Here in southern California, the average high temperature in August is 85 degrees. In September, it’s 83, and at night it gets down into the mid-sixties. We can’t exactly say “Fall is in the air.” No, here in the motion picture capital of the world, we say “Fall is on the air.” The change of seasons in sunny southern California happens on TV.
It takes a lot to tempt me away from my books. And by “a lot,” I mean “cute guys.” And if there are a lot of cute guys on the show, I’m even more tempted! Here is my take on the Top 10 TV Shows of Fall 2011, based entirely on the cute factor of the male actors on the show:
Hawaii Five-0 Alex O’Loughlin in swim trunks. ‘Nuff said.
Castle While “researching” this article (sighhhhhhhh……), I discovered that there’s a Castle Convention in Los Angeles on November 12. They have a website and everything: Castle Convention. Alas, Nathan Fillion won’t be there!
Blue Bloods Tom Selleck still curls my toes! This is a man who has aged very well.
NCIS Mark Harmon, another example of a man who got better with age.
Covert Affairs A non-traditional hottie, Christopher Gorham.
White Collar Matt Bomer. Ohhhhhh, Bomer! I love you so much, I want to write a poemer.
Dancing with the Stars Who cares about the celebrities when we can watch Maksim dance? The man can moooove!
The next three shows are brand new. I haven’t seen them, but I’m tempted to watch because the cute guy factor is off the charts!
A Gifted Man Doesn’t Patrick Wilson look a *lot* like Paul Newman? I’m a sucker for blue eyes!
Grimm David Guintoli looks man enough for the job of capturing or slaying storybook creatures.
Person of Interest Jim Caviezel in a slick weekly thriller, produced by J.J. Abrams? I’m there!
Best show of the summer: Suits Gabriel Macht is an honorable lawyer with a slickster veneer. Love him!
Who do you think are the hottest guys on TV today? Let’s play a game. Tell us what book you're reading right now, and what actor you picture in the role of hero. I’m reading Maya Banks’ THE DARKEST HOUR and I picture … mmm … decisions, decisions ... I picture Alex O’Loughlin in the role of the hero, Ethan. (Oh heck, I picture Alex O’Loughlin in almost everything!) Okay, your turn!
If you were standing in a field surrounded by all the shows on television, you could pretty much throw a rock in any direction and hit a reality show. They've boomed in popularity in recent years because they're easier and cheaper to make than scripted television comedies or dramas. And I'll admit I'm a fan of Survivor. It's my mind candy.But, to me, there's a difference between "reality" TV like The Real Housewives of Atlanta or Celebrity Apprentice and what I refer to as real reality TV, things like Deadliest Catch and Extreme Couponing.
While some "reality" TV is all about the manufactured drama, the drama on Deadliest Catch is all too real. Lives are at stake as the fleets of crab fishermen take to the Bering Sea in the most dangerous job in the world. There's nothing manufactured about giant waves coming over the sides of the boats or engine failures that could lead to the disaster of the boat capsizing.
Extreme Couponing is a show I've gotten into lately. I don't have the time or the dedication to go to the extremes these couponers do, but it has inspired me to coupon on a smaller level and save money I can use on other things. But I'm endlessly fascinated by how these couponers get hundreds of dollars of groceries and other products for next to nothing.
I decided to ask the other Banditas if they have any favorite real reality shows. Here's what they had to say.
Joan Kayse:
One show I like is Must Love Cats. It features a guy who fancies himself a minstrel and who…loves cats. He travels the country to highlight people involved in rescues, unusual kitty things, i.e. a woman in Dallas who invented “Kitty Wigs”. I kid you not, she fashioned different styled little wigs to put on cats and takes their pictures. Evidently, people have gone wild for it.
Another story involved a cat who woke up his owner and alerted him to their neighbor’s house being on fire. A woman who runs a sanctuary that holds 600 cats. Her motto is “They may not find a home, but they’ll have a life.”
It offers me reassurance that despite my propensity for buying my baby cats toys….I’m NOT at crazy cat lady level yet, LOL.
