Summer Watch List

So, as you may have noticed, it is summer.  And aside from a time where some of us like to engage in this little-known activity called reading, it is also a time when the cable networks put out some of their best shows.  So what have I been watching?  Not Breaking Bad.  But lots of other things!

Episodes

I'll admit that I've already finished Season 2 of Episodes.  Much like Downton Abbey, it airs in the UK months before it comes to the States, and so it's easy to find links online.  And so even though I only started watching the season last weekend, I'm already done.  The reason for this is that it's SO EFFING GOOD.  Literally everything about this show is fantastic, but especially the actors.  Matt LeBlanc continues to be great at playing a parody of himself, and Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan are always brilliant as the transplanted British writers/producers, but this season gave more of the spotlight to the supporting actors, and Kathleen Rose Perkins shines like a goddamn star.  Her portrayal of Carol is at once pathetic and empowering; infuriating and endearing; hilarious and sad.  She's taken the character from the one-note Rigid Studio Executive and turned Carol into someone we root for and whose motives we come to understand.  And she's just SO fucking funny.  John Pankow as the studio head Merc Lapidus is a comedic gem, and Genevieve O'Reilly as his blind wife Jamie plays her role with a quiet subtlety that'll make you laugh out loud (as two characters are fighting and chaos erupts amongst the cast, she just keeps yelling, "What's going on???!!!").  Daisy Haggard as the erstwhile, clueless exec with the weird moaning voice steals every single scene she's in and Joseph May as Andy Button is the type of character who would eat a popsicle made of shit if you told him it was fudge - while smiling.  I honestly can't pick a favorite character because I love them all, and I didn't mean to brush past Greig and Mangan because they carry the show, and both actors' abilities to transform from glib to gutwrenching in the blink of an eye is astounding.  They grab you by the heartballs, and just won't let go.

Anyway, not to give anything away, but the season finale is one of my favorite moments of comedy of the entire year.  There're only nine episodes, so get watching and seriously, don't miss out on this show.

My Favorite Things

I have a problem with "Best Of" lists. I'm not very good at ranking things, and the end of the year always brings these lists where one thing is often ranked above or below a different, almost incomparable thing. Why must I decide which is my absolute favorite? I've been watching a lot of Arrested Development lately, as I am wont to do at this time of year, and I love it so much - but I can't say I love it more or less than something else...I have enough love to go around! Television and I have a polyamorous relationship. So here are my favorite shows, moments, people, and things from 2011, in absolutely no particular order.

I Went To Yosemite, Maybe You Saw Me There?

I was the one riding a mule in lime green leggings.

Anyway, that is why I've been absent for eons...well, that, and the fact that I am now working three jobs AND attempting to study for the GRE in a few weeks AND supposedly also applying to grad school even though I haven't really started on any applications yet because of jobs and hiking and studying and all of that. But I'm going to, I promise. Additionally, there hasn't really been any significant tv to talk about, and I know I'm gonna have crazy work ahead of me real soon what with it being premiere season and all, so some slack is gonna have to be cut. Don't think I don't wish I could just write in here all day about what a dick Gay Ryan Reynolds is being on Project Runway, because that's the dream, friends.

(A terrible, tiny, total dick, in case you were wondering.)

I will try my best to keep writing about what interests me, and doing recaps for whatever shows I decide to recap, but I'll warn you right now: there are almost no new shows on the networks' fall schedules that interest me very much. That Ben Linus show. Alcatraz. POSSIBLY that show with Kat Dennings or that show with Will Arnett. And that's it. I'll be keeping my ear to the ground to try and find something that's any good, but I'm afraid that the disparity between quality television and terrible television is following the same exponential growth pattern as the wealth gap. I know that nobody else misses Mr. Sunshine because nobody else watched it, but it was great and I miss it a lot and can only imagine how much better it would have fared with a fall premiere instead of a shitty mid-season horn-in. Anyway, I'll still be watching all my shows from last year, and I can't wait for the new seasons of Parks & Recreation and Community. The Office....ehhhhhh, not so much, but we'll talk about that when we get to it. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the finales of Wilfred and Louie (I did, but not as much as I enjoyed other episodes from earlier in both seasons) and that, like me, you are using this much-needed television lull to FINALLY start watching The Wire (which is pretty awesome and very cynical and while not yet as perfect as some might have led me to believe, still very entertaining and smart). Despite my busy schedule, I am here to stay, do not worry! I know you were SO worried.