Wednesday, October 08, 2008

TV As Culture

Since Little House on the Prairie, I've enjoyed some of the tv programming that debuts each season and delight in anything that can actually keep my attention. Little House was one of my favorite book (sets) to read and it didn't hurt that Melissa Gilbert was right about my age so, in some ways, we grew up together.*

I also grew up in the Aaron Spelling era with Charlie's Angels and later the Melrose Place gang circled around my age and made the lives of others seem quite interesting in a strange and different land.

This season I'm really enjoying Dirty Sexy Money - the New York City setting and Peter Krauss contribute greatly to that. Six Feet Under brought him on my radar even though, like many other actors, he was around but not quite on the radar yet.

The Monday night line-up with Two and a Half Men and then Big Bang Theory - both laugh out loud shows, including the adult innuendo. And How I Met Your Mother definitely has its moments and Ted is just too cute not to watch.

My brother got me hooked on Young and the Restless and I remember my cousins watching it about the time of the 76 Olympics when Nadia used its theme song as her performance song. I had spent more time watching All My Children as a teenager and young adult but Cliff is now Jack so all of that works. And I still admire Susan Lucci's handling of her career and not walking away from a good thing along with the grace with which she handled being a diva on-screen without becoming one off screen - which at least appears to be all too common - and helped me see that the external accolades aren't as important as the internal ones.

Mark Harmon has always been intriguing and NCIS only adds to that - as well as keeping it interesting. Lipstick Jungle is made more interesting by Andrew McCarthy - my favorite brat pack member. Friends was a long-term standby but a bit boring now.

Reruns of Sex and the City remind me why I re-subscribed to HBO. And the movie kept things interesting. Reruns of West Wing are on because of election season and Mark Harmon and Jimmy Smiths kept that interesting but WW also helped me discover Bradley Whitford. I saw him in a New York play - Boeing, Boeing. Boston Legal is sometimes entertaining. Luckily with the DVR it's easy to fast forward through the boring stuff and/or characters you don't like.

I'm sure I'll think of more later.

I'm heading out sans laptop - I don't want to hit that wall again. . . at least not in the near future.






* We aren't aging the same, however, given the Hollywood demands for plastic surgery.

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