Fight The Future

I don't know how it has happened, but I've gone through five seasons of the X-Files, 2 seasons of Buffy, 3 seasons of Xena, and that episode on season 1 of Dawson's Creek where all the good Pacey and Joey stuff happens. After a quick "break" by watching the first X-files movie I continue on.

World, what is it about Television shows that can make you forget about everything going on with your life, good or bad? I want to capture that feeling and sell it. I feel bad for the people that don't know what Shipping is. The years I spent obsessing on Fridays then Sunday nights trying to see when Mulder and Scully would kiss or touch hands or hug or just... be nice with each other. SUBTEXT! Let's not talk about all that delicious Xena subtext and my Saturday nights rushing home despite church activities so that I can unknowingly go crazy about all the lesbian subtext...

In any case, it's Spring Break. I've assigned today as my day to do absolutely nada, having spent yesterday pruning some of my books. Well, not nada - I have done some work. And I plan to cross stitch. Yea. Productive day for me! Ha.

Later gators: The Buffy Season 3 opener awaits. That Buffy! That Angel!!

TV Shows

World, I'm re-watching most of my beloved TV shows (The X-Files, Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias, Friday Night Lights, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, Heroes, some of Dawson's Creek, House M.D., ) but also some shows I've never seen (Lost, Supernatural, maybe The West Wing). The deal is, that I'm watching the episodes of all of this shows in the order in which they were aired.

Yup. You read that right.

I've made a gigantic excel sheet of a document that serves as a TV Guide - let's me know when the episodes were aired, and when to watch them. I'm knee deep in it, I still watch in marathon fashion when I have a chance, but if not I just catch an episode here and there. It's nice because it keeps me from just watching episode after episode of the same show, it creates a bit of a tension in the watching process. But then it's almost like a job in a way - in any case, I'll see if in the next couple of - well, however long it takes me to watch what looks to be over 1600 episodes of one hour TV Shows, I might come here and jot my thoughts.

And I just finished watching Xena: Warrior Princess, episode six of the third season, The Debt.

Yes, that's the Lao Ma episode. It's when the writers decided to create some unholy tension between Xena and Gabrielle by having Gabrielle betray Xena (an episode after Xena attempts to kill the unholy child Gabrielle gave birth to. Long story). It was interesting at first because, yes, friends have fights and friends do horrible things to each other sometimes, but all I remember thinking at the time (and what I felt now while watching) was that there was no way in hell Gabrielle would do this to Xena, no way in hell!! But, you kinda can see it. Specially when you put the hellchild pregnancy into perspective.

And yes, I think Xena is an important part of my TV shows oeuvre, one of the most important one as a matter of fact.  Whatever, I fail to continue to have intelligent thoughts, if I had any today.

Next: Buffy! Season 2, episode 7: Buffy's friend comes to town and it turns out that secretly he wants to betray Buffy in order to become a Vampire and bypass that little pesky terminal disease he's got going on.

Ringer

Sarah Michelle Gellar returns to T.V. in a wannabe Film Noir of a series. Although very excited I was also very nervous. I'm sure that half the reason this show was picked up was because of SMG. I hope the other reason is because it's really good.

It being SMG, the Show has lots of expectations off the bat. The pilot didn't really go deep enough for me to be able to say if the show is good or not yet. This isn't Buffy Season 1, with episodic goodness and witty one liners. This show is committed watching and figuring out nuances. Veronica Mars season 1 did this beautifully - but the one plus that VMars had was the crutch of private detective stuff, helping the show move along.

But onto Ringer. We open with Bridget, who's at an AA meeting, talking about finally being in touch with her sister and hopes for the future. Little by little, we learn more of Bridget. She's under protection. Witness to some horrible crime. Relationship with her Sponsor. But then she's cunning. She slips away from the cops/feds and escapes to the Hamptons were she meets up with her twin sister, who is also played by SMG.

Turns out the sister is also cunning. She gives some details of her life to Bridget, then they take a ride out where Bridget wakes up from a "nap" to find her sister Siobhan gone, no trace of her. Bridget assumes she killed herself and decides the only thing left to do is... Take Siobhan's place.
It's not as easy as it looks since Siobhan's life, though with plenty of money, is not as perfect as it looks. Bridget has to stay on her toes, but since Bridget is being looked for by both good and bad guys she has incentive to stay in place. After jumping through hoops, she finds out that Siobhan was pregnant (or someone called her to say she was), we see Bridget look at a picture of her and a kid, and someone is trying to kill Siobhan. Mind you, this might be Siobhan herself, whom we see at the end of the episode, has found her way to Paris, is nice and comfortable, and receives a phone call from someone indicating that they "have a problem."

The show has possibility. It also has plenty of male eye candy. The fare is a little older than The CW crowd is used to but if the old Buffy fans can make their way there, they are the right age. I'm sure the show will find a way to introduce teens or younger hunks. SMG's performance was good, though the difference between Bridget and Siobhan were too subtle to see who's who right away - and that might be on purpose, since at times they tried tricking the audience. Like my friend O said, if the writers stay on point, I can give it three good seasons at least. We'll see.

In the meantime SMG was in my TV and the DVD wasn't on! So Huzzah!

Barefoot in the kitchen

Mi Cariño made me dinner. I share with the world.

YUM.

She also made me watch "Que pasa, USA," which I'm happy to say was good. Very funny. I sang the theme song while at work and now the Floridians I work with want to borrow her DVD's. Ha.