CurtBlog : TV

The current state of "Free TV" options

skills0 — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Pretty good overview here of the options of getting tv shows streamed directly from the networks' web sites. I've tried this a bit, but it still seems a bit "not ready for primetime", if you'll pardon the pun. Getting better though. I got rid of my cable a little over a year ago now and Kristin and I discuss every now and then whether we should get back into that game. DirectTV is always another option, but it seems like the installation is a pain. Comcast will eat up all your disposable income if you'll let them. I like tv, but there have been fewer and fewer shows lately that I've cared about. And certainly the experience of watching tv shows on DVD can't be beat if you can wait that long. The other thing I like is I do much less channel surfing, which is a huge waste of time. At least most of the time when I watch a show now it is intentional.

The past TV season was not without its share of frustrations, but we managed to get along on a combination of over-the-air HD programming, Amazon Unbox, ITunes downloads and using BT to fill in the gaps. It actually worked pretty well, other than the hassle of watching shows on the laptop much of the time. With my MacBook Pro, I think the experience will be substantially better and I may try to hook it up to the TV again (something my Thinkpad struggled with). Another nice thing that happened over the last six months is the ability to hook the Tivo into the Amazon Unbox service, which is something I'm likely to take more and more advantage of. We watched quite a bit of "24" that way, especially towards the end of the season and the quality isn't that bad.

Two great DVD release news bits

skills0 — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:19:05 GMT

First of all, it appears there will finally be a full release of all the episodes of one of my top 3 TV shows of all time, Twin Peaks. It's been quite a struggle to get all the licensing worked out on this one and for a long time the pilot was very hard to find.

Also, a brand new 5 disc collectors edition of Blade Runner, with a totally new director's cut (cleaned up, added scenes, etc.). Should be quite interesting.

New Over the Rhine coming in August as well.

Thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet's blog for alerting me to this stuff. If you love movies and popular culture in general from a thoughtful Christian perspective, I highly recommend checking him out.

Good list of all the outstanding mysteries of Lost on IGN

skills0 — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:38:08 GMT

IGN has a great list of 50 things about Lost that still remain a mystery. It's a good catalog of all the head-scratchers that the show hasn't answered yet, with some good comments and detail for each one.

Friday Night Lights - it's not just for football fans

skills0 — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 11:14:44 GMT

Hmmm, when Jake and Scott both raved about this show I was skeptical. It just seemed like a silly premise for a show, although I didn't see the movie. But I figured if they think it is that good, it's worth a shot and so I grabbed the first 3 eps and had a look-see yesterday. And it turns out to be very compelling. I really like the actors a lot ... aside from some occasional over the top melodrama it feels very real. And it's interesting to see network tv tackle small town Texas' love for God and football, not necessarily always in that order. I still have a hard time understanding what it must be like to live in one of these towns, although I've had enough friends from Texas over the years to confirm it really is this way. Apparently the network just ordered some additional shows, so hopefully people will start watching this instead of Dancing with the Stars or whatever other crap is on opposite it.

Chronic - what- les of Narnia - funniest thing on SNL in awhile

skills0 — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 11:35:30 GMT

Just when I thought SNL was dead (and the whole white boy rap spoof for that matter), along comes Samburg and Parnell with something geniunely funny.

Real World?

skills0 — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 08:43:00 GMT

Was watching a bit of Real World Austin and while I realize the show "jumped the shark" awhile back, it was still a fascinating trainwreck of a social experiment at times. At the very least, you got archetypes in cliched situations (city boy vs country boy, militant black man vs downhome southern boy, homophobe vs homosexual, etc.). The latest seasons seem to be more about taking 6 Abercrombie models who are willing to sleep with anything and get smashed at the drop of a hat. Throw them into the biggest hottub you can find and see what happens. It becomes more about being a Real World cast member, whatever that means, than any kind of real human interaction. At best, it's really nothing more than a soap opera, scripted or not. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I keep hoping the show somehow mixes things up and becomes interesting again.

Tivo wrangler

skills0 — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 14:56:00 GMT

Bruce Willis was on the Daily Show the other night and was talking about how much he liked his Tivo. Nice pitch, Tivo needs all the support it can get right now. Jon asked him if he programmed it himself and he said something like "No, I have people to do that for me. I have a Tivo Wrangler." Can I have that job? Sounds fun. That would be a conversation starter at a party - so what do you do? Oh , I'm Bruce Willis's Tivo Wrangler. Funny stuff.

24 is back, baby

admin — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 05:19:00 GMT

Well, I think I'm willing to say now that this season of 24 so far is the best since the first season. I was just about ready to quit watching this year, as the last couple seasons have been plagued by weak plotline and even weaker characters. If they can keep up the momentum of the first few hours of this season, I think they are back on track. The characters are more interesting, the acting is better and the plot seems pretty interesting, although still convoluted. It's interesting watching how the story keeps unfolding. I think the first 12 minutes of this past Monday night episode is some of the best action TV I've seen in awhile. Gripping.