The Gilroy 08.27.08: My TV

Posted by Ben Quick on 08.27.2008

It's not all about movies!

I consider myself a movie buff. I'm the guy at work that people ask "Who was that guy in that one movie?" and I generally know the answer. I love movies. Well, until recently that is. I just rarely sit down and watch movies much anymore. I still like to watch a good one, but the staying up till four in the morning so I can kick it and watch The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur back to back(I know, I'm lame!) just doesn't happen anymore. I'm lucky if I get around to watching five movies a week. Mostly, I read, see what's happening around the intro-net or watch TV. When I do have the TV on I generally watch one of three things. Basketball. Politics. TV shows. Well, I already have a basketball column, so I don't need to go there. My feelings on politics can be summed up too easily with my real life catch phrase "If you make under $100,000 a year, you should never vote Republican." So, that leaves me with the TV shows I watch. So, in a change of pace, I figured I'd tell you about these awesome shows that tend to be cutting out my once favorite past time of movies.



24

I never thought I would start off two columns in a row with Jack Bauer. I don't really have a reason why, but what the hell. I guess you could say that this shouldn't qualify as a show that I "currently" watch. I only really like seasons one, two and four. Plus, the show has kind of been in hiding ever since the writer's strike. Well, I suppose I still can claim to be a fan of this show. I will tune into season seven, whenever that might be. What I loved about this show, especially the first two seasons, was that it was a journey. Where Jack ended up was a million miles from where he started. The last few seasons have lost me with focusing too much on trying to top the last terrorist threat and with killing off too many characters. Still, I'll be checking out the new season...



Entourage

Over the last few months I went back and watched this show from the beginning to the end of the forth season. From the premier of Head On to the failure of Medellin, that's how cool my life is. The only complaint I came up with during the entire time was that Kevin Connolly sucks. The entire character of E is supposed to be likable. He's supposed to be the guy you would imagine yourself being. Kevin Connolly is just overly annoying far too often. Other than that, Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillon are simply brilliant. Both actors own their character and bring depths to them that none of the other actor's has been able to so far. The key to Entourage though isn't one character, but rather the show's style. Everything, the dialogue, the story, the music, whatever there is in Entourage is fast paced. The show is only thirty minutes long, but you never feel like that's too long. In fact, the truth is the opposite.



It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Is this the best of the least known shows on television? Well, at one point, yes. I would say that the show has drifted a little too far into the ridiculous, but that's bound to happen. It's yet to reach the mind-numbingly stupid level of Weeds, so I guess that's something. I love the entire idea of finding what's politically correct and just attacking it with a sledge hammer. Whether it is faking being crippled to get sympathy, going to abortion rallies to pick up chicks or just enjoying the great fun of playing with loaded firearms, the show does have a knack for attacking what is considered wrong. What's the best part though, is that the show is able to capture that sweet sitcom feel without getting the stigma of being controversial. Then again, maybe it's just that only like three people watch it. Oh well, I'm one of them!



Boston Legal

I'm going to say it right now, Boston Legal is better than The Practice ever was. First off, who's better? James Spader or Dylan McDermott? One, is among the best actors of his generation and the other is the guy who got roped to a subway train by Woody Harrelson. I'll leave that to you guys to figure which one is which. Boston Legal does have some flaws(storylines and characters randomly disappearing), but that can be forgiven through the strength of the dialogue and the quality of acting. Many people will focus on William Shatner's character of Denny Crane because he's the obvious humor on the show, but the real bright spot is that of James Spader's character of Alan Shore. You won't find many characters to match Shore, and no actors that can match Spader's performances on TV. Boston Legal has a good mix of the serious and funny. Overall, the show is just a good time.



Prison Break

This is the one show I really wrestled with adding or not. Mostly, because I think it sucks now. The show took a big down swing after the inmates originally broke out of prison. Still, the first season was top notch. The idea of a man breaking into prison to breakout his wrongfully convicted brother is cool, but then adding the suspense of how they break out through little advancements in their plan each episode was really fun to watch. I remember I'd heard about this show when it came out on DVD and decided to go down to Blockbuster and rent the first disc. The next day I went back and got the rest of the show. The other two seasons may have sucked, but the first season was some of the best TV I've seen.



The Office

During season two, this was hands down, the best show on television. Over the last two seasons The Office has dropped off a little, but there's no doubt that it's still one of the best shows around. I always see a lot of contention between the people who favor the US show versus those who favor the original UK one. My opinion lies somewhere in between. I think that while Steve Carell is awesome as the idiot boss, Ricky Gervais can never be topped. One simply must just go to Youtube and search for his dance routine to understand. On the other hand, I think the supporting cast on the US version is far superior. There's no worker in The Office that the audience doesn't know who that person is. It's a testament to the quality of the US show that even if a character only has two lines in an episode, the audience knows that character because of the time that has been dedicated to producing that type of ensemble cast over the seasons. Like I said, this show has already peaked, but I know there's not any other show I look forward to more.



Californication

This is my new show! It's the Sex and the City for guys. I don't know if you'll find any better dialogue anywhere else on TV. Showtime had a nice hit with Weeds, but then that started to go downhill after the first season. I've yet to check out Dexter, but with Californication and the first season of Weeds, Showtime is becoming a strong competitor to HBO for adult TV shows. As long as you can get past the disbelief that many hot women find David Duchovny attractive, this is a really fun 30 minutes. The story basically revolves around a self-loathing author who's going through what could be called a midlife crisis. With that midlife crisis brings random sex with some pretty hot females, lots of drinking and, well, pretty cool stuff if you ask me. Well, actually, I don't think anyone would really want to be David Duchovny's character of Hank Moody, but its fun to watch him destroy his own life.

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Well, those are my TV shows guys. That's what I watch, and what you should watch. I guess I should add that I'm going through and watching Northern Exposure at the moment. I had actually never seen it until I threw the first disc in my Netflix queue. I'm up to season four and this is one killer show. Now that I think about, I should add that I'm a big Arrested Development fan too.

Well, the end has come for The Gilroy. I've gotten a job writing NBA blogs over at www.sportsviews.com

It was fun while it lasted!