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TV Junkies Need Only Apply
Sep. 5th, 2016 12:10 pmIn case you are a television junkie and care about this stuff, in the age of about a million television series and counting, Here's the Start Date List for Over 90 Television Series. [ETA: Strike that, I found a much better source < a HREF="http://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Fall-TV-Calendar-2016-42320623"> Go HERE - it has better details and is clearer not to mention more thorough and no annoying Kardashian commercials. Maybe not better, they left off PBS and a lot of Cable series. Sigh.) Okay maybe there isn't a million, but it certainly feels like it. Anyone remember the good old days when there was just about twelve channels and HBO? The fall series started in the fall. The summer was reruns and sporting events. Everything started around the same time. It was easy to find stuff? And if you missed an episode, your only chance to catch up was with summer reruns? Assuming they bothered to air them? OR if you are lucky, a friend sends you their taped recording of it?
Well, those days are long gone. Now we have multiple television seasons and start dates. There are fall television shows, winter, spring, and summer. And the tv show start dates are sort of placed randomly throughout each season. (I am drawing a blank on the word that says all of that. If you think of it, please tell me since it is driving me crazy.) As a result, television critics probably have a roller deck just to keep track of when each television show is about to start. How else do they keep track of this stuff?
In the days of DVR and streaming, and ahem the internet, you don't really have to choose between television shows. You can, assuming you want to devote your entire life to binge-watching, watch just about everything out there. You may lose your mind in the process, along with what's left of your health, but what the heck. Also no worries about missing an episode, you can most likely catch it "on demand" via streaming or the internet. Possibly youtube. Someone out there has recorded it and put it up online for your viewing pleasure, much to the considerable chagrin of the distributors who are attempting to make money off of it. (Copyright law has sort entered the wild wild west with the internet, policing it is a full time and thankless gig. I actually find youtube equal parts amusing and frustrating. Some vids get pulled due to copyright infringement or turned private, while others don't and there's real rhyme or reason to it, except that the copyright owner found one and not the others.)
As a result of all of this...I'm finding it really hard to care all that much about the new fall television season. OR the new crop of shows. Too much work to figure out when they are on and whether I want to spend time watching them. Also, a lot of them feel like rip-offs of something else that was done better elsewhere. (Seriously, do we need any more cop procedurals? Or true crime television dramas or reality shows? And Project Runway is still going? I thought it had gotten cancelled three years ago?)
OTOH - at least we have more genre series, or off the beaten track.
I looked through the list and thought: don't care, don't care, hmmm interesting, maybe, don't care, don't care, possibility, yes - I'll keep watching that, oh good that's back, that looks stupid, don't care.
New series that looked somewhat interesting?
The Good Place - mainly because I like the stars. Not sure about the concept, which sounds a bit silly. It's about a nasty girl who accidentally ends up in Heaven. Yes, pretty much what you'd think when reading the title.
The Pitch - on Fox and it's about the first black woman major league baseball pitcher.
Frequency - based on the sci-fi movie, in which a woman contacts her dead dad via a radio frequency. This is a crime drama with the radio frequency/time travel bit as a twist. The critics appear to love it. I just watched the trailer, and yes, it looks good. It treats the time travel problem well - which is if you change one thing, you change everything, and the result is a temporal distortion.
She saves her dad, but loses her fiance and her mom.
APB - a rich guy purchases the Chicago Police Department in order to find his best friend's killer. I kid you not. And no, it's not a comedy.
Bull - a procedural about a psychologist who manipulates juries for wealthy clients. Sort of a bizarre concept, but entertaining -- if you've ever done litigation or been on a jury.
Queen Sugar -- a family drama (potential soap opera) about three black women who deal with their family's sugar plantation in Lousiana.
This is Us - a story about various people who were born on the same day and their interconnecting lives. Think Thirty-Something or Brothers and Sisters style of drama.
There isn't much that's grabbing my interest even on that list. Feel like I've seen it all before. If you know of anything let me know. I tend to get my television recs via livejournal, along with quite a few book recs.
Well, those days are long gone. Now we have multiple television seasons and start dates. There are fall television shows, winter, spring, and summer. And the tv show start dates are sort of placed randomly throughout each season. (I am drawing a blank on the word that says all of that. If you think of it, please tell me since it is driving me crazy.) As a result, television critics probably have a roller deck just to keep track of when each television show is about to start. How else do they keep track of this stuff?
In the days of DVR and streaming, and ahem the internet, you don't really have to choose between television shows. You can, assuming you want to devote your entire life to binge-watching, watch just about everything out there. You may lose your mind in the process, along with what's left of your health, but what the heck. Also no worries about missing an episode, you can most likely catch it "on demand" via streaming or the internet. Possibly youtube. Someone out there has recorded it and put it up online for your viewing pleasure, much to the considerable chagrin of the distributors who are attempting to make money off of it. (Copyright law has sort entered the wild wild west with the internet, policing it is a full time and thankless gig. I actually find youtube equal parts amusing and frustrating. Some vids get pulled due to copyright infringement or turned private, while others don't and there's real rhyme or reason to it, except that the copyright owner found one and not the others.)
As a result of all of this...I'm finding it really hard to care all that much about the new fall television season. OR the new crop of shows. Too much work to figure out when they are on and whether I want to spend time watching them. Also, a lot of them feel like rip-offs of something else that was done better elsewhere. (Seriously, do we need any more cop procedurals? Or true crime television dramas or reality shows? And Project Runway is still going? I thought it had gotten cancelled three years ago?)
OTOH - at least we have more genre series, or off the beaten track.
I looked through the list and thought: don't care, don't care, hmmm interesting, maybe, don't care, don't care, possibility, yes - I'll keep watching that, oh good that's back, that looks stupid, don't care.
New series that looked somewhat interesting?
The Good Place - mainly because I like the stars. Not sure about the concept, which sounds a bit silly. It's about a nasty girl who accidentally ends up in Heaven. Yes, pretty much what you'd think when reading the title.
The Pitch - on Fox and it's about the first black woman major league baseball pitcher.
Frequency - based on the sci-fi movie, in which a woman contacts her dead dad via a radio frequency. This is a crime drama with the radio frequency/time travel bit as a twist. The critics appear to love it. I just watched the trailer, and yes, it looks good. It treats the time travel problem well - which is if you change one thing, you change everything, and the result is a temporal distortion.
She saves her dad, but loses her fiance and her mom.
APB - a rich guy purchases the Chicago Police Department in order to find his best friend's killer. I kid you not. And no, it's not a comedy.
Bull - a procedural about a psychologist who manipulates juries for wealthy clients. Sort of a bizarre concept, but entertaining -- if you've ever done litigation or been on a jury.
Queen Sugar -- a family drama (potential soap opera) about three black women who deal with their family's sugar plantation in Lousiana.
This is Us - a story about various people who were born on the same day and their interconnecting lives. Think Thirty-Something or Brothers and Sisters style of drama.
There isn't much that's grabbing my interest even on that list. Feel like I've seen it all before. If you know of anything let me know. I tend to get my television recs via livejournal, along with quite a few book recs.