<p>For an unknown reason, my TV viewing has skyrocketed in the past month or so. Interestingly, I’ve also put on a handful of pounds. Hrm. Will need to work on that.</p>
<p>Anyway, I just finished watching <a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384766/”>Rome</a>. The series depicts the lives of the ordinary man and the aristocracy in the late BC period. I’m not sure how much is historical fact, but I’d like to think I got a decent history lesson. Unfortunately, despite being hugely popular, it was also hugely expensive and in the middle of the 2nd (and final season), the writer was told he’d have only five more episodes to conclude what he had planned to do in the next 25. Without knowing this beforehand, I felt the end of the series was VERY rushed. Afterward, I did some wiki work and learned why. Given that, the writer did an incredible job. If you’re into historical kinda stuff, you’ll love this show. 22 episodes, 50 minutes each… It took me since the spring to get through.</p>
<p>With that marathon complete, I turned my eyes to something a bit lighter. <a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1480684/”>The League</a>, my first try (I have a long list of shows I want to check out and usually go through a few before settling on something), filled that niche perfectly. It’s about a group of guys nearish to my age who play fantasy football together. While this might turn off a lot of folks, fear not, the show transcends football, and Heather can attest to that (I suppose I should intro Heather to the blog at some point?). At twenty minutes a pop and only in its second season, I’ll be caught up with this in no time, which brings me to another show I’ve been watching “live.”</p>
<p><a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520211/”>The Walking Dead</a>. I’ll be the first to admit the whole zombie fad is overdone. I was incredibly skeptical of starting this series, but enough friends gave it raving reviews that I caved. I’m still not entirely sold on the show, but it’s proving entertaining for now. Within the first few episodes, they made leaps and bounds with the story so I feel this one will be short-lived, but worth viewing in its entirety.</p>
<p>Speaking of viewing in its entirety, remember <a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813715/”>Heroes</a>? Caitlin and I worked incredibly hard to catch up, did so, and then the show fell flat on its face. I didn’t watch the final season or two because it had become so god-awful, but I recently found out it had been <a href=”http://insidetv.ew.com/2010/05/14/heroes-canceled-by-nbc/”>cancelled a while ago</a>. Sad… My guess is the writers didn’t have a complete story and were sweat-shopping it to come up with new material as the series aged. Or maybe I’m just giving them excuses as to why they were bad at their jobs.</p>
<p>So, “bad”? Yeah, that brings up yet another show. Or mini-series. <a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910812/”>Tin Man</a> was highly recommended to me by Netflix. Heather was interested in the idea so we gave it a go. It’s only three episodes, but at an hour and a half, it’s no joke… After the first episode, we wanted it to end, but were intrigued by the fact it was recommend so highly… So we watched another. Now three hours in, it is still absolutely abysmal, but we owe it to ourselves to watch the final episode. Ungh. How long can we put it off?</p>
<p>So we’ll soon be live with both The League and The Walking Dead, but that leaves a hole for what to watch when those aren’t on. <a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374463/”>The Pacific</a> is planned to fill it. Another historical mini-series.</p>
<p>So that’s a lot of TV for someone who describes themselves as one who doesn’t watch TV. In fact, I even cancelled my cable this past weekend. I kept basic cable as it actually reduced my total bill somehow ($60/mo for Internet only, but $50/mo total if I kept basic cable… whatever!), but most everything will be streamed or downloaded from the nether regions of the web. I would feel bad if I hadn’t paid for cable all these years and not watched these shows as they played live. Yes, I’m justifying my illegal activity… it’s like that.</p>
<p>The list of future shows (in order that I expect to like them):</p>
<ul>
<li>Mad Men</li>
<li>Breaking Bad</li>
<li>Modern Family</li>
<li>Weeds</li>
<li>True Blood</li>
<li>Freaks and Geeks</li>
<li>The Wire</li>
<li>Deadwood</li>
<li>Friday Night Lights</li>
</ul>
<p>And someday I’d like to say I’ve watched all of Friends and Seinfeld. Ungh. I’d better get watching!</p>