What Is Bea Watching This Television Season?

...Because I know you were all wondering. It's the question on everyone's (no one's) minds! Believe it or not, I don't feel like I watch a lot of television. I despise having shows meted out to me on a weekly basis and then pulled for months at a time. IT ANNOYS ME A LOT. I really prefer to mainline a show on DVD, but then I miss out on discussing it with with everyone else and reading reviews and articles, etc.

Returning Shows

• The Walking Dead. Dude. Zombies. Come on. I agree with everyone else who says that season one had an pretty awesome pilot and then the rest...kinda...sucked? It was very uneven. There were parts that were cool (the zombie attack on the camp, the showdown at the CDC) and parts that sucked (Um. The rest), but I was still curious enough to pop in for season two. It's better that the first season. I know that seems like faint praise, but it really is better. Some of the existing problems from season one are still around, like the pacing issues (Either kill Sophia off or fucking find her. LIKE, YESTERDAY), they still don't really know how to handle the Lori/Shane/Rick triangle (Lori and Shane need to come clean - they aren't really at fault, they truly thought Rick was dead and who could blame them - and then they have a threeway relationship. Shit. It's the zombie apocalypse. Have a threeway. Who cares?), and I still don't feel like they've really found their own internal logic and rules for their particular zombie apocalypse. They sure don't treat it like a biological contagion, what with everyone unconcernedly getting zombie goo on them all the time, but it's clearly communicable through bites, so what the fuck? SO. ANYWAY. The Walking Dead: better than last season, for real. The Shane twist was pretty great and I'm hoping it gets that character (who has potential and I like the actor) out of that rut (PUN SO INTENDED) that he's been in. The show needs to figure out some cool shit to do with Glenn, and either do something with Andrea or kill her off. While she's got a point re: Dale's paternalism, her incessant whinging about it drives me crazy. (The show, in general, kind of doesn't know what do with women. Are there any women on that writing staff? If not, fucking hire some.) Of course, I also watch The Talking Dead, because I love Chris Hardwick.
  
• Criminal Minds. I slacked off last season because the firing of 66.6666667% of the female cast members REALLY pissed me off. And apparently it pissed everyone else off because, OH LOOK! They brought Emily and JJ back because the most important thing about this show is the chemistry of the cast! Imagine that! So, I'm back. Spencer Reid is still pretty.
• Sons of Anarchy. Oh God, I hated the Ireland story last season SO MUCH. I, um, didn't watch the last three or so episodes because it was so painfully annoying. It's better this season. (Sensing a theme? Heh.)
• Community. I'm not a regular watcher. I pop in from time to time, mostly to see if Joel McHale will take his shirt off or if a piano will fall on Chevy Chase. ...What?

New (To Me) Shows

• Parks & Recreation. Oh, this is such a gem of a show, you guys. I love it! It's so...good-natured. Every time I wait for it to get awkward and cringe-inducing (like The Office), it almost never does! I love all the characters SO much. Leslie Knope! Is there another character like her on television? AND I LOVE RON SWANSON. RON. I AM DARK-HAIRED AND NOT-ENTIRELY-UNATTRACTIVE AND CAN PREPARE YOU BREAKFAST FOODS!!! MARRY ME.

New Shows

• Homeland. This is a really, really great show. Damian Lewis and Claire Danes are AMAZING in their roles and the supporting cast is awesome too. I like how unflinching and harsh it is. I love that I'm never entirely sure what's going on, who I can believe, if I can ever accept what I see in flashbacks. So. Great.
  
• American Horror Story. It's...just..so...INCREDIBLY BATSHIT B-A-N-A-N-A-S INDULGENTLY CRAZY. And I love that about it. I know a lot of people were put off by the pilot (and I don't entirely blame them) but I was strangely flattered by how over-the-top it was. "Aw, show! You really want me to like you! It's like a first date and you've brought flowers AND candy AND perfume! Aww. You've thrown dead babies, adultery, bare asses, a guy in a shiny gimp suit, Dead!Fake!Weasley twins, and Jessica Lange acting like she's a lost Tennessee Williams heroine. You get another episode!" I love Lange, Connie Britton, Taissa Farmiga and the kid who plays Tate. It's not...good, but BOY, is it entertaining. Do I think it's going to crash and burn? Probably. But it sure is fun while it lasts.
  
• Revenge. I do really like Revenge but it's up against about a million other things. I usually catch up with it on Hulu. It's everything that Ringer SHOULD be, but isn't: super-fun and soapy and trashy.
  

Shows That I Have Broken Up With

• Glee. I would probably keep watching Glee if they ONLY sang and danced. I realized that I found every character (Except for Kurt and Blaine) hugely annoying anytime they actually spoke.
• Supernatural. This was awhile ago, but ugh. I just got sick of its bullshit.
  
