TV Review: What I'm Watching on Mondays

Confession: I watch a lot of TV.

*Cue GASPS SHOCK AWE PEOPLE FAINTING CHILDREN SCREAMING*

Shocking news, I KNOW!

I won't attempt to justify it or explain myself; one of the things I've pledged to myself in starting this blog is that I'll stop justifying or defending myself for the things I like or don't like. It's my life and I'll do what I want to, etc, etc, etc rousing 80s music. Don't like it, don't read it, go find someone else to lecture on the effects of trash tv on intelligent brains. Talk to the hand cos the fig don't wanna hear it.

Oh, right and I need to be less defensive all the time ;)

*AHEM*

So, yeah, I watch TV a lot. And one of the things I'd like to feature on this blawg is just reviews of what I'm watching, listening to, reading, loving, hating, etc at the moment. In the best of cases, I could convince someone to give something new a chance. In the worst of cases, no one will care, but at least I would've written it down for...um, myself. So, win/win. Win. We ALL win!

Well that's all nice and fine, Figgy, but where's the damned entry?

Oh, right! Here it is!

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WHAT FIGGY IS WATCHING ON...MONDAY (onday! onday! onday):

Now that the TV fall season is in full swing, my TV watching schedule is finally shaping up, and I've settled on a slew of shows to watch every week. Of course, this is only sustainable until one of four things happens: a) reruns start showing up, b) the times change due to DST ending or starting, c) one of these shows starts to suck and gets the figurative axe in my mind and d) I get a job again and can't stay up til 1am every day. So while I'll have some DEFINITE shows on my viewing ritual, there will also be ALTERNATES and changes. What I'm saying is nothing is written in stone.

Onwards.

Monday night starts with Heroes.

I've been watching Heroes since the very first episode, mostly because I'm a sucker for anything with superheroes in it and will give most of these shows a chance. Smallville fell by the wayside half an episode in, but Heroes managed to hook me completely in the first season. Good characters, lots of good super powers going insane, very pretty visuals, good storyline, not to mention the oodles of man candy prancing around in very little clothing. It all worked really well, and I was easily addicted.

Then came the second season. To put it succintly, it blew chunks. Big ones. The shrinking of the season (because of the writers' strike) apparently shrunk the talents of everyone involved in the show. The plots were either messy or completely uninteresting. New, largely useless and disposable characters were added left and right while older characters became increasingly stupid and annoying while being mired in nonsensical plot lines that never went anywhere. The whole thing sucked, and we went into summer hiatus hoping for an improvement for the next season.

The new season's started (the 5th episode aired last night), and I've been largely disappointed. While the show has somewhat returned to caring more about its lead characters and some interesting plot lines have been set in place (but again, not til last night!), the show has become largely dependant on rehashing plots (visiting the future, saving the world, people making stupid decisions and having to fix them) and very impressive visuals while sacrificing character development and, well, interesting plots. It's become really soap-operaish, and there's no end to the amount of yelling I do at the TV every monday night.

Last night's episode was decent; I'd give it at most a B. While some really annoying characters SEEM to have been taken care of, I wouldn't put it past the ridiculous plot "twists" of this show to bring them back. The writers seem really scared to go balls-out with killing characters or plotlines; they usually settle for predictable and melodramatic, and it wears very thin very quickly. I can easily think of 5 characters (Tracy, Matt, Mohinder, Hiro, Nathan) who either need to be killed off or get some IMMEDIATE revamping before I get completely tired of them. When we've come to the point where I'm completely uninterested in Mohinder's impressive shirtlessness, you know we're in trouble.

While Hiro seems to have made quite a surprising switch-around (though again it might be some lame fake-out), Nathan and Tracy have done nothing but stand around pondering their lives and powers and not making a decision for 5 episodes, and it's come to the point where I get angry when they even show up on screen. And I used to LOVE Nathan and Hiro! And where are Elle and Micah and Monica? If you're gonna hire someone as cute and awesome as Kirsten Bell, have her DO something in your show! And Monica's power was pretty interesting, but she seems to have completely disappeared from the map.

Is there a way out of the hole that Heroes has dug itself into? Maybe. Probably not; by this time in the season thing should've gotten better, you know? But all is not lost yet, and maybe the writers will be clued into the fan's disgust from the falling ratings (between week two and week three Heroes viewership dropped 11%!) to make some necessary changes and bring Heroes back to its first season of awesomeness.

Will I keep watching? Sure. For a while, anyway. The only other option at this time is Dancing With the Stars, and while that might be fun when you need something useless and glittery, it's not something I'll ever get into. It's too repetitive for my tastes.

Oof. That was a long rant. But let's keep going.

Next is Gossip Girl on the CW. Yeah, I know, I can't believe I'm watching a show called 'Gossip Girl', either. But I admit I'm a sucker for clever little teen soap operas with pretty clothes and fun storylines, and this show fills those requirements perfectly. Yes, it's vapid and ridiculous in its depiction of uber rich children in Manhattan, but the writing is surprisingly clever and insightful, and it can be pretty hilarious at times. It's a pretty fantastic guilty pleasure of a show, and it's refreshing to watch a well written silly show every now and then. Plus, you get to see some ridiculous clothes (Oh, Chuck) and outrageous storylines, which is always fun.

After that, my COSMOPOLITAN CHANNEL (yurgh) shows a marathon of Sex and the City from 10-12 (6 episodes) that I watch out of some inexplicable compulsion to make my brain hurt. It's a fantastically stupid and sometimes offensive and insipid show, but every now and then you get a fun plotline and very pretty clothes (none of them involving Carrie, surprise surprise) and some clever writing. I started watching to see what the BFD was, and I got sucked in, and while it's largely annoying and vapid and I want to slap Carrie every time she opens her mouth, I like it enough to watch it after everyone has gone to bed and there's nothing else playing on tv but news and bad movies.

So that's my Monday. If I get annoyed at any of the former there's always some Seinfeld or Friends rerun airing somewhere (it's a truth universally acknowledged that you will find either of these shows, plus Law and Order-which I don't watch- playing on some channel at any time of the day, any day of the week) and I'll watch that while playing a computer game or drawing.

Hey, I also read a lot. So don't give me that look.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's presentation of What Figgy is Watching On Tuesdays. I promise it won't be this long.