This week, and for a number of the weeks to follow, we will be doing Summer Television Secret Santa. We each randomly chose a name and were given the job of gifting a television show to that person. This week we will be discussing the person we drew, the show we chose for them and why. In the coming weeks we will be pairing down our roundtable to two and interviewing our Secret Santa about the show they were gifted (or forced) to watch. The rules state that you may watch as much or as little of the show as you like and that the gift giver must have seen at least a portion of the show as well.
Email Roundtables
Email Roundtable #25 – The Friends (but not those Friends) Edition
We are all friends here at The Golden Age of Television. We spend a fair amount of time outside of this space together. This week in a “take home” Email Roundtable we decided to discuss our favourite TV friendships.
Kerri: When I was formulating the question for this week I didn’t give an awful lot of thought to my answer. I knew that I wanted to select a friendship between two or more women but that proved really difficult. Sex and the City presents female friendship in a way that has nothing to do with my own. In fact, I think a lot of shows use friendship (and especially female friendship) improperly. Continue reading
Email Roundtable #24 – Corn on the Cob Edition
Welcome back to our weekly Roundtable, friends! We have been a bit slackerly over the past few months with these Roundtables (it is summertime with vacations, the lake and other wonderful distractions that aren’t TV related, after all) but here we are, back at it.
Kerri: Katie thought it would be a good time to discuss summer TV past and present. So, I suppose we should start by discussing what some of our favorite summer shows have been over the years and what makes for a good summer show.
Email Roundtable #23 – Q&A
In this edition of the Email Roundtable we each asked a TV related fantasy question. We also got some special guests to weigh in!
Jane asked: Which TV character would you pick to be your real life best friend and why?
Steph: I had a really hard time with this one…but i’m gonna go with Joan Harris from Mad Men. As snappy as she sometimes is with other women, I’ve seen some genuine lady bonding from her. I think she’s a good listener, blunt and fearless with advice giving, and an all around good time. She has a sense of humour and incredible style. Borrowing clothes and swapping juicy stories over Old Fashioned’s–sign me up! Mind you, I don’t think anyone else could ever wear a Joan Harris dress and not disappear into the bossom’s netherworld.
Graeme: I was going to pick someone cool like Raylan Givens from Justified but then I realized 1. he only cares about his job and 2. everyone close to him is targeted by the mob to be murdered. So I’ll go with ALF. Fuzzy, funny, sarcastic aliens are awesome.
Email Roundtable #22 – For Immediate Release: Don Draper is No Superman
In this edition of the Email Roundtable we take a look at the latest episode of Mad Men, “For Immediate Release”, and season 6 as a whole.
Katie: Briefly put, I thought “For Immediate Release” was one hell of a treat! I love the Don Draper that makes impulsive decisions without regard to consequences. But I loved Joan even more. Man, that was one great spankin’ she gave Don. Continue reading
Email Roundtable #21 – No One Likes the Monkey
Kerri: In your estimation has there ever been a good use of pets/animals on TV? Most of the TV pets that I can think of are used strictly as comic relief. Who is your favourite TV pet?
Katie: I can’t think of a pet that has been used for plot purposes, other than teaching kids about death (and teaching parents not to try to replace their child’s dead hamster. They always know.) My favourite TV pet is a pretty obvious choice, but it has to be Eddie from Frasier. That was just such an all around good dog.
Email Roundtable #20 – “I Take Thee, Rachel”: Our Favorite TV Weddings
Our wonderful friends (and blog superstars) Jane and Ivan are getting married. In their honour we attempt to discuss our favorite television weddings. Congrats you crazy kids!
Kerri: This question was really tricky for me because I mostly hate weddings on TV shows (please note that I love weddings in real life because dancing and booze!). They usually serve to end whatever was interesting about a romantic relationship on a show, which is almost always the “getting there” part. There is no more will they/won’t they because the answer is “they will”. The two weddings that somewhat recently happened on Parks and Recreation are exceptions to this rule (see Katie’s post below for more on this). I found them charming and sweet and in keeping with the characters on the show without ruining any of the charm of the characters themselves. Because guess what, I love Leslie Knope without Ben. It’s kinda like that horrible saying about loving yourself before other people can love you. A fully realized character is and should be interesting in or out of a relationship. Continue reading
Email Roundtable #19 – Reality TV Homework Challenge
Remember two weeks ago when I assigned us some homework? No? Well, I did. I asked us to find a reality show that was interesting/different so that we could attempt to discuss them. The assignment was entirely selfish but hopefully the shows below interest some of you too!
What is the name of the reality show you discovered?
Kerri: The Mind of a Chef
What is the show all about?
Kerri: It’s a bit of a cheat to pick a cooking show for this reality show challenge but hear me out: The Mind of a Chef is ostensibly a cooking show that aired on PBS in late 2012. Continue reading
Email Roundtable #18 – Location, Location, Location
The living room on The Simpsons, Cheers the bar, Baltimore on The Wire. Settings are important on any television show. In this edition of the Email Roundtable we attempt to discuss different kinds of television settings. And because I think this is awfully cool and somewhat relevant there’s this.
What is the television setting you find the most comforting/would like to live in?:
Kerri: This one was actually the most difficult for me to figure out. I decided to think about the shows that I find most comforting and work from there. My comfort show is always Freaks and Geeks and I thought about talking about the Weir’s house which is sort of cave-like, with earth-tones and looks a lot like the childhood home that I and a lot of my friends grew up in. Continue reading
Email Roundtable #17 – Smorgasbord
This week I thought we’d attempt to discuss three questions that have been on my mind recently.
1.) What are your thoughts on the way Netflix rolled out the first 13 episodes of House of Cards, releasing them all at the same time? Do you think things like this will become the norm?
Jane: I remember when first hearing about House of Cards, I thought the idea was kind of strange. I guess it makes sense though. Television seems so immediately available now, be it through streaming, PVR or downloading.
Katie: It’s what the people want, right? Getting a new show all at once must be like the first time Charles Dickens published a book all at one time. “Awesome! I don’t have to wait!!!!”
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