TV 2013

2013 has been cruel to TV that I like.  Between the shows that have been cancelled and the shows that are ending, there’s not much to look forward to for the Spring.  Ben and Kate is gone, the US version of The Inbetweeners is gone, Don’t Trust the B—- is done (but we had stopped watching anyhow), 30 Rock is done, The Office is finishing up, Parenthood & Bunheads have budget issues which means there is some amount of question about their future and The Mindy Show is awful.

And yet, after that introduction, it’s not like there’s nothing on.

So here’s what’s on our schedule as February draws to a close.  I never bothered to tally shows by network before but let’s see:
NBC: 4  FOX: 3   CBS: 3  Comedy Central: 2  FX: 2   PBS: 2  ABC: 1  Lifetime: 1 SyFy: 1  IFC: 1

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TV Fall/Winter 2012-2013: When New Shows Couldn’t Replace Outgoing Shows

This season signals the end of a lot of shows, shows that have been with us for a long time.  This season also promised a slew of new comedies that were going to be amazing (I know they promise that every year, but some of them got really strong praise from objective sources).  And yet, here we are, half way through the season (Grimm is taking a Mid-Winter break or some such thing) and I didn’t really like anything new.

Next season is shaping up to be rather a wasteland.

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TV Spring/Summer 2012: more cancellations, more free time

I was planning to wait until the season finales before writing about our spring/summer TV watching.  But then this week, NBC announced that they would be either not renewing or renewing in a very limited capacity 30 Rock, Community and Parks and Recreation.  Wow, talk about throwing a bomb on your programming.  Thursday night NBC has been a powerhouse for the last few years with 5 shows, (yes, five, with their crazy programming flip flops) that were strong.  Interestingly, The Office, the only show not chopped, has been the weakest of the bunch.  I wanted the season with Michael Scott to be good but it really wasn’t.

Since I first wrote that some more details have emerged and it seems that all three shows have been picked up for 13 episodes–with, as I gather, room to expand if the new shows that NBC tries to fill their shoes with suck.  If you want a positive spin on this, read the A.V. Club dude’s take on it (at the bottom of the post, final bullet point, although the whole post will tell you why it is such a good show if you’re not watching it.).

When I posted about TV last, Karen left a comment that we watch a lot of TV and that has stuck with me. I still don’t feel like we do…  We watch a lot of shows, but we don’t channel surf, we don’t just have the TV on.  We have appointment TV, is how I like to think of it.  And, of course, while there a lot of titles, many drop off the list (by us or the networks) and quite a few are only 13 episodes long.  But man, there has been a serious drop off in numbers after this season.

So let’s see what has been removed from the last post:

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TV Winter 2012

The TV Season scheduling continues to confuse me.  It’s February and two shows are done already.  And new shows are starting this week.  I actually appreciate this rolling schedule because it means new shows instead of repeats.

So hey, networks, why not go all the way and just let the shows run for twenty weeks and then end.  Stop showing reruns (or better yet, rerun them at like 2 in the morning so we can watch them if we miss them) and the introduce a new show for the next half a year.  We wouldn’t have this six weeks off nonsense of Community and Glee or three weeks of repeats of other shows.

I’m picking this week to write this simply because of the ending of the two shows.  We haven’t had a look at the new ones yet, so it’s a clean slate.

Somehow we don’t even have time to watch movies anymore, so the TV shows must be very good.

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What is it with Busses? The problem(s) with Reality TV

[RANTED: January 29, 2012] What is it with Busses?

I don’t often post things that are just me blathering, but now that I’ve started swimming every day I have a lot of time to mull.

I’m more or less opposed to the Reality TV. It bothers me that writers and creative people have been given the shaft for ephemeral “stars” who are memorable only because of how annoying they are.  But hey, the genre is here to stay (I’m already like 20 years too late to complain about it, I know).  And, in fairness, there are a number of shows that I do enjoy (I still wish they were relegated to cable to get real shows back on the networks, but I guess cable is where all the real shows are now anyhow.

The shows that I like are the ones that celebrate creativity.  Even though a friend pointed out, the participants are forced into being creative, and it’s more like art school than real art, these shows are as close to art on TV as you get most of the time.  How likely are we to see craftsmen and craftswomen at the peak of their game on prime time TV (or even not prime time TV)?