The other one is My Cat from Hell. This is interesting in that a cat behaviorist goes into psycho kitty households and tames the wild beasts…and their owners who are partly to blame. I discovered a slow blink of the eyes reassures your cat that you are not a threat. I tried it with Grayson the Monkey Cat who gave me a “what’s up with that look.” It’s also given me my new idea on how to train them off the counter. We’ll see.
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding is the new one I started watching recently. Freaky deaky insights to Irish Travellers lifestyle. Kind of like Jersey Shore meets the Amish type of thing. TLC is a learning channel…but BOY…some of the things you learn!
Nancy Northcott:
I watch Border Wars on NatGeo. I started out watching it as research but then just got interested in the various problems Customs & Border Patrol staffers face. Some of the ways people hide things in vehicles are mind-blowing.
The dh likes American Pickers. I think he fantasizes that they will show up here, clean out our clutter, and finance the boy's college education. No harm in dreaming.
Christine Wells:
I love What Not to Wear, the British version, with Trinny and Susannah. It's not just a makeover show. They really dig into why a woman might let herself go or only dress in power suits at work, and it's a very cathartic process for the women who go on there. I often find myself in tears (yes, I'm a watering pot!) when I see the struggles these women go through. Another favourite is The House of Tiny Tearaways, which is sort of like the Nanny only it's a psychologist who brings three families to live in a house together for a week. All the families have difficult children, but it's often the parents who need to sort out their own issues and it's fascinating for a writer of romance to see the real emotional struggle there to make a relationship work. Plus, I pick up tips on dealing with my boys when they're troublesome! Oh, and of course, The Antiques Roadshow. Every item has a story and that's what I love about it, as well as seeing beautiful things my Regency characters might have owned.
Tawny Weber:
I would have sworn up and down that I didn’t watch reality shows, until I realized that those shows I love on the Food Network are, um, yeah...reality shows. I love the competitions. Cupcake Wars, Iron Chef and Chopped are total faves. Mostly because they are 1-episode competitions and I don’t have to worry that I forget the shows exist when I fall into deadline and miss them for a month or so. But I have gotten sucked in to The Next Food Network Star and The Next Iron Chef.
Suzanne Ferrell:
I have a few...my favorite is One Born Every Minute, which is the Lifetime show based in Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus. They've posted 47 cameras all throughout the L&D unit and it's what "really" happens. Cracks me up!
Then there is the cooking competitions, Top Chef, Top Chef Masters, The Next Foodnetwork Star and Chopped! Uhm, Project Runway and The Next Design Star are pretty good.
And sadly when my insomnia starts in at 1 am, I have to confess I do like one Housewife show...NY. The rest drive me crazy, but I actually like Jill and hate Ramona. (Sigh, they do say confession is good for the soul!). But honestly, for me it's like watching a train wreck. I can't imagine agreeing to meet someone I can't stand for lunch, let alone go on a trip with them! Seriously, people, just walk away and don't have any further contact!
Donna MacMeans:
I’m not a big fan. I’d much rather watch a scripted show (and keep the writers employed). I do watch the auditions for American Idol – not so much the final shows, and I used to watch the auditions for So You Think You Can Dance. I often see parallels in the judges' comments and the responses to the sort of things we see in the writing world. But like I said, I don’t really watch the shows when it comes down to ranking up public votes. My favorites never win...maybe because I never vote (grin).
Jeanne Adams:
My faves are Top Chef, So You Think You Can Dance, The Voice, and Project Runway. I love that they call out the best in people and challenge them to play full out. The drama comes in when people try to worm out of being responsible for their decisions or their performances. :> Grins. Or when they make the wrong decision and try something that's a HUGE stretch and they don't commit fully and so it fails. Or succeeds brilliantly because they DO stretch.
~~~ Okay, dear readers, are you a fan of any of the shows mentioned? Or are there other "real" reality shows you enjoy? Let us know which ones and why.
