Saturday, August 6, 2011

Staycation

*Treme (Season 1) - It took a while to build, but definitely worth watching. I did not start out the season a fan of the long musical interludes, but by the end, I grew to enjoy them. David Simon did a fantastic job telling a gritty, urban story true to the place. I'm jealous he left Baltimore for New Orleans, but now I've got to forgive him.

*Project Runway (Season 9) - I am not sure about the ANTM-starting episode where they cut 4 people, including the woman who had cancelled her wedding (as soon as she said that, everyone knew she would be cut). The second episode disappointed, too - the high-collar birdseed dress does a lot more for me than the muted dog bed boxy dress.

*Pulling (Seasons 1 & 2) - Years ago, while backpacking, I met some Brits who drank more in one sitting than I have ever seen anyone drink since. This show, about 3 single ladies who can throw down in similar fashion, starts out after the lead decides she doesn't want to marry. Being a bit surrounded by the baby and bride phase myself, I love a hilarious, albeit a bit brutal, single manifesto like this. It's the British version of "Bridesmaids" without the wedding and a lot more crassness.

*Hard Times of RJ Berger - On a marathon weekend, I completed watching an entire season of this show, and now I can't remember what happened, just that I enjoyed it.

*Intelligence - Looking to get into a new series, I tried this Canadian crime drama. Except they don't really have crime in Canada (well they do, but you know...), and for some reason the accent of the leading lady was really getting to me this time. I'd rather re-watch the Sopranos than give this another go.

*Seinfeld (Season 3 and 4) - Tim borrowed the series from a friend, so I started re-watching them. As mundane and mean as the show can be, there's a lot more cutting edge stuff than I remembered (the meta-show and Elaine being my favorites).

*Sweet Home Alabama - How many stereotypes about the North and the South can you cram into one red-state reality show? A lot, apparently. This is also the second really terrible reality show I've watched where someone was eliminated for being a reality tv opportunist and not there for "real" reasons.

*Teen Mom 2 (Season 3) - Not much to note here. In a recent episode, though, I noticed Amber complain about people harassing her in public. This reminds me of the observer effect - at some point these supposed documentary style reality tv shows break down, like anything closely observed for so long. MTV should stop pretending that they are accurately portraying something here - it's not investigative journalism when it's on the cover of People magazine.