Monday, March 20, 2006

TV Geek

When did we all become such pop culture nerds?
It all started when DVDs started rolling out season after season of all the great TV shows.. Star Trek, The Sopranos, the X-Files. Now it's Knight Rider, The A-Team, Millenium, and Battlestar Galactica (the original 1979 edition)...
I wasn't into buying those boxed sets, but I did think it was a pretty great thing that any time I wanted, I could run out to Best Buy and pick up a copy of Season 2 of the Dukes of Hazzard, whenever the impulse struck.
Then BitTorrent and TIVO entered my life.. and lately, it seems like my entire social and intellectual existence revolves around which TV series I'm thoroughly immersing myself in.. well, immersion is always a relative notion with me. It can sometimes be several days or more than a week between times when I can sit down and really watch something.

So what have I been watching lately?
Well, I downloaded the whole first season of Doctor Who a few months ago.. the new edition with Christopher Eccleston. It aired in England last summer.. I downloaded it this winter.. and now Sci-Fi Channel is re-airing the first season here in America. David Tenet takes over the role this spring... and they're off to a pretty good re-start.. although I do have to take issue with a few moments throughout the show where you can hear the editorial voice of the BBC speaking through the characters voices (making one or another off-handed quip about the American President... and when did the Doctor become such a big environmentalist?)

Also watching 24 and Battlestar Galactica week to week...
Battlestar had a few down weeks this past season, but otherwise, it remains, I think, the best show on television right now.

Went out and got the Firefly series on DVD a month or two ago and spent about three weeks working my way through that.. what a great show! How did I miss it when it was originally airing?

Now I'm on into the first Season of Arrested Development-- a brilliantly written comedy.. and another show that I'm discovering only after it's been killed...

And I downloaded the first season of The Shield the other night.. thanks to TIVO, I've been sucked into a couple of the recent episodes.. and since it's like the 6th or 7th season, I figure I ought to go back and get a little of the back story...

TIVO.. what a marvelous invention... and perfect for those late-night bouts of sleeplessness when I'm up with one of the boys.. or just for those scraps of 30 or 40 minutes in the in-between times when the kids aren't in high-need mode..

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