Tag Archives: overanalyzing tv

Christmas on Netflix (or Wherever)

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I’ve covered Christmas songs, movies, and blog posts before. But along with movies like Love Actually and It’s a Wonderful Life, around Christmas I like to watch the Christmas episodes of the shows I like. Many of them are on Netflix (which I’ve recently joined, but that’s the subject of another post), and here are the best ones.

Gilmore Girls, “Forgiveness and Stuff”

This might be my favorite episode of Gilmore Girls. At the beginning, due to a misunderstanding in the previous episode, Emily disinvites Lorelai from the Gilmores’ early Christmas party and things between Lorelai and Rory are tense. Lorelai commiserates with Luke in the diner while Rory goes to the party alone. But when Richard collapses at the party and is hospitalized, Luke has to take Lorelai to the hospital, and what follows is…well, forgiveness and stuff. It’s an episode that displays all of the show’s best qualities, and if you don’t already love Luke, and the idea of Luke and Lorelai as a couple, you will after this episode.

The X-Files, “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas”

On Christmas Eve, Mulder and Scully stake out an abandoned house haunted by two sneaky ghosts played by Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin. It strikes a good balance between creepy and funny- although Scully is being uncharacteristically wussy in this episode. (At this point in the show she’d seen all kinds of crazy things, so I don’t know why two fairly harmless ghosts freaked her out so much.) I’ve always wanted to know what Mulder and Scully give each other for presents at the end.

The O.C., “The Best Chrismukkuh Ever” and “The Chrismukk-huh?”

All four seasons of The O.C. had a Chrismukkah episode. The first and last ones are my favorites. (The second one was all right and I disliked the third one.) “The Best Chrismukkah Ever” is about Ryan’s first Christmas/Hanukkah with the Cohens. In the episode, Seth is trying to decide whether to date Summer or Anna, Kirsten and Sandy are dealing with drama relating to Kirsten’s father’s business, and Marissa, dealing poorly with her parents’ divorce, shoplifts and drinks too much, making Ryan’s life miserable in the process. One of the nicest moments is towards the end, when Sandy tells Ryan that he doesn’t have to be the parent with Marissa.

In “The Chrismukk-huh?”  Marissa is mercifully dead and not around to be annoying. Her presence still lingers, though, when a letter she sent just before her death finally reaches Ryan. With the unopened letter in mind, he has an argument with Taylor, with whom he’s on the verge of a relationship, and they both tumble off the roof and end up comatose. (Much like in While You Were Sleeping, no one seems very worried about them—and this time Peter Gallagher is the one waiting for someone to wake up.) In the shared coma dream, there’s an It’s a Wonderful Life-esque world where Ryan never came to Newport. Also, throughout the episode, everyone seems very concerned about the ham they’re going to have for dinner. I feel like it must have been some kind of inside joke or something.

Friends, “The One Where Rachel Quits”

Friends was better with Thanksgiving episodes, but this is an enjoyable Christmas one. Phoebe is horrified when she sees old Christmas trees thrown in the wood cutter and decides she needs to help the trees “fulfill their Christmas destiny.” Meanwhile, Ross accidentally knocks a girl scout (played by Mae Whitman) down the stairs and breaks her leg. He tries selling boxes of Christmas cookies for her in hopes that she’ll win the trip to space camp that she wants.

Seinfeld, “The Strike”

The episode that introduced the world to Festivus. That’s what the episode is most famous for, but George giving people donations in their name to the made-up “Human Fund” (“Money for People”) also cracks me up and is what I think of whenever I hear about donations to charity in someone’s name. Plus the plot about Kramer going back to work because the strike at the bagel place he used to work at has finally ended—the new minimum wage is what they’d demanded twelve years earlier.

Mad Men, “Christmas Waltz”

Although this is a great episode overall, it’s worth watching solely for the lovely scenes between Don and Joan. There’s never been anything romantic between them, and there shouldn’t be, but there’s some very cute flirting going on here as Don takes Joan, who’s upset because her husband beat her to the punch at filing for divorce, out. He’s kinder to Joan than he is to pretty much any other woman ever, and it’s nice to see.

Playlist of the Moment: TV Mix

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I feel like I should have a Christmas playlist for you, but I did that last year. So even though this isn’t seasonally appropriate, I’m sharing one about TV instead. I do love TV, if you haven’t noticed, and I realized that I had a lot of songs in my iTunes that were either TV theme songs or featured on TV shows- sometimes songs that were written for those shows. And here they are, with some explanations.

 

1. Cheers theme song, Gary Portnoy

Despite being a native Bostonian, I have never once seen Cheers. I did once go to the Cheers bar, though.

 

2. “Thank You for Being a Friend” by Andrew Gold- The Golden Girls theme song.

 

3. “Forever” by Jesse and the Rippers, from Full House

Remember this? Beach Boys song Jesse sings at his wedding.

 

4. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air rap

 

5. Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? theme song by Rockapella

I would have kicked ass on this show.

 

6. Boy Meets World theme song (the second one)

 

7. X-Files theme song

Twenty years. The show premiered TWENTY YEARS ago.

 

8. Another version of the XF theme

 

9. Cher’s cover of “Walking in Memphis”

From the “Post Modern Prometheus” episode of The X-Files

 

10. “The Scully Song” by Eric D. Snyder

I listened to this at work once and ended up  laughing out loud at my desk

 

11. “David Duchovny” by Bree Sharp

“David Duchovny, why won’t you love me?” might be the best rhyme ever.

 

12. “Scully’s Theme” from the last couple of seasons of The X-Files

 

13. Sex and the City theme (from the movie, but close enough)

 

14. “I’ll Be There for You” by The Rembrandts- Friends theme song

 

15.  “Smelly Cat” medley from Friends

The best of the Phoebe songs.

 

16. “I Don’t Want to Wait” by Paula Cole- Dawson’s Creek theme song

 

17. “Never Saw Blue Like That” by Shawn Colvin, from Dawson’s Creek’s soundtrack

 

18. “Blue” by Angie Hart

I never watched Buffy, but this song, which I like, was on it.

 

19. “Where You Lead” by Carole King and Louise Goffin- Gilmore Girls theme song

 

20. Lorelai’s painting song from Gilmore Girls (she makes it up to convince Luke to let her help paint the diner)

 

21. “Reflecting Light” by Sam Phillips

It was the song playing when Luke and Lorelai first danced at a wedding on Gilmore Girls.

