Woe is TV.

It seems kind of sad to me that the best night of TV at the moment is Tuesday night. TUESDAY NIGHT. With New Girl and Big Bang Theory. And the return of Snog Marry Avoid. SMASH season 2 was also on last Tuesday but it started so late it was actually Wednesday morning viewing, so I don't count that. Now, I do enjoy these shows, but the fact that these are the viewing cream of my week BY A LONG WAY is a  sad SAD indictment of the state of programming. I know it's First World Problems, but TV did not used to cause this much angst! Shows used to start promptly on the hour or half hour, in line with the printed TV guide. There used to be something fun on Sunday nights like Doctor Who or The Mentalist or both. If the viewing audience is spending more time watching TV on the internet or DVD boxed sets (I'm enjoying Dark Angel most nights), who can blame them!!!!!

Why The Bachelor.

 I don't like this show much but I love a shared TV experience, and this has mass appeal.

Why you might want to go on the Bachelor.

You are obsessed with roses. That's normal in this context.

To score some free tourism. That's basically what the show is, it's Sydney Weekender for girls.

To wear clothes that aren't yours and have your hair done by a professional, every time you go to a farm or drink wine. That's a real perk.

To make some BFFs. Most of the women seem really nice.

Why you shouldn't go on the Bachelor.

To find love. How can you find love in an environment where everyone is dressed in clothes that aren't theirs, doing tourism activities they never normally do, and basically being fake TV people? How can you find a genuine person? You might be impressed that you go on a date and there are 200 candles, but he didn't light those candles, a TV crew did. None of the romantic gestures are real, they're all constructed. Let alone the fact that you "make a connection" on your date and then he goes and "makes a connection" with another girl the next week.

You have pride.

Quirky vs scary.

The quirky character/detective in a TV show won't get killed. Quirky characters make me feel safe. In Criminal Minds, Spencer and Garcia will never be killed. If they were, we would all stop watching. Same with Abby in NCIS, and maybe even DiNozzo. Whereas if like an FBI suit gets killed, I'll get over it. They killed Kate, which was sad, but they wouldn't be able to kill off Abby. The quirky character is the safe place in the scary show.

The opposite is true for movies, H pointed out to me today. In movies, she said, the quirky one dies and the good-looking ones survive.

TV has died.

Seasons have finaled. Crap has premiered (fortunately I was rewatching season finales and missed out). I'm going to have to find something else to do at night. Maybe read books or something.

Photo Finish.

It's a good show. A really simple concept, presented efficiently. I could imagine friends of mine going on it. While it's not really that interesting watching people hold cameras to their faces and squat down, the photographic results are edited in so you see through their cameras as well. It makes me keen to take photography a little bit more seriously. Which I never get an equivalent cooking motivation after watching Masterchef. Probably the best thing about the show though is that it is stripped back. It doesn't try and build hype or drama like cooking and singing shows do. Nobody is on a journey. It's just "here's the brief, here are your cameras, good luck". Andrew G, who used to host Idol, has hardly any hosting to do, and certainly never cuts to an ad break before revealing the final 3. He just says useful things about how to take better photos, and he actually knows what he's talking about. So overall, I'm impressed.  It's niche TV, smartly done, and probably the least annoying reality show ever made.

Cherry Dilemmas.

I'm not sure who Cherry is, but she does some interesting TV programs. Basically she gets alongside different women and talks to them about why they live the way they do, and goes along with them, a different topic each week. I saw one on dating, it was painfully honest about how hard it is to date until you find a husband—one woman was shallow and wouldn't settle for imperfection, another woman had a short life expectancy but didn't want to give up and die single. It was all kind of sad, and made me glad I have more to live for than getting married. Then I missed a few weeks. Then I saw one on body image. Then one, Money Dilemmas, which is on iview for another 2 days, and the variety of women is again the most interesting thing. The millionairess is boring. The other women are fascinating. Marry for money, riches to rags, freegan, and poverty-line. I had no idea that money shapes people so much, until they're compared up close.

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/853053

No tv

My tv viewing habits have been highly influenced by the people I've lived with. I've never owned a tv, but there's always been one in whatever household I've lived in. I've watched tv shows with housemates and gotten into Masterchef, Biggest Loser, Dr Who etc etc, but now, in my current household, my housemate doesn't have a tv and I don't think I should buy one because my spare time will soon be filled with study.

I do miss it a little. There are some shows I would like to watch e.g. The Voice (but only because everyone talks about it), Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and Community.

TV can be a great tool for unwinding and entertaining as well, but I've found not having one is a good excuse to invite myself over to people's places to watch it :) I haven't actually done that yet, but I am slowly compiling a list of people who've agreed to have me over for tv, which might be a nice way to hang out with introverted friends.