• True Blood. The show that I want it to be is not the show that it is. And the show that it is isn't one I'm really very interested in watching.
• Dexter. I still really like this show, I just got too far behind (I missed all of last season). Maybe I'll catch up on DVD.
  
• Ringer. I only lasted two episodes. Sorry, Sarah Michelle Gellar. I love you, but I kind of hated this show.
  

Shows I Intend To Keep Watching

• The Wire. SOMEDAY, YOU GUYS. I have to get through seasons four and five.
• Fringe. I tried to jump into season four, not having watched season three. And. Um. No. Not possible. I'm DVRing season four to watch after I grab the last season on DVD.
• Sherlock. WHEN WILL I GET MORE? I neeeed it, you guys.
  
• Game of Thrones. Though the second season should be called A Clash of Kings. /pedant
• Breaking Bad. I'm hoping to use the year's hiatus before the final season to catch up on the whole thing.
  
• Mad Men. Whenever it comes back.
  

What are you watching this season? What are you NOT watching?

So...What Have You Been Up To Lately?

Who, me? Well, lately I've been a bit busy. Sid and Andie had their third child at the end of last month! Another boy who we will call New Baby because that is what his older brothers Conan and Mothra call him. And I find that HILARIOUS. So, I was out there visiting them. We had fun playing Wii late at night. As ever, both Sid and Andie TROUNCED me at Tetris. But I railed them both at Mario Bros. so that was a good time. And they made me watch several episodes of Blackadder and I fell in LOVE with the show and um...Rowan Atkinson. No one told me that he is stone-cold foxy in the second series of that show. It was quite shocking!

Mame has some delightful news for you all, but I'll let her tell you when she gets a chance!

I've been devouring movies, television and books lately. Here's a quick round-up (Another blog post concerning my most recent obsession will follow shortly):

• Iron Man 2: loved it. I thought it was better than the first film! I'm not notably a Scarlet Johansson fan but that scene where she walks down that hallway, KICKING ASS almost had me in tears at it's awesomeness.
  
• The Ghost Writer: it was fine. A nifty, well-crafted little thriller. Ewan McGregor showed his ass, AS USUAL. If you can square it with your conscience to go see a Roman Polanksi film, check it out.
  
• Twilight and New Moon with the RiffTrax commentary. OH MY GOD. HILARITY. I highly, highly recommend them. I watched it with Sorcha and a bunch of friends and my stomach hurt from laughing.
• Just read the latest Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead in the Family and it was awesome as usual. Could have been filthier though. Alas. I can't wait for the next season of the show.
  
• I'm currently reading an awesome zombie book called Feed by Mira Grant. Love, love, LOVE it. I'm about halfway through and if you like zombies, and really. Who doesn't? Check it out.
  
• Treme, Justified and Doctor Who continue to be great.
• Michael Sheen continues to be hot.

What have you been watching/reading/devouring lately?

So. Um. Wow, Where Does The Time Go?

Oh, I'll TELL you where it goes...it goes into Facebook, the world's biggest time suck ever. Seriously, if there is an American Gods-ish Facebook god, I am keeping it very well-fed. I blame Mame for this. Apparently, everyone I've ever met in my life is on there. Good times.

Hmmm...what's been going on around here? Made it back from vacation with the family on the Outer Banks. Hey, did you know that the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is 23 miles long? A little PSA from me to you. So that when you are driving across it, you won't look around to see your car entirely surrounded by water with no end in sight and ask your mother, "Uh...how long IS this thing*?" to have her airily say, "Oh, 20 miles?" You're welcome! Actually, it was sort of fun, like driving a roller coaster.

It's very pretty on the Outer Banks. A bit buggy this year. Everyone from the island seemed extremely apologetic about that fact. I was all, "Whatev, I'm from Jersey, as least these mosquitos doesn't give you mutant superpowers, AMIRITE?!"

I got a large proportion of my family watching True Blood. My mom brought her season 1 DVDs down and I hectored Bri into watching them because Bri, as she would say, "loves that hot vampire shit." Yeah, I don't want to know either. She loved it: predictable. Not so predictable? My uncles Claudius and Jazz and teenage cousin *** (Because I am TOTALLY blanking on a nome de blog for him right now. Someone help me out with that?) were all into it too. Heh.

We watched lots of movies too. The uncles were appalled that I'd never seen The Big Lebowski and set to remedy that straightaway. I liked it; it was very amusing and confounding. I'm not prepared to start a RELIGION around it the way some people seem to be, but it was fun. I brought The Midnight Meat Train with me, thinking it would be fun to watch with Uncle Jazz because he's a big horror movie buff like me. He'd already seen it but consented to watching it again with me and Bri. AHAHAHAHAHAHA! That movie is HILARIOUS. It's not good, but it's not terrible either. It's plenty gory and has some good kills and wacky camera angles. Bradley Cooper is SMOKIN' HOT as always. I recommend it but only if you are a hardcore horror fan. The story is ridiculous and the characters do things that make no sense and the ending -- AHAHAHAHAHA! Then we watched Slither, which Homer has been after me since forever to watch. It was pretty great. I love Nathan Fillion.