 

22. “Boss of Me” by They Might Be Giants

Theme song to Malcolm in the Middle– ah, a simpler time, one before Bryan Cranston was “the one who knocks.”

 

23. Crystal Bowersox’s cover of “Me and Bobby McGee” from American Idol

This was the last season of the show I watched.

 

24. “California” by Phantom Planet- The O.C.‘s theme song

 

25. “We Used to Be Friends” by The Dandy Warhols- Veronica Mars theme song.

 

26. “It Don’t Matter to the Sun” by Rosie Thomas

I’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy about five times, but this is on the soundtrack.

 

27. “Dunder and Dwightning” by Sweet Diss and the Comebacks

An ode to The Office

 

28. “Let’s Go to The Mall” by Robin Sparkles

I’m totally going to spoil one of my favorite episodes of How I Met Your Mother– “Slap Bet”. At the beginning, Robin refuses to go to the mall with her friends because she doesn’t like malls, but she won’t tell anyone why. Everyone ventures guesses, but we find out in the end that she was a teen pop star in Canada in the 90s who had a hit song called “Let’s Go to the Mall. ” More Robin Sparkles songs pop up on the show as it goes on.

 

29. “Jar of Hearts” by Christina Perri

This song was featured on So You Think You Can Dance before Christina Perri even had a record- it was professionally recorded for the show because a mutual friend shared it with one of the show’s choreographers, who decided to use it. It immediately shot up the iTunes charts and she scored a record deal soon after.

 

30. “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall- featured on Ugly Betty

 

31. “Don’t Stop Believing” from Glee

I stopped watching this show awhile ago, but I’ll never stop loving this cover from the pilot.

 

32. “5,000 Candles in the Wind” by MouseRat

This song from Parks and Recreation is in an episode where the town is mourning the death of their beloved miniature horse, Li’l Sebastian. Sample lyric: “And here’s the part that hurts the most/Humans cannot ride a ghost.”

 

33. “Negro y Azul: The Ballad of Heisenberg” by Los Cuates de Sinaloa

One of the weirder Breaking Bad cold opens featured a music video of a Spanish song about Heisenberg, the main character’s drug lord alter-ego.

 

34. “Baby Blue” by Badfinger

Featured on the Breaking Bad finale, very appropriately.

 

35. “Wrong Song” by Connie Britton and Hayden Panetierre

One of my favorite songs from Nashville

 

36. “You’ve Got Time” by Regina Spektor- theme song to Orange Is the New Black

On Love and Deserving

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Warning: herein lie spoilers for the movie The Town, Season 4 of Gilmore Girls, and the novel Driver’s Ed.

I started thinking of all my associations with the words “love” and “deserving” when used together.

Here’s one—this lovely song by Lori McKenna (possibly the subject of a future Katie Recommends):

[spotify id=”spotify:track:0p5x6zmXBjXdQ0bVcvMPhm” width=”300″ height=”380″ /]

Here’s another—the cheesy book and self-help tape Luke listens to on Gilmore Girls (which, laughable as it is, does help him realize that he’s in love with Lorelai). I can’t find the clip where the tape says, “You deserve love,” but here’s another one that includes the tape.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlkGPr5oMR0]

But here’s another, the one I think of most often. A few years ago, I’d just seen the movie The Town and hadn’t really liked it. My biggest issue with it was that when the female lead discovers that the guy she’s been seeing is the same guy who traumatized her by kidnapping her at gunpoint during a bank robbery, she still wants to be with him. I did not buy that for a minute, and shared that thought with some co-workers at lunch one day. One co-worker, who’d seen the movie and liked it, was surprised. “But she loved him!” she said.

“Some people don’t deserve love,” I countered.

And I’ll never forget the look on her face. She looked like I’d slapped her—as if, with an offhand comment about a character in a movie, I’d hurt her personally.

But I meant it when I said it. I really did believe that not everyone deserved love. Everyone deserves to be loved by their parents and families, but does everyone deserve romantic love?

I have a lot of friends who have fallen for lousy guys when they deserve much better. It’s frustrating to see your friends continue to see and to respond to jerks, and my response, more than once, has been that guys like that don’t deserve love. Not that they don’t deserve the love of my awesome friends—that they don’t deserve love, period.

But how far does that theory go? If a fictional bank robber/kidnapper doesn’t deserve love, what about real people? Do murderers deserve love? Rapists? Domestic abusers? Cheaters? Do genocidal dictators deserve love? If you do a terrible thing, should your karmic punishment be the permanent loss of romantic love?

This almost seems like a set-up to a discussion of religion, but my thoughts here aren’t quite so high-minded. Honestly, I’m thinking about myself—someone who has never received romantic love from anyone. Someone who has no firsthand experience with the emotion they sing about in so many songs, that drives the plot of so many of my favorite movies. Someone who, most of the time, tries very hard not to talk too much, in this blog and in real life, about how frustrating my lack of success at dating has been—but someone whose psychic real estate is largely occupied by thoughts on that subject. It’s been getting worse and worse now that I’m twenty-nine and have spent the entirety of my life single and without romantic love. I worry every single day that I will never have the things I want the most—despite trying as hard as I can to meet someone who will help me get those things.

It’s very hard not to wonder what is so wrong with me and to come up with things that are wrong. I am by far the least attractive girl in my group of friends. When I was on vacation in Florida back in August, I had a hard time looking at myself when I was on the beach with three much thinner friends. I’m not getting any younger. And I am, as I’ve mentioned before, not a very nice person, and my success at disguising that fact varies. I’ve always wished I could be one of those people whom EVERYONE likes, but I’ve already failed at that—there are more than a few people who actively dislike me, maybe even hate me, and I have to take responsibility for that. I’m not even sure why I still have any friends at all.

And I guess this has all been a roundabout way to this realization: I’m not always sure that I deserve love. I know nothing productive can come from this way of thinking, but there it is. When trying to find someone has been this discouraging, I find myself thinking—what do I really have to offer a potential boyfriend that no other girl can? With so many awesome single girls out there, why would anyone ever want to be with me? Do I really deserve that kind of love?