Earlier this week, I watched the series finale to Stargate Universe. And while it was a really good episode, I was upset afterward. Why, you ask? Because SyFy had canceled the show, but the cancellation came too late for the show's writers to wrap up the story. It ended on a big cliffhanger! I want to know what happens to the crew of the Destiny, dang it! I hate when this happens, and I seem to have this talent for liking shows that end up in some sort of similar demise. So I thought today I'd talk about shows that I feel didn't get the chance they deserved and were canceled too soon.
1. Firefly -- This is my all-time favorite show. After all it combined two of my favorite genres (westerns and sci-fi), was created by Joss Whedon (who is awesome!), had that fantastic Whedon dialogue, and...what was the other thing? Oh, yeah, it starred Nathan Fillion. :) It lasted less than a season and I blame FOX for showing the episodes out of their intended order for part of the failure. Don't even get me started on how much I loathe the powers that be for canceling this show. But fans did get the movie Serenity after the cancellation. And if there's any doubt about how popular this show was with its fan base (known as Browncoats), you only have to go to Dragon*Con when any of the stars are there. I've waited in lines for 3 hours, lines that wrapped around the downtown Hyatt in Atlanta close to three times. The people in the back of the lines never got in because the number of people in line always exceeded the fire marshal's limit for the huge ballroom. And the lines for photographs and autographs with these stars are always very, very long. (Hey, look, it's me with Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk!)
2. Jericho -- This post-nuclear attack drama had so much more to explore. And it had Skeet Ulrich -- I love Skeet Ulrich. It was canceled after one season, but a highly publicized fan campaign in which fans sent the network tons of nuts gave it a second chance. But the network canceled it again only 7 seasons into the second season.
3. Roswell -- Three alien teens who landed at Roswell pass as human and fall for humans. My YA-loving heart loved this show. Katherine Heigl and Colin Hanks had two of their earliest roles on this show. It lasted three seasons, but I think it could have gone a couple more.
4. Veronica Mars -- Another wonderful show with snappy dialogue, great characters, and the best father-daughter relationship on TV played by Kristen Bell and Enrico Colantoni. It was a modern day Nancy Drew mixed with the sass of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I loved the romance between Veronica and Logan.
5. Legend of the Seeker -- This fantasy series based on the Sword of Truth series of books by Terry Goodkind was a lot of fun and welcome in a TV landscape that doesn't have a lot of fantasy in it. I liked this show so much that I dressed as one of the main characters at Dragon*Con last year.
6. Moonlight -- Vampire show starring the oh-so-easy-to-look-at Alex O'Loughlin. It was canceled after one season.
7. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles -- This was an interesting take on the Terminator stories starring Lena Headey, who is in Game of Thrones now. Sarah kicked ass. Cameron, the working-for-the-good-side Terminator kicked ass (and was played by Summer Glau, who also kicked ass in Serenity). In case you can't tell, I like strong female characters who kick butt.
8. New Amsterdam -- Only got 8 episodes before being canceled by FOX. It was about an immortal, 400-year-old NYPD officer who'd been in Manhattan as a Dutch soldier in 1642. Starred Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who is also in Game of Thrones.
9. Invasion -- This alien invasion show only got one season, though it was conceived as having a five-season arc. So, guess what. Yes, viewers were left with lots of questions.
10. Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe -- Atlantis got five seasons, but I still think it could have gone several more. And SGU got the plug pulled after two seasons even though it was getting better all the time. That's the problem now -- shows have to be a hit out of the gate with no room for a slow build, or they get the ax. I don't think shows like The X-Files would be able to make it in today's cut-throat TV world.
11. Men in Trees -- Quirky show set in Alaska. I love stuff set in Alaska with quirky characters (hello, Northern Exposure, I'm talking to you too). I think they killed this one because they resolved the love interest too soon.
So do you agree with any of these? Or are there other shows which you think were canceled too soon? Did they leave you with burning questions? And just how annoyed were you when you found out they'd been canceled?
So I broke up with my old gym. We'd been happy together for two years or more but things had gotten stale. Boring. Expensive. It wasn't any one thing but sometimes you grow apart, you know? It's not you, it's me. These things happen. Maybe we should take a break.
