26 posts tagged “tv”
Note: This is the sixth in a series of posts looking back at 2007, in some key areas of my life that were important to me.
I watched this year.
I've been an avid TV watcher for many years now, but we set aside the idea of watching movies for much of our marriage just for lack of time and money and my health. This year, we did all of those things.
The end of last TV season, I was enamored with Heroes and Lost and several other shows. This had me continuing to read TV news through the summer to decide what shows I was most interested in watching for the new fall TV season (2007-2008). Even though not every show I started with was fabulous, I found some new loves. Unfortunately, the writer's strike took a toll on my enjoyment, and some shows are being considered as cancelled by default because of that. My very favorite new show of the year was Journeyman. Heroes and Bones were probably my favorite returning ones, even though there were storylines on Heroes that just didn't thrill me.
We spent a lot of time watching Netflix movies in the evenings this year. We were just on the one at a time plan, but we tried to take as much advantage of it as we could by watching it the same day it came and stuff like that. This let us see a nice combo of movies and TV series.
We received 71 dvds from Netflix, an average of 6 per month. 27 of those were series disks, part of a TV series (like the 3 seasons of the 4400 and 2 1/2 seasons of Babylon 5 so far) or miniseries (in the case of Into the West). I put 52 movies into Vox, with the difference being just that some dvds were part of a series.
This year was also a big year for TV on DVD. In addition to the aforementioned Netflix series we got, we also purchased a nice pile. At the beginning of the year, we owned 3 seasons of TV on DVD. Now, we own 10 (talked about in September) + 12 more for a total of 22 seasons! We got the rest of Buffy and Angel on sale at various times and E just received the 4 seasons of Futurama. Obviously, we haven't watched all of those (so they aren't added to Vox), but it's a great thing to slowly rewatch and enjoy commentaries and other specials.
One thing that's been fun in the last year was finding the local Hollywood Video Outlet, where you can get a really good deal on previously viewed movies. I've been able to get some of my favorites to own, like Paycheck and Poseidon (big screen one with Josh Lucas AND the TV movie with Adam Baldwin) among others. This is a fun way to get to rewatch my favs, especially when there isn't great things to see on TV.
And then we saw movies in the theater - 4 in the summer and then the Golden Compass recently. It's fun to be able to sit through a movie without my body hurting so much, that's what slowed us down a lot before.
My favorite TV on DVD series that I watched this year was The 4400, season 3. The most surprising good movie I saw in the theater was Transformers. And my favorite out of the movies I rewatched on TV this year was A Knight's Tale.
My most bloggable present from Christmas was from my parents, who got me Buffy's Radio Sunnydale CD off my wishlist.
I resisted getting this soundtrack back when it first came out because I wasn't enamored by the number of songs on it. But the more and more I watch the show again, the more I wanted to have some of these songs that were unavailable elsewhere. Mainly the super Blue by Angie Hart (talked about getting it stuck in my head in this post). Some of the other songs are great, too (just noticing that the beginning of Bohemian Like You is reminds me of Real Gone by Sheryl Crow from Cars, LOL!) I already had purchased the Aimee Mann song on this album because I liked it so much, so I have two copies now!
There's also a Sarah McLachlan song on here that I couldn't easily get, The Prayer of St. Francis, and I love making my Sarah-collection more complete. Funny thing, this made me notice that somehow when I ripped my music in, Surfacing never made it in, so Full of Grace, another song used on a Buffy ep, wasn't on my computer. Most of the songs I liked from that CD were on Mirrorball, so I guess I hadn't noticed. Fixed now, Surfacing is all ripped.
While listening, I start digging for other Buffy-on-episode music that I didn't yet have that was available on iTunes, and I added a nice pile to my wishlist (Tip: for a low-tech personal wishlist in iTunes, just create a new playlist and drag the 30 second clips into it)
While Buffy Guide is the best overall site for anything related to specific episodes, I wanted to find a site that listed out the songs played in each episode rather than clicking through to each. I found Dusk 'till Dawn, which has a really nice short overview of each song, the artist, and the brief summary of when it plays for most of them. That works!
