Thursday, January 28, 2010

Failure and Guilt (and mid-season Breakups and New Flings)

I have utterly failed at totally catching up on Lost. It was an ambitious undertaking, and was technically possible, but I just did not have the right combination of free time and drive to accomplish it. This makes me very sad, but in the grand scheme of things to fail at, it isn't, shall we say, an important thing to worry about. I will, however, eventually try to watch all of it. I'm not sure how this is going to effect the start of the final season next week and my desire to view it. I would need to get up to speed by viewing some of the handy online Lost recaps and tutorials before then to fill in the gaps between what I've seen and what I haven't gotten to yet. Do I get by on the recaps and plunge in and be part of this final season awesomeness as it happens? Do I deserve to enjoy the final season as it unfolds, being only a bandwagon jumper at the last minute? I will have to work out these feelings before next week!

More Lost related guilty feelings, shows I've dumped recently, and new flings after the jump...

So, the Lost project was a failure. I have my excuses, of course: I am taking classes in addition to working full-time, and in the past few months decided to buy a condo, so I have additional responsibilities which should, in theory, trump TV-watching. But to be honest, I still have been watching plenty of TV.



What I feel guilty about, and I do realize this is absurd, was that some of my free TV time was used to.... gasp! ... CHEAT.


I watched OTHER TV. And not just any other TV. I watched more Enterprise. So, I cheated on Lost with my old flame. To tell the truth, Lost is only a detour from Star Trek. Star Trek and I were more on a break to explore other relationships. And in times of stress I found myself occasionally going back to Star Trek for comfort. And the worst part of it is that I compromised my principles in my relationship with Enterprise, too. My plan, of course is to watch it all in order. But a few weeks ago, during the holidays, I was feeling a little lonely. It was the holiday hiatus, so not much regular TV was on as a casual diversion. I had some time off work. The nights were cold and dark. I found myself looking up which Enterprise episodes had certain characters developing a relationship, which though I hadn't seen the episodes yet, of course, I knew about already. As luck would have it, many of them were hanging out on my DVR, and one thing led to another...



As for regular TV-watching (by that I usually mean stuff that is currently running, not stuff I'm catching up with on DVD or syndication via DVR), I've decided to finally break it off completely with Brothers & Sisters. The family dynamics no longer had enough humor and lightness to outweigh their insufferable attitudes and stupid drama. I think this breakup was inevitable as long as the creepy Rebecca/Justin relationship moved forward, and the introduction of new creepy emo-Walker half-sibling Ryan, but Kitty and the Senator + adopted baby plot device + cancer? I'm done. I think I watched part of the first episode this season and just never found myself coming back to it.



Also, rather unexpectedly, Desperate Housewives and I have drifted apart. It was never a very intense relationship, but rather out of pleasant convenience. What else was I usually doing Sunday nights? But since the fall airplane crash cliff-hanger, I haven't tuned back in. The episodes are sitting on my DVR, just in case I feel like catching up, but I can't guarantee they won't be bumped off in favor of space for other things.



I do have a new interest, which I came by unexpectedly. A few weeks ago, I caught a Saturday rerun of Castle [beware of ABC's automatic video on loading]. When the show premiered mid-season last year, I was intrigued, but did not end up watching it. I've been reluctant to add more shows to my regular viewing, since, again, I should prioritize real-life responsibilities, so I didn't put in effort to watch it, even though I knew it had the awesome Nathan Fillion. But it was on and, to extend my creepy dating metaphor even further, this show is TOTALLY MY TYPE. I have a thing, very apparently, for shows that are procedural in format but have a lot of character development, with the evolution of a trusting platonic relationship with sustained but very controlled sexual-tension between the two, smart, confident main characters. (Examples: The X-Files, Bones). Another characteristic of these shows that I fall for are that they have great secondary characters, who are sometimes quirky but are always well-developed (The Lone Gunmen and many others on The X-Files, the Squints on Bones). Castle seems to fit the bill pretty well. I loved Susan Sullivan when she was on Dharma and Greg, and she's fabulous as Castle's sort of snarky but supportive mom.



So, that's the state of things on my TV for now.



P.S. I can't help but use the extended TV-relationship metaphor. Sorry. I know it is silly and a little creepy.



P.P.S. I have used the word "creepy" a lot in this post. Sorry about that, too.

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