Category Archives: TV Tuesday

September 2, 2012

Hawkeye & Margaret

TV Tuesday now turns to the third serious contender for All-Time Favorite television series. I’ve taken the liberty of excluding Star Trek from consideration, because it’s so integrated into my life, so big that it transcends being just a “favorite TV series.” That leaves four in the Fave Five, and in the last two days I’ve celebrated the two top contenders.

Today I celebrate the series that, until it was knocked down by the other two, was easily my favorite show ever. It’s one of the only two series I tried to fully capture to video tape back in the 1990s (before DVDs made all that effort a sad, silly waste). The other series was Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The third-place contender, formerly number one, is M*A*S*H.

22 Comments | tags: Alan Alda, Frank Burns, Hawkeye, Loretta Swit, Margaret Houlihan, MASH, Radar O'Reilly, television | posted in TV, TV Tuesday

September 1, 2012

Ideal(ized) Politics

By Wyrd Smythe

As I mentioned in yesterday’s episode, there are two shows that vie for All-Time Favorite television series. Today’s episode of TV Tuesday is about the series that would — by just a nose — place in the race rather than win. (Tomorrow’s episode is about the show that shows. That’s the Friday Trifecta here: my television picks for win, place and show.)

And I have to say, it’s a really tough call, a photo finish. It’s quite possible that if you asked me at the right time, the order would change. In particular, if you asked me while I was in the middle of re-watching the series (which I may do this coming election season), I might be inclined to say that this horse was the winner.

The horse in question is The West Wing, created by Aaron Sorkin.

2 Comments | tags: Aaron Sorkin, C.J. Cregg, Charlie Young, Jed Bartlet, Josh Lyman, Leo McGarry, television, The West Wing, Toby Ziegler | posted in TV, TV Tuesday

August 31, 2012

House is a Holmes

By Wyrd Smythe

The next two episodes of TV Tuesday concern two shows that are easily in my Fave Five and sure contenders for Top Three. As I mentioned in the first post, there are two that really vie for the top slot, and one that would probably win. This episode is about that show.

This episode is about House, M.D.

As I’ve mentioned before, I watch television for stories that engage me, but more than that I watch television for the characters. This is one place where television shows — especially long-running shows — are superior to movies. A well-drawn character on a television series has a longer “life span” than any movie character can. To approach the life time of a TV character’s life, even for just a single season, requires something like the Harry Potter movies (eight movies amounting to almost 20 hours).

15 Comments | tags: Dr. Greg House, Dr. James Wilson, Dr. Joseph Bell, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, House M.D., Lisa Edelstein, Sherlock Holmes, television | posted in TV, TV Tuesday

August 30, 2012

Hook Up the Cable

By Wyrd Smythe

TV Tuesday now takes a slight detour from the public airwaves and shows of our past to consider what’s been happening in the cable TV world. Some of the shows mentioned here deserve their own article, but in this post I’m going to fly over the landscape as quickly as I can manage (those who know me are laughing their ass off about now). If I don’t (at least try), this will be even longer than my usual lengthy longitude.

The problem is that the landscape has gotten huge! Even taking just the “premium” cable channels, such as HBO and Showtime, I find a large selection of shows to mention. In fact, HBO and Showtime each offer so many shows, either one alone offers much territory to explore. With that in mind, the flight won’t be stopping at any one destination very long. We have a very tight schedule today!

6 Comments | tags: Aaron Sorkin, cable shows, Game of Thrones, HBO, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, news, Nurse Jackie, television, The Big C, The Newsroom (TV series), Veep, Weeds | posted in TV, TV Tuesday

August 29, 2012

Unreality Shows

By Wyrd Smythe

Before TV Tuesday can proceed to the television I love, I need to clear the airwaves regarding an entire genre of television I cannot stand.

I suspect I’m about to offend some people while causing others to cheer. To those who cheer, you are clearly members of a discerning, intelligent television audience. To those who are offended, your presence in the gene pool is no longer required, please hit the showers.

As you may have gathered, yep, it’s another opinionated rant. This one is about what I consider the worst thing to hit television since Manimal or The Ropers. In fact, it’s worse, far worse, than those two combined, plus Cop Rock and Mr. T. and Tina.

It’s about the form of video excrescence known as “Reality TV.” And that really does need to be in quotes, because there isn’t one thing “real” about it. Quite to the contrary, a more accurate term is “Unreality TV.”

6 Comments | tags: reality shows, television, trash, voyeurism | posted in Rant, TV, TV Tuesday

August 28, 2012

TV Tuesday

By Wyrd Smythe

Welcome to TV Tuesday here at Logos CC. Today begins a series of posts concerning that daily invader to most of our lives: television. For good or ill, television has become a fact in the fabric of our families. And there certainly is both much good and ill to be found on the video airwaves. That is an ongoing topic on this blog, but this series is about the shows I love (and some that I don’t).

I suppose TV Thursday might have been a more logical choice, though it doesn’t have quite the same ring. I say that because Thursday nights was the NBC Must See TV night that brought us such classics as The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Friends, Night Court, Mad About You, Seinfeld and Wings.