A New Fall

Okay, after all this research (and I have done a ton), I am officially underwhelmed by the new season of TV supposedly coming in the fall. Frankly, there may be more completely laughable entries than interesting looking ones.

Just glancing down the list we have:

• That previously discussed vampire detective,
• Those goddamn Geico cavemen,
• A show that has a tagline of (and I swear to God I'm not making this up): "Computer geek by day, government agent by night."
• A buddy comedy starring that boy from The Hills Have Eyes and a Muslim foreign exchange student (You know it'll be tasteful, because it's on the CW!),
• A show about a rum and sugar empire (I am so jealous that Joe R. made The Simpsons joke before me that it hurts),
• And one about an immortal New York homicide detective.

But oh well. I'm still planning on tuning in to a crapload of new shows, at least for one or two episodes before my attention is distracted by some kind of shiny object.

NBC
Journeyman - a) it's on right after Heroes and you know I hate changing the channel, b) the description sort of sounds like a cross between Quantum Leap and that gross Sandra Bullock movie that came out a couple of months ago. I fully expect this to be a bad of trainwreck proportions, but I kinda want to watch it unfold.

Chuck - No, seriously, "Computer geek by day, government agent by night." Go read that page and then just try and tell me how you could not want to watch this. "Hopefully, [being the government's most valuable weapon] won’t take away from his video game time!" Is it bad that the only new shows I'm watching on NBC, I'm watching strictly because they look so terrifyingly horrible?

FOX
The Sarah Connor Chronicles - It's midseason, but omigosh. River's back! And she still kicks ass! And that boy from Heroes who started out gay but then refused to play a homo so they wrote him out of the show! I am so on board with this, you have no idea.

The Return Of Jezebel James - Parker Posey! The writer from Gilmore Girls! Lauren Ambrose! This show could be about two girls reading the phone book and I would still watch, is what I'm saying.

ABC
Sam I Am - Call me crazy, but this looks mildly interesting. I don't know where my like of Christina Applegate comes from, but it's apparently pretty strong. It conflicts with Heroes, though, so if I do watch, it will need to be with some heavy duty time-shifting.

Pushing Daisies - Go watch that trailer. Do it! Do it right now! I have never, ever been more pumped up for a new TV show in my life. And I don't even know a single cast member. Whatever. I'm going to be watching this one so hard.

Private Practice - I'm thinking Grey's Anatomy made some sort of pact with the devil. That's the only explanation I can come up with because I really want to watch this, even though I know it has every indication of sucking so, so bad. Maybe I just have a latent heterosexual girl crush on Kate Walsh. I dunno, but it's going on the list.

Women's Murder Club - It's on Friday, so obviously it has no chance, but this looks really good. Also, I've read some of the books that this is based off of and I dug them a lot. I don't want to get too attached though. Because seriously, Friday night.

CBS
The Big Bang Theory - Neeeeerds! Oh man, it looks so bad. But it's on right after How I Met Your Mother so again it has that whole channel changing thing going for it. And they cancelled The Class for this, so I need to watch it long enough to be able to properly mock how less-funny it is and fume about all the injustice in the world.

Viva Laughlin - A musical drama! That's really all you would need to say to me to get me to watch. But then they go on to add in a casino, Wolverine as a producer with a recurring guest role, and elements of a thriller. All, I guess, to make the whole Sophie's Choice bit between this and the Simpsons on Sundays as dramatic as possible.

CW
Reaper - Fine, I'll watch this, but I won't like it. Especially since it looks like it's trying to horn in on the Pushing Daisies turf, my love of which has already been predetermined. Kevin Smith is just trying to get on my bad side. (It sort of looks cute, though.)

Gossip Girl - Since they have officially cancelled every single teen drama from the WB and The OC, something has to take their place, right? I'm not sure if this is it, but it is created by the same guy who made The OC. Let's hope the homoerotic subtext is just as high in this one, although with the word Girl in the title, the outlook is not good.

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Obviously it's insane to consider that much new TV -- yeah, like I'm going to shoot for 16 hours a week -- but most of those will very quickly fall by the wayside, once I remember that very often bad TV is not fun to watch in the same way that some bad movies are. It's just bad.

So I now present it to you, internet-type people, what will you be watching come Fall?
(And don't say that you don't watch TV, because people who do not watch TV do not read this blog.)

A TV Guidepost

With the season finale of Heroes on Monday, I completed my television watching schedule for the 2006-07 season. It was a good year for TV in general and a very good year for my shows in specific. As such, I feel the need to revel in a year-in-review sort of thing while the afterglow is still there. And quickly, before I become bitter with the whole 4 months of reruns thing.