Oh, and I'm really excited right now about Buffy because right before Christmas, I used some Amazon gift certificates to finish up my collection when all the seasons were on sale. That was the 3 remaining Buffy's I needed and the 3 final Angel's, too. I'm adding them to my Vox when I finish them, and we'll be done with Season 2 of Buffy the next time we sit down to watch - I won't watch Becoming I without watching II at the same time, so it'll be a double feature :) We watched the one before those over the weekend, Go Fish, which is fun because it has not only Shane West (of ER, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), but Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) too :)
Pretty soon, I'm going to have to decide if I want to watch Buffy and Angel intermixed like they played on TV, or finish out Buffy and then start Angel. I hadn't thought of that until E said something, but the more I think about it, the more that makes sense for the timeline and the things that did cross over a little. That'd be 4 seasons worth that match up: Buffy 4/Angel1, Buffy 5/Angel 2, Buffy 6/Angel 3, Buffy 7/Angel 4.
I think I'll have to pick up Angel: Live Fast, Die Never at some point too, because even though most of it instrumental, it's got Christian Kane's LA Song too. ;)
And there's my fangirlyness that made me all happy even though I'm a bit worn out from the festivities!
Watching Dancing with the Stars season finale last night has me nostalgic, thinking back to all the previous seasons. I have to admit, I haven't been happy with the winner of Dancing with the Stars (on wikipedia) since season 2. There, I said it. But, I also must admit, I haven't voted more than a few times. The timing has always been too hard to stay up and actually vote at the right time.
Season one, I didn't start watching until a few weeks in. But I was easily rooting for Kelly Monaco because that's why I started watching the show - she's on my fav soap, General Hospital. So that wasn't a tough choice, she looked really good, and Alec Mazo caught my eye as her partner because he moved so fluid. So it was a big yay when they won.
Season two, I started out the season watching every week, but not the recap show because it was on at the same time as something else. The person I knew of the most starting out that season was Lisa Rinna because of watching Days in college, but I knew *of* Drew Lachey. Tia Carrerre was fun to watch, especially when she did the Tango to the same music as she did in True Lies :) Stacy Kiebler was amazing, I loved her dances. But Drew Lachey was my favorite, he did such fabulous dances, and his freestyle was my favorite (although I also enjoyed the Paso to Thriller). I love that Cheryl put actual dance steps into the freestyle, it wasn't just showboating and lifts. So another big yay!
Season three, I started out the season watching every week, and not the recap shoe again. The people I knew the most going into it were Mario Lopez (hours and hours of Saved by the Bell as a teen) and Joey Lawrence, and I knew of Vivica A. Fox (Independence Day) and Jerry Springer (who I truthfully expected to hate because of his show - and changed my mind) more than the other contestants. I loved Mario the best this season, his dancing with Karina fit so well (and obviously they had chemistry because they are still together). His Paso with her fancy yellow dress was my favorite. Their hiphopy freestyle wasn't as great. Joey was so full of class, and this was when Edyta really caught my eye - she's one of my favs. Their ballroom (vs latin) dances were super. Emmitt just didn't get me the same way, even though I like Cheryl. So I was disappointed that 1-it wasn't between Mario and Joey (I would have loved to see their freestyle), and 2-that Mario didn't end up winning.
