Television, TeeVee, TV ah how I've missed you my longtime companion.

Needless to say, at times life gets in the way of ones passions, writing became a real difficulty, then an obligation, then finally a chore.  At this point I knew it was time to take something of a break.

I hope it's done me a little good and I do feel energised sitting here in the mess that will eventually become my new home office.  Unfortunately, at this stage I'm a little out of it and behind the curve where it comes to television shows.  I've been forced in recent months to rely on my collection of DVDs rather than enjoying new shows, as a consequence I find myself in a bit of a bind - I don't have any new material to go over until September and I seem to have missed huge swathes of shows I used to watch.  I've got no idea what Torchwood was like, I've missed two seasons of Parks and Recreation, the latest season of so many shows...  And I'm still waiting to find the drama show with enough teeth and depth to capture my imagination the way my old favourites have done in the past.

Cream cheese and crackers that's starting to sound very negative isn't it?

Well, it's not.  First up, I'm looking forward to playing catch up on my favourite shows.  Secondly I have something of a fresh perspective on life and I'm hoping that it'll breathe a little life into the old blog.

And most importantly of all, I did keep up to date with one show in particular.  Community.  Good Old King of the Mother Fucking Situation Comedies Community.

That's the subject for Wednesday's post - Community's second season.  The highs, the delights, the excitement, the lows (i.e. the season actually finishing).

Until then, the plan is as follows - updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday (with a possible interruption next week because I'm a) getting married and b) going to Germany for a couple of weeks - but I hope to have some stuff written up in advance to cover that situation).  I'm hoping to source a co-writer for some Friday updates, but that depends on her.

Until Wednesday, keep your eyes open and your televisions tuned.  Or your internet connection streaming content - whichever works best for you.
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In case you're wondering why things have been quiet here for a while.  My PC is completely totalled and my laptop has a severely cracked screen.  Until I manage to get these repaired I won't be able to update.

Unfortunately finances are too tight to afford a new PC/Laptop so I can't say when things will resume.  I suspect it will be sometime in the summer.

Until then, hang tight and enjoy good television!

-Rev
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I recently renewed my aquantience with the wonderful drama/suspense/twisty experience that is Damages by rewatching the first season of the show and finally catching up with the entire of the second season. With the third season coming out in the UK on the 18th of October I've decided to spend several posts this week looking at the show and why it's a great piece of television that any consumer of great drama should be watching.

The schedule is to look at the show as a whole and what makes it great, then look at the first two season boxed sets in turn. Hopefully by the end of it there is at least one person who decides the show is worth a spin, because it's a brilliant creation.
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I missed the actual date for my blog's birthday this year... Oops. It was actually the 27th of September 2007 when I started writing on here.

This year has been a reasonable year for television, not amazing if I'm honest - most of the existing shows I've watched have either been pretty OK (but nothing to go nuts about), or fallen by the wayside and been placed as "to catch up with on DVD". Only "Mad Men" has managed to stand tall, but Boardwalk Empire looks full of promise and I'm hoping it'll

But as for new shows, the world of DVDs has been most kind to me this year. Thanks to Dan Owen of Dan's Media Digest I discovered "In Treatment", thanks to my father I found "Mongrels", thanks to my sister I learned to enjoy "The Inbetweeners", thanks to Aaron of Snark and Fury I rediscovered "Robot Chicken", thanks to Lucia of Heroine TV I've started to watch "My So Called Life" and thanks to my random 'I'll have this' purchases in local stores (impulse buys trump internet purchases for me every time) I introduced myself to "Samantha Who", "Frisky Dingo", "Freaks and Geeks", "Wonderfalls" and "Better Off Ted".

Highlights of the year outside of the DVD spectrum include this year's Doctor Who (which I reviewed over at TV Geek Army) which was a triumphant urination on the head of Rusty's offerings from the years previous, writing for TVGA (I'll be reviewing Sons of Anarchy for them every Sunday) and podcasting for the first time with Lucia (Heroine TV).