Monday

The Class (CBC) - Y'all, I loved this show, and now it's cancelled. I really wish it had been given more of a chance, but network TV is very anti-sitcoms lately, which is too bad. The show started off really rocky, but by the time they had jettisoned the excess cast and toned down some of the melodrama, it was great. It was one of those shows that I couldn't adequately contain my laughter around, which led to truly ugly bouts of braying laughs that no one should ever be subjected to. Really, it was wildly unfortunate. But the show was solid, the cast was excellent (Jason Ritter, call me! Or Lizzy Caplan, I love you too!), it just suffered from that slow start and lack of network support. Too bad.

How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - Now that it comes down to it, I'm almost bashful to talk this show up. It feels almost unseemly at this point, all of my gushing. So I'll keep it light, with three simple points:

• The 'Robin Sparkles' episode is now my single favorite episode of TV ever, displacing Arrested Development's 'Pier Pressure' and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 'Becoming'.
• Neil Patrick Harris and Cobie Smulders both deserve Emmys for their work this year. NPH for his pitch-perfect character acting throughout the entire season (for serious) and Cobie for her vastly underrated comedic timing, which consistently gets at least two huge laughs in every episode (often just from her facial reactions).
• I was practically sick to my stomach for the three days leading up to the network upfronts because of rumors that the show was cancelled (Note: It was picked up for a full third season, beating out the much less funny New Adventures of Old Christine, which is something of a Christmas miracle in May). I have never been this involved with a show, and it's a horrible, horrible feeling. But shows that it's really good, right? Or maybe just that I'm insane. Either way.

Heroes (NBC) - Easily the most consistent show all season long. Never really hit a bad note, constantly put you on the edge of your seat for the next episode, and made you really care about all the characters. Also, it didn't hurt that basically every actor in the cast was hotter than your average supermodel. I was a bit disappointed with the finale, but it would have been hard to live up to the rest of the season as is, so I'll give them a pass. I anxiously look forward to the next season, for reals.

Tuesday

Friday Night Lights (NBC) - I refuse to even comment on this one, because everyone makes fun of me for watching it.... Except, whatever, you don't know me! The best acted thing on TV in ages. It is so note perfect that it makes you want to cry. And then when you watch the show, you do cry. Constantly. The fact that it was renewed puts a nice little fire, right in my heart.

Wednesday

America's Next Top Model (CW) - Please don't judge me. There has never been a better definition of a guilty pleasure show in the history of time. And this season *ahem* cycle was horrifying TV at its finest. From the non-mail-order Russian bride, to the crazy girl with the clown weave and short term memory loss (due to being hit by a car!) who couldn't stop cursing, to the eventual winner (who I give excellent odds of actually being a man), there was no end to the joy that this show brought me.

Thursday

Ugly Betty (ABC) - Soap opera-y to a degree that seems impossible, and yet completely charming throughout. Benefits from a great cast more than any other show, possibly ever, but rides that goodwill to excellent results. Another one that I can't wait to follow up on next season.

Grey's Anatomy (ABC) - Went from Great (season one), to Pretty Good (season two), to Oh My God Why Am I Still Watching (season three) without a pause. Melodrama is all fine and good (see: Ugly Betty) but only up to a point. And that point is a lot closer in a drama than Grey's thinks it is. I still enjoy it enough not to give up entirely on the show, but I expect improvements and quick.

The Office (NBC) - Such a good show. I'm glad that NBC has decided to pick it up and run with it, despite the unamazing ratings. The show stalled out late in the season, but ended on a four-episode-long high note that was amazingly funny. I may hate the arc they took with the Jan character, but it was at least somewhat telegraphed over the course of the season, and that's my only real gripe with the show. We won't even get into the whole Jim/Pam thing, lest my squees of joy drown out the internet. Again, greatly looking forward to next season.

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So I was able to pare down my TV watching to right at 6.5 hours this year, thanks to lame seasons by:

• Lost (goodbye forever, show that never answered any questions!),
• Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (proof that Sports Night truly was a one-time perfect thing)
• The Amazing Race (when they said "All-Stars" there was a reason they used those sarcastic quotation marks),
• Jericho (who would have guessed that the end of the world would be so lame),
• and Survivor (uh, just regular old lame, actually).

I feel very proud of this fact, despite knowing that 6.5 hours is still a ridiculously large amount of TV. Oh well, I'll take my victories where I can.

Once I get a chance to go through it, I'll make up my preliminary fall schedule to see how many new shows I'm willing to take on in addition to the returning 8(!) shows I'm keeping on the schedule. I've heard there's a new show about a vampire detective, and this time it doesn't star David Boreanez! Talk about great times to be alive!

Moving Sucks (And Other Tales)

Y'all, I don't even know where to begin. You can tell I'm at a loss because I just used the word "y'all." Speechlessness leads directly to my inner Southerner.