Maybe I don’t. But maybe no one does. Because this brings me to my final association with the words “love” and “deserving” –a quote from the young adult novel Driver’s Ed by Caroline B. Cooney. In the book, two teenagers have confessed to stealing a stop sign, which resulted in a fatal accident. At the very end, one of them says to his father that he doesn’t think he deserves love. His father says that he’s right—he doesn’t deserve love:

“That’s the thing about love,” said his father, wrapping a Christmas arm around his son. “Nobody deserves it. Love just is.”

 

I think that might be closer to the truth about love and deserving than anything else.

Katie Recommends: Orphan Black

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You all know how obsessed I am with award shows. So when, among the Emmy talk, I heard in many places that an actress named Tatiana Maslany had been robbed of a nomination for her work on a sci-fi show called Orphan Black, I decided to check it out. This past weekend, I watched all ten episodes of Season 1 on On Demand.


And I discovered that those people were wrong. Tatiana Maslany does not deserve an Emmy nomination. She deserves at least six Emmy nominations. You see, she doesn’t just play one character- she plays several clones, and she does so extraordinarily well.


Let’s start from the beginning. In the pilot, Sarah Manning, a British-Canadian small-time crook who grew up in foster care, sees a woman in a train station who looks just like her. Seconds later, the woman has committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. Sarah wastes no time in snatching the woman’s purse. She discovers that the woman, Beth Childs, was a cop with $75,000 in the bank. Seeing an opportunity to start over with the young daughter from whom she’s been estranged, Sarah decides to impersonate Beth to get the money.

But things quickly get complicated when Sarah realizes that Beth isn’t the her only lookalike. There’s a German woman who’s shot to death soon after Sarah meets her. There’s an uptight soccer mom named Allison and a dreadlocked science geek named Cosima. There are others who have also turned up dead- and there’s one who might be a killer.

All of these women, of course, are clones. They’re unwilling participants in a science experiment, and now someone is killing them off. And I can’t say much more without giving too much away!

Tatiana Maslany. Seriously, I can’t say enough good things about her on this show. The clones are all distinguished by hairdos and clothes, but she gives them all distinct mannerisms and speech patterns that make them impossible to confuse. She also makes layered characters out of people who could easily just be “types.” I found myself forgetting that the same actress plays so many characters. There are even some points when the clones impersonate each other and you find yourself thinking, “Who’d ever buy that Allison is Sarah?…Oh, wait, they’re actually played by the same person.”

Sarah is the clone we get to know first, and there turns out to be a lot more to her than initially meets the eye. We first see her stealing Beth’s purse seconds after Beth’s gruesome suicide, but she becomes more and more interesting as we learn about her childhood as an orphan in foster care, her love for and struggle to reconnect with the daughter who’s being raised by the same foster mother Sarah grew up with, and her past with an abusive ex-boyfriend. But the clones aren’t the only characters to watch. My favorite non-clone is Sarah’s snarky but loyal foster brother Felix, who serves as her confidant and often lends a hand when she needs help with a crazy situation she’s found herself in.

It’s a drama, obviously- did I mention someone is trying to kill them?- but it can also be very funny. Allison, the kind of suburban mother who hosts weekly neighborhood potlucks and has a whole room for her crafts, can be hilarious when her prim facade starts to crack. And one kind of interesting thing is that people never need much time to adjust to the news about the clones- which, while it might not be the most realistic reaction, means that not a lot of time is wasted on exposition.

The funny thing is that aside from The X-Files, I’m not into sci-fi at all. But this show rocks, and you have plenty of time to get caught up before Season 2 premieres on BBC America in the spring!

Odds and Ends

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Life goes on, and this week has been blessedly mundane. Here are five completely unrelated things.

1. THANK YOU to everyone who has donated so far to my run next week! If you haven’t donated yet, you have until Monday at 5:00 PM.

2. While I still don’t like Twitter, I have to say that one of the best feeds out there is Modern Seinfeld. I love Seinfeld and reference it way too much, and Modern Seinfeld cracks me up. The hypothetical plots they come up with are things I can completely see the Seinfeld characters doing. It is kind of strange to think about how much exists now that didn’t in the 90s- the Internet was barely a thing and cell phones were still new when the show ended.

But anyway, the other day they had their best tweet yet:

AMAZING. Even more amazing considering that my post on that subject was titled “Call Me Elaine,” in reference to the episode where Elaine hates The English Patient. I can tell you from experience that people really do act like you killed someone if you say you hate Arrested Development!

3. Line from Seinfeld I keep wanting to quote but can never find the right opportunity for: “You know, we’re living in a SOCIETY!“

Line from Friends I keep wanting to quote but can never find the right opportunity for: “That is brand new information!”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlBh82TFn0Q]

4. On Sundays, I am now DVR-ing two shows, which are at polar opposites of the current spectrum of modern TV: Mad Men and What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.

Mad Men is still, in my humble opinion, the best show on TV. Even now, in Season 6, I’m marveling at how literary it is. I always tell people it’s a show for English majors- there is just so much to analyze and examine, both in individual episodes and across seasons and the whole show.

And then there’s What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.

Ryan Lochte cracks me up. He’s so pretty, and such a talented swimmer, but apparently there’s some chlorine water stuck in his brain because man, is he dumb. Male swimmers are usually huge dorks with great bodies, but most of them are somewhat smart. Not Ryan.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOCzzfy9C3M]

There’s only been one episode, but so far, while he’s definitely quite dim, he also comes off as very sweet, kind of like if Joey Tribbiani was a swimmer. Reality TV is often scripted (shocker!) but I did believe him when he said he just wants a girl to settle down with, and there was a really nice moment where he got teary talking about how his family always supports him.

I have to say, too, that the show is making me think of other shows featuring people who presented themselves as dumb. In 2006, Pink had that song “Stupid Girls” that called out celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton for dumbing themselves down. More recently, we had Snooki on Jersey Shore playing up the dumb factor, and one reason among many I was glad when Sarah Palin did not ascend to higher office was because I dreaded how her lack of intelligence, and seeming indifference to her ignorance, would reflect on women everywhere.

It would be awesome if we could live in a world where women didn’t feel like the best way to attract attention is by being pretty and dumb. That would be ideal, but instead we now have this show, where a guy is building his image around being pretty and dumb.

Uh, yea equality?

