What I'm (Not) Watching, September 2013

Here's a twist to my should-be-annual TV review, because as the title implies, I'm not watching anything at the moment. It seems astonishing in some respects. I grew up in a house where watching TV, especially at night and over the weekends in the winter, was the main communal activity.

Right at this moment I'm in a TV vacuum. Mad Men, my favourite show, is on a break between the sixth and seventh seasons. The Apprentice is also between seasons, and due to my cancelling ESPN I don't have access to PTI, DLHQ, Around the Horn (all victims of the ESPN cull of ESPN America) or College Gameday. I made an effort to watch The Americans, until I found myself four episodes behind at the end of season one and wasn't really bothered about it (which I blame on the fact that the two strongest actors, Keri Russell and Noah Emmerich, are never on screen together).

Over the years my interest in reality shows has faded, so the recent run of regular and celebrity Big Brother didn't just leave me disinterested, but left me feeling significantly aggravated. Any form of dancing does the same, purely thanks to the catty judges, so that makes Strictly Come Dancing a no-go for me (even with noted celebrity Palace fan Susanna Reid on it). And X-Factor... X-Factor, ugh. How many ways can you say that you're fed up with all the dramatics, sob stories, last chances and every other overblown cliché they come up with? If it was purely a talent show I could live with it, but with everything else that is incorporated within the X-Factor package now makes that a no-go for me as well.

Breaking Bad? No, too violent, as I mentioned before, not my thing. Game of Thrones, the stuff of fantasy, not my thing either. Downton Abbey? Sorry, there's something about period pieces that I've never liked. Homeland was must see TV for me last year but the end of series 2 was so badly butchered that I'm not sure I can muster the enthusiasm for series 3.

So what do you do when you're effectively a television free-agent? You're free to become more selective, picking up an occasional documentary here and there (if I see an episode of Banged Up Abroad on National Geographic I'm probably taking at least a cursory glance), try an occasional new show here and there (and usually find they suck, yes Prisoner: Cell Block H remake, I'm talking about you) as well as re-runs of old sitcoms (Big Bang Theory on E4 is a repeat offender here) and quiz shows (yes, I finally succumbed to the addictive quality of Pointless).

Beyond just the TV is the freedom that you allow yourself. Thanks to Sky+ I rarely watch anything when it is shown anyway, but not having appointment TV frees you up from having any point where you really have to be in front of a TV. And that doesn't even cover the times that I'm actively looking to try and get away from a TV. The pity then is that life is busy enough that I can't make better use of the time, especially when that coincides with time that I need to be relatively quiet so I don't wake up my daughters when they're sleeping.

At this point I'm actually enjoying not having to actively work to keep up with a series. It may be a product of strange events and odd timing, but I'm actually quite enjoying this turn of events. When Mad Men ends after the split seventh series I'm not sure that I'll be picking anything up. Unless something exceptional comes along I think I can live without it.

I Don't Want To Be In Your Gang

Something which struck me recently during a water cooler-esque discussion at work was just how popular some violent forms of entertainment are, and conversely just how much I don't like those forms of entertainment.

My colleagues at work think it is odd that I've never seen The Godfather. I've heard Bill Simmons say on a podcast that people who haven't seen The Wire shouldn't own a television. I've also looked through Grantland's list of Oscar travesties and saw a mass of predominantly-violent films that have seemingly been shunned.

So my question is this, do we really have to like violent things?

I can't remember a point where I liked violent action. I had a grim fascination with the Zapruder film when I first saw it at around the age of 13, but I don't wish to see it any more. I've never seen an episode of The Wire, because I've always veered towards lighter entertainment and sport in my free time. And besides, what do I really need to know about the drug trade in Baltimore?

One of the more serious programmes I love is Mad Men, and that was created by Matt Weiner, who used to work on The Sopranos. Number of episodes of I've ever seen of The Sopranos? That's right, zero. Here's what I know about The Sopranos: it's Mafia-based and violent. Maybe that's exceptionally ignorant because I've never seen it, but I really don't want to see it. I don't think it could compare with the sharp dialogue and intricate character development I see in Mad Men.