I decided to have a look around, see if there was an option that fit my life a bit better. As it happens, there was. The Community Center.
The Community Center has a pool. My old gym did, too, but this pool is a zero-depth-entry, chock-full-of-slides-and-toys, warmer-than-bathwater type pool. Much better for my skinny children whose lips turn blue when they so much as stroll past the beach.
The Community Center also has an indoor playground, access to which comes free with membership. A nice bennie when you live in The Land That Summer Forgot. Snow'll be flying up here pretty soon--an indoor playground will be nice to have.
The Community Center is also next door to the library (this family's idea of nirvana), has a preschool (which my youngest attends), and costs less than half what my old gym did.
Sold.
However, the CC (as it will henceforth be known because I am a lazy typist) lacks one thing. TVs on the cardio equipment. Our old gym had TVs on all the treadmills & elliptical machines. You just plugged in your headphones, picked a station & off you went for your sweaty twenty minutes or whatever.
At the CC, there's a bank of TVs hung on the wall & you have to tune your personal radio (who the heck has a RADIO anymore??) to the FM band indicated on the wall under each TV. That's the only way you can listen to the audio. Otherwise, you have to read the closed captioning they've conveniently turned on.
Now this isn't a problem for me. I'm happy to read the screen. My husband feels this is a crime against fitness but that's a different blog. No, what I want to talk about today is the joy of being forced out of my usual TV watching rut.
See, running isn't fun. When I run indoors, I need to be diverted. I need to be absorbed or I spend too much time thinking about how very unpleasant running is & wondering if it's over yet. (It's not.)
So I need some gripping TV, & I'm not interested in taking a chance on an unknown quantity. I like shows I *know* I like: reality shows where talented people work under time & material pressure--Top Chef or Project Runway. I like a good soapy drama--Dawson's Creek is a big favorite. Or something clever and quick--That 70's Show still kills me. (I have a friend Kitty Foreman only wishes she were.) The West Wing is a good one, too.
But at the CC now I have a whole smorgasbord of shows on at once & none of them are what I usually watch. It's talk shows (Ellen Degeneres), trashy talk shows (Maury Povich, I think), and soap operas.
I went with the soap. Now I haven't followed a soap opera since I used to watch the Bold & the Beautiful in college and I have to say, it's nice to see they're still burying people alive. (And putting them in comas and having secret babies, all of which happened in the time it took me to log four miles.)
My favorite was the buried alive story line. They'd sealed this woman (an exquisitely groomed sixty-something) into a crypt with a cell phone & a security camera. This allowed her to both see and rail against the idiotic young things who wandered by for some crypt-side musing, and have vitriolic chats with the villain who'd buried her.
Watching a grande dame shriek, "I'M IN THE CRYPT, YOU STUPID COW!" at a clueless mourner remarking on the unlikeliness of her sudden death was awesome, too. We don't get enough scenery chewing from Women Of A Certain Age. I'm all for more of that. I wish they'd bring back the turban as a hairstyle, too, now that I'm thinking of it. Liz Taylor rocked the turban. More turbans!
I think I'm going to like my new gym.
So how about you? Do you follow any soaps--now or ever? What's your favorite storyline? Secret babies? Long lost lovers? Premature burial? Back-from-the-dead lovers? Evil twins? Do you watch TV while you work out? What do you watch? And if they brought turbans back, would you wear one?
I struggled this month to come up with a topic about which I had something to say. I tried two or three and ended up erasing them all. I sat back and let my mind wander. What had I been thinking about lately? And then it hit me.
For the past few years, I've been a big fan of the Discovery Channel's reality show Deadliest Catch. Unlike many low-brow garbage reality shows, Deadliest Catch actually has a ring of reality to it. Each week, we're taken on a journey into the deadliest job in the world, crab fishing on the volatile Bering Sea. I'm amazed at what these guys face just to keep the world in crab legs. They fish in hurricane force winds, huge seas that will tip a boat without thinking twice, and crippling ice that can sink a boat in no time flat. They haul up crab pots while it's way below zero and they're soaking wet. It looks like my idea of hell, quite frankly.