I'm hoping in this upcoming year to do a couple of podcasts of my own, write some more guest reviews for other sites (just ask if you're interested, I have time to do a fortnightly slot for sure!) and catch up on some seriously great shows!
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I'll be back from the hiatus soon, first up will be the remaining Doctor Who episodes to bring the series up to date. Then a few DVDs, then... Who knows?

I've been a little creatively drained since I moved, and busy with work related projects as well. But I made a commitment here and I plan to carry on regardless.

Back soon!
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I've moved home and I'm pretty settled, so Rev/Views will be starting up again on a thrice weekly basis. The initial plan of attack is to finish reviewing the rest of The Sopranos, look at the second seasons of Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad and then potter about reviewing various the other DVD sets that I have left to finish - including a look at 2012 which will be up either Monday or Wednesday next week.

The third season of Watching The Wire will resume, I just don't know exactly when - perhaps when I'm not living in a room filled with boxes.

This post is entirely full of the truth and not the least bit a joke, it's my protest about that rather lame tradition of April Fools.

See you tomorrow!
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Yeah, that's right. After spending some time trying to work out what to write about TV - inbetween packing to move home and work - I've decided it's best if I take a little time off to see if it recharges my batteries about TV and writing about it.

I'll be on Twitter still, writing random 140 character things isn't as hard as writing on here, but I won't be updating for a little while. It might be a week, it might be until after I've moved. I don't know at this point, I'm just feeling creatively drained and need to focus elsewhere for a little while to recharge.

So. Watch this space as I imagine Treme will be the spur I need to start falling in love with television all over again. Or maybe I'll get another screener copy of something, that often gets me going again. We'll see.

Back soon!
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Deadwood, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under, John Adams, Generation Kill, In Treatment, The Wire, Carnivale, Band of Brothers, Flight of the Conchords and Big Love; these number amongst my favourite shows or mini-series and they all have one thing firmly in common.

They are all from Home Box Office.

In the world of American television there are three networks that I consider to be ones which provide a higher level of quality television than the rest. These are FX, Showtime and the aforementioned HBO. FX and Showtime are networks I keep an eye on and sample shows from them - sometimes I find greatness (Rescue Me and Weeds for example) and sometimes I find shows which I'm not that fussed on (Nurse Jackie), but HBO is a network which I've come to realise never has any of the latter type. Every single HBO production I've watched (and I've seen nearly all of them now) has been quality that is within the top percentile of television shows.

Three of the most significant shows of the last decade came from HBO (The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under) and collectively HBO shows represent around 10% of my personal top 100. That's a huge sweep for a single network, especially when you consider that I'm not an exception in this - many others have similar praises - TVGuide's top 100 episodes of all time features several episodes from HBO; and most critic's top ten "best shows of all time" lists will include at least two or three HBO shows. Empire's list has The Wire and The Sopranos; Time Magazine's has several, as does The Guardian and even Bloggers can't resist including them in their lists (for example here).

It's kind of incredible really, HBO is just one network - a subscription one at that - and in all honesty that's pretty much all I personally know about it. I don't live in America, I watch TV in a detached from timeline fashion that mostly involves boxed set marathons, I don't have any form of subscription television and yet my tastes in television shows are dominated by this one institution which consistently seems to raise the bar for storytelling in a televisual context by not seeming to compromise on depth and only occasionally where accessibility is concerned (out of the show's I've mentioned only The Wire truly requires one to work at their viewing to click with it).

I don't think every network has to be like HBO, there's room for most kinds of programming on the airwaves, but I do feel that more networks and shows should be aspiring to surpass HBO's standard of excellence. Right now there's no doubt (for myself at least) that HBO is my preferred source of television. That said there are networks who do seem to be working on becoming quality providers; the aforementioned Showtime is trying - but is suffering from a lack of consistency, same with FX. The other network which might rise up to become a contended is AMC; but at the moment all they seem to have is Mad Men and Breaking Bad, two most excellent shows, but they're going to need to bring some more big hitters to their lineup - and I suspect they intend to over this year.

