January 13th, 2011

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

Song Info (from Beatlesongs):”Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is on the Abbey Road album, and was 100% written by McCartney, he called it “the corny one.”  The term “pataphysical” came from a Parisian club called the Pataphysical Society, which was actually a drinking club.

I don’t know that I’ve ever “discovered” a TV show on my own – you know, just stumbled onto it and found out it was great.  Most shows I love I started watching them because of a friend’s suggestion.  I didn’t start watching Seinfeld until its third or fourth season (thanks, Dave!), and I never saw an episode of Firefly until it was off the air and on DVD.  I sorta picked up Scrubs and Arrested Development on my own, I guess, but for the most part I find shows because I hear enough people say enough good things about them.

I tend towards sitcoms and sci-fi and not much toward dramas, whether courtroom or otherwise.  I did make it through three or four seasons of Smallville, which was more drama than sci-fi, so maybe that counts.

I tried the original CSI for a while, but didn’t stick with it.  I kind of liked the technical aspects (even though I knew they were ridiculously sped up for the sake of the show), but it was pretty gross and the characters didn’t really stick with me.  I took my failure to stick with it as a sign that procedurals weren’t really for me.

When Megan and I started dating, she told me she really liked Bones and wanted me to watch it with her.  I didn’t know anything about it at all, but agreed to watch an episode with her, of course.  It turned out to be a procedural and it also turned out to have some really gross after-death medical stuff in it… but I was surprised to find out I liked it.  A lot.  The characters really resonated with me, and I wanted to see what would happen to them.  Megan and I started on Season 1, Episode 1 and kept on from there.  We started with Netflix, but pretty soon I just bought her the seasons as we got ready for the next one.  We finished Season 5 in time to start watching Season 6, airing currently.  (Note: Bones is the tie-in to the title of this entry, as the crew could easily discern Maxwell’s use of a silver hammer in killing his victims.)

I hate waiting a week (or two, or five) for the next episode.  In some ways it’s so much better to have a finished product – there’s a lot to enjoy, you can watch at your own pace, and you can see the storyline from start to finish.  It’s like a really long movie.  Of course, if the show is really good, it can be sad that it’s over, knowing there won’t be any more episodes (the aforementioned Firefly, Arrested Development, Wonderfalls…), but it can also be sort of a good thing.

One of the few shows I was allowed to watch growing up was ALF. For years afterwards I had fond memories of the cat-eating alien.  A couple of years ago I bought the entire run of ALF on DVD. The first two seasons were as great as I remembered. The third season was… just okay. The fourth season? Awful. Just awful.  There’s an instance of a show that should have stopped after two seasons, apparently.  So, yeah, more Arrested Development is a thing most fans want, me included.  But there’s a part of me that is sort of glad it ended when it did.  As it is, there’s this almost perfect package of the show.  If it had gone on longer, it might have gotten lousy, like so many shows do (you are required by law at this point to mention The Simpsons, and how it isn’t as good as it used to be, and about how the fourth season was the pinnacle).  Jerry Seinfeld famously decided to end the show while it was still wildly popular and very good.  There’s debate on whether or not that was a good thing, but I tend to agree with him.

It’s probably safest for me to only find good shows once they’re off the air.  That way I can enjoy them for what they are and don’t have to worry about them messing it up in the future.  The downside is that once I start liking a show, I want to devour it.  Megan and I would watch an episode or two of Bones a week, whereas on my own I probably would have watched a season in two weeks or less.

So what are some of your favorite shows?

6 Comments on “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”

  1. Mandy says:

    Meags got me into Chuck, but I’m behind on the current season.
    A friend got me into Top Gear, which may be my favourite show ever.
    Another friend suggested Mad Men to me, even though she’d only seen a couple episodes. I have seen them all and love it.
    Shows I’ve seen on my own? I want to rent Nip/Tuck and watch it from the beginning, because me and my mom got into it when it first came out, but I’ve since forgotten about it.

    I’m not in a place where I can watch regular TV right now, but I do understand the appeal to watching a full season at your own pace. It’s nice to sometimes just sit and watch hour after hour of a show you love. It makes for a very good day.

  2. Eric says:

    Our favorites are Psych and White Collar. Both courtesy of the USA network. If you have Netflix streaming you can get Psych seasons from there. Funny, funny writing. Brilliant interplay between the cast. And enough obscure humorous references to make you think and laugh at the same time.

  3. daniel says:

    Burn Notice. Hawaii Five-0. Human Target, Lie To Me,

  4. daniel says:

    oh yeah… THe MIddle, Modern Family, Rescue Me.

    There are others I really like that are quality (Parenthood) but thos are ones that I actively look forward to

  5. Joe says:

    I think Arrested Development could’ve done several more seasons and done them well.

  6. dave says:

    hehe, you said “resonate”.

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