Season four, I was a die hard fan by this point. I knew all the professionals by this point, and knew what to watch for in each different type of dance. This made it more fun, actually. I was excited to see Ian Ziering because I spent so much time watching 90210, and Joey Fatone was someone I recognized. I was pleasently surprised by Heather Mills (I didn't know anything about her, but her dance to Mambo Italiano with the flip was one of my favs). I loved watching Ian, he was such a classy dancer, and Cheryl really showcased his talents well in the choreography. But my fav was Joey Fatone. He started out a little shakey but got much better as the season went on, and so I was rooting for him. His freestyle was super great (to "Last Dance", starting out ballroomy and turning flashy), he looked good in tails in at least one dance, and his jive was memorable too. My fav was actually his Tango to the Star Wars theme. It's not just that I like memorable music, they did it in a really unique way, and it's like if the dancer likes the theme, they put more work into it. It's not that I hated Apollo, some of his dances were okay, but I felt like Julianne just made everything so flashy and showcased her rather than Apollo, masking dancing that wasn't as technically sound. (My fav Apollo dance was the "move it" Samba where J wore the cheetah suit, that was really well done). Oh and Leila was a joy to watch too, she worked so hard and had some super dances with Max that were so technically good. Overall, I felt like Joey was the better dancer and should have won.
Season five, the season which just ended... The people I knew the best going in were Cameron Mathison (from All My Children, which I've watched quite a bit over the years) and Jennie Garth (90210). I knew others from other stuff. These two ended up being my favorites to watch, truly. Rewatching some of the dances from the season last night made me sure wish that the fan vote didn't count as much as the judges vote because people like Albert Reed and Sabrina Bryan were really good technically. Just because Jane Seymour and Marie Osmond had a lot of fans shouldn't have kept them around as long as they were here. Jennie's first tango captivated me, but I was mystified by the music they were assigned for some of their dances. Her last dance (to Mustang Sally) was so confident looking. Cameron just was so yummy to watch, with the Superman dance, and the wonderful Jive and even the waltz to Hagrid's theme. And then out of the finalists, I was rooting for Mel B (I was sure hoping Jennie would be in the end, but figured Mel would be more likely to win). She really was a super dancer, doing so many highly technical moves. And I wanted to see Mel win, after Leila didn't make it last time. Some of my fav Mel dances were the Paso with "free your mind" (well, the 2nd time she did the Paso to "satisfaction was also great) and the Waltz with the splits, wow. Helio was not as good technically IMO, and I hated that Julianne just danced around him and his footwork was sloppy. At least with Apollo, there were dances I liked, but with Helio, there were so many small mistakes that it detracted from my enjoyment. I don't understand how the judges treat the males and females differently, it seems like it's easier to be a guy and stand there in hold while the girl dances in front. He wasn't awful like Master P awful, but he wasn't as good as previous winners by any means. So yeah, that was pretty disappointing to me.
Maybe the reason I think back fondly at the old dances is just because I've seen so much now that it doesn't seem new and exciting to see these dances, so I expect more? I don't know. I still like the show and I'll keep watching, but it leaves me a little sad to see such a pattern of people who I like not ending up being there in the end.
Not everyone I know is as into TV news as I am, but one thing that I've read a lot about over the weekend is the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) strike. This is a strike that has been in negotiation for month, and they finally went on strike at midnight this morning. Here's the facts as I know it for anyone who is interested...
- Writers are striking because they want to renegotiate their contracts; the main issue I''m hearing discussed is that they want to receive more money on alternative ways of viewing their work, like dvds and internet viewing.
- Right now, writers get about 3 cents on the sale of a $20 dvd. I'm guessing that's further divided when it's multiple writers on the same show.
- The strike impacts film and TV writers, more than 10,000 nationwide (source). The impact on movies will be much less in the short term than TV.
- The WGA is the only group striking, but some people who are not only writers, but actors (SAG) or producers or directors (DGA), may be caught in the middle, being required to participate in their other role (see related news mention B.J Novak of The Office)
- Whedonesque pointed out a list of some of the striking writers on the TV side: Pencils down means pencils down
- This will not affect all shows immediately, but it will impact late-night talk shows right now and shows like Jon Stewart, Colbert Report, and Tonight Show will start with reruns today (source).
- Reality shows won't be affected because they don't use WGA writers. This means we might see more reality shows pop up as networks run out of scripts.
- Most soaps have enough scripts written to go through January (source).