In the UK, on the other hand, things seem to be at an all time low - the BBC has very few good quality new dramas or sitcoms and ITV has even less. British television has never been at the forefront of innovative TV - the best show on the screens right now is the frankly ancient Doctor Who, it's still brilliant - but it's hardly enough by itself. We're desperate over here for a quality subscription channel which provides strong and original British programming - but until then I'll keep watching everything HBO brings us.

So how about it HBO? How about giving us Home Box Office UK?
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First up, (as the title suggests) there's a bit more info about Treme from the good people of Crimespree. There are a few shots from the show and the HBO Q&A.

It's all here.

"TREME is about the history of New Orleans since the storm in 2005. What has come back, what has not. What has changed, what is timeless."

I very much approve of The Wire as a television show, it holds my personal second place in the world of "best shows" behind The Shield. Only losing out to the latter due to accessibility issues and the fact that the fifth season of The Wire failed to succeed at my cardinal rule of a long running show - which is 'Each season should be better than the one which came before it'.

That said I've watched everything David Simon has been involved in and adored it - mostly due to the way he approaches the medium of television, in my opinion he's found the correct way to present a show and as such I'm confident Treme will deliver everything I want from it and more.

It doesn't hurt that Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters are involved in the project as actors either.

There's more about Treme's pilot episode cast list here at the IMDB, HBO's Treme Homepage is up here and the wikipedia article (here) contains more information while remaining (currently) spoiler free.

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The title says it all, I'm too ill and tired to finish todays update today. So it shall arrive tomorrow, see you then!
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[A Short Note before Starting: Initially I did indeed write about the two part special "The End of Time" just a few days after I saw both parts on television. What started out as a slightly harsh critique of the flaws in the special degenerated into a vicious rant filled with harsh language and when I boiled it down it came to two essential points. First of all I'm really going to miss David Tennant's Doctor and second that he was almost criminally wasted with Russell T. Davies at the helm. "The End of Time" was pretty much a classic example of Rusty's work - while he can write phenomenal emotional scenes which are touching and brilliant they are unfortunately buried between scenes which are filled with such terrible sci-fi hack work that they're almost impossible to find. Like twenty four carat diamonds hidden in rancid turds. So I decided to shelve that rant and take some distance from the mild disappointment which was Tennant's swan song and instead take a look at the Russell T. Davies run as a whole.]

So the Tenth Doctor is no more, and with him departs the man who brought back Doctor Who - a man who (despite all his flaws and deficiencies in the science fiction field) has gifted the world with the return of a cult favourite and helmed it to a point where it can at times be one of the greatest things on television.

I still remember watching Doctor Who when it first returned and the initial reactions I had. Including such classic lines from myself as "Who's this idiot in the leather jacket? Didn't he go mad in Shallow Grave and drill holes in the ceiling?" and "I hate this Mickey chap, I prefer the plastic version of him!" But on the whole I was thrilled to see the show back on the air- I personally grew up with repeats of Peter Davison alongside Sylvester McCoy. McCoy remains my favourite Doctor (Sorry Rob!) mostly due to the utterly Machiavellian nature of him once Ace turned up and he settled into a mix of clown on the outside and "well devious" on the inside. I adored the seventh Doctor in "Remembrance of the Daleks" which still remains an amazing story to watch.

So the new Doctor had a lot to prove in a short time and while Eccleston's portrayal wasn't amazing he did participate in some spectacular episodes and more importantly blazed a trail for the Tenth Doctor. The best Doctor.

What follows is a representation of my personal enjoyment over the Rusty Years - starting with the first episode and including everything apart from the short ten minute specials which personally never felt like a proper part of the story, but the feature length specials are included. I'm afraid it's pretty long so you'll need to click on the image to see it properly.