So, the four reality shows that I watch are America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, Work of Art and (newly added) Face Off.   I don’t watch Top Chef because I don’t really believe in a show that I can’t experience the final product.  If I can’t taste it, so I don’t trust who thinks it’s the best.  Having said that I loved the Japanese Iron Chef (not so much the American one) because it was crazy and theatrical and wonderfully Japanese.

I realize that these shows are more like game shows than genuine reality TV.  The real difference between these shows and game shows of old is that these shows take the Real-World approach and try to drive up drama by having them live together, or, more specifically, interact with each other in ways that are not normal.  (Face Off doesn’t seem to do this and, as far as I can tell, Work of Art seems less inclined to focus on this aspect).  But most “reality” shows seem to focus on the “drama” rather than the product, and I think that’s a real shame–leave that nonsense to Big Brother and The Real World.

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Starting Off the New Year with a Brag! (Versatile Blogger Award)

Stop the presses…  I just received an email that I was given a Versatile Blogger Award!

The super cool folks at tripsfor2 ranked me as one of 15 bloggers deserving this award.  And just as I was fearing I would have to reduce my output, they rave about my output!

The rules of the award state that I must write some details about myself and also pass along this award to fifteen other bloggers.  Since I just found that out, that will have to wait until probably next week, when I have a moment to think about it.

But in the meantime, I want to thank Hadi and Kathleen who have really wonderful posts about traveling (I swear, they’ve been everywhere) including, but not limited to some wonderful posts about aboriginal art.  And the photos are really great.  They are (just about) all by Hadi.  I mean, check out the birds here and the hummingbird that attracted me to his photos in the first place (on a different site but the same folks).

This was a delightful way to start of 2012.  As was a wonderful selection of short story recommendations from Karen Carlson over at A Just Recompense.  She has given me a selection of really intriguing stories to read and I’m quite grateful for them.  I hope to start those this week.  Oh, and just when I thought that Karen was only about the books, a quick browse over to her site shows that she’s also a Project Runway fan.  I’ll be checking in with her as the year progresses.

A final note, my wife has been taking beautiful pictures for over two years now.  She posts a picture every day at her site The Fair View.  For her end of the year post at her other blog Sew Buttons, she posted her favorite photos of the year.  And while I’m biased (and even more because there’s several of my kids), I think she takes some really stunning pictures. So, if you like nature photos (and photos of other people’s kids, pop on over.  And if you like what you see, spread the word.  I know there’s a million photographers out there, but I happen to think she’s terribly under-recognized (she needs some work on the shameless self promotion side of things).

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TV Fall 2011

I was planning to write this post early in the TV Season.  I found out that the TiVo website rather helpfully includes a page of all the premiere dates of shows, which in addition to telling us when shows started, has also turned out to be a good way to keep track of the shows that were cancelled already.  Our goal is basically to get every good show cancelled so that we can watch our poor Netflix DVDs (which now that we had to change our policy we have mercifully fewer discs that we are not watching).  Um, thanks for the hike Netflix?

Anyhow, it’s now  about seven weeks into the season and we’ve already lost a number of shows–some as quickly as two weeks in…which, really?  I mean why bother.  Surprisingly, none of the FOX shows were cancelled yet.  That’s probably because FOX didn’t pick anything cool or interesting enough for me to want to watch–that’s actually not true, they have some good new shows this season, but nothing like Arrested Development.

So, this time I’m breaking it down by day of the week (which is silly since we TiVo everything and watch it whenever).  And this time red shows are shows we have given up on and Green ones are ones that we’re still enjoying.

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TV Fall 2010

The new Fall TV season is pretty much underway.  It brings back a lot of old favorites, as well as a few new series that we’re going to check out.

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BEA 2010

Thursday I went to BEA–Book Expo America.  I wasn’t all that thrilled to go this year as last year was kind of a drag (and publishers were stingy).  But this year I had a very good time.

By the time I got there it was already 11.  But I was thrilled to see that at that moment Mo Willems (we own all of his books, and my kids are huge fans of Pigeon and Elephant & Piggie) was signing posters for his new book.  He signed a poster for Clark (only one per person, sorry Tabitha).  And then over the course of the day I managed to lose the poster (sorry Clark).

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TV 2007

This is my final TV recap post.  It was the first entry on my TV page (except for TV I have killed, which will come shortly.  2010 comments are in brackets.

Down below Soon, you’ll see the TV shows that I have killed. It was a sad day when two of my favorite shows were canceled for good last year. However, we move on. And so, this is our current [circa 2007] household lineup:

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