In Which We Watch "Television"
May. 1st, 2009 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluHaving given up cable, we are back to being rather regular users of our Netflix account. On the whole, this is not such a bad thing, although I do vaguely miss being able to flip on DIY or HGTV of a Saturday morning to watch fix-it TV with my breakfast cereal. And Alton Brown. I do miss Alton Brown. On the other hand, I do not miss losing all the hours that got sucked away painlessly but forever while I was chewing the lotus.
And, as technology marches on, Netflix is getting to be more like having On Demand cable, anyhow. With the spiffy little Roku box Hal got, we can now watch the streaming video feed from Netflix (or Amazon, for that matter) right there on the teevee box. Gloryosky, Marge. The video quality isn't always sterling, but since I seem to spend most of my video "watching" time knitting anyway, it hardly ever makes a difference to me, anyhow.
Swinnyway, we just got done with the first disc of Veronica Mars Season 1, last night. I had somehow never realized it was Yet Another High School Dra-medy. Despite that, I'm finding it pretty charming. All the major characters get to have dimension, and nobody is an unmitigated mustache-twirling Villain. The story has the guts to underplay (some of) its narrative revelations, and at least so far I'm enjoying the Twin Peaksy Who-Killed-Laura-Palmer plot, even stripped of the trappings of Northwest Gothick.
Also recently finished off the first season of House, MD, and was suitably impressed. The story arc that spans the season is not vital to any given episode, but it provides grace notes to each one, when seen in order. I'm a little on the slow side, so I was most of the way through the season, when I sat bolt upright over my knitting and said, "Oh! House is Sherlock Holmes!" Apparently there are lots more clues than I ever noticed, but House's uncanny ability to notice tiny but telling details finally hit home hard enough even for me. I don't really mind the misanthropy -- being asked to empathize with an incredibly smart person who gets exasperated with ambient human fuckwittery makes a nice change from being asked to identify with the fuckwits.
And, as technology marches on, Netflix is getting to be more like having On Demand cable, anyhow. With the spiffy little Roku box Hal got, we can now watch the streaming video feed from Netflix (or Amazon, for that matter) right there on the teevee box. Gloryosky, Marge. The video quality isn't always sterling, but since I seem to spend most of my video "watching" time knitting anyway, it hardly ever makes a difference to me, anyhow.
Swinnyway, we just got done with the first disc of Veronica Mars Season 1, last night. I had somehow never realized it was Yet Another High School Dra-medy. Despite that, I'm finding it pretty charming. All the major characters get to have dimension, and nobody is an unmitigated mustache-twirling Villain. The story has the guts to underplay (some of) its narrative revelations, and at least so far I'm enjoying the Twin Peaksy Who-Killed-Laura-Palmer plot, even stripped of the trappings of Northwest Gothick.
Also recently finished off the first season of House, MD, and was suitably impressed. The story arc that spans the season is not vital to any given episode, but it provides grace notes to each one, when seen in order. I'm a little on the slow side, so I was most of the way through the season, when I sat bolt upright over my knitting and said, "Oh! House is Sherlock Holmes!" Apparently there are lots more clues than I ever noticed, but House's uncanny ability to notice tiny but telling details finally hit home hard enough even for me. I don't really mind the misanthropy -- being asked to empathize with an incredibly smart person who gets exasperated with ambient human fuckwittery makes a nice change from being asked to identify with the fuckwits.
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