A Weekend in TV

I actually didn't spend the entire weekend watching TV - just most of yesterday afternoon. This is what happens when you're so stressed out about having people living in your house for seven - count them, seven - weeks (though, Hallelujah! They have a house under contract and I must simply find a way to hang on by bitten-down-to-the-quick fingernails until 1 August). I have found that I am simply at my limit. The mysterious "up to here" has been reached and surpassed, and my ability to cope with anything else is just gone. Gone gone gone. Resulting in near maniacal laughter whenver another problem attempts to rear its ugly head. Either that or just-almost-but-not-quite hysterical tears. Flip a coin, cause I never know which it's going to be either. I'd say I've lost it but I'm not sure what "it" is anymore.

Anyway, because of this, I spent a good deal of yesterday afternoon curled up under a blanket on a recliner in the theater with the lights off catching up on some DVR watching. And some live TV watching (which is truly a rarity...gosh I hate commercials.) Highlights follow.

Psych. I was going to skip this as the few commercials I'd seen for it looked like a bad attempt to cash in on Monk, which frankly is rapid losing my interest. However, my mom and Jen both commented on how funny it was, so I queued up the pilot re-air and the next new one to give it a shot. Absolutely hillarious. I'm so glad I gave this a chance. It may become hackneyed and overdone quickly, like Monk has, but I'm hoping not. It has a few stabilizing elements in the friend and the dad that I think will help with longevity. Regardless, there were quite a few laugh out loud moments and many more chuckles.

Monk. The season premier was, well, a typical Monk episode. Though I will say I adore Stanley Tucci. (Caught most of Big Trouble when it was on yesterday as well - that never fails to just make me roll. What a hillarious movie. Tim has simply to ask, "Is that a goat?" for both of us to laugh.) Tucci did almost a better job at being Monk than Shalhoub did and it was a nice breath of fresh air. I will say for the record that Natalie needs to have a personality written into her script or they need to find someone else. Maybe Sharona could re-divorce the guy and come back. Cause Monk hasn't been the same since she left. I keep watching it, I realize, but most of the time it's on skim.

Mythbusters. This one was one we missed (or they've started a new season, but I don't think that's the case) and I'm glad we caught it. They did Hollywood heists. Too funny! Magnetized and suction cup vent scaling. Visible laser beams. Pressure switches. And Adam with his 40 minutes to crack a 5-minute safe. If you haven't seen this one (and like Mythbusters) definitely check for a re-run, it's one of their best.

The Office. Tim and I were semi-devotees of the British version of this show and, I have to admit, after the train wrecks that are Trading Spaces (vs. Changing Rooms) and What Not To Wear (vs. the British What Not to Wear) and even Coupling (though I was never a huge fan of the Brit version, the occasional episodes I've caught vs. the even more occasional episodes of the American version are just incomparable), we have hesitated to watch the Americanization of The Office. Plus it conflicted with CSI or Criminal Minds or something else that we knew we liked and we only have the ability to record one thing at a time. So since we're in re-runs on the other, we've been giving the Americans a shot and, well, I might have to admit that in this case, they've gotten it right - and perhaps even made it better. That may well be heresy to true Office officianados, but the American version stays much more true to funny and teeters into humiliating and unbearable to watch because you're just so embarassed for the person territory less often. To me that's a good thing. So...when the new season begins, we'll have to try and juggle the schedule a bit - or perhaps that will finally push us to upgrade the ol DVR. We caught the Pilot episode yesterday (have seen several others already). Gotta love it.

Live I caught a few Law & Order: Criminal Intent reruns. I have to say if I had time in my DVRing this is the one Law & Order I would watch. It's hands down my favorite and I will even occasionally re-watch these episodes, though I don't feel the L&O franchise has many shows that are re-watchable once you know the storyline.

I also caught an episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List. She's funny. Crass, but funny. And frankly, while I don't go out of my way to see this show, it's usually well worth a watch and a chuckle if you've nothing else to do. (I see a lot of this on various airplane rides or in hotels.) What's nice is that since it's on Bravo, they do have to bleep some of her more overtly bad language and she even seems to modify it for the show, so it's not quite as offensive linguistically as her stand up. Though it's still off color.

Finally, back to the DVR, we watched the Season Premier of Stargate SG1 that ran Friday night. As thrilled as I am to have the the two main people I loved from Farscape on the cast, I have to say I'm just really tired of the Ori plot already. Can the Wraith just show up and eat the Ori and then die from indigestion and get both shows a new plot? Please? Cause really, it's just a very bleh plot for me and the actors are so much better than the scripts they've been having.

So there you have it. Let's all do me the favor of not adding up exactly how many hours of TV this was yesterday, ok? (But if you do - remember that most of it was recorded, so an hour show really is only about 35 or 40 minutes because of skipping the commercials.)