My dad offered to buy me a tv and I asked for a smartphone instead. He said, "No, tv only." So you see, if I had a choice, I'd receive a smartphone over a tv, but if I had to pay for a tv out of my own pocket, I'd get a tv over a smartphone because I would buy a cheap tv!

However, if I start reacting like this after a while, I may get a tv:

Please marry my useless son.

With what joy did I stumble into PMMB last night, unaware that such a show was premiering—where were the fanfares? Elsie is away so I texted her and received the reply "I WANT TO WATCH THAT SHOW!!!!" The concept is too good to be true. Take a bunch of men who want love but are too precious to settle down, give them a harem to choose from and a bunch of awkward orchestrated romantic moments… so far so Farmer Wants A Wife. But add… MOTHERS. Mothers who get to choose the wife. Mothers who grill the harem and ask difficult questions and don't care about "chemistry". Mothers who aren't impressed by boobs. Mothers who make their son squirm with embarrassment. Mothers who have spoilt their son, mothers who want grandchildren, mothers who want their son to marry a nice Serbian girl, mothers who just want their son to grow up and move out. This is probably the trashy match-making show of our generation.

TV is too good.

I should be making the productive most of having no set-top box. In the absence of TV I should be playing the piano, finishing craft stuff, filing photos and so on. However, I have instead been gulping hungrily at TV series on DVD. I watched Samantha Who, it was not great but I finished season 1 in 3 days. I just find Barry Watson a bit hateful. I started watching Heroes last night though. Always been meaning to watch it. Hiro is the cutest Japanese nerd ever. I'm going to skip free red room night tonight at watch more Heroes. TV shows on DVD are the biggest binge substance ever. TV beats movies for involvement in plot and characters. It's a golden age for TV! The only sad part of the DVD binge is that it's not a shared experience like it is when everyone watches things on live TV at the same time and you can go to work and compare theories about SD6 or Red John.

Stuff I just need to put on the internet.

Funny how most of the blogs I read have been paused for the holidays while the bloggers recharge their creative juices, but here at jelssie we are still over-flowing with the usual rubbish. Energy levels soar with Christmas snack food intake.

I feel like saying a few things about TV.

FIrstly, how much does off-season suck. Why do I have to watch re-runs of The Mentalist when there are new episodes on the other side of the world? Why is off-season so long? And it's not like on-season has that much better quality. And this year summer has been wet so in weather terms we should still be in on-season. I'm not going to the beach every evening, I'm home in front of the TV.

I've noticed in the last week on ABC1 three new newsreader ladies. Only one is blonde, and she has an interesting face with a crooked mouth, actually a little bit like Elliot from Scrubs. The other two are dark haired, in fact "ethnically diverse" in appearance, but with Australian accents. I like them all! I can't choose!

ABC2 plays David Mitchell's Soapbox. I love him. In this one he gets right to the heart of the baby name issue.



Seven2 is such a waste of time. I have decided to never check that channel ever again because it's always lame.

The various channel 9s used to always have Big Bang Theory during prime time, but lately they haven't. This is a sad regression. Replacing 2.5 men with BBT was the best thing 9 ever did, along with buying Sherlock and The Mentalist, because until then I had never watched 9 at all. I'm looking forward to new Sherlock, esp to see how they resolved the cliff-hanger.

And lastly, have you ever thought about staples? They are amazing, because they are made from metal, but they are sort of stuck together, but only stuck together exactly the right amount so that they can be broken off individually in the stapler. So amazing.

Interesting TV factoid.

Did you know that Smallville (according to my flatmate) is now the longest-running Sci-fi TV show? Smallville! I've never watched an episode, but there it is, still there. I've never met anyone other than flatmate who likes it. But maybe it's good.

Friday Food for Thought.

Here is the food part:

• I usually fail when trying to split my IGA brand scotch finger biscuit. Either 2 handed, or across the back of the middle finger on one hand. I think it can only be done if you have 4 thumbs.
• Kit Kat rows are similarly badly designed. The chocolate rarely breaks in the gutter, it usually breaks off the side of the next finger, leaving unsightly exposed wafer.
• I keep buying 2L of milk with only 2 days left till expiry. But my stupidity is matched only by my resourcefulness. I recently found out (by experience, again due to expiry ignorance) that milk can be drunk at least 5 days past the expiry. Also, my $60 grocery challenged forced me to freeze milk. It defrosts OK.

In other news, I'm at the point where I wonder if I'm watching too much telly. But there are so many episodes of Big Bang Theory on! Sometimes on 2 channels at once! Is there such a thing as too much Jim Parsons? Look what I found today. BBT minus laughter. It's kind of weird, and the bleak pauses remind me of Garfield Minus Garfield.

