make up for it. It’s all about balance. In my mind anyway. But that’s besides the point: I’m guessing I’m a self-defined hippy-crite too, doing my very best but still driving my car to the cottage and buying things on the internet.

What’s the point of this post? Oh, the humour, of course! I totally think that the Rhymenocerous should rap about being a hippy-crite. How awesome would that be? And if you haven’t seen it already, check it here:

Cormac McCarthy On Oprah: Oh-Tastic!

So last night I abandoned my mandatory work reading an hour early (read: didn’t get any done at all because I got home so late) so that I could watch Cormac McCarthy on Oprah. For his first and only television interview, I felt Oprah’s questions were a bit soft, but McCarthy came across as a hyper-intelligent, charming, and fascinating man.

He did, however, have some wonderful insight into his writing and my favourite part of the too-short interview was when he spoke about his craft. He explains that sometimes writing is difficult because an author has always got a picture in his/her mind of the perfect thing you want to achieve, and it’s frustrating when it doesn’t come out quite right. I’m sure everyone who has ever put pen to paper understands exactly what he’s saying. As McCarthy continued, he said to Oprah that he believes this interior image is your signpost, your guide, and even though you’ll never get there ‘without it you’ll never get anywhere.’

Some of the problems with how the interview may have come across could have been down to the editing, because the clips on Oprah’s site actually bring out a longer, more thoughtful interview. There’s one clip where McCarthy speaks about James Joyce as a model for punctuation, and how he uses the tools of language to write sentences that are easy to understand. Now that’s a very simple piece of solid advice that probably doesn’t need a semicolon. And it might be a sharp insight in terms of rewriting, seeing how you can take punctuation out to clean up your prose rather than punctuate the sense back in.

Fascinating.

TRH TV – The End Of An Era

I’ve finally done it. This week I broke up with Grey’s Anatomy. Completely and entirely. I erased the show from the PVR. I made no attempt to watch it first. I read the recaplet but, come on, what’s a girl to do? I’ve decided that there’s only room in my life for one medical drama, and that’s ER, and now that Stanley Tucci’s on the show, well, there’s no question where my viewing eyeballs will be focused.

Tuesday is the last episode of Gilmore Girls. I have a feeling I’ll have a lot more to say about that come next week. This year has been so disappointing for me in terms of that show. But I learned a good writing lesson: imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery, often the characters might look and talk like they used to, but they’re acting nothing like the Rory and Lorelai we came to know over the past few years. There’s a quality and a substance to the writing on that show that seems impossible for the new show-runners to capture.

I’m sad The Sopranos is ending because it means the old-school HBO dramas have all come to a close. Entourage has stood up quite well in place of some, and it’ll be years before we see The Wire again, which is the best show on television. I’m going to miss the quality Sunday night dramas. Somehow, even if Big Love does start up again, am I ever really going to care? Probably not.

Sigh.

How many weeks until Rescue Me comes back? And should we just box up the television until then? Probably.

Wow. I’m really rambling here and not making much of point other than Grey‘s jumped the shark, ER has found its way back, Gilmore Girls is done and I spent far too much time thinking about television.

TRH TV – The Black Donnellys

Like many Canadians, I sort of assumed that the TV show had something, if in name only, to do with the infamous Black Donnellys, especially with co-creator Paul Haggis being, well from London, Ontario and all. Alas, it’s not, other than the name and the whole criminal-thing, The Black Donnellys has nothing at all in common with that infamous family. Well, except that Haggis must have thought they had a pretty cool name and one of the boys even has a bum leg in Haggis’s world, just like “Clubfoot Will,” one of the original Donnelly sons.

Annnnywaaaay. I really wish that TWoP was recapping the show in all it’s cheese-eating glory. Because for some reason, despite the fact that it’s, well, awful, I can’t stop watching it. I’m even forcing my RRHB to watch it and saying totally banal things like: “See, see it’s getting better!”

It’s so cliched and heavy-handed, with the ridiculous “narrator” from some distant point in the future (seriously?) re-telling the backstory in such painful episodes that you want to reach into the television, grab him, and hand him over to Tony Soprano. Did I mention that he’s called “Joey Ice Cream”? Yeah, exactly. Every time he comes on screen I think, why do they need him, is the story not strong enough on its own. And has Paul Haggis ever heard of “show don’t tell”? Which is what every single writing teacher has told me my entire life?

The worst part is, with a little finesse, the show could actually be good. I like stories that take the main character, in this case, the eldest brother, Tommy, off the course of his life and into something totally unexpected. I’m even not minding the train wreck of the second-oldest (I think) brother, Jimmy, who is, predictably a heroin addict and a violent SOB who never truly, although we’re repeatedly told it’s coming, gets his comeuppance. I mean he’s such a used and abused character in pop culture: the ‘bad’ brother. But what’s worse is that the show keeps telling us he’ll get the other brothers into trouble and nothing ever seems to happen. Tommy makes sure he’s in jail to keep him safe, and then, next thing we know he’s out of jail and some pale flashback explains how that happened. He walks drunk and high into a wake (for the man that Tommy killed) and the narrator says, “this is going to be bad.” And again, NOTHING HAPPENS.

I’m guessing that if I’m just a little bit patient, the show might actually turn itself around, but for now, I’ve got really no idea why I’m still watching it. I suppose it comes down to the fact that I totally think Kirk Acevedo is, like, wickedly hot. But is that enough to keep the show in a permanent always-tape Faux-Vo status? Probably not.

For once I’d like someone to step in and pull Paul Haggis out of his desperate need to hack together elements of relationships (familial and otherwise) with giant baseball bat bashing on head-like “situations” (to totally mix my own metaphors) and to let the characters develop more like they do on cable, slowly and with larger purpose. But I guess in this day and age, where shows are supposed to last forever and deal with everything in every bloody episode (Grey’s Anatomy, I’m looking at you), subtlety is not necessarily top of mind.