But it's not the crab that interest me so much but rather the people who go out in search of them, their very human stories. We see so many sides of these guys -- the utter fatigue after working for 20 hours straight, the frustration when the crab pots come up empty and they're basically working for free, the jubilation when a crab pot comes up full, the thought and effort that goes into some of the best practical jokes on the planet, the grief when they lose one of their own (at a staggering rate of one person per week during crab season). We are witnesses to fights among the crews, injuries, near-death experiences, the stress captains constantly live with, family dynamics since many of the boats have multiple family members on board, and the sort of wild cowboy mentality many of these guys have. It's obvious from the start of the theme song -- Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" ("I'm a cowboy, on a steal horse I ride") -- to the shots of the chain smoking and bleeped words.
To be honest, I probably don't have a lot in common with these hardy fishermen, and I think that's part of what makes Tuesday nights fun. I get to watch a slice of life I'll never experience, get glimpses into the lives of people who aren't just characters, who haven't gone soft with the ease of modern society. They're real, and over time you grow to feel like you know them even though you've never met. Sig Hansen of the Northwestern's hard-driving fishing style, Johnathon and Andy Hillstrand's hilarious senses of humor aboard the Time Bandit, the Harley-driving/rock-and-roll listening/tell it like it is lifestyle of Phil Harris on the Cornelia Marie and his insistence that he could smell crab farts (which met with much teasing). I can't tell you how many times I've laughed out loud at Johnathon's crazy jigs in the wheelhouse when the fishing is good or been on the edge of my seat as the Coast Guard races into horrendous weather to rescue a crew in trouble.
I'm the kind of person who gets attached to fictional characters even though I know they're not real. When Buffy killed Angel in season 3, I bawled like a baby! So when it's real people, it's even harder to watch -- and yet you can't stop watching. There have been deaths on Deadliest Catch through the years, but they were never among the featured crews. The boats going down emphasized that this is, indeed, the deadliest job in the world. You saw how it affected the crews we did see each week. And you prayed that this never happened to them. So far, it hasn't, thank goodness. But this season suffered a major loss anyway. In January, while in port at St. Paul Island, Alaska, Captail Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie suffered a major stroke and had to be flown to Anchorage. He pulled through the initial surgery to relieve pressure on his brain and looked to be on the mend before he suffered a second event and passed away in early February, leaving his sons Josh and Jake, deckhands aboard the Cornelia Marie, to keep his legacy alive. For a guy who wasn't hot on a cameraman in his wheelhouse in the early years, it was amazing that he asked to see the cameraman who'd become his friend while he still couldn't talk. He wrote on a piece of paper to keep filming, that "you have to get the end of the story." And thus, we witnessed the final days of Phil Harris and all the raw emotions felt by family, friends, his crew and fellow captains. Just thinking about that makes me want to cry.
And I'm not the only one who felt this way. Millions of people love this show, these crews, Phil. They've converged on memorial services and shed tears, filled online message boards to bursting, and watched Phil's final few episodes to the tune of 5 million viewers -- astounding numbers for a cable show. Phil provided endless hours of entertainment, but perhaps one of the most important things he left with viewers was the knowledge that we should cherish every day because we never know when it might be our last.
It's Father's Day here in the U.S. and in honor of such a special holiday, I thought I'd combine two of my favorite subjects:
Sexy guys and T.V.!
Here are some of my current favorite TV Dads:
Kyle Chandler as Coach Eric Taylor on Friday Night Lights. As I've probably mentioned here before, I love me some Coach Taylor! He's sexy and charming and he adores his wife and daughters and really wants the best for the boys he coaches.
Peter Krause as Adam Braverman on Parenthood. I've only caught about half of the episodes of this show but the character of Adam always shines as he deals with his own two kids, his parents' marital problems and his siblings' issues.
Scott Bakula as Chuck's father Steve on Chuck. Things didn't end well for Chuck's dad but I've loved Scott Bakula since his Quantum Leap days so I had to include him here *g*
Thomas Gibson as Aaron Hotchner on Criminal Minds. The character of Hotch is fascinating. He deals with evil every day and yet still does his best to be a good father to his young son.