- Comedies are expected to be hit more than dramas because they depend on writers to rewrite on set to tweak and polish. Without those writers, we are left with less "polish" (source).
- Midseason shows are also going to be in trouble, with things like Lost only half-way done writing their season, and same for 24; and these shows are counting on being able to run their whole season non-stop. (little bit more divided up by network here, but I think we'll see more definitiv guides really soon as tv sites get those details together).
- Depending on how long this goes, shows for next year will also be affected.
- The last major strike happened in 1988 and went on for 22 weeks. That was in the days of Star Trek: TNG and they recycled unused scripts from the original Star Trek to get by (I don't see the link to where I read that now).
- Many people tuned out of TV during this time, and many viewers were lost that didn't come back afterwards. We could see that similar tuning out and not coming back and viewership is already down this year; it could be bad news for TV for a long time.
- Because networks were expecting this could happen for the last few months, they've been increasing orders of shows that they may not have saved in any normal season. This could be good news for some shows that I love, like Journeyman, because we'll get to see more of it potentially than we would have if they had just cancelled it already due to low ratings.
- Even though it's not going to impact the next few weeks worth of regular serial TV, the long term affect could be really bad. Heroes has apparently refilmed a few parts of episode 11 in case they have to use that as the season finale! Eek, that means the viewers are missing out on a huge storyline that would be happening at the end of the season. I'm sure more instances of stuff like this could come up, too.
If this keeps up, I'll probably be increasing my Netflix quantity (we are only at 1 at a time right now) and watch old stuff.
I'm bummed that it comes to this, but I do agree that there has been great changes in the way that shows are distributed since back when these agreements were made that it makes sense they should renegotiate.
OMG, Best News Ever! Alerted by As Told by Jen. :) I am so wowed right now, this was certainly terrific news between the trick-or-treaters (we've had only 3 groups so far).
Edited to add: Whedonesque of course is covering this tonight too now! Joss has been in the news more this week because of the Angel box set coming out on DVD, and then tomorrow's Office episode he directed, so this is SO his week!!!! Woot!
Well, one week into the fall season, and I watched just about everything on my planned list. Here's some thoughts as I went through the week. I'll try not to say anything hugely spoiley, but if you haven't watched your tv from last week yet, you might skim this!
Dancing with the Stars. The people I am most excited about going into this are Jennie Garth and Cameron Mathison - both of which I've spent many hours watching on TV (90210 and All My Children, which I don't currently watch, but spent many years watching it). I'm sad about the first voting off, simply because I love the pro on that team and feel bad for him. One of the highest rated people so far looked spastic to me, but I wasn't as big of a fan of Apolo and Julianne's dances, so maybe I'm just a little fuddy-duddy sometimes :D
Prison Break. I watched the first episode because it wasn't on up against anything. After Jen mentioned that Sarah Wayne Callies wasn't coming back, I was already unhappy, but the first episode just didn't have anything that made me need to keep watching. I didn't watch the 2nd episode.
Chuck. I watched this on Amazon Unbox before the premiere week, and I was glad I did. This was great, I really enjoyed the humor, and the action. I may have started out just wanting to see what Adam Baldwin was going to play on the show, but now I'm more into it for the whole cast. I was pleasantly surprised to see Matthew Bomer (last seen on Traveler, also on Tru Calling). Definitely will keep watching this.
Heroes. YAY, it's back! I was cheering on Monday as we got up till the time, and I wouldn't let E fast forward while watching for fear we'd see something as it was stopping too soon. :D Yes, I'm a dork. This first episode back was great, I am very excited to see so many of the characters back on the first episode because I was worried we'd spent more time on new characters. I laughed a lot at Claire's family updates for their day. The last few minutes had me quite excited from this coming week.
Journeyman. This is a great new show. I was impressed by the storyline, and how they took the basic concept of traveling through time and added a lot to it. I'm so curious to see where they go with this. I like this lead actor (Kevin McKidd), and usually, I'm more likely to go for someone I associate with another show I've seen.