And this is current affairs: Debt Crisis for Dummies. This is a nifty visual representation of Europe's debt. You click on a country and see where it owes money. Then you click on the country that holds the debt and see where IT owes money. Then you click on THAT country… I wouldn't say it explains the situation though, "because why the heck?" is still the unanswered question. But I guess it's like when people pay off credit cards with other credit cards.

And that's pretty much everything! Go forth and have a rock n roll weekend.

Turning into my parents

I used to cringe every time my parents cried out, "Look! There's an Asian on tv!"

Well, I'm turning into them. Almost. Every time I see an Asian on tv now, I want to cry out, "Look! There's an Asian on tv!"

Underrated: Old TV.

The set top box has led to the rediscovery of some quality TV, at least for nostalgia's sake. And I'm not talking about Gilligan's Island. That show is for stupids. I keep discovering BBC treasures like Pie in the Sky, Jonathan Creek, and especially The Good Life. I AM Tom and Barbara! I love the way they dress in gumboots, old jeans, green jumpers, and how they cut their own hair, and they have such a fun repartee it's sometimes hard to remember that they must have a script, and Penelope Keith and the guy from Yes Minister are so droll. It's like a friendly hug in TV form.

Wild TV.

When I watched The man from Snowy River I lamented the lack of any gritty outback dramas today. The farmers are all wooing their harems (hateful FWAwife) when they should be galloping and shooting and solving crime and stuff.

Have I heard right? That woman who died on Rafters told Adam Hills she is going to be in a show LIKE THAT! The name isn't promising, Wild Boys or something. But at least it's not a suburban/police/doctor show. Hallelujah!

"Wild Boys will combine horses, gold, bushrangers, power and corruption - all set against the backdrop of an 1850s penal system."

Unfortunately Daniel MacPherson is in it. I don't hate the guy, but he is just so… suburban/police/doctor. He hosts talent shows. Why don't they just cast the Bondi Vet as well to be really sure.

I shall certainly be watching with interest.

No news is good news.

I heard that the new channel ten all news all evening lineup isn't rating well. I could have told them. I'm their target market, and I don't want more news. Who wants more news? I watch a rare fragment of news on ABC or SBS, if it isn't about sport or anything depressing. Gen X and Y get a drip feed of news all day long, on the car radio and smart phone, and I personally don't want to sit down and watch the same news again at night, in a big block, with ads. Boring. I want to watch How I Met Your Mother or QI.

Australian writing.

Australia doesn't have very imaginative TV. I reckon the reason Australia pumps out such good actors is that they have to earn a living acting lame scripts. There are few well-scripted local shows, with complex characters in layered environments.

But by lack of imagination I also mean in the premise. Cop/Doctor shows and small town/family dramas is all. I would LOVE to see a mystery series (adaptation of Arthur Upfield stories, perhaps) or a science fiction genre series, or a modern Australian adaptation of Oliver Twist. Something with an interesting premise, using history and place and personality. And it shouldn't be too high-brow.

If I was a writer, I'd be trying to get into television script writing. It seems to me a more potentially dynamic field, it's got audiences, and it's such a collaborative creative process. Also, if I was a composer, I'd want to score films and stuff, because that's where the most people are the most exposed to classical and cutting-edge music. Is anyone listening? You should make an Oliver Twist set in Bowral and Newtown with a soundtrack by the Whitlams and Nigel Westlake.

Early night TV.

Rarely am I at home at 5pm or 6pm. I survive OK without Ten news or the Simpsons or M*A*S*H. But I'm getting home early on Tuesday to eat before Bible study and discovering the best TV on the ABC is on then.

I watched a doco series on post-war industrial design (plastic, the ipod etc, how they change our lives). This week they started a series called The Choir: Boys don't sing. A 9-month challenge for a man called Gareth to start a choir in a boy's school. Fascinating and cringey at the same time. The obvious reluctance to defy peer norms vs the actual enjoyment of group singing. Gareth looks a little bit like David Tennant.

6 o'clock Tuesdays, TV for cool people.

No TV.

I'm out a lot, I don't have many TV shows I care about, and the few I really like aren't on right now, so I just don't watch TV anymore. Technically, I watch shows on DVD a fair bit, but I think that's quite different. It's selective, not just plonking down and brainlessly watching whatever is on for 3 hours. Last night I put the TV on for 10 minutes, and remembered why I don't watch it to fill in time anymore: ads, and Two and a half men. Life is too short.

My only regret is missing Alan Kohler and his lovely graphs on the ABC news finance report.

Dead Wives Society.

Count the detectives and heros who have a dead wife. A dead wife (and optional dead daughter) gives good men who fight evil the ultimate tragic past, makes them loyal and unavailable yet conflicted and available, deeply and interestingly damaged, and probably also provides a revenge storyline.