All Hope Is Not Lost, Penny Pigtails #2

As I said in the previous post, I've done quite a bit of activist stuff here in the past week. It had to be done but I don't want to inundate my blog with that stuff. We shouldn't always be On, you know?

So anywayz, continuing from part 1.

We live in some interesting times, people. No, no, I'm not even referring to so-called "important" stuff like politics and shit. I'm talking about the polarity between Awesome and Suck that defines American society today. I will elaborate.



#2. TV has gotten some really great shows and some really bad shows in the past couple years.
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LOST. Damn, dude. Love it or hate it (how could you?) this show really engaged its audience. Yeah, jokes abounded for the duration of its later seasons about how complicated the show had become, how the writers couldn't possibly pull everything together, how the narrative was a trainwreck, etc. Fuck all that shit. And you know something? I haven't even watched the last few seasons. I can't promise that I won't be back here after another of my marathon sessions with an entirely different opinion.
But I have faith that that won't be the case. Not to sound like I'm full of myself (which I am) but do you know how seldom I find a show that really engages me intellectually? I mean, I can be entertained by many things, but how many shows get me pondering? Precious few, friends. Precious few.

You know how you can tell that a production has something special? When the cast members feel something for it, too. Other examples include Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
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Heroes. This show, well, it started out really great. It won awards and got a bunch of nominations and I loved it. But it soured and eventually got cancelled after 4 seasons. And none too soon. The show started to go over budget with the effects, the writing started to go bad... The last straw for me was when Ando got a special ability. Remember my post on Artemis Entreri? Same deal here. His lack of special ability defined his character. It made him special by being 'not special', if you follow my meaning. Even without being able to fly, teleport, what have you, he could still do stuff. He was the human element within the show. (For similar reasons, the Imperial Guardsmen are my favored race when playing Warhammer 40k.) But no, he got robbed. Damn. That show gave me a few good seasons though. For that I'm grateful.
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Dexter. I haven't been watching the newest sixth season but the other five were great. Season 6 though... I've heard some mixed things. But I think the Big Bad is some kind of religious fanatic. I can dig that, hueh hueh hueh.
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Breaking Bad. Oh, damn. I've halted on that show for a long time now. It was good, too, though. Until the wife started playing a bigger role. She's a dumb bimbo. She's not too bright, has no characteristics I can admire. She gets out of a couple sticky situations by "pretending" to have panic attacks. Ugh. I haven't watched past Season 3, Episode 4 but I'm hoping some of Heisenberg's enemies come by and plug her sometime so we don't have to endure anymore of her bullshit.
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How I Met Your Mother gets a mention, too. In a reversal of those last three that I just mentioned, HIMYM started out a little shaky but it found its footing with Barney Stintson. Ted Mosby is a shitty guy, not quite a shitty character, just a shitty guy, in my opinion. I prefer not to consider him the main protagonist.
I don't watch The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon Cooper is a caricature more than a character in my opinion. But I'll speak more on this in a later post in this series.
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To balance out all this good stuff, Reality TV has continued to grow. In what I hope will be the zenith of crapfuckery that is that genre of television, a show called Jersey Shore has become quite popular. Or would it be the nadir? I'm hoping it can't get much worse than this, anyway. Americans can only have the results of egregiously unequally distributed wealth rubbed in their faces for so long right?