Bones. I was really looking forward to this coming back. I'm a little sad that they are going into a long-term mystery rather than a single or several episode case. But I loved Zach, and Angela and Hodgins searching together was super fun. I hope for more good development in the soon-upcoming eps. And kissing would be nice ;)
Cane. I watched so many commercials for this during As the World Turns that I really wanted to see where they go. I like the actors and that was really nice to have so many familiar faces. I decided that I like the "mob-like" storyline because it's similar to the Sonny/Jason storyline on General Hospital. I think I'll try this a few more times before deciding if it'll be a permanent addition to my schedule.
Private Practice. I was more interested in this than I was Grey's Anatomy, after the season finale felt dud-like to me. And I really like the characters here, as much as I hoped. The chemistry between them all really felt good, and I'd like to keep watching to see how they work together. I liked how happy Addison was, dancing to the music in her new house. :)
Bionic Woman. Also watched on Unbox before premiere week. I liked it a lot, this definitely was the one that caught me with a sci-fi/adventure theme, and Katee Sackoff is definitely someone I wanted to tune in to see. I love the pilot, and I hope the rest of the season is as good. When questioned, E said this was his favorite new show this year.
Grey's Anatomy. Besides Prison Break, this was the biggest return disappointment. I was really hoping they would come back with something really good after the finale. I was almost going to be happy, I did like the interns, but then they did some really retarded stuff with Izzie (and I like her so much), and the last few minutes particularly and the previews for next week had more Izzie stuff I didn't like. I guess Meredith and Derek did make me smile, and I'm excited for Lexie to see how that works. I'll give it another chance, of course, but I sure hope it gets better.
The Office. HILARIOUS. OMG, we laughed so hard. This was a really good return for the show.
Big Shots. I knew that people were saying this was underwhelming for the actors in the roles, and I have to agree a bit. I did enjoy these actors, and I'm excited to see Charisma Carpenter when she starts. So I'll probably give it a few more episodes.
Numb3rs. After the finale, this was a welcomed episode. I'm glad to see the way the storyline went with the team, and look forward to see where they go next. I love that Charlie and Amita are happy together. And Larry and Megan are back. Should be a good year.
Stargate Atlantis. If I can't have SG-1, this is the next best. But I was disappointed with who the lead actors are now, and I was disappointed that it was a 2 parter after such a cliffhanger last year. IMO, they should have had a 2 hours season premiere to try and get people back in after canceling SG-1. Obviously, nobody wanted to consult me :P I am glad to see Amanda Tapping and Jewel Staite, but hopefully they do some storylines that I'm excited about!
I haven't watched ER, it's still on the TiVo waiting for me. Desperate Housewives is taping right now, and I'm going to watch it just to see how Nathan Fillion's character turns out - I haven't watched the show since the beginning of first season.
So it seems like in most cases, I'm giving everything another week to really make decisions on what will be my fall schedule. It sure has been a fun week checking out so many different things. I'm happy for my VCR to let me double tape a few things, too! Yay for Fall TV!
I just have to say... We laughed so hard at the Family Guy season premiere (hour long star wars ep) that I actually was crying! It was hilarious, they got in some funny jokes and the whole storyline of star wars at the same time. :)
Okay, tonight my TiVo told me that I should get a free download of 4 season premieres for new fall tv shows. That's 2 weeks early. I don't understand why they would want me to watch it now, commercial free, rather than be someone on premiere night tuning into their shows with commercials and to keep me from watching something else at that time slot?
I guess it could be to get me to try out unbox, I did have to set it up, but it wasn't a big problem to do that.
So if you want to see Chuck, Bionic Woman, Journeyman or Life, you could do it now. I've got Chuck downloading, and I'll probably do the same with BW because both of these are during other shows I want to watch. JM isn't on at the same time as anything else, so I may just wait and see it on premiere night.
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