stuff is cool

So, this past weekend I was up in Boulder at the Colorado Cup with my ultimate team, and on Saturday night we were flipping around on the TV while waiting for our turns in the shower when Flight of the Conchords came on. At first I just thought “uh, what’s this?” with a slight chuckle and kept watching. Well, then this song came on:

and I was sold. I’ve since checked out some of their other stuff on the website and perhaps my second favorite is this one:

If you like silly/absurd comedy songs, check these out.

Well, really this post doesn’t deal entirely with Lost but it’s what inspired me to get on this train of thought.

About 2 years ago I basically never watched any TV. All the TV was really used for, other than collecting dust, was to watch the occasional DVD (which was also fairly rare since I had canceled my Netflix subscription at the time) and play the occasional Gamecube game. In fact, I couldn’t even watch local channels on my TV without going through an interesting ritual involving hooking up a coaxial cable to the cable input, and holding the pin on the connector against a metal portion on my coffee table because that was the only way I’d get any reception since I didn’t have a real TV antenna.

One of the few exceptions to my “no TV” habit was 24, as I’ve stated here. And really at that point (which would have been either the 3rd or 4th season of 24) I only really watched it because it provided an opportunity to hang out with my family for an evening each week. Oh and a free meal didn’t hurt However, one thing that started making even the somewhat predictable and often outlandish plot twists on 24 more fun again was participating in what are called “live watching threads”. Basically, over on the Something Awful forums, there are 24 fans that will all watch the show and comment on it in a thread on the discussion forum as things happen. A lot of the time it’s pretty simple reaction stuff like “HOLY CRAP!!” or “awesome!”, but the people who post there are also pretty clever and funny, so there are often lots of funny little comments. Since I follow along in each thread (and sometimes post my own comments), I’m often cracking up during even the most tense of episodes. Of course, when somebody’s cracking up at something you have to know what it is, so now I have to share what I find to be the funniest remarks with my mom and Meg since I watch along with them. The best part is that instead of sitting there with someone who is actually saying these things, it’s all on my laptop screen, so it doesn’t make me miss any of the dialog/action (though with DVRs these days that’s almost a moot point). I dare say that if I had to watch a show with 20 people actually shouting out things trying to be clever (or other things like “what did he say? my cable went out for a second!”), I wouldn’t watch it for very long.

But what does this have to do with Lost? Well, Lost has live watching threads as well and although these threads aren’t often as funny as the 24 ones (probably because Lost has a more tenuous relationship with reality than 24 does, so something glaringly other-worldly or flat-out unbelievable isn’t as ridiculous on Lost) the Lost threads are often full of interesting speculation and/or ideas. In fact, I became one of the folks who was chomping at the bit trying to figure out what everything said on the Swan Bunker blast door and what it all meant in relation to the larger mysteries involved with the show. I started listening to the Lost podcasts to hear the teaser information from the producers. Though my interest waned somewhat with the end of last season, it’s picked up again a little bit with the little 6-pack of episodes (the “mini-season” if you will) that they’re airing now before going on a long break until February. I dare say the show is addicting, but it’s really something different than that to me, which I’ll explain here once I tie things back to my introduction.

So is Lost just a show that I finally deemed worthy enough to break my general “no TV” habit? No, I figured out that it’s not the programming itself that makes the TV I watch appealing to me, it’s the shared experience. It’s the fact that the shows sort of live outside of the TV itself. Try and get me to watch a new TV show and I’m still most likely to balk at it, honestly. Very few shows have I found to be good enough to watch just because I enjoyed the shows themselves (I’m looking at you, Arrested Development).

The only reason I started watching Lost at all wasn’t at someone’s recommendation, it was because I saw so many people chattering about Lost on the forums that I thought I’d watch through the first few episodes and see what I thought. Well, the show itself was good enough for me to watch the entire first season (25 hour-long episodes) in about a day and a half, but I still watch it every week now because there’s a community of folks that I can chat with about the show.

So to any of you who have tried to recommend a TV show to me and I’ve turned my nose up at it, now you know why

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is pretty freaking funny, in spite of having a fairly hackneyed premise (some guys own a bar), and a horribly blah title. I had never heard of the show, but the SomethingAwful forums pointed it out and I grabbed a few episodes and … well, it was funny enough that I had to watch all 7 episodes that exist. You might not have heard of it either. It is, after all, on the FX network, and apparently it’s not one of the shows they promote a whole lot. But, Season Two is approaching so watch out for it — I think it starts next month (July).