5. There’s a shortage of platelets available for donation now due to the bombing last week, so consider making an appointment to donate platelets!

TV As of Late

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Every TV season, I hope that I’ll find something new to watch. Unfortunately, it rarely happens. I’m more of a get-into-a-show-way-after-everyone-else-has-discovered-it kind of girl. That’s what I did with How I Met Your Motherand Modern Family. Right now, I should probably try Parks and Recreation, which I’ve never seen because I didn’t have the good sense to jump on the bandwagon when it started.

But what have I been watching lately? Here’s a rundown on some highlights:

Nashville

This is a new show that I do like. I’m not jumping out of my chair about it, but there is a lot to like about it. Connie Britton plays forty-ish veteran country music star Rayna Jaymes, whose most recent album isn’t living up to expectations. Meanwhile, Rayna, the married mother of two young daughters, is dealing with her husband’s campaign for mayor of Nashville, funded largely by Rayna’s rich and corrupt father and plagued by a potentially disastrous scandal. In the first episode, Rayna’s manager suggests that she go on tour with Juliette Barnes, a young, autotuned country crossover artist played by Hayden Panetierre. Rayna refuses. Juliette, who’s kind of like a more sexed-up, wild child Taylor Swift, seems like an obnoxious brat at first—especially when she both hires and hits on Rayna’s bandleader and ex-boyfriend, Deacon— but she becomes more three-dimensional as we learn more about her terrible childhood with a junkie mother.

Rayna is a pretty great character, feisty but down-to-earth. Juliette is an interesting foil to her who, despite her flaws, is becoming more sympathetic by the week. However, I could do without the tertiary storyline entirely. This involves Deacon’s niece, Scarlett, an aspiring songwriter involved in a love triangle. Most of the Scarlett scenes bore me. And while this show is entertaining, let’s call a spade a spade—it’s a primetime soap.

But one thing that really sets it apart is the original music. It’s produced by T-Bone Burnett, who has been involved in most of the best country music of the 21st century. (I’m not a huge country music fan, but I do like it.) In one recent episode, Rayna and Juliette perform an original duet onstage together, and it’s a showstopper. In another, Rayna and Deacon sing a lovely, intimate love song in a small club together. I’ll be buying the soundtrack once it’s released.

Oh, yeah—and did I mention that the show was created by Callie Khouri, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise? Few people are better at writing female-driven entertainment, so there’s another reason to watch if you needed one.

The Mindy Project

I adore Mindy Kaling. I loved her on The Office and I loved her book, Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? I really had high hopes for her new show, but although I liked the pilot a lot, I’m pretty underwhelmed with where the show went from there. And it actually has nothing to do with Mindy’s character, who is awesome—it’s more that I can’t get interested in anyone else on the show.

Dexter

I’ve enjoyed this show since I started watching (it’s another one I caught up with on DVD). I like the dark humor and, although it’s a violent show about a serial killer, I find some parts of it weirdly touching. In the first season, there’s a flashback to when Dexter’s a kid and his father realizes that his son is a sociopath. His father teaches him how to channel his violent impulses toward people who deserve them, and says, in one of the most moving sentences I’ve ever heard on TV, “Remember this forever: you are my son, you are not alone, and you are loved.” And as the show goes on, it’s been interesting to see how Dexter, who at first thought he was incapable of love, clearly is able to feel love for others.

Season 6 started off promising but then went waaaay downhill, with a much-too-obvious reveal in the middle of the season and Deb creepily developing romantic feelings for Dexter. But then it kind of redeemed itself with Deb discovering Dexter’s secret at the end of the season. As of this writing, Season 7 has two episodes left, and it’s been pretty good, if unfocused, so far. Aside from the Deb finding out thing, there’s also LaGuerta getting suspicious of Dexter, a Ukranian mobster (who becomes more interesting when we find out that Dexter killed the man he was secretly in a relationship with) trying to kill Dexter, Dexter beginning a relationship with a pretty blonde murderer named Hannah, Quinn being an idiot by getting involved with a stripper who works for the aforementioned Ukranian mob, and Batista deciding out of nowhere to buy a restaurant. So I’m not quite sure where the last couple of episodes are going, although I do think they’ll be doing more with the idea that, contrary to what he used to believe, Dexter doesn’t really need to kill and maybe isn’t a sociopath at all.

As uneven as this show can be, one consistently awesome thing about it is Deb. WHY THE HELL DOES JENNIFER CARPENTER NEVER GET EMMY NOMINATIONS?! Deb has always been the best character on the show, hands-down. She’s a great foil for Dexter—while he’s always hiding something, Deb is hilariously obvious, blurting out whatever’s on her mind and dropping f-bombs every two seconds. And even when she’s given a ridiculous storyline like (ick) falling in love with her brother, Jennifer Carpenter acts the hell out of the role. I really hope that when Dexter ends, she gets her own show so that she can get the recognition she deserves.

American Horror Story

This is a freaking weird show. I watched the first season in October, since I like watching scary things around Halloween. It’s incredibly campy, over-the-top, and derivative (I can see influences of Frankenstein, Rosemary’s Baby, The Sixth Sense, What Lies Beneath, Carrie, Fatal Attraction, The Shining, and about a zillion other horror movie tropes), but somehow I could not look away. The first season involved a married couple (Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott) and their teenage daughter (Taissa Farmiga, the much-younger sister of Vera Farmiga) moving into a haunted house following a stillbirth and an affair. As it turns out, a shitload of people have died in the house. Now their ghosts cause all kinds of trouble there, and Jessica Lange, chewing scenery as the next-door neighbor from hell, causes a lot of trouble of her own. Connie Britton is great, providing some realism to even the most over-the-top plotlines, and Taissa Farmiga is excellent as the moody teenager Violet.

The second season is still airing now. This is an anthology series, so each season is basically its own miniseries. Season 2 reused a lot of the same actors but with a completely new setting (a 1960s insane asylum) and different characters. Unfortunately, after two episodes I couldn’t get into season 2 at all, so I’m not watching it. But the first season is worth a watch for horror movie fans.

The Voice

I’m still watching this season but am not quite as into it, honestly. I thought a lot of the best people went home before the live shows and my favorite who did make it to the live shows, Amanda Brown, just went home. I’m kind of indifferent about the four remaining singers, so at this point I’m just watching it for the coaches. Adam Levine, in particular, is cracking me up—his going off on a random tangent about how he hates The Roxy was pure gold.

