So, traditionally, I don’t watch a lot of TV, especially when I was still playing World of Warcraft like a crack fiend. Now that I’ve broken free of that, and really don’t play games all that much anymore, I have to find new and creative ways of wasting time. And by creative, I mean finding TV shows that don’t totally suck. I’m very glad I have a really nice DVR system now… it makes watching the very limited and random selection of TV shows I can tolerate a hell of a lot easier. So, what am I watching these days?
1. The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart (and the Colbert Report, by proxy)
Really, kind of a no brainer there… I really think that the news I get from Stewart is as reliable as what I get from Anderson Cooper, and it’s a hell of a lot more balanced than anything I could hope to see on Fox. Which I don’t watch. Ever. The stupid fuckers… (pssst! I really dislike those guys!) As for Colbert, I like his show, even though he’s being deliberately disingenuous. He puts enough sarcasm in his delivery though, that it’s easy to get the point he’s trying to make.
2. NCIS
What can I say… I’m madly in love with Abby, their happy-goth forensic scientist. Also, the entire cast just works really well together. I really got into the show when I started watching reruns on USA last year, and I went back and watched every episode. It’s a good show! They’ve got their gothed out science geek (double whammy for me, right?), their slightly chubby computer geek (who had a relationship with said gothed out science geek early on), their wise cracking detective, bad ass Israeli special forces assassin, and the silent but deadly (seriously, he was a sniper… and he’s taken out a couple people in the show that way) head agent. The team interaction is great, the stories are well written, and the humor is right up my ally. I can’t wait to get into the next season.
3. Eureka
I just got into this show this season, after hearing that Wil Wheaton was guest staring in a zombie-themed episode. That’s pretty much the trifecta of awesomeness right there… Mad Scientists, Zombies, and Wesley Crusher. What did you expect me to do? Anyway, watching that episode and the crossover episode with Claudia from Warehouse 13, I decided to watch the entire series. I burned through the first three seasons in less than a week, and was thoroughly hooked. The concept is awesome: Take the idea of a ‘Spark’ from Girl Genius (i.e. a genius mad scientist who can invent all kinds of pseudo-science gadgets). Now put about 3000 of those folks in a town in Oregon, and put them all to work for a company called Global Dynamics. Hilarity ensues. They’re doing something weird in season 4 though, involving time travel and ret-conning big chunks of the city history. It doesn’t look like they plan on fixing the time stream, either. Not sure how I feel about this, but I’ll keep watching it.
4. Warehouse 13
In a similar vein to Eureka, this one is about a couple of secret service agents who got recruited to work for a secret government program that confiscates and quarantines ‘Artifacts’. Where Eureka has a modern-science feel to it, this one most definitely has a steampunk aesthetic. The ‘artifacts’ are devices or nick knacks held by famous people in history that have attained some sort of mysterious power or ability. Things like Lewis Carrol’s mirror, that traps the soul of anyone who looks into the mirror for to long, and replaces that soul with Alice (who, by the way, is completely homicidally insane). It’s a neat premise, and the cast has good chemistry with each other, so it’s fun to watch.
5. Haven
This one is brand new on SyFy. It’s about a small town in Main, right on the coast, where a bunch of spooky shit starts happening. My first thought… C’thulu! However, it looks like this was based on a book by Steven King about a missing persons cold case. Not sure where the tie in to all the spooky shit comes in (i.e. the last episode had a girl who could draw someone’s picture, then anything that happened to the picture happened to the person. Yes, someone had their face erased!). I’m still holding out for a C’thulu tie in, but it may be a season or two before they get that far.
6. Futurama
New season! Need I say more? NO!
So yeah… finally, TV worth watching, at least by my understandably abnormal standards. Just in time for the new semester of school to start. Nothing like having a distraction when I should be studying :P
Crash
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