Playing favorites

Everyone’s got a favorite TV show. Even if they don’t watch it on a regular basis, everyone’s got that one show that they’ll turn to first when they can’t think of anything else to watch.


Favorites

“I really like to watch crime shows like Law & Order or NCIS,” said Hannah Skrobot, a sophomore studying exercise physiology. “They really get me thinking and it just kind of gives me a different world to slip into when I don’t want to do my homework anymore.”

Others prefer to watch shows that are a little bit more on the fun side. Hanna Hafner, a sophomore studying journalism, said that her favorite shows include The Office, Community and Hannah Montana.

“But I don’t keep up with Hannah Montana, I just watch (Hannah Montana) for fun with my family,” Hafner was quick to point out.

Above all shows, however, she does prefer The Office.

“The Office is the most awkward show to watch because Michael Scott does things,” she said. “You know he’s going to do them, but you don’t want him to. But then it’s hilarious when he does it.”

As I’ve stated many times before in this blog, I prefer Glee in favor of most other shows. But just this past week, I discovered V, which I will continue to watch on a regular basis. I suppose it helps a show’s standing with any given viewer when you take into account the fact that the lead role is played by Elizabeth Mitchell, who is featured in Lost, which is another one of my favorite shows.

But then there are those people who don’t necessarily watch certain shows.

Allan Daugherty, a sophomore studying accounting, said that he just likes to watch ESPN.

“It doesn’t matter what’s showing, it’s sports,” he said. “To me, that’s more interesting than any show.”

A time for everything

It’s all well and good to know that everyone’s got his or her favorite show. But does anyone have time to watch it when it actually airs?

“I just watch reruns, mostly,” Skrobot said. “I’ve got so much to do and I don’t have time, so usually when I’m getting ready to go out on a weekend, I’ll just have the TV on in the background.”

This trend among college students seems to be contradictory to a February 2009 study conducted by the Nielsen Company.

The study found that during the last three months of 2008, the average American TV viewer watches more than 151 hours of television each month, up from more than 145 hours during the same period the previous year.

Nielsen attributed this rise to the growing popularity of devices like DVR and TiVo, which allow viewers to watch essentially any show they want, whenever they want.

Also, the 2008 presidential election probably played a large role in the increase during the last part of that year. It remains to be seen if the numbers will increase again in 2009.


The college lifestyle and a change of pace

The college lifestyle is definitely one reason why students can’t necessarily watch very much television. Between classes, homework and various other commitments, loyalty to TV shows takes a backseat. But with the onset of winter break there also comes an opportunity to catch up shows that students would otherwise have missed.

“I’ll probably watch shows on Hulu or something,” Daugherty said. “I do like to watch House sometimes.”

I, for one, will be catching up on V, FlashForward and Mercy during my time off from school. It will definitely be a nice change of pace!

A "V"ery good performance

My reaction to V: “Omigosh, best new show ever!!!”

V focuses on FBI agent Erica Evans (played by Elizabeth Mitchell of Lost) as she investigates the reason why 29 alien spaceships have appeared over 29 major world cities (sort of similar to District 9). Anna (Morena Baccarin) is the leader of the Visitors, or the Vs, who claim to come in peace, but in actuality have been infiltrating human government offices, businesses and religious institutions. They are now in the final stages of their plan to take over the world.

Most people on Earth do not doubt the Vs, including Erica’s son Tyler (Logan Huffman), who has been recruited to serve as a V Peace Ambassador. In addition, the Vs have cured many diseases, and so have won favor with much of Earth’s population.

The climax of the first episode comes when Erica finds that her FBI partner is in fact a V sleeper agent. V’s have reptilian skin underneath their human shells, and when her partner attacks her, Erica hits him over the head with a crowbar, slicing the skin on his head and revealing the skin underneath. She subsequently stabs him in the chest with the crowbar, killing him.

The small number of people who know the truth about the Vs are at a loss for what to do, until it is revealed that Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut), a man who at first seems just like everyone else, is actually a sleeper agent. However, he claims that he is a traitor to them and wants to help save humanity.