 

Friday Night Lights

Man, between Nashville, American Horror Story, and this show, which I’m slowly working my way through on DVD, there is a lot of Connie Britton in my life right now. She is wonderful—although, does she ever play characters who aren’t warm and likeable?

Actually, Friday Night Lights was a show that was mostly about warm, likeable characters. Which is probably why, despite low ratings, this show managed to hang on for five years, two of which were spent on DirecTV. I’ve only seen Season 1 so far, but I’m looking forward to the rest of it. I feel like, contrary to recent trends in TV shows, it managed to pack a narrative punch while being quiet and subtle rather than over-the-top, and it’s refreshing to watch.

And speaking of shows that moved to DirecTV,

Damages

I’ve not yet seen Season 5, so don’t say anything about it in the comments! So far, this show seems to follow one awesome season with another kind of dull one. Season 1 was freaking amazing, but Season 2 couldn’t live up to the previous season. Season 3 didn’t reach Season 1 levels of brilliance, but was impressive enough to restore the show to glory. Sadly, Season 4, its first on DirecTV, just didn’t have an interesting enough season-long arc to hold my interest. But if the pattern keeps up, Season 5 should be much better. I guess I’ll find out soon.

How How I Met Your Mother Made Me Cry

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I’m probably going to be severely mocked for my next statement, but I’m going to make it anyway.

How I Met Your Mother has made me cry twice in the past five months.

I was a latecomer to this show—I didn’t start watching regularly until halfway through Season 5, and it’s now about to start its eighth season. Immediately, I started catching up with the show on DVD. While there are some sitcoms you can jump right into without watching from the beginning, this is not one of them.

For those of you who never got into the show, late or early, here’s a little background on it. HIMYM is one of the most narratively interesting shows on TV right now, full of flashbacks and flashforwards. The premise is that in the year 2030, Ted Mosby is telling his two teenaged kids the (very, very LONG) story of how he met their mother and all the crazy things that happened on the road there, including everything going on with his friends Marshall and Lily, respectively a lawyer and a kindergarten teacher who are engaged and later married; Barney, a slutty but weirdly charming (probably because he’s played by Neil Patrick Harris) playboy; and Robin, an ambitious TV reporter. We know from the first episode that the mother is not Robin, whom he dates for most of Season 2. We also get little clues along the way about who “the mother” is: she’s roommates with a girl Ted briefly dates, she’s at a bar on St. Patrick’s Day when Ted is also there and leaves behind a yellow umbrella which Ted takes home, when Ted accidentally walks into the wrong classroom on the first day as a professor she’s in that class, and they will someday meet at a wedding that we eventually find out is the wedding of Robin and Barney.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that the quality has declined as the show has gone on, which surprises me, because I don’t think that’s true at all—some episodes are better than others, but overall, I think the show is just as good as it’s always been. I love it for a lot of reasons—for one thing, I was always a big fan of Friends, and this show, also about a group of friends in New York, is the closest thing to Friends that’s currently on TV. I loved all of the main characters on Friends, and I love all five of these main characters, too. I also love how the show manages to capture succinctly so many truths about yuppiehood, coining phrases like “woo girl” and “revertigo.”

But I think a deeper reason why I love it so much is the feeling of hope that pervades it. No matter what happens to Ted, you know that in the end, he’s going to meet “the mother,” a woman he loves deeply and speaks of to his future children with obvious affection.

Which brings me to the two episodes that made me cry.

One was the season finale, where Marshall and Lily welcome their first child. As Ted muses about how his friends, whom he’s known since they did some stupid things in college, are now parents, he realizes that he himself is nowhere close to being a dad, and he doesn’t want it to be that way.

The other episode is an episode toward the end of the last season called “Trilogy Time.” It talks about how, since the year 2000, the guys have gotten together every three years to watch the Star Wars trilogy and imagine what their lives will be like three years in the future. The reality, of course, is always different. Ted, in 2009, thinks that if he hasn’t met his wife in three years, there’s something seriously wrong with him. When 2012 rolls around and he realizes that that still hasn’t happened, he thinks that something really is seriously wrong with him. But we see in the future that in 2015, Marshall and Barney good-naturedly complain about Ted bringing a girl to guys’ night, but are okay with it because “he loves her so much.” Then we see that the girl he brings to the trilogy watching isn’t his future wife, but his newborn daughter. And when they wonder if things will change much three years in the future, Ted says, “I hope not.”

Even upon second viewing, it made me tear up.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see why. At twenty-eight, not only am I still single, I have always been single. I really am starting to think that there is something seriously wrong with me, and realizing that although I want so badly to be a mom, I’m nowhere close to being one.

I wish I had that reassurance that three years from now, everything is going to be so much better. Yes, I do realize that TV is not real life—I am not one of those people who justify their relationship decisions because it worked out for Carrie on Sex and the City (and yes, I know people who actually do that). But even though this show is fictional, somehow watching it makes me hopeful.

Incidentally, I found today, totally by accident, this 2006 article, which is excerpted from a book called The Unhooked Generation by Jillian Straus. Intrigued, I requested an interlibrary loan for the book and will hopefully be reading it soon.

Then I did some Googling and discovered that while Jillian Straus was researching that book, which stemmed from her and her friends’ frustrations at their inability to find a romantic partner, she met the man who became her husband. You can read their story here.

So I haven’t met my future husband yet—at least, I don’t think I have. But it’s a dream I’m never giving up on, because nothing sounds better to me than reacting to the idea that things will change in three years with, “I hope not.”

How Not to Be a Snob

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I feel like lately, I see more and more people copping to being some kind of “snob.” Music snobs. Beer snobs. Wine snobs. Book snobs. TV snobs. Food snobs. Fitness snobs. And the thing is, they don’t even say it in an embarrassed, yeah-I-know-I-shouldn’t kind of way. They’re proud to be snobs. They are proud to look down on others.

So it’s time to make something clear here.

It’s okay to have likes and dislikes. It’s okay to have opinions.

It is not okay to be a snob. Ever. For any reason.

