I can’t believe we were on vacation a total three days and somehow have an overflowing PVR again, after finally catching up from our last vacation.
Clearly, being a TV couch potato is a full-time job that allows for no time off. At least not during sweeps month.
So I officially hate So You Think You Can Dance (US) being on in the fall, when it’s so busy, instead of the summer, when it’s almost the only thing on and you can bask in it. Now I can’t keep up with it and can’t get into it. And having the judges make the selections for the first two weeks (due to the gods of baseball) was just weird.
What I have managed to get into? Battle of the Blades! I thought it would be sort of a joke, but those guys have turned into pretty decent figure skaters there. I’m impressed.
And it was very nice to see Ron Duguay again. Very nice.
And on Being Erica—is the idea that she is going to turn into a therapist? Because it sure seems as though everyone around her is a lot more messed up than she is, now. Well, except for that apparent sexual incompatibility she’s having with Ethan. Which I must say I found incredibly frank for a network show. (Or even a cable show—I don’t recall that even Sex and the City dealt with quite that situation…)
And the Glee soundtrack turns out to be best in smaller doses, or you end up feeling sort of overwhelmed by the cheese. It’s also missing some of the best stuff, like the two mash-ups, and “Push It”. (Of course, you can buy those songs individually.) But with some nice chasers of authentic music in between (a little Who, a little Joni, a little Johnny Cash), it’s kind of great. Though still a bit alarming to get such warm feelings about songs like “Can’t Fight This Feeling”.
A hazard of going on vacation when all the new fall shows are starting, and the summer fill-in shows aren’t quite done, is that you come home to heck of a lot of recordings on the PVR. We’re still trying to catch up, not much aided by the fact that every day, new episodes get added.
But here are a few thoughts on what we have managed to watch.
Best new show: Glee
Of course, this post will also reveal Glee is almost the only new show we’ve managed to watch, which perhaps diminishing that “Best” label. Still, we do like it a lot. Both of us, which is getting rare. It’s funny, wonderfully absurd (I particularly like that the cheerleaders always wear their cheerleading outfits to everything, no matter what), often touching, and will have a great soundtrack album.
New show I intended to watch but haven’t: Flashback
Though if I ever get around to it, I’ll be able to see all episodes in one marathon weekend, as they’re all stacked up on the PVR there. Anyone see this? Worth my time at all?
New show I was supposed to be offended by, but wasn’t: Cougartown
I don’t know; I just thought it was kind of funny. But after the first episode, just haven’t had the time or space to tape it again.
Old show I finally managed to drop: Grey’s Anatomy
Thank you, Katherine Heigl, for coming back to work on this show, thus freeing up my Thursday nights. Though I have to admit to being a little intrigued by the commercial for tonight’s episode. Who’s getting fired? Wait, who are all those characters? I don’t recognize half of them.
Show I’ve dropped for the time being: So You Think You Can Dance [USA]
Couldn’t do it—couldn’t watch both this and So You Think You Can Dance Canada. And since the US one is dragging out the audition episodes (to free up people for the Canadian show?), and since I can actually vote in the Canadian one, that’s the only one I’m watching now.
I’ve actually been pretty impressed at Canada’s voting taste. I’m OK with whoever wins the title. There is no Evan (or Cody) here.
Show we’re wondering about dropping: Bones
I watch for the characters; Jean watches for the plots; we’re both feeling kind of disappointed. Me, I’m particularly tired of them thinking that I’m desperate for Bones and Booth to get together. Get together, don’t get together; I don’t care—just stop dealing with it so much. I find the other characters more interesting, anyway.
Most strangely addictive show: Mad Men
It’s slow and understated and most of the characters are awful and some of the best characters have left the firm and… I love it. I’m totally drawn in. Three more episodes this season. Where do we go from here?
Tuesday, I went to see So You Think You Can Dance Canada—live, at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. The friends and I were expecting that it would be us (the cougars?) and thousands of screaming teenage girls, but it was remarkably diverse audience. Lots of little kids, older people—all ages, really. And though it definitely skewed female, it wasn’t really so hard to “spot the dude”.
The show itself was a lot of fun. They redid many of the favourite dances from the season, broken up with some video montages from the show, some introductions by the dancers themselves (there was no MC). Now, some numbers didn’t come off quite as well as they did on TV; you could see the strain more, somehow. But other performances looked even better, even more impressive, in person. My faves Vincent and Lisa were particularly awe-inspiring, but I was also newly impressed with Danny in his solo, Izaak and Caitlan acquitted themselves very well in their “Breaking dishes” number, and the second half was packed with favourites—the mirror number (Lisa and Miles), the angel number (Nico and Arassay), Nico and Natalli’s quick step.
And these are pretty people! We had good seats—not right in the floor area, where views may have been blocked, but close enough to see well. Still, I did bring the binoculars, and did whip them out at times, maybe particularly when “Canada’s favorite dancer” was in the spotlight. (Lady beside me also had binoculars, and I became amused at our nearly synchronized moves to raise them at each “Nico time”.) Very nice. Very fit—everyone very fit. (I should really get off the computer and work out.)
Next evening, I headed out to the Galaxy cinema for a showing of The Who Live at the Isle of Wight. Given my recent obsession (somewhat abated, but not exactly gone), I felt I couldn’t miss this one, presented in honour of the film’s release on DVD Blu-Ray.
Unlike the packed Copps Coliseum, very small crowd for this one… Not that it really mattered.
I have excerpts from this concert on some of my DVDs, but I’d never seen the whole thing. It’s from a 1970 show, and features a similar line-up to the Live at Leeds album: Starts off with “Heaven and Hell” (which I somehow hadn’t realized featured John on lead vocals); includes “Can’t Explain”, “My Generation,” “Magic Bus”; and includes ones of those awesome “remixed live” things that they did then, this one built off the little-known song “Water” [or “Wa-da”, as they say in Philadelphia, as Daltrey deadpanned].
And, as on Leeds, a run-through of Tommy, though not in its entirety.
I felt very Who fan-ish through the first song and a bit, as I couldn’t stop thinking, “It’s just not loud enough. We’re losing all the harmonics!” Then, indeed, the sounds became much louder and fuller—clearly, the thing had started on the wrong sound setting. From that point on, it did sound very good.
It looked… Well, the camera-work was weird. All these little close-ups. Pete’s head. Moon’s back. Entwistle’s fingers. You’re left kind of craving an overview, a panorama. I was thinking maybe that was the limitations of 1970’s film techology, but I read a review at the time that suggested it was just bad camerawork. And was correcting in saying that we did see too much of the audience. Though it was somewhat amusing how they cut to drinkin’, tokin’ audience members during the “Hey you getting drunk / Hey you smokin’ mother nature” parts of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.
Overall, very worth seeing on the big screen, especially since I don’t have a Blu-Ray, nor even a big-screen TV.
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