The New Old Season

I’m still mourning the end of Deadwood. While I like Timothy Olyphant (good-guy sheriff Seth Bullock), by the end of the show it was Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen (and his band of band-guys) that totally made the series. Strong characters all around, and a well-evolved plot. But alas, some things are not meant to last forever.

And the Tivo is barren. I mean absolutely nothing new (that we haven’t seen) is recorded. Day-to-day the most entertaining items are old Fraiser’s that I either haven’t seen or at some point forgot. Hell, the other day I was excited when they finished up the last season of Friends and started from the beginning again. THERE’S NOTHING ON. (Except new Venture Brothers, which is of course fantastic, but not enough to keep the voices in my head quite for most of the week).

So I’ve started digging into the back catalog on Netflix/Torrent, and found that I easily get sucked into well-written, well-acted short run series:

• Rome – Good writing and acting, but too compressed into one season. I’m sure the production costs were too high to continue indefinitely, but I’m sure they could have come up with some more source material from one of the longest ruling empires in history. But alas, I think one season is all we get.
• The Wire – I’ve been moving through this series slowly, and I think its better than The Sopranos. Superbly written and acted, its great at showing two angles, and each season brings a new big case while still maintaining contact with the old. Slow for release and I don’t see a lot of talk about it, so I’m not sure how long its legs are, but its good while it lasts.
• Entourage – I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but HBO’s barrel is head-and-shoulders above anything else, and when watched back-to-back these really aren’t that bad. My sister-in-common-law recommended them as “brainless little 30 minute brain candies” and she’s right. Anything to avoid another reality show on broadcast.

There are possibly a couple of new shows that might bring hope to the new season (Studio 60 for one, but even after seeing the pilot I’m not completely sold). Most of all I’m looking forward to the return of my hard-core favorites: Lost, Big Love, and of course, Battlestar Galactica.

(Parental warning: TV will rot your brain and should only be taken in small doses after you’ve put in a 16 hour day and no longer have the capacity to think creatively in any way, shape, or form…its like the Tantalus device on Star Trek)