For never turning my own TV on (the last time I turned it on before the one episode of 24 I watched at home this season? the 2005 NLCS back in October), I sure watch a lot of TV.

In the last post I said I really only watch two shows, 24 and Lost. Well, to be quite honest, Meg and I have been kinda falling into Prison Break as well. We didn’t actively seek out the show to watch it, it just happens to occupy the time slot before 24 and, well, my mom watches it and we’re over there on Monday nights so we go ahead and watch it too. Since we came in a little past halfway into the season at first it seemed like we missed too much to really catch up, but it’s come together pretty nicely and my mother has been pretty patient with me and Meg (mostly me) asking questions.

(note: plot discussion of Prison Break follows, so if you’re behind or if you may want to watch it later, it’s probably a good idea not to read)
However, I don’t see myself making a point to watch Prison Break next season like I probably will with the other two series. Of course, that may hinge on what happens in tonight’s episode, since supposedly they escape tonight. At first, I thought “well, that’s a short series,” but I’ve heard rumors that there will be a The Fugitive-like component to a future season, so I’m thinking that some, if not all, of the escapees-to-be will make it out. So either the main characters both make it out, only one of the two makes it, or neither make it. And really, any way I look at it, I can’t see any satisfactory result.

If both make it, it becomes The Fugitive where I’m sure Michael will end up being something like Macgyver, keeping them alive and on the run all the while cutting to the boring political coverup plot with “that chick from The Craft” (yeah, I know it’s Robin Tunney, but I’m sure most casual viewers wouldn’t) and the rest of the other boring non-characters on the outside.

If only Michael makes it, then well, where the hell do you go from here? Is he going to break back in to Fox River to get his brother?

If neither make it, then any reasonable prison system would transfer them away from each other and probably into a higher security facility (although they might be in a max security facility already … time to put them in a supermax).

If only Lincoln makes it .. well, this may actually be satisfactory. Of course, again I would think Michael would be transferred out of Fox River since he seems to know all to well how to get out of there. But then what? There are a few possibilities: we go back to the Macgyver idea where Michael figures out how to break out of his new facility without having been the structural engineer behind it, or we degenerate into a boring political drama about Lincoln’s framing and eventually Michael gets pardoned or something, or perhaps even it just becomes a prime-time major-network friendly version of Oz with Michael biding his time. Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be satisfactory.

Basically, unless the Prison Break writers manage to come up with something fiendishly clever, chances are I’ll only be catching their show next season as I flip by my local Fox affiliate. Or if they keep it in its pre-24 time slot.

I don’t watch much TV. In fact, I watch essentially no TV at all, save two shows, 24 and Lost. In fact, I have to go elsewhere to watch them because I don’t have a cable connection and my reception to the local channels really blows. So, Meg and I have standing weekly appointments for watching these — Monday nights for 24 at my parents’ house, and Wednesday nights at her place for Lost. However, this past Wednesday I had to work late and couldn’t make it in time to watch Lost, so I had to do something to be able to watch it later. As it turns out, I don’t have to resort to the *cough* questionable *cough* methods of getting that episode that I did, because ABC has decided to try out this new concept: distributing their shows online.

Thursday morning, the show went online at ABC’s free full-episode streaming portal. Currently they have four shows on there: Lost, Alias, Commander in Chief, and Desperate Housewives. Basically you just watch them in your browser and have to sit through a handful of commercial sections. It’s not all that different from watching TV normally, except that you don’t need a DVR to pause or rewind it. You can even skip to a specific point in the show if you want if for some reason you missed just a small bit and wanted to catch up. It’s pretty cool. And one added bonus for them is now that I’ve watched Lost on there, I may check out one of their other shows as well, since I can view it whenever I want to. Everybody wins!

As for actually what happened this week on Lost, well, that’s another blog post entirely. Crazy crazy stuff, and I’m glad there are no more breaks between new episodes. Hooray for May sweeps!

Edit: I just noticed the date range up at the top, apparently this is only through May and June. Good thing Lost is over by then! Though seriously I hope this catches on and is kept up on a more permanent basis.