Channel Surfing – My Week in TV

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A quick collection of things that I’m finding fascinating, frustrating and fun on TV this past week. 

Remember music videos? 

When I was a kid one of my favorite things to do was watching The MuchMusic Top 30 Countdown on the weekends. I wasn’t always all that interested in the music but I loved music videos. The 3-minute short films set to a pop song was a perfect venue for me to see some weird and beautiful filmmaking. Since MuchMusic has since gone the MTV route into perma-reality programming there is no longer a place that exists on TV where I can watch music videos on a regular basis (although apparently the Countdown still exists). But that doesn’t mean they have disappeared. The best place to find music videos now is on the internet and, in fact, that’s where they seem to be flourishing.

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Unimpressed by Derek

/ Katie Man / 2 Comments

I hated the finale of Derek. It made me angry. I was so angry that I fumed around my apartment for several minutes cursing Ricky Gervais. TV shows don’t usually inflict me with anger, but after I had a chance to calm myself down I realized what made me so mad: after watching the first three episodes of Derek (which I had been heartily impressed by), I had expected the conclusion of the show to be so much better. It easily could have been, but Ricky Gervais made some poor choices. Continue reading →

Too Much Reality: Why I Don’t Dig Fashion Star

/ Jane Walker / 1 Comment

pic 1

I recently watched the first episode from Season 2 of Fashion Star as a homework assignment for this week’s round table. I thought it would be the perfect choice considering my love of Project Runway. Project Runway is one of my all time favorite reality shows and I will be comparing the two frequently in this post (that may be biased and unfair but I’m OK with that). Continue reading →

Email Roundtable #19 – Reality TV Homework Challenge

/ kwoloszyn / 2 Comments

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!

David Chang

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

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abandoned house

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 →

MUCH OLDER

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by Raphael Saray

I ’m quickly becoming an old man. I’m taping golf pre-game shows (DVR’s are for the young). I travel to three different drugstores to find the proper flavour of milk of magnesia. As I’ve frittered away my twenties, I hearken back to when I was on the cutting edge of the culture. I was the youngest of four children in a household full of ethnic energy with live in Grandparents hovering over simmering pots of God knows what. I was raised with mature tastes. Rather than me bringing the house down with “family” fare, I was raised up. A little Raffi – but more RUN DMC. Continue reading →

Faux Reality – A Look at The Joe Schmo Show and Burning Love

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Police_issue_X26_TASER-black

The world of reality television is loaded with many shows that stretch the word “reality” to its very limits. But, what if you knew the show you were watching was staged?

The Joe Schmo Show is a “reality show” that is almost entirely staged and the audience is in on the ruse. A real person is cast as the “Joe” while all of the other contestants are actors. The show is meant to be ridiculous so as to always keep the “Joe” wondering if what they are seeing is real or fake. On this season of the show, the fake reality show that the producers have concocted is called The Full Bounty and is supposedly going to find the next great American bounty hunter. The premise is so insane and potentially grounds for so many lawsuits that you would have to be a bit nuts to buy it in the first place but no matter because television (more on that later). This season the show surrounds a guy named Chase who is clearly good-hearted but also isn’t above getting his hands dirty to do well on the show.

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Email Roundtable #17 – Smorgasbord

/ kwoloszyn / 1 Comment

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? 

netflix

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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Email Roundtable #16 – Family Time

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It was Louis Riel Day in Manitoba and Family Day in other parts of Canada on Monday. On that note, we thought we’d have a potluck-style Roundtable and discuss the shows we remember watching with our family.

Family and Car

Jane: Watching TV with my Grandparents created some of my favorite memories as a child and as a grownup. As a child there were strict TV rules. Bedtime was directly after Cheers and there was to be no talking during the final segment of Wheel of Fortune. My Grandpa had a thing for Vanna White and that was the only time she got to speak. Later in life my Grandpa’s favorite show was “the written news” aka The Weather Channel. My Grandma and I would patiently watch with him, until it was time for his nap, when we would flip to that crazy Hyacinth Bucket on Keeping Up Appearances. If I didn’t laugh at the funny parts my Grandma would explain them to me.

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Impressed by Derek

/ Katie Man / 6 Comments

Derek is a television show on Channel 4 about Derek Noakes, a man who works at a residential care home. The show was written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Ricky stars as Derek. As of writing this, 3 episodes of series 1 have aired.

Derek is compelling television. Before watching any of the episodes, I had a lot of expectations. For one thing, Ricky Gervais has been tweeting about the program daily, saying that it is his best work yet. For another, it stars Gervais as a man with a mental disability and Karl Pilkington as his best friend and janitor at the care home. Honestly, the premise sounds like someone is taking the piss (to use one of my favourite English phrases.) The promo photos all have Gervais with a greasy haircut and an underbite. Karl, too, looked ridiculous in the photos. Gervais has him dressed up in this long janitor-dress with the “ugliest haircut on the face of the planet” (to quote the character Derek).  To me, the show just looked silly and borderline offensive. It looked like a Ricky Gervais star vehicle and a good excuse to make Karl Pilkington look stupid.

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