Thursday, March 7, 2013

Graphic Novels

I have been reading the crap outta graphic novels this year.  This is what happens when you move to a city big enough to have a good public liberry.  I'm reading a lot more than usual and I'm finding new stuff and it's just friggin' awesome.

Transmetropolitan is now one of my favorite graphic novel reads EVER.  I'm thinking of getting a Spider Jerusalem tattoo but I don't know how that would work.  I could just get the spider tattoo he has on his head and get it on the inside of my wrist.  That'd be cheaper than anything else.  I just feel the need to permanently remember these books and how wonderful they are.  Profane, sick, wrong, and also sometimes moving.  It's like Preacher, except it doesn't go to quite the extremes that Preacher does.

Monday, March 4, 2013

TV 2012: Odds and ends

New
Arrow
Eagleheart
The Fades
The Hour
Grimm
Key and Peele
Lost Girl
Switched at Birth

Cancelled
Awake
Best Friends Forever
Bent
Boss
Eastbound and Down (?)
The Life and Times of Tim
The Secret Circle

Stopped watching:
Being Human (U.K.)
Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23
Episodes
GCB
House of Lies
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret
Luck
Once Upon a Time
Political Animals
Up All Night
Warehouse 13

TV 2012: Runners-up and summary judgments

Most disappointing:
Boss - I never quite knew how I felt about this show.  At times I liked it quite a bit but most times it kinda bored me.  It was the kind of show where I kept looking at how much time was left and it always felt like it was taking for-fucking-ever to be over.  Then the finale just fell flat and lay there dying and gasping and I was happy when it was cancelled so I wouldn't have to dither over whether or not to watch a third season.
Homeland  - Man.  When this show is good?  It's one of the best things I've ever seen.  When it's not?  It's worse than a particularly bad episode of 24.  Why?  Because it has soooo much potential to be great, when it fails it just feels worse.  And this season, while it had a few really great highs, had some pretty great lows as well.  Enough lows that while I doubt I will stop watching, I'm not really looking forward to season 3.  I never would have predicted that when the season was young and the episodes where at their peak.
House of Lies - I was looking forward to this show quite a lot before it aired.  Don Cheadle, Kristin Bell, Jean-Ralphio??  I was so in.  And it ended up being just kind of meh at best and unpleasant at worst.  So annoying.

Most improved:
New Girl - Last year this was on my list of shows I thought I'd be giving up on soon.  Well, I didn't give up on it and now it's one of my favorite shows.
Parenthood - I've always thought of this show as good, but messy.  For some reason this season feels a lot less messy.
Sons of Anarchy - I almost didn't watch this season after last season ended so stoopidly.  But I did and I'm glad for it because it was a pretty good season of television.  Maybe not as good as the excellent second season, but definitely better than the third and fourth seasons.

Just plain fun:
Children's Hospital
Community
Cougar Town
Eagleheart
Happy Endings
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
The League
NTSF:SD:SUV::
Revenge
RuPaul's Drag Race
Sherlock

Honorable mention:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart/The Colbert Report - These are the only shows that never sit around on my DVR.  I suppose that's partly because there are four episodes each per week.  But both are consistently good, consistently funny, and I just enjoy the heck out of watching Jon and Stephen.

Most fun new shows:
Key and Peele
Arrow

Ending on a good run:
Fringe
30 Rock

Died too soon:
Best Friends Forever and Bent - I watched all of these and I think they both could have developed into something had they been given the chance. 

What's wrong with me that I don't love this show?
Game of Thrones - I love parts of this show quite a lot.  And hell, the thing just looks good.  It's well-written, well-acted, all of that.  But I've never fallen in love with it.  I just don't really CARE enough about the characters to love it.

What's wrong with me that I love this show?
American Horror Story: Asylum

Finally losing steam:
The Vampire Diaries
Supernatural

Slowly losing me:
Suburgatory - This is one is suffering from what I might call the "Glee virus."  Glee was a show that I loved and hated and loved and hated and finally the hate was more prevalent than the love and I had to give up on it.  If you watch ten episodes and two of them are wonderful, that's still eight episodes of dreck you're putting up with.  Suburgatory has shown that it's capable of wonderful episodes, but it can't maintain any consistency with it.  I'm not willing to put up with yuck for one or two stellar outings.
Raising Hope - Similar to above.  I'm finding this show to be more pedestrian and typical than I'd like. 

Still good for at least one or two excellent episodes per season:
South Park

Most testosterone:
Strike Back - If there were more depth to this show, it might have qualified as one of my top favorite shows.  It suffers in comparison to Spartacus, which is even more over the top in its sex and violence, but amazingly enough, does have some depth to it.  But this show is just a lot of fun and fills my need for silly action sequences with hot men running around in tight t-shirts.


Favorite Shows of 2012

These are the shows I decided were my favorite in 2012.

Alphas
Archer
Boardwalk Empire
Bob's Burgers
Breaking Bad
Justified
Key and Peele
Louie
Mad Men
New Girl
Parks and Recreation
Spartacus: Vengeance
Treme