Each episode is rated within the whole Doctor Who framework - that is I'm just comparing each episode within the context of the show, I'm not comparing it to other shows out there. Even given that you can see that on average I have indeed enjoyed watching Doctor Who with a solid average score of 5.8 and you can also see that I found the Ninth Doctor's run to be more consistent but never quite reaching the heights (or lows) of the Tenth.

The highest rated episode in this lot is (unsurprisingly) "Blink", the episode which manages to single handedly demonstrate why Moffat is the man for the job and why he'll most likely turn the Eleventh Doctor into something even better than the Tenth one.

The best solid run is in Martha's season and starts with Human Nature - sadly it's let down by the quite, quite terrible "Last of the Time Lords" but every single episode until that one is just golden.

Other highly enjoyed episodes include Army of Ghosts - which is the episode where I found myself cheering Mickey's return - no other character in the history of television has ever won me over as much as Noel Clarke's portrayal of Mickey, as I mentioned earlier I hated him when he was first on the screen. But I adored him when he departed in the Cybermen two parter "Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel", especially after his mini rant in the superb "Girl in the Fireplace".

While there are single episodes which stand out as utter rubbish - Voyage of the Damned plus Love and Monsters come to mind - for myself the worst part of Doctor Who is the sup-par run from "The Shakespeare Code" all the way to the failure that is "42". That's the lull where I was considering stopping watching the show because the episodes just stank. (Which was fortunately rectified.)

Still,for myself Doctor Who has been incredibly inconsistent - but also outstanding. When it's good it's very good, but when it's bad it's 'carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice'. I think it's fair to say that I will miss Tennant, but as his departure comes linked with the removal of Rusty from the franchise I can accept it.

To round up, here's a short list of my personal highs and lows.

Best Companion: Donna
(Honorable mentions: Mickey and Wilfred)
Worst Companion: Captain Jack Harkness
Scariest Episode: Blink
(Honorable Mention: The Empty Child)
Best Episode: Blink
Worst Episode: Love and Monsters
Best New Race: There wasn't one
Worst New Race: The Ood
Best Conversation: The Doctor and Donna miming through the glass at each other
(Honorable mention: The Dalek/Cyberman conversation)
Best Writer: Stephen Moffat
(Honorable mention: Paul Cornell)
Most moving moment: Wilfred and The Doctor talking in the diner
(Honorable mention: Father's Day)
Most awesome moment: The Master's regeneration into John Simms
Most embarrassing moment for John Simms: Almost the entire of "The End of Time" where his performance was crucified by terrible and pointless CGI.
Best Character: Sally Sparrow
(Honorable Mention: Donna, but she's already been mentioned)

Best Quotes:
"Stupid Apes!"

"Lots of planets have a north!"

"Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks 'Oooh, this could be a little more sonic'?"
"What? you never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?"

"From the day they arrive on the planet, and blinking, step into the sun, there is more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than... no. Sorry, that's The Lion King."

"THAT'S NOT EVEN A PROPER WORD!"

"This is my timey-whimey detector. It goes ding when there's stuff."

"State your name, rank, and intention!"
"The Doctor... Doctor... FUN."

And I think that's enough about the first few years of Doctor Who's return, but I think it's fair to say I'm looking forward to Eleven's first season greatly.

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Well, it's another decade - and more importantly I need to settle down into some form of structure on here. I have three major competing forces in my life right now that are eating up my time (well four if you include the need to relax and exercise) and juggling them is the trick I need to pull off.

In essence I've got to find a schedule for writing here which I can stick to and still leave time for other things, as sadly I can't forge a living writing about television, which makes work my number one priority. Number two is a short novel I've been writing on and off for the past few months, it's the only one (of many I've started) which I have any inclination to actually finish writing. I don't know - or care - if it's any good, but it is the first one which I've committed myself to seeing the end of. For better or worse I actually want get to the end of it.

This leaves my poor little blog sat here in third place on the priority list. The issue is I can't write short and punchy posts - I tend to be rather verbose at times, which I'm fine with. But it does mean that I need to figure out a reasonable number of days to update on. Especially if I want to pick up finishing the third season of Watching the Wire - I'm committed to doing so, but it'll be a while yet before it happens.