I've been going to the movies quite a bit this summer. It's one of my favorite things to do and there's been a pretty good selection this year. I've seen:

• Public Enemies with Sorcha. It was good times, Johnny Depp was MADE for that kind of period dress. See? The movie itself is overlong, but good. LOTS of gunfire. SO MANY BULLETS. Christian Bale was hot too, once you get past the fact that his character is named "Melvin Purvis." Was there ever an unsexier name? I think not.
  
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: It's a good movie and I liked it. I don't have a whole lot to say about it like I don't have a whole lot to say about the book. The book is sort of a place-holder and so is the movie. I will say that I continue to be sort of confused by the pacing of these movies. They leave out SO MUCH, which is understandable since the books are a million pages long. But then they make up stuff that wasn't in the books when they could just...use stuff that they left out. I don't know? And sometimes stuff they leave in doesn't seem nearly as important as what they leave out. Like, the whole Ron/Lavendar subplot goes on for WAY too long. I mean, yeah, it's amusing and gives Rupert Grint a chance to be goofy and Dumbledore a funny line, but really? And the half-blood prince thing is barely covered? Ok.
  
• (500) Days of Summer; I was totally psyched for this the first time I saw the preview. I adore Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. I love quirky romances. They played a couple in Manic, a film I adore and I was pleased to see them play one again. I love The Smiths. (Although, really. Who doesn't?) THEN, I FOUND OUT. SPENCER REID IS IN IT, YOU GUYS. DONE. It's a really cute movie, you should go see it. SPENCER REID!!! Ahem.
• The Hurt Locker: the best movie I've seen all year. Honestly, I can't imagine another movie being better. I DEMAND Academy Award nominations for Kathryn Bigelow, Anthony Mackie and most of all, Jeremy Renner. One one hand, it's an intense, suspenseful action movie where lots of shit gets blown up and hot men are being stoic and competent. (Seriously, Ralph Fiennes has a cameo and I've never seen him look hotter.) On the other hand, it's this heart-breaking look at the effects of war and its costs. These soldiers are in life-threatening situations at every moment. They literally have to kill or be killed. A split-second hesitation or minor misreading of a situation could cost them or their fellow soldiers their lives. Your son/daughter/brother/sister/whatever wants to join the military? Make them watch this movie first. The last ten minutes felt like a kick to the stomach.

*That's what she said!

Brief, Flammable Dispatch From Vacation

So, I'm currently on vacation with some of my family in North Carolina. It's going great, we're all having fun and getting along (Not that I really expected an issue there, though we miss you, uncle V!). I finally saw The Big Lebowski. It was pretty great. And I've pretty much gotten my entire family to watch True Blood. SCORE.

One of the things that we traditionally do on vacation is take turns cooking dinner each night and making a themed cocktail for each meal. It saves money because there are too many of us to reasonably eat in a restaurant and many members of my family enjoy cooking. We all get into it and have fun with it. My cousin Brianna and I were on dinner duty on Wednesday night. We were making this recipe with some alterations (We added chicken and omitted pine nuts. And doubled the recipe. And forgot the parsley.). Bri and I are not really cooks (Clearly!), we're both more bakers, but we were game to try. So, it all went well at first; Bri cooked the chicken, I made a giant salad. Then I put a huge pot of water on the boil for the orzo and sat down to read my book and wait. Then the following happens:

Bri: [in a bored tone] Fire. On the stove. Fire.

I look up, sure there can't be an actual fire because wouldn't that call for like, a sense of urgency? Or alarm? But sure enough, there are FLAMES coming up from under the pot. I RUN over and turn off the burner. Doesn't help. My mom comes sauntering in calmly, because she heard Bri and doesn't think there's a fire either. I'm all, "!!!" and my mom's all, "PUT A POT LID ON THE FIRE!" and I do and it works and everything's fine. Also, Bri's in the background calmly telling us, "I don't know how to work a fire extinguisher. Sorry."

So, that's how Bri and I burned water.

Dude.

Mame and I are on the phone, watching Conan O'Brien and giggling together. You know. As you do. And Stephen Moyer from our very favoritest show ever True Blood is on. (Bill! He plays Bill!)

He's BRITISH in real life, people. Which we knew. But we'd never heard him speak. It's...disconcerting, to say the least. Also, hot. And he's ridiculously charming. And then he started morphing back and forth into different kinds of British accents and then to his southern Bill voice. Weird!

EGT! It was like that time that we discovered that Chuck Bass was really British In Real Life and I dug up that Youtube clip of him just being English at everyone. And we were like o_O.

Who else is Secretly British In Real Life? Because it just makes them more attractive.