This is especially relevant now that Aaron Fucking Sorkin has come out with a new show that’s been blasted for using the same kind of snobbery that pissed me off so much when he tried it with Studio 60. As usual, if you don’t like it, you’re too stupid to get it—or, despite being  a reporter for a major newspaper, you’re a silly “Internet girl.” The fact that so many people defend what he says and does is what makes posts like this necessary.

So how do you know if you’re a snob or just expressing your opinion? It’s pretty easy. Let’s have a brief primer on what kinds of snobs there are and the things they say:

The Music Snob

One of the most infuriating kinds. You know those people—the ones who look down on you as a person if you like that overplayed pop song or that indie band who went too mainstream. The ones who consider pensive indie rock or less-mainstream classic rock the only music that matters. The ones who will tell you how wrong you are for listening to what you’re listening to. And 90% of the time, music snobs are people with no musical talent themselves. But they’re so good at listening, you guys! Their ears are so discriminating!

What it’s okay to say: “I actually don’t really like them. That one song gets on my nerves.”

“I did like them, but now they’re starting to annoy me.”

 

What it’s not okay to say: “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how anyone can listen to them.”

“See, this is what you shouldbe listening to.”

*eye roll* “Is this [non-snobby band]? Really?”

 

The Beer Snob

Here’s the thing: beer is inherently something not snobby. It’s the most popular alcoholic beverage in the world. Historically, it’s been a drink for the masses, for the common man. Some people don’t like it, but most people who aren’t teetotalers have tried it at some point.

So of course people felt like they had to invent reasons to feel superior for drinking beer. Microbrews! Craft beer! Light beer sucks! You’re an idiot for drinking Miller and Bud!

And the worst part is, they consume their pretentious obscure brew so fucking slowly, because they want to savor it and not, of course, because it actually tastes like crap, that it’s going to be awhile before they get so drunk they forget to keep putting up the snobby charade.

What it’s okay to say: “I don’t really like that beer…it tastes too watered-down to me.”

“Have you ever tried this? I’ve been getting into craft beer lately.”

What it’s not okay to say:  “I don’t know how you can drink that. You don’t think it tastes like shit?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t they have any good beer?”

The Wine Snob

This kind of snob has been around longer than the beer snob, and thankfully, it’s less culturally acceptable among people my age. You know exactly who these people are—people who, like the characters in Sideways, swirl the wine around in their glasses, stick their noses in to smell it before tasting, and go into monologues about the quality of the wine until people’s eyes glaze over. Save it for the country club dinner, dude.

What it’s okay to say: “I’ve been getting into wine tasting lately. It’s really interesting!”

 

What it’s not okay to say: Pretty much anything else. No one cares.

The Book Snob

Here’s where I should make something clear: there is a difference between snarking on something you don’t like and snarking on the people who enjoy that thing. On the TV front, I used to be a big fan of Television Without Pity, and on the book front, there’s nothing wrong with making fun of a particularly cringeworthy book. A few years ago, the Twilight series was the snark of choice, and now it seems like every other post on my Google Reader is about how much Fifty Shades of Gray sucks—Lorraine’sposts are especially funny. (For the record, I have never read Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray and don’t plan to.)

What’s not okay is making fun of the people who read those books—stereotyping them, insulting their intelligence—or telling people that they shouldn’t read it, like Joel Stein did with young adult books. I’ve seen a lot of photos begging people not to read Fifty Shades of Gray. But my feeling about this, which I’ve expressed before, is that at least they’re reading something—in an age when books have never been more threatened, why would you want to discourage people from reading?

What it’s okay to say: “Oh, my God, [plot point or badly written phrase] is so ridiculous.”

What it’s not okay to say: “Don’t listen to her—she’s just some idiot who likes Twilight.”

The TV Snob

This is an unusual one because it has nothing to do with what the snob likes and everything to do with what the snob dislikes: reality TV, Two and a Half Men, and sometimes just TV in general. It’s funny—people don’t generally get snobby about watching critically acclaimed shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, etc., but certain people will make sure to let you know what they think of you watching American Idol or Jersey Shore. I don’t think they realize that most people aren’t actually taking their reality shows that seriously. And if you’re one of those people who uses that tone to inform people that you don’t watch TV…um, kindly shut the fuck up. Contrary to what you may think, this makes you less interesting, not more.

 

What it’s okay to say: “I actually don’t have a TV. I just decided there were other things I’d rather spend my money on than cable.”

“I don’t really like reality shows. They’re all so staged.”

 

What it’s not okay to say: “Um, I don’t watch TV.”

“Um, I don’t watchreality shows.”

“You actually like that show?”

 

The Food Snob

There are about a million varieties of this one. There are the snobs who won’t eat in chain restaurants. The snobs who don’t eat junk food and make sure to let you know what they think of people who do. The snobs wholook down on you for eating meat. The snobs who look down on you for not eating organic. The snobs who look down on you for eating the healthy diet that you’re not forcing on anyone else.

Who really cares? This is a why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along kind of thing. You eat what you like, I’ll eat what I like, if we’re eating together we’ll figure out together what works for us. It’s really quite simple.

What it’s okay to say: “I don’t really like that restaurant. What about this one instead?”

“I’ve been trying to eat healthier—I found some really great organic recipes!”

What it’s not okay to say: “That is not food. How can you eat that?”

“You like Domino’s? Have you never had any other kind of pizza before?” (Side note: a friend of a friend actually said this to me once, and I kind of wanted to smack him.)

 

The Fitness Snob

So you work out. Great! You should be working out! You’re an inspiration to us all! But for the love of God, we do not need to hear about how much you work out and how we should all be doing it, too. Not everybody likes yoga or running or strength training. And those of us who do aren’t necessarily willing to run five miles at 6AM every day and then work out again at night. (So that I don’t sound bitter, I need to clarify that I’ve run two half marathons and am not averse to working out, just to hearing about how much other people do.) If someone asks you for workout tips, you give them—otherwise, you say nothing.

 

What it’s okay to say: “I’m really getting into running lately. It’s kind of addictive!”

“I’m really liking yoga. I feel great after I do it.”

What it’s not okay to say: “Oh, I feel so great after running five miles before work, like I do every day. Have you been working out lately?”

“The world would be a better place if everyone did yoga.” (I’ve mentioned this before, but someone actually said this to me at a party once.)