So for the moment I'm going to be updating three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There might be the odd unexpected extra post here and there, but only if I have something I need to write.

So I guess that's it. A rather long winded way of saying Rev/Views will update three times a week and I haven't forgotten about WtW:S3.

Catch you next Monday!
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I'm off away for a few days now, doing the family thing. So until I return have a great time, enjoy Doctor Who and I'll be back on either the 27th or 28th with a look at my favourite TV for 2009.

So stay safe till then!
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I've been rather tied up this week. My apologies for the lack of content, as pennance I will provide an update tomorrow and one every single weekday next week (Monday to Friday).

I'm afraid that is all. We now return you to your scheduled programming.
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First up a short post to update the situation with regards to those of you who read my rather verboose Watching the Wire series.

I'm gearing up to writing the third season now, which is probably my favourite season. I've got some parts ready (notes mostly) and over the next two to three weeks I'm going to be writing up a bank of episodes so I can get back to running my 'crib note & recap' series starting the last weekend of October. This is because I rather want to have the series wrapped up before the end of 2010 and in order to do that I need to hit two series a year.

Fortunately the third (and fourth) seasons of The Wire are an absolute pleasure to watch, so this isn't going to be a chore. I just need to build up a buffer of three to six episodes worth before I start rolling them out, this means in unusual case that I can't write one week, service won't be interrupted.

Another post up later today regarding The Sopranos' second season!
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I can hardly believe that I've been writing on here for around two years now. It still hasn't picked up as much steam as I would have liked it to. But with over four hundred posts I'm rather proud of my little site.

Over the next year I'm going to push on and crank out the third and fourth seasons of Watching The Wire (two a year seems about the right number for me, but who knows - I might get fruity and do all three) and continue to press on with the DVD reviews. Beyond that, who knows? All I can say is the shows on my 'to watch' list include Breaking Bad's second season, Sons of Anarchy and Treme. Beyond that I'm not too excited about anything apart from Futurama's renewal (and you'll notice that only one of these shows is a new one - what's happened to interesting television?)

I kind of feel things are in a bit of a slump right now, 2010 promises interesting shows turning up from the US of A, but the UK seems to have stagnated - especially Saturday nights, I remember when they used to keep my family enthralled, these days I can barely be bothered to switch on the TV on a day beginning with an S. It's a similar situation in the movie industry, re-makeitis seems to be still rampant. Are there seriously that few original ideas left out there? Do we really need this many remakes? Hey you guys, I've got dozens of ideas if you want them.

The other thing I've seen happen over the past couple of years are the increasing advent of awesome web based shows and I approve. I'm talking about Doctor Horrible, The Guild, Gay Top Gun (seriously) and the upcoming Emerson Wild: Monster Hunter. For myself these represent the potential future of television (along with things like the BBC iPlayer) - we just need a decent network for HD streaming across the globe and easy access to the technology to hook it into your TV without having to use a console or a PC.

If a big company created the technology and provided a service like that - something based on the channel pack model used right now, but a little more flexible - and I'd actually consider signing up to something like Sky or Virgin. But the current model just feels like a waste of my money as the vast majority of television shown in the UK doesn't appeal to me.

As far as I can see it, the future of television lies with the networks adapting and realising that they need to get out worldwide releases of their shows. Releases which are followed up quickly with the region free DVD sets. There's a demand out there for quality television shows being released to a worldwide market. That's one of the reasons why piracy is still so prevalent in the world of television. People want to be able to watch these shows at times suitable for them, I certainly do - I love DVD sets and season marathons. I'm of the opinion that current TV wastes my precious life with it's advert breaks. Probably another reason why more and more people are turning to DVR type recording.

Advert breaks are for getting up and walking away from the television from. Sponsering TV shows (which is beginning to happen) is where the smart products are now.

But what do I know? Not a lot it seems.

Now I'd like to give a little shout out to the various blogs and bloggers I've enjoyed reading over the past year. Some are familiar, others are newer. But all are great.

