August 28, 2009

• Just in case you thought I was crazy for not liking movies, I’ll put your heart at ease and assure you that I am at least fair, I hold an equally cavalier attitude about TV shows (albeit for entirely different reasons).   The Washington Times recently published an article about not finishing books you don’t like.  “We should treat books a little more like we treat TV channels” it maintains.  And while I understand what they’re getting at, I’m afraid I have to respectfully disagree.   The list of TV show’s I’ve stopped watching is close in number to the amount of TV shows I love that get canceled, which unfortunately belongs to a fairly long list.    I typically have no qualms dropping a show that has taken a turn for the worse (ie, whereas a book has to be utterly wretched in order for me not to finish it.   Because with a book, you have a sort of understood contract with the author to answer *the question* even if its not to my satisfaction, or even if I don’t like it.    With a TV series there are no such grand allusions.  And generally after the first season it becomes a frantic race to see how many tricks and twists they can throw at a dwindling audience in hopes of keeping them interested (note the “generally” because there are exceptions for sure).  Some of this is not the producers fault. Actors have babies, quit, get roles in movies, die, and generally just wreck a different kind of havoc on a plotline than entirely fictional characters do.   But still, as much as I practically idolize characterization I like to at least have enough plot so that hope and optimism still dangle out in front of me like a carrot.  To know that even when I am annoyed by a particularly poor speciman of writing, at least it will lead you on a path to a finish line (at least we hope).    TV however, tramples on my sensibilities.  And I do promise that if Jim and Pam break up, I will stop watching The Office (at least I’ll try).  I don’t care if it has to happen or not.  

  I do still watch an ample amount of TV.  I even watched one of my top three hated disney channel shows today.  Wizards of Waverly Place.    Mostly because it was a breezy 110 degrees today and I didn’t have the willpower to move my sluggish bones off the couch to change the channel.  We did however manage to muster the energy to go outside every hour and douse ourselves in the hose in an attempt to survive (We don’t have the ac hooked up).
  I should only speak for myself however, because Jamie and Charlie had seemingly endless amounts of energy.  And I finally got some video of Charlie walking…even though I had to bribe him with food to walk towards me and not the direction of the dog.

  • 9:11 pm
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