Let's just dive right in:

My apartment switchover is complete, and we mostly survived. In fact, unless you count the fact that we had no electricity for two days, no washer/dryer still, and the hot water heater has a mind of its own, everything pretty much worked out perfectly.

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Last week was spent nailing down all of the moving related items: electricity setup, cable setup, movers setup, etc. This mostly involved me pledging piles and piles of money (that did not necessarily exist) to people who would in turn give me vague guarantees that they might give me something in return. Someday. Maybe.

(By the end of this story, I will have spent literally every cent I have in the world on this move, and then put some more on my credit card. Moving is fun!)

I got our shipping boxes from the movers on Tuesday afternoon and then spent the next 5 days using every spare moment of my life to box up our entire apartment into 20 containers or less. Considering we only have a two bedroom apartment, this should not be such an issue, right?

I realized that I was a fool, right around the time that I found that my book collection alone filled up 7 boxes. We own a lot of shit. A whole lot. And by "we" I mean "me," because Frnak's contributions to the move were two 1'X2' boxes, a bed, and a suitcase full of clothes.

A quick and dirty breakdown of my life through the things that I own:
My DVD collection? Two boxes.
Things On The Kitchen Counters? Two boxes.
Stuff in the Tiny Closet In the Living Room? Two boxes.
Things in the Kitchen Cabinets? Two boxes.

Are you sensing the theme yet? And I haven't even mentioned Things in the Bedroom, which is where the real horrors start.

The only thing that ended up saving me was the fact that I have some epically huge storage containers from college moving, each of which count as only one box per the moving guidelines.

In the end, I was only 2 boxes over the limit. The end being 12:00AM on Sunday morning, exactly 12 hours before the movers were scheduled to arrive. Also known as "When I finished the final item (boxing the last dishes while Frnak lay drunk in the living room.)"

Only, the movers decided that it would be more efficient to show up 4 hours ahead of schedule on Sunday. Meaning I was blasted out of bed at 7:45AM after about 6 hours of sleep with a phone call notice that several large burly men would be arriving within the half-hour.

Good times.

But, ignoring the legendary sleep deprivation, it all worked out very well. The movers were super efficient and had us entirely installed in the new place by noon, and I didn't once have to pick up a single box. Which is all I ever ask in life: That I never have to do any manual labor ever again.

Since moving was finished at pretty much the exact time we expected it to start, we had the entire day to get everything unpacked and arranged into a semblance of a real-live house. I was very impressed with our can-do spirit, and also my wild compulsion to get my books back onto the bookcase before I even had my bed put together.

I don't know what was up with that.

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Now I split my afternoons at home between my new two favorite pastimes in the world:

• racing around the apartment in my socks, sliding over all the fake-wood floors like I'm 8 years-old,
• and trying to settle on what color curtains and lamp shades would look best in the new living room, now that I've finally decided that it's time for my fur-and-leather curtains to go the way of the dinosaur.

It's a pretty nice living.

But it's not all immature running around and homo-decorating. As I alluded to in the beginning, there are things that are less nice:

• The washer and dryer could not be installed until we get a repairman out to the new place to get a dryer vent in working order and I find a place that can sell me a hot water hose for the washer (as I could not get the original one off the fixture in the old apartment. It will remain there forever, I suppose.) Already my clean clothes are running short. I'm half a week away from searching out nudist colony brochures. Because I'll be damned if I'm ever going to a laundromat ever again. I have grown accustomed to a certain standard of living, by God.
  
• The hot water heater has some sort of ADD, since it seems to randomly spike the shower with shots of superheated water in an otherwise nice and relaxing cleansing period. It's like playing Press Your Luck (in the shower), only instead of Whammies this time it's someone flushing a toilet while you are in there. And instead of flushing a toilet, it just happens completely at random times. (That works out, right? Follow the stream of consciousness.)
  
• TXU can go straight to hell. After I finally cancelled my service with them at the old place (because they cost a damn arm and leg each month), I got my new company all set up to start service on Wednesday. Which worked out very nicely, as my landlord had continued his service with TXU out through the end of the week. Except no, TXU cut off the power on Tuesday morning immediately after confirming the extension with the landlord. Meaning we had two fun filled days without any electricity at all. The high point of which had me sitting on our balcony wrapped in a blanket like a crazy old lady, huddled under the one working light outside (controlled by the condo association), trying to read a book while mosquitoes feasted on my all-you-can-drink blood buffet. Apparently my survival cutoff point is 36 hours without electricity. After that, I'm pretty much just fodder for the wolves. Good to know I suppose.

But yeah, power's back on and I'm back in the real world, sort of. It'll still be a while before I get into a normal rhythm again, though.

I mean, I've got a whole lot of sliding around the apartment to do.