Crimespree Cinema, Cultural Learnings , Dan's Media Digest , Forever Writing... , Geeky Talk , Heroine TV , Project Shitcom, Rullsenberg Rules, Snark and Fury and The Medium is Not Enough.

I know I don't comment at your various blogs enough, but I am there reading whenever I have a spare few minutes to catch up!

For now; here's to the future.


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I'm afraid the reason I haven't posted here yesterday or today is because I'm taking a short break to recuperate and see if that results in my having something new to write. Normal service resumes on Saturday (and returns next week) with the first of the Fall Season's TWTW (The Week That Was), it will be a relatively short one though because not all of the shows I'll be watching have returned yet.

Until Saturday, drive safe!
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I'm afraid it's a bit of a cop out post today. Mostly because I'm dog tired, but also because I'm trying to organise my viewing habits for the next three months or so by working out what shows I'm going to watch and how much I'll write about each one - I've got to ration the time and words I have to spend here carefully these days.

The shows I'm looking at trying to watch and possibly write about are as follows:

The Office - (Returns tonight)
Curb Your Enthusiasm - (Returns Friday)
How I Met Your Mother - (Returns Monday 21st)
Dexter - (Returns Sunday 27th)
Family Guy & American Dad (Returns 27th)
30 Rock (Returns October 17th)

I'm unsure about Cougar Town - anyone interested in finding out what it's like? It's got an interesting cast and it's from Bill Lawrence, so it might be good.

There are some shows which I'm now behind on because of the delayed UK DVD releases; these include House and Supernatural - so unfortunately these have now been relegated to "DVD Shows" (Which is where Bones lives, I only watch it on DVD). There are also some other shows I'm still playing catch up on - Sons of Anarchy is the prime one of these, I'll probably have to catch up on that amazing show nearer Christmas time (It's suitable Christmas viewing right? I mean Die Hard is the greatest Christmas film ever and that also has guns in it, so they must be Christmassy).

What I'll probably do to keep up with these is resurrect The Week That Was and write about all of them on Saturdays. Sadly that does mean I'll be about six days behind when writing about Dexter - but what can you do?

I'm also open to writing about one or two more shows if there are any takers, especially British Shows - I constantly miss them. Though I do suggest you should be watching Last Chance to See if you're not already.
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I do apologise, but the second post I planned to put up this evening is going to be delayed until tomorrow.

So you'll have to wait about twelve hours or so before I reveal my favourite animated shows.

Again, my apologies for this, but I'm falling asleep at the keyboard here right now and I've only written half of it.

At least this means there will be some weekend content on the site!
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As I'm now settled into the my new job and I have a fair idea how it's going to work out I can now provide a decent idea of how often I'll update here. I'm going to do the vast majority of my writing over the weekend and then just use the evenings in the week to polish things up a smidgen or write about the odd bit of interesting news which has caught my eye. This means there should be an update most days of the week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at a minimum.

As for the weekends, I'm devoting that to writing about other things (i.e. not TV, so not on this blog). So unless 'Watching the Wire' is running (which it will be tomorrow for the final post Season 2: The Overview), then there will only be posts on the weekend if I have spare time and a desire to write something up. This is because I don't really have time to watch TV during the week now, I have a two to three hour commute each day and I'm out of the house for about twelve hours, so time at home is limited and precious during the week days.

As for the kind of posts you'll see. DVDs in Review will continue as I've still got a backlog of about a hundred or so DVDs. Why You Should Watch will also make the occasional appearance, depending on my mood - it's nice to write about a show in it's entirety instead of writing about the individual DVD seasons and Film Fridays will start next week.. Other things will turn up as well and as we move into September/October I'll review a few shows which are airing as well.

So hopefully that should give you an idea of what's ahead - I do wish I could devote more time to writing, but I'm not a professional journalist/critic. I'm just an enthusiast who writes fiction and reviews stuff on the side, and as such I've got to do something else to pay the bills.
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