The Snobby Snob

Most people know better than to be this kind of snob, but some people have managed to surprise me. I had a roommate who went to Cornell and, like Andy on The Office, mentioned it every two seconds. His family had money and in his mind, anyone who didn’t come from a liberal, educated, East Coast background was probably stupid. The 2008 Democratic National Convention happened not long after I moved in, and when we watched this guy speak, after his great mention of how “we need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney,” my roommate said, “There’s no way he came up with that line himself.”

Yeah. I’m not even going to give examples of what to say and what not to say because, frankly, everyone should already know that.

I’m sure there are plenty of other kinds of snobs I haven’t mentioned. What other kinds of snobby things do people say that they shouldn’t?

Why The Voice Is Better Than American Idol

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I stopped watching American Idol after Season 9, and even during that I was losing enthusiasm. But I do like watching people sing, so when I watched The Voice season premiere after this year’s Superbowl, I was happy to discover that it’s better than AI in every way.

While they’re both singing talent competitions, the formats are completely different. We all know AI’s—auditions before the judges, Hollywood week, then weekly performance rounds voted on by America. The first round of The Voice is somewhat different. The singers do “blind auditions” where the four coaches (Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Blake Shelton, and Adam Levine of Maroon 5) listen to the song with their backs turned. If they like what they hear, they press a button which turns their chair around, and if more than one judge presses the button, the singer gets to choose which team to be on. The coach of the team will mentor the singers on it. Coming up soon are the “Battle Rounds” where singers compete against each other by singing the same song at the same time, followed by rounds where the public votes.

Remember Goofus and Gallant from those Highlights magazines you read as a child? (By the way, I recently read a Highlights in a waiting room, and it has changed very little.) Well, AI = Goofus with less fun, and The Voice = Gallant with less annoying-ness. Let’s take a look:


American Idol has uncomfortable, obnoxious, bad auditions. Once in awhile you get a bad audition that doesn’t seem staged and doesn’t make you cringe with its awkwardness, but they’re few and far between. At first, the bad auditions got some attention at AI, but I think at this point most people just want to see the good ones. There’s nothing entertaining about someone being told that he or she has no talent and being subjected to extremely public ridicule.


The Voice only asks people who are actually talented to appear on TV. No one who makes it to the blind auditions is a bad singer—some are just better than others, and there’s actually an element of suspense regarding whether or not the singer will advance. When a singer doesn’t make it through, the coaches are nevertheless very encouraging and offer constructive criticism rather than insults.


American Idol tries to fit people into boxes. You can’t do anything too far outside the current music mainstream, and singers who are overweight or not conventionally attractive always get comments about “image issues.” The judges constantly muse about how singers would fit in on the current music charts, giving no consideration to the idea that people might like them the way they are. No one over the age of twenty-nine can audition.


The Voice works with all different kinds of singers. This season, along with the usual pop, rock, country, and R&B singers, there’s an opera singer and an MC, among others. A lot of times, they are people who are outside the music industry mainstream and auditioned for The Voice in hopes that they could finally be themselves. One singer, Nicolle Galyon, is hoping to bring piano into country music. (Now that I think about it, why isn’t there any piano in country music?) The opera singer, Chris Mann, says that he’s always been told to “shrink his voice down to size,” but doesn’t want to do that anymore. The blind auditions ensure that the judges aren’t thinking about an artist’s look rather than sound, and there is no upper age limit—one contestant this year, Kim Yarbrough, is fifty years old.


American Idol has judges who are now most famous for American Idol, or who peaked a long time ago. Had you ever heard of Simon Cowell or Randy Jackson before AI? And how long ago was Paula Abdul last relevant as an artist?


The Voice has four coaches who are relevant and current now, and they represent many different genres. There’s a reason why it’s often hard for contestants to choose between coaches—and watching the coaches bickering when more than one of them turns around (“I turned around first!” “My team won last year!”) is half the fun.


American Idol does not have openly gay contestants. It’s a show that’s very popular in red states, so while I’m not sure whether the show discourages the contestants from outing themselves or whether they choose not to, either way, they’re not free to be themselves. While Adam Lambert had a boyfriend while he was a contestant, he never mentioned it on the show. There have been other gay contestants, but none of them have mentioned it on the air.


The Voice has had openly gay contestants in both of its seasons. This season, I can think of two off the top of my head—Erin Martin, whose girlfriend came with her to the blind audition, and Sarah Golden, an out folk singer who has had trouble making it in the music industry due to her unwillingness to feminize her appearance. I didn’t watch last season, but four of the contestants then were openly gay, including Vicci Martinez, who came in third and landed a record deal.

It’s easier for contestants on The Voice to be out in other ways, too. Do you remember Danny Gokey’s friend Jamar Rogers, who auditioned with him on AI but didn’t make it past Hollywood week? AI’s narrative focused on Danny’s wife’s death, but it turns out that Jamar’s backstory is just as interesting. Now that he’s on The Voice, we got to hear it: he’s a former meth addict who has been homeless and is HIV-positive, but has been clean for six years and volunteers with an organization that helps fellow HIV patients. In an interview with him that I read, he said that on AI, he wasn’t comfortable revealing his HIV status, but I’m glad that The Voice didn’t hide that part of his life.


American Idol tries to pretend that it provides an opportunity for people waiting tables or singing to the cows on the farm, ignoring that many of their contestants have actually been toiling at the fringes of the music industry for years.


The Voice is frank about being a second (or third, or fourth) chance for many of its contestants. I actually have one song from Charlotte Sometimes, one of this year’s singers, in my iTunes already. Tony Lucca used to be on The Mickey Mouse Club with Christina Aguilera. Jordis Unga was formerly a contestant on Rock Star: INXS. Tony Vincent has appeared on Broadway, and Jermaine Paul was a backup singer for Alicia Keys. I like this aspect of the show—it’s not easy to make it in the music industry, and people are often rejected for reasons that have nothing to do with their talent. I like that the show gives people who deserve to be heard another chance.


American Idol does not have any animals.


The Voice has Cee Lo’s pissed-off-looking white cat, Purrfect, whom he’s always holding in his talking heads:

Need I say more? Gallant has kicked Goofus’s ass. If you’ve stopped watching American Idol, it’s time to start watching The Voice instead.

Katie Recommends: Downton Abbey

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Right before the second season premiered in the US last month, I started hearing about Downton Abbey everywhere, kind of the way Mad Men was suddenly everywhere before its second season. So I decided to check it out.

