I watch waaay too much TV...

So I've been on a TV show binge of late. I'm a total TV junkie and I've seen waaay too many shows of late. I finished the fantastic third season of Friday Night Lights earlier today. This show is just too fucking good. The characters are so well written and developed that they have a realism to them that forces you to root for them....all of them. Most shows have characters that you absolutely cannot stand (for instance, I don't get how we were supposed to be cheering for Tony Soprano - he was a fat, greedy, lazy fuck that repeatedly cheated on his wife and shot his 'beloved' cousin rather than go to war; I would've throw a party if he got killed) but you don't find that with FNL. It's impossible not to relate to at least some aspect of every chacracter on the show. Despite the critical acclaim, people still aren't watching this show. Personally I blame the lack of publicity NBC gives it and it's Friday night time slot. Now I understand people not staying home to watch FNL. I'm rarely home on Friday nights. Simply put, no show's gonna succeed given such a shitty time slot. But here's what blows my mind.... more people are watching Ghost Whisperer than are watching Friday Night Lights!! You gotta be fucking kidding me. Have you seen Ghost Whisperer?! I'm a huge Jennifer Love Hewitt fan; I'll watch pretty much any movie she's in. But this show is fucking terrible! And more people are choosing to watch it than the utterly terriffic Friday Night Lights?? This blows my mind. What the fuck is wrong with the viewing public? That's just absolute bullshit and beyond my comprehension.

While I'm on television shows, I really think Friday Night Lights, The Office, and How I Met Your Mother need to come with some sort of warning: 'Caution: the following show may contain highly upsetting, heart-wrenching moments of emotional anguish.' Seriously, I don't know if there are three other things that have collectively made me yell so much. All three shows are incredibly well-written with characters that you can't help but get invested in. If you have any sort of heart at all then there will undoubtedly be a few moments during the viewing of these shows where you'll want to scream, cry, or both. Betweem Pam and Jim, Ted and Robin, and the entire cast of FNL, I was simply not ready for the toll these shows would take on me. So looking out for future viewers, I think it only appropriate that The Office, Friday Night Lights, and How I Met Your Mother come with some sort of disclaimer. That way, before you get truly invested, you'll know what you're getting into.

So I finally finished the fifth and final season of The Wire. If there's one show out there that can honestly be described as 'horribly underrated,' it has to be The Wire. The show tackled uncomfortable subjects that other shows have simply avoided all together. I'm not gonna go into a big diatribe on how good this show was, or how much ground it broke, or what it says about our society that it got barely any recognition (I'm sure you can find all that with a simple google search), but I will say that I think it's only a matter of time before we get an urban studies course that's taught using only The Wire. The show's as powerful as any documentary but infinitely more entertaining. It's a show that was likely ahead of it's time and it's a shame that it couldn't be continued for a few more seasons. After finishing the last episode I had an empty feeling inside; it felt like one of my friend's had just moved away forever. The Wire will make you think while you're watching it, and it literally had me pondering for a day after I'd finished the last episode. It was that fucking good and it's a shame that we have nothing like it to fill the gigantic void it has left in the television landscape. Suffice it to say that According to Jim just doesn't fill the space.