V is a surprisingly good show, helped along by Mitchell’s strong performance. My one complaint is that the plot of the pilot episode moves along kind of rapidly, but that could just be to introduce the premise of the show in order to hook people. It worked for me, though! And as this is the last show I'll be reviewing, I'm really glad that I could end on a good note!

Sitcom central

The Middle enters sitcom central. It’s the kind of thing you’ll want playing in the background when you’re just sort of hanging out when no one’s actually paying attention to it.

The Middle stars Patricia Heaton as Frankie Heck, a mother of three who works as a used car saleswoman in Orson, Ind. Her husband doesn’t pay attention to what goes on, and so Frankie is constantly having to leave her job (where she is the least successful salesperson) to tend to her kids at their schools.

Each of her children has their own quirks—Axl is a rebellious 15-year-old, Sue doesn’t ever make anything she tries out for and Brick (who is played by Atticus Shaffer, who also played the creepy little kid in The Unborn) doesn’t have any friends—except for his backpack and his imagination.

I enjoyed watching the show, but honestly, I feel like my time could have been better spent doing something else. I legitimately felt that I could just let it play on in the background and no one would care.

I could also go for the rest of my life never seeing this show again and be perfectly happy.

I feel like each person who watches it needs to form their own opinion about it. Some sitcoms are absolutely great (such as The Office), and others are just mediocre (like this one). Here’s a preview for you. I encourage you to watch it and then maybe watch the premiere episode. Chew it over for yourself.

Reminds me of bananas...

There is one scene in Cougar Town that reminds me of bananas. That’s all I’ll say on the subject.

Aside from that, Cougar Town is the kind of show that can easily become a guilty pleasure. Starring Courtney Cox as Jules Cobb, a recently divorced 40-year-old, the show focuses on the fact that she feels that she can’t have any fun anymore because she is too old. This is exactly what her friend and (much younger) colleague Laurie (Busy Philipps) tries to disprove when she takes Jules out to a nightclub.

At first, the night doesn’t bode well for Jules. She gets flustered and spills her drink all over Matt (David Clayton Rogers), a younger guy who she ends up flirting with for the entire night. However, her drunken mind suddenly sobers up and she realizes what she’s doing. She takes a taxi home and prepares to spend the rest of the night in … until her doorbell rings, and Matt is standing on her doorstep.

It turns out that Laurie had put him there, as she did not want Jules to let “his body” go to waste. After a few awkward minutes, Jules and Matt end up having sex three times. Jules is impressed by his youth, vitality and endurance, and though she is rather appalled at herself for becoming a “cougar,” she eventually invites him back over for more.

Cougar Town is definitely something that I would call a “guilty pleasure” show. It’s not bad, but it’s not a show that will leave the viewer hanging off the edge of their seats wanting more.

Check out the preview, and decide for yourself what you think of it. Chew it over.

Unconventional taste

I'm about to do something uncoventional with this entry: Discuss TV in general rather than a specific show. It's mostly my opinion on TV in general, but it's still something to chew over as you think about it yourself.

I generally don't have time to watch TV. But I did want to see what's out there in terms of TV shows, and so I decided to blog about them as a both a way to keep myself engaged in pop culture and also to keep me accountable in discussing the shows I watch. I feel that it makes it more interesting for everybody in that regard. It also takes me awhile to find a show that I like, so the ultimate goal for me in keeping this blog is to find a show that I’ll make a commitment to watching and discussing with others. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I found my favorite show after the first entry—Glee. Even so, I’m still watching and reviewing. A part of me hoping that I’ll find something absolutely horrible, just so I know it’s one less show I’ll have to worry about.

In thinking about TV, however, I got to thinking about the different ways that students at Ohio University can watch TV. Although there is the traditional, actual television, most students watch shows and movies on their computers, either through sites like Hulu.com or by watching shows on DVDs. OU also has its own television and radio network, WOUB, even though that mostly airs public programming and is not necessarily geared toward college students.

I put together a slideshow of pictures relating to television-viewing at OU. Enjoy, and chew it over.