I learned my lesson about blogging about shows before the season finale—The Killing’s season finale was so bad it soured me on the whole show and I probably won’t watch Season 2. Happily, I can’t say the same of Downton Abbey, whose second season finished just as I got caught up with the show.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a quick crash course. Downton Abbey is a large estate in England inhabited by Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham; his American wife Cora; their three young adult daughters, Mary, Edith, and Sybil; Robert’s mother Violet; a cute yellow Lab named Isis; and a whole army of servants. The first season starts out in the spring of 1912 as the Titanic has just sunk. Unfortunately, the heir to the estate, their cousin Patrick, is killed in the shipwreck. Patrick was unofficially engaged to the eldest daughter Mary, therefore ensuring that she would inherit the estate despite an entail prohibiting her from doing so because she is a woman. With Patrick dead, they have to track down the new heir—a distant cousin named Matthew who works as a lawyer. That would be nothing to sneeze at for most of us, but for English aristocrats one hundred years ago, even an upper middle class working man is light years away from what they’re used to.

Nevertheless, Matthew and his widowed, former nurse mother, Isobel, move onto the property at Downton. While there are some clashes initially, and while Matthew and Mary get off on the wrong foot, Matthew becomes a part of the family. Matthew and Mary eventually develop a friendship that may become more, and may save Mary from a scandal she has found herself in.

By Season 2, however, World War I has rolled around and things have changed. The old societal order seems less important, and barriers are being broken down. What it will mean when the war is over is less clear.

That was all purposely vague to avoid spoilers, but trust me, there is a LOT to love about this show. The characters, for one, are wonderfully interesting and sympathetic. Maggie Smith as Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, steals every scene she’s in. She’s such a snob, but you know that she loves her family beneath it all, and she comes up with such brilliant one-liners. When a character she doesn’t like tells her that she won’t be seeing him again, she replies, “Do you promise?” When Sybil starts getting involved in politics, Mary comments that Sybil is entitled to her opinion, to which the Countess retorts, “No, she is not entitled to her opinion until she gets married, and then her husband will tell her what her opinion is!” When she and Isobel quarrel over something Isobel thinks she has done, the Countess defends herself, ending with, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

Despite him being way too old for me, I have a bit of a crush on the Earl. He’s warm and gentle and very proud of his family and his estate, taking his role as caretaker of Downton Abbey seriously. He treats his family and his servants with kindness, often reserving judgment on people who have made mistakes, and despite the concern for rank that permeates the world he lives in, he wants above all for those he loves to be happy. He’s certainly not perfect—he can be stubborn and set in his ways and towards the end of Season 2 he does something that made me yell at the TV, but whenever he messes up, he immediately feels guilty and tries to right his wrong as soon as possible. He is a gentleman in every sense of the word.

It has been a long time since I have shipped a couple as much as I have shipped Matthew and Mary. Mary is terrified of what she does not know, and her decisions concerning relationships always revolve around this uncertainty. But she does love Matthew, and their scenes together are wonderfully romantic and sweet. Also, Matthew is quite attractive.

While Mary is afraid of change, the youngest daughter, Sybil, wholeheartedly embraces it. She gets involved with women’s rights in the first season, and when World War I rolls around, not content to sit idly by, she becomes a nurse to take care of wounded soldiers. In Season 2, she begins a romance widely considered taboo. She’s a beautiful, kind, wealthy young woman who could have anyone she wanted, but she is willing to give up the life she’s always known for love.

The middle daughter, Edith, is kind of a bitch but is starting to grow on me. She has a contentious relationship with her older sister Mary, and she does something so awful to Mary in Season 1 that it’s impossible to sympathize with her. But it’s easy to feel bad for her for other reasons. While Mary was engaged to Patrick, it was Edith who loved him and mourned his death the most. I think she has a bit of middle-child syndrome, and as the least attractive of the sisters, no one expects much from her. Her parents even comment at one point that she’ll probably not marry and instead take care of them in their old age.

The narrative focuses about equally on the aristocrats upstairs and the servants downstairs. The mild-mannered valet, John Bates, can’t seem to catch a break, as his past misfortunes keep coming back to haunt him. His ongoing relationship with a maid named Anna is so sweet, and you keep rooting for them despite all the obstacles they face.

There are all kinds of interesting characters among the servants, too: Carson, the professional and fiercely devoted butler; Thomas, the evil gay footman who is always causing trouble somewhere; O’Brien, the lady’s maid who is usually plotting along with Thomas; Daisy, the honest-to-a-fault and easily frightened kitchen maid; and Branson, the highly political chauffeur who strongly influences Sybil. These are just some of the servants we meet, and the personal, romantic, and family issues they all face often parallel what is going on with the family they serve.

The 1910s and 1920s are such an interesting period in history that I’m surprised there isn’t more historical fiction about that time. As the study of modernism in eleventh-grade English class taught me, it was an era where the world was changing in so many ways—women’s rights, socialism, a changing map of Europe. One theme we see gradually emerging over the course of the show is the breakdown of the traditional class structure and people looking to break out of the boxes they’ve been born into. In the first season, it’s a bit more subtle—an upper middle-class lawyer potentially inheriting a large estate, a maid dreaming of getting a job as a secretary instead—but after the war, it is visible on a larger scale. Servants try out alternate roles as many of the men go off to war, Sybil works as a nurse, Edith learns to drive a tractor in the absence of men to do that work, and romances that once seemed forbidden are suddenly possible. As the soldiers in the war find out, bullets and bombs aren’t concerned with social class out on the battlefield.

And on a shallow note? THE CLOTHES. Oh, my God, the clothes.

I covet these women’s wardrobes. If I’ll never be able to spend my days traipsing around a beautiful estate, reading, spending time with friends, and meeting attractive men, as these women do before the war, can I at least get to wear beautiful dresses like these?

The show certainly isn’t perfect. It’s a soap opera, plain and simple, and occasionally the plots get a bit ridiculous or predictable. There are also times when one storyline gets too much attention or when we should see more of another story to be able to understand it better, and one character introduced in the second season is so one-dimensional that her motivations are difficult to understand. But the acting is universally wonderful and, above all, at the end of each episode you truly feel that you have traveled to another world. What more could you want out of a TV show?