Timothy Hutton as Nathan Ford on Leverage. Nathan's only son died but there isn't an episode where you don't witness his grief over losing his beloved child.
Who are some of your favorite TV Dads, either current or from the past? And since it's always a fun topic here in the lair, who are some of your favorite Star dads? I know we'll have a few votes for Johnny Depp as well as Hugh Jackman :-)
One of the best things I've ever done is get a subscription to Netflix. Not only does it have loads of movies and TV shows available, but it also has the feature where you can watch certain movies/TV shows instantly on your computer or, if you have a Netflix ready device, you can stream them directly to your TV (we use our Xbox live account).
It's because of this wonderful device that I now have a new addiction:
Leverage. (It's a TV show on TNT *g*)
Now, believe me, I could go on and on about how much I love this show. The acting. The character arcs. The story lines. But I won't. For today, I'm going to concentrate on one of the main reasons I am so crazy about this show:
The men!
The three male characters are all sexy, smart, funny and have that certain edge about them that makes them dangerous - and appealing (in a purely fantasy sort of way *g*)
Nate Ford, played by Timothy Hutton, is an ex-insurance investigator who is now the leader of a band of thieves who help their clients go up against everyone from dirty politicians to corrupt businessmen to mobsters. Nate is clever and devious and can usually outsmart just about any adversary. He's also cynical, battling alcoholism (a battle he usually loses) and filled with bitterness over the death of his young son.
Alec Hardison, played by Aldis Hodge, is an expert computer hacker. Well, calling Hardison simply a computer hacker doesn't exactly do his skills justice, not when he can break any code, create new identities or even alter surveillance video. He's proud of his geekiness, freaks out at violence and at times, has let his team down (like when he missed a mission because he was up all night playing video games).
Eliot Spencer, played by Christian Kane, is what the show calls a Retrieval Specialist, but really, he's the firm's muscle. He can take out an entire gang of bad guys all with just his fists. He hates guns, is soft spoken and is an excellent cook. Oh, and did I mention that he totally kicks ass?
Now, on paper, these guys don't exactly come across as 'hero' material but that's only if you haven't watched the show. Because if you have seen even just one episode, you'd know that Nate may be lost and angry at the world but his sense of justice, his desire to help those in need is stronger than his desire to self-destruct.
Hardison may make mistakes, but he always makes it up to his team and he takes his job of gathering the Intel the team will need to work their cons seriously. He may complain and get cold feet sometimes, but he always pulls through in the end.
Eliot keeps his emotions bottled up but he has a soft spot for his ex-girlfriend and horses (not necessarily in that order *g*). He may get knocked down, but he always gets back up.
So, we have three men who are less than perfect and yet, they're growing and changing, turning into better men right before our eyes. And isn't that what some of the best heroes do? :-)
Who are some of your favorite anti-heroes in film, TV or books? What TV shows are you currently loving? Are there any other Leverage fans out there?
I avoid TV. It's not because I have anything against it, though. I don't. In fact, I love TV. I love it the way I love ice cream. The way I love Diet Coke. The way I love books.
I love TV quite a lot.
In fact, when TV lives up to its potential, I am powerless to stop myself. I am an addict, & this is why I avoid it. In real time, anyway. DVDS are another story.
When the Sopranos ended its run to such acclaim a few years ago I thought, "Okay, time to see what all the fuss was about." Blockbuster.com sent me the first season on DVD over the Fourth of July. By Labor Day my husband & I (he's as bad as I am) had pounded through all eight seasons. I'll leave you to do the math but the number of hours we spent parked in front of the TV during those few weeks is cringe-worthy. We were lucky nobody staged an intervention. Especially since it wasn't the first time we'd behaved in such a fashion.
Lost did it to us, too. That pilot episode when the plane first crashed? Yowza. And five, six seasons later, bad guy Ben just keeps the passive-aggressive fun coming. Good times.
