Mind Your Own God Damn Business

My New Year’s resolution to give up video games for a year is finally winding down – I have 21 days left before I can pick up a controller – and I’ve started to take a look at the things that I’ve done over the year.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of those things is “Watch a lot of television”. I honestly hope that I find a good balance between TV and games when I can do both, although I could see myself having to enter rehab after failing out of school, losing my job and getting dangerously dehydrated because I have to play games AND catch the season finale of House.

Either way, I think I’ll be watching a lot less TV in three weeks, and I thought I’d look back and say goodbye to some of the shows that I watched during the times when it was especially hard not to fire up my gameboy.

Glee

Oh Sue - make me laugh some more...

I had high hopes for this show. When it started, I loved it more than a straight adult male should probably like a show about a high school Glee club. Nonetheless, I was a fan. The show had plenty of moments that made me chuckle. When the cheerleading coach went to visit the recently fired choir teacher and he showed her his giant doll collection, her response was “Isn’t this just lovely and normal? The only thing missing from this place is a couple of dozen bodies lying and rotting in shallow graves under the floorboards!” Kurt, the extremely gay member, got a job as the kicker for the football team, but could only make kicks if he listened to “Single Ladies” while dancing up to the football. In one episode, Sue told a student “When I heard that Sandy wanted to write himself into a scene as Queen Cleopatra, I was aroused, then furious.” Even the musical numbers, which I normally hate, did alright – it was pretty awesome when they performed ”Push It” for the school pep assembly.

Then, about three episodes in, it seemed like they fired the original writing staff and focused less on cracking me up and more on pissing me off. The jokes got fewer and far in between. They ramped up the dance numbers, but crapped out on the music choices (Really? 13 fucking episodes and you couldn’t do one, SINGLE Iron Maiden song?). Finally, they ignored everything else to focus on a stupid, implausible pregnancy plot that wasn’t funny, wasn’t interesting, and felt like something out of a bad soap opera.

About halfway through the season, I realized that even though I wanted to, badly, I didn’t really like the show anymore, and that the only reason I had been watching it for the last few weeks was the strength of the first few episodes. I had a similar reaction to the Matrix sequels, the newest DJ Shadow album, and most of Weezer’s new CDs. (I’ve caught some heat for badmouthing Weezer in the past. If you can look me in the eye and say “I would own a copy of the Green Album or Maladroit even if the cover of the album didn’t say ‘Weezer’ on it”, I will redact my statement.) It’s a shitty feeling, listening to a record or watching a show, through clenched teeth, wanting it to be good, even though a small voice that keeps getting louder keeps telling you “This sucks.”

I kept watching Glee all the way through, and even later on in the season it had it’s moments – the scene in the judges room when one of them said ”Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it – this is a SINGING competition. I don’t know how those deaf kids got in. They weren’t singing, they were, like, “honking” and everyone was crying and I was like ‘get off the stage, you’re terrible, and you’re making me super uncomfortable’” had me laughing, but I think it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll be tuning in next year unless I get that Maiden number.

Dexter

Either Harry just punched a hole in the wall, or he's about to abduct a young boy and bury him in concrete.

Dexter is kind of ridiculous, but it’s also a lot of fun. A serial killer who kills serial killers!? I’m in! Dexter is supposed to be a sociopath, and he does a lot of things that make him a much more likable that a sociopath wouldn’t do, and there have been some pretty convenient coincidences this season (A reporter who just randomly starts dating a police officer working on a case that she suddenly realizes involves her absent father, or the way the villain magically disappears when Dexter is saving a boy he just dumped in concrete), but I always have a good time watching it, and I’m sort of crapping my pants waiting for the season finale to air this Sunday. As an added bonus, this years villain, the Trinity Killer, is played by John Lithgow. After seeing him in play a lovable father figure in Harry and the Hendersons and 3rd Rock From The Sun, it’s a little bit jarring to see him bludgeon someone to death with a hammer.

I’ve never thought of this before, but Lithgow is, as far as I know, most famous for a movie where he adopted a sasquatch, a television show where he played an alien, and now a show where he murders people in very specific, cyclical patterns. Oh, and he was the Reverend in Footloose. That’s an interesting resume.

30 Rock

Everyone on that show is good, but I always forget that Alec Baldwin is really funny, even though he hasn’t had a major serious role that I know of in years. Schweddy Balls? Canteen Boy? That man brings the heat.

The Office

I’m convinced that I don’t like The Office anymore. SO WHY DO I KEEP WATCHING IT?

Oh, I remember now: RECYCLOPS.

Recyclops will drown you in your over watered lawns.

I could go on, but I’m at 1100 words, and I don’t think anyone is actually willing to read a blog post much longer than 700, so I’ll bust this thing in half and put the rest up on Monday.

See you then.