currently in the midst of a season:
- Louie (Season 5)
Weirdly great and greatly weird, as always. A little uneven, but usually pretty funny, and when it's good, it's really good.
- Alias (Season 1)
Rewatching it, as it's been about ten or twelve years since I last watched it (and I never got to watch beyond Season 1, since none of the local video rental places carried that one, and I sure as hell wasn't going to buy it to try it). Either my tastes have changed, or the show's aged poorly (probably a bit of both); I doubt I'll go on to Season 2.
- Love (Season 1)
New Judd Apatow-produced Netflix original that debuted in February. Pretty decent; unless the last three episodes shit the bed, I'd watch a second season.
- Grounded for Life (Season 1)
One of the better network sitcoms of the early '00s. Has held up reasonably well.
- The L Word (Season 2)
Made it through Season 1 last year during my time as a Hulu subscriber, so I threw it on my Netflix watch list when I subscribed late last summer...and, apart from watching a single episode every two or three months, there it's sat. It's not that it's bad...though the cringe-worthy opening credits sequence that was introduced at the beginning of the second season hasn't exactly made me want to watch it more...I just can't seem to bring myself to give much of a shit. Not sure if I'll go on with it or not.
- Firefly (THE Season)
Own it, but haven't seen it in a couple years or so. Watching it on Netflix is a bit more convenient, and saves my laptop's DVD drive. One more episode, then I can remove it from my watch list.
- Ken Burns Presents: The West (miniseries)
Pretty good Ken Burns-produced (though not -directed) documentary miniseries about the exploration and settlement of the North American West by (mostly) European-descended peoples, and about the effects this had on the peoples already living there. Doesn't seem to cover much new ground, but as far as I've seen so far, it does what it sets out to do fairly well.
- Blue Mountain State (Season 1)
Spike's dumb college party-'n'-sex comedy series. It's about on the level of Porky's or American Pie, only without any "real" nudity or swearing. If you're in the mood for this kind of thing, as I occasionally am, it's pretty good.
- House, M.D. (Season 2)
Been watching tons of episodes of this in the last two or three months, and I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's the fact that it's a nice, cozy, formulaic show, but it's actually got a fairly biting sense of humor as well, and a sort of rakish self-awareness that allows me to not roll my eyes too hard when House & gang save yet another patient in the nick of time with a brilliant diagnosis.
Whoops, forgot about a handful of shows I watch for free on Hulu:
- New Girl (Season 5)
The only current broadcast sitcom I still follow. Still pretty reliably decent -- I like the writing, and the male cast members are especially good in their quirky-funny roles (though Deschanel's good, too).
- Hollywood Game Night (Season 4)
This had the potential to be terrible and cringe-worthy, but -- probably due to Jane Lynch's presence and the fact that she's a producer of the show (not sure if she was from the beginning, though) -- it's actually pretty frequently hilarious. The fact that there are so many return celebrity guests, and that they also continue to get all sorts of celebrities that people have, y'know, actually heard of (and recently) would seem to indicate that many, if not most, of the participants have a genuinely good time on the show. It's certainly fun to watch, for those who enjoy seeing famous people willingly and happily make fools of themselves for entertainment.
- @midnight with Chris Hardwick (Season 3)
I generally only watch an episode when one or more guests I like are on it. I've never really liked Hardwick much before, though I think he's OK on Talking Dead (which I can't watch any more, as I no longer have cable), and is (usually) pretty good on this show; the problem is, he seems to be letting his popularity go to his head a bit, doing too much of his own schtick on @midnight, sometimes taking the spotlight off the guest comedians for an uncomfortably long time. I'm also not a fan of the seeming increase in political content on the show -- I don't watch @midnight for incisive political editorials (sometimes it seems Hardwick wants to be Jon Stewart), I watch it to see (mostly) funny people making fun of the Internet. Still, it's a pretty good show overall.
That's all for series I'm actively watching. Maybe I'll do another post soon about shows that I'm between seasons of, and possibly some recently-watched films.
Post edited April 21, 2016 by HunchBluntley