I mourned when we finished the last DVD of Arrested Development. In addition to the razor-sharp humor (a character with sexual identity issues inadvertantly bills himself as an "analrapist" on his business cards, a combination analyst & therapist), it also provided me with my first opportunity in a number of years to remark upon how darn cute that Jason Bateman was.
The Office (the British original) introduced me to a brand of cringing comedy that was so excruciatingly honest I didn't know for a solid three DVDs if I liked it or not. Turns out I do. (The American version introduced me to John Krasinski, on whom I instantly developed a minor crush. I still like the British version better, though. Ricky Gervais is incredibly talented.)
And now we're addicted to a new one--The Wire, a cop show set in Baltimore's west side. The writing is again razor sharp & the dialogue rings incredibly true. But there was one episode in the first season--one scene actually--that sealed the deal for me. It's a scene in which Detective Jimmy McNulty & his partner Bunk revisit a crime scene to role play a murder. They say nothing but the f-word for about four solid minutes, each time with a different intonation & a different meaning. By the end of the scene they'd drawn a completely new conclusion about the crime & so had the audience--through nothing but about four minutes of the f-bomb.
I don't know if that's quality writing or acting, or maybe both, but I was totally sold. We watched Season One in five days.
We start Season Two tonight.
How about you? For your money, what's the best TV show on the air right now? Off the air? Who's telling the best story these days? I'd love to know because, at the rate we're eating up The Wire, we're going to need a new addiction one of these days pretty soon.
Some of my very favorite actors and actresses are returning to the small screen. I don't get much time to watch TV but for these new shows starring old faves, I'll have to make an exception. Or at least, tape them and watch them while I'm on the treadmill *g*
Tom Cavanagh. Yes! I love Tom Cavanagh! He was my #3 pick of favorite funny men awhile back. You may remember him as the lead character on Ed - one of my all time favorite shows. He's starring in Trust Me, a new series on TNT (starts Jan 26). And starring along side Tom is... Eric McCormack. Or as he's otherwise known, Will of Will and Grace *g* I admit, I've only watched a few episodes of Will and Grace but the ones I did see were hilarious! So glad these two great funny men are back on TV. Nathan Filion. Nathan played Capt Mal Reynolds on the TV series Firefly and its big screen adaption, Serenity. He was also the doctor in Waitress with Kerri Russell but I remember him from his days as a soap opera hottie *g* His new show, Castle (March 9 on ABC) is about a mystery novelist who starts to solve real life murder cases along side a NYPD detective.
Eliza Dushku. I adore Eliza! She was Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starred in her own show, Tru Calling and was sassy, tomboy cheerleader Peyton in the movie, Bring It On. She's back on TV in Joss Whedon's latest show, Dollhouse. I can't wait for this show! It's about operatives who have their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas in order to do their jobs. After the job is complete, their memories are wiped clean. Did I mention I can't wait for this show! No one does twists, turns and dialogue better than Whedon! Plus, he makes you think and scares the crud out of you at the same time *g* Dollhouse is on Fox starting Feb 13.
Amber Tamblyn. Amber starred in Joan of Arcadia which was a really cool, albeit short-lived show. She was also in both Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies. Her new show, The Unusuals, is a quirky cop drama on ABC starting April 8.
Last night, I finished watching the DVDs of the HBO series Rome including the “Bonus Features.” During the latter, a comment made by one of the show’s creators really resonated with me. He said that people were attracted to the show because of the characters. One minute, viewers would say, “Wow! Those people are just like me!” Then five minutes later they would say, “Wow! Those people are nothing like me!”
I couldn’t agree more, and I believe the same duality is true of all fictional characters. The audience needs to be able to identify with a character’s traits and actions, but at the same time, the character must go far beyond most ordinary human beings.
In Rome, it’s easy to identify with and like the character Lucius Vorenus. He is honorable, courageous, and highly moral in all his deeds. We would all like to think we too could be as noble and upstanding, and we love watching his character.