Going back to Grantland's list of Oscar travesties, one of the ones they pointed to was Forrest Gump winning best picture over Pulp Fiction. I've seen both films, and certainly wouldn't want to see Pulp Fiction again. From a more critical point of view, I thought the film was a mish-mash of storylines which didn't really tie in all that well. With the exception of some scene-stealing intimidation by Samuel L. Jackson I don't think of Pulp Fiction with much affection. Conversely Forrest Gump has a fantastic storyline, some wonderfully creative characters and some genuinely touching moments. For me it isn't a discussion between the two.

Does this make me a bad person? I hope not. Does it make me a person of questionable taste? Possibly, but I think that things other than my taste in films and entertainment has shown this prior to now.

In addition to my natural distaste of violence is my increasing lack of free time as I get older. Given that it is more precious now, I'm less inclined than ever to spend it on taking a chance on watching something I don't think I would like. Add in that I'm likely to want to spend that time relaxing with something a bit lighter (typically sitcoms) or something I'm more passionate about (yes, that almost certainly means sport), and I think you can see why these programmes and films pass me by. And if that makes me a bad person, then so be it. Unlike some of the characters in these programmes and films I don't think my actions will kill me.

A Time To Review

Far too often I'm spending time talking about things on this blog, and they get left there and never mentioned again, so on this occasion I thought it would be nice to review some of the things I've posted and what I've learnt since I posted them.

March 2010 - Backups

Yep, just a matter of days after posting about requiring a backup plan I needed to refer to it. It also led to me discovering some flaws with it, and that a weekly backup wasn't enough.

Due to a problem on my hard drive which began on the Thursday evening I had a backup which was nearly a week old. Fortunately it has been a quiet week, but I saw that just backing up weekly wasn't often enough. I needed a daily backup too. Not one which caught up everything, but one which would get anything important I had worked on in the past week.

So I added a daily profile to SyncBack, set it to only back up my documents and settings (as the main user on the computer), skip over large files like music files and video clips (which can usually be replaced easily, especially if burned from a CD) and again add the settings from the original weekly backup profile. This has ended up leaving me with an additional backup which comes in at around 5Gb and hopefully meets my needs. If you don't mind though, hopefully I won't need it too soon.

April 2009 - PS3 Games

Just needed to update this, especially as I've taken a bit of time this week to catch up with some time on what I would say are now my two favourite games: Madden NFL 10 & NHL 10. These are just two awesome games, with NHL 10 narrowly edging Madden as my favourite due to the fantastic feature where you can add in your own music for special points at the game. Of course I've not really done much with this, and certainly haven't added this in when Palace, er, the Ducks score.

April 2008 - Nurses Pay

My wife got paid today, her lowest pay in about eighteen months. Can I figure out why she got paid what she did? Absolutely not. In the words of Toyah Wilcox, "It's a Mystery".

May 2007 - Must See TV

Okay, that's a really tenuous link. Anyway, here's the point. Mad Men is fantastic, and I cannot wait until series 4 beings.

Must see TV, May 2007

I did a post like this last year, so thought it only right that I did another one this year. Like last year, PTI and Around the Horn go without saying (although I'll admit to podcasting and listening in the car most days).

The Apprentice, 9pm Wednesdays, BBC1
Another compelling series, featuring everything from the competant (Kristina), the nutty (Tre) and the downright nasty (Katie).

Dream Team, 8pm Sundays, Sky One
The final series in drawing to a close, and with a big assist from our Sky+ box I've managed to see every episode of this series.

Sadly the green arrow indicating the series link option is no longer against the next entry on our personal planner. That's because the next episode is the last one ever. On the heels of the best episode of the series to date that's pretty sad.

Lots of questions remain unanswered. Will Harchester win the Premiership? Will Jason and Katy get back together? Will anyone other than Amy discover that Danny is Dragonslayer, and what happens with the cans of petrol and the lighter that he's carrying?

Featured last year...
Prison Break is still a programme I watch out for. However I downloaded the first twelve episodes before they were shown here, until my dvd writing software decided it didn't like my new dual-layer dvd writer. I've got about five episodes on our Sky+ box but I know we've missed one somewhere, so I'll have to download them to see them all. It's better without ads anyway.