However, I know I’m not the only one who finds myself even more intrigued by Vorenus’ comrade and nearly polar opposite, Titus Pullo. Most of the time, Pullo is ultra-violent, killing and maiming anyone with seemingly no conscience. He is an amoral, drunken, whoring brute who never seems to think about his actions beyond how he can be instantly gratified. His character is exaggerated to the extreme, and he is not like someone you would ever hope to be! And yet… he is infinitely fascinating to watch! The few moments within the series when Pullo showed his sensitive, caring nature, or when he actually understood something beyond his own immediate need were my favorites.
Am I alone in my weirdness?
Think about some of your favorite characters. Were you drawn to them because they were just like you? Or did the attraction lay in them being nothing like you?
I'm obsessive. No, not in the clinical obsessive-compulsive sense. Rather, when I find a form of entertainment that I enjoy, I tend to glom everything I can find about it. If I discover a song I love, I play it over and over and over until I finally tire of it and have to give it a break. This happened earlier this summer when I played my Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks every day, multiple times. I would relive favorite movie moments when certain songs played, even when certain sections of those songs played.
When I fall in love with a new TV series, particularly if it's one that is now over but that I missed, I get a bit obsessive about catching up on the episodes. For instance, I'd heard writers talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer for years but I'd never watched it. Then in the summer of 2006, I was bummed about my own writing, uninspired, and got sick on top of that. I decided to borrow the first season DVDs of Buffy from a friend, thinking I'd watch one here and there. Uh, no. I flew through that season, and had to get seasons 2-4 from her. I kid you not, I was watching eight episodes a day. When I exhausted the seasons she owned, I went out and bought the ones still left. In about six weeks, I watched all seven seasons of Buffy, all five of the spin-off Angel, and the first season of Supernatural, another show I'd missed (thought luckily only the first season) but now love.
A few months ago, I fell into the same pattern with Smallville. I watched the first five seasons as fast as Netflix would send me the DVDs. I get so hooked on shows and have to keep watching mainly because there's a love story involved, and I just HAVE to know how it ends up. (I still say Buffy and Angel are going to get together at some point.) I've just started this same thing with a Canadian show from the 1990s called Road to Avonlea. Through the wonders of YouTube (yet another of my obsessions), I know there's a wonderful love story between the characters of Gus Pike and Felicity King and I can't wait to see it unfold.
On YouTube, I love the fan-made videos about certain TV or movie couples. The ones I've been watching lately are for Gus and Felicity as well as some for Padme and Anakin from the newest Star Wars trilogy. Earlier in the summer, my passion was for the videos about Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
There are, of course, certain books that make me keep reading past the point I should be going to sleep and when I should be working. J.R. Ward's books are like that for me.
The thing is, I believe all of these things inspire my writing. I write romance and young adult novels with teen romance in them, so these shows, songs, and novels feed my muse as well as provide entertainment.
Do you have this same type of obsessive nature regarding things you love? If so, what things have you been obsessing about lately?
I'll close by sharing this YouTube video. I love the song, "Everything" by Lifehouse, and it's set to video clips of lots of wonderful romantic couples.
Donna MacMeans, Trish Milburn, and Nancy Northcott will all be in Atlanta for the Moonlight and Magnolias conference in Decatur, Georgia September 30 through October 2nd. If you're in the area, stop by for the booksigning. We'd love to see you.
Redeeming the Rogue by Donna MacMeans received a 4.5 star TOP PICK! review from Romantic Times Magazine.
Living in Color by Trish Milburn is now available on Kindle, Smashwords and at barnesandnoble.com for the Nook.
2011 Golden Heart® Finalists!Nancy Northcott and Anna Sugden are finalists in Romance Writers of America®'s prestigious Golden Heart® Awards.
Riding The Waves by Tawny Weber was awarded a Reviewers Choice Award by CataRomance.
Cosmopolitan Magazine - April 2011 - out now! features an excerpt from Jeanne Adams's Deadly Little Secrets Pick up a copy today!
Nominated for Best Suspense of 2010! Romantic Times Magazine has nominated Jeanne's Deadly Little Secrets for their Best Suspense Award. This is Jeanne's second RT nomination.
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