The Summer of Finishing Unfinished Business: Part TV

I was having a conversation with my cousin over the weekend, about her and her sisters' Laguna Beach-watching, The Hills-buying, My Super Sweet 16-ing ways (they are so being raised by MTV and that there is a scary thought). They have DVD boxsets of these insipid reality series. Seriously. How many times can you think to yourself, 'Wow, I suddenly want to re-watch that episode where LC had that fight with Jason, and Heidi was being really retarded, and Whitney just did her usual round of facial expressions!' (And if you do get that urge, I suggest you first watch this. It'll save you the cost of the DVD) Why would anyone want to re-watch not only a reality TV series, but super fuckin' stupid ones at that? Why not just film yourself having arguments with your friends or sitting around talking about having arguments with your friends or walking around looking for friends to talk/argue with and then watch it? Whysolame?!

Then, I remembered: I have not only downloaded the first season of a reality tv series (including the special Easter recap episode!) but I have...re-watched all the episodes! GASP! Oh my effin' God, I think I have to go stick my head in the oven. I feel utterly diseased just thinking about how low I have sunk and how hypocritical I am and really after all, I am just as bad a person as my cousin. In my defence, there is a major difference between re-watching So You Think You Can Dance and re-watching The Hills, although both do tend to cater for famewhores. Anyway, I trekked back home (now a delightful mere skip and a hop away) and surveyed my shelf of DVDs, sadly realising that I am in no position to ask others of their whysolameness when I should be asking myself that question first. I can only assume that my hoarding, shop-a-holic ways have gotten the better of me, to the point where I can no longer trust my already-questionable taste to save me from purchasing heinous things like, season 1 of Dawson's Creek (because it was less than $20!).

In addition to buying truly lame TV shows on DVD under the pretence of getting a bargain (when really, they should be paying me to take that shit out of their stores), I'm also adding to my growing pile of series that I have started but seem to have no intention of finishing. This summer, I plan to polish them off purely because I am sick of them staring at me from their perch on my shelf, waving their collective worth of about half a grand of wasted hours slaving away under those harsh fluorescent lights, reminding me that if I don't even watch them through once, I really am beyond help. And inanimate objects will not get the better of me, I swear.

• the aforementioned Dawson's Creek - Season 1. Why? Because it was cheap. It even had one of those JB Hi-Fi stickers on it, the ones that whore-ishly proclaim "Buy Me Now! I'M CHEAP!" And cheap it is, in all ways possible. I've yet to start the second episode, having felt so dirty upon sitting through the pilot (in three takes, no less). The dialogue is ludicrous and Dawson is a gigantic walking forehead and Joey is an annoying bint and Pacey is a fool and Jen is only tolerable because I know she ends up dying in the end. And Leery? Leery?! How do you grow up with that surname and not become as "discombobulated" as Forehead? He was doomed from the get-go. And this was the series that defined my generation, how? I Watch Too Much TV: Pacey's Mrs Robinson-esque fantasy woman is played by Gilmore Girls' Logan Huntzberger's two-bit gold-digging cocktail waitress of a mother. Pacey as Logan's stepfather? Now there's a series I could watch.
• Gilmore Girls - Season 7. The final one! I've made it through six. Entire. Seasons. The finish line is so close, I can almost hear the 10 words per second, witty mother-daughter banter as they settle in for one last breakfast at Luke's before Rory sets sail for the Big Scary World outside of New England and Lorelai's immediate reach. I am so sick of these 'girls' and their sucky attitude towards everything that isn't about them. And Alexis Bledel has hideous posture; I want to reach into the screen and snap her shoulders back for her because she obviously is somehow physically unable to do it herself. I Watch Too Much TV: Teddy Dunn aka Random Rich Guy that Emily tried to set up with Rory at the end of season 4, where he helped her tape up, oh, all of one box and then later left her sitting in a bar because she was no fun (Amen to that, brother!) was supposed to become her eventual college love interest, but he had better things to do, like being a moody little, ex-avoiding, teen-impregnating berk who was thought to have killed his sister on Veronica Mars. Le sigh. I blame you, Teddy, for Logan Huntzberger.
• Veronica Mars - Season 1. Because everyone told me how fuckin' fantastic this show was. What's that thing about great expections and over-hyping? Well, colour me underwhelmed. Yes, yes, yes, it's all well-written and well-acted and quirky and film-noir and we all needed a sassier Nancy Drew, did we not? But something about it irks me. Possibly Kristen Bell. Currently sitting at the halfway mark and much too apathetic to care about watching her find out who killed Lily Kane (plus I already Wiki-ed it: Logan's slutty father). I Watch Too Much TV: who knew Veronica Mars was moonlighting as the anonymous blogger known as Gossip Girl? Or that Carrie Bishop was actually a wealthy snob of an Upper East Sider, in the guise of the delicious Blair Waldorf?
• Gossip Girl - Season 2. I need to get to the sixth episode where Serena will tell me what I already know about Henry Cavill being a babe. Then I'll need to squee myself silly over little ol' Henners being referenced like someone who's someone in pop culture. Other than that, I have no reason to watch. This season isn't all that fun so far and there is no Georgina Sparks to ogle, she of the pretty and the pretty psycho. Plus I hate Serena. And Jenny. And Vanessa. And have maaaaaaaaaajor HATE for Dan. And Rufus by association. Basically, anyone who is associated with Dan or who is Dan? Hate. And Rufus is such a dog's name, right? Like, "Rufus! Here, boy! Fetch!" Am yet to get past the fourth episode because this Chuck-Blair-Marcus-Catherine-Nate-Vanessa thing is making me tired. And queasy. Think of all those bodily fluids. And then some. I Watch Too Much TV: is it wrong when you recognise Eleanor Waldorf's assistant, Laurel, as Dr. Kerry Weaver's TV-reporting, eventual paramour, and think to yourself that she was way more appealing as the lesbian? Hmm? On a less interesting note, Duchess Catherine of Whatever was the ER's social worker, Wendell Meade, circa season 11, wherein she was attracted to Carter for some reason I'll never be able to fathom, but otherwise, was the same Type A, anal sort as Sherry Tinsdale, who sequestered Christopher from Lorelai by incubating his brat spawn and then eventually abandoned both Chris and the brat spawn, GG, to further her career, and let us not forget Nicole Kennedy, the inconsequential one-time lady love of Mitch Leery. Man, Mädchen Amick has been around.
• ER - Season 12. I'm kicking myself slightly for being too overcome by the sight of Parminder Nagra looking hott on the cover of this boxset and rushing headlong into buying it for a whopping $60 and then discovering a week later that it was selling for $45 at Big W and would probably eventually end up somewhere in the $35 range at JB Hi-Fi if only I wasn't so hasty. But it was also the twelfth season! And I had no idea it'd be released so soon after the eleventh! I was excited, okay! Goddamnit. I'm on the last disc, which I'll watch even though I already have these episodes downloaded from the net, because I actually really love this show. Like, majorly love this show. As in, I would use heroic measures to keep it alive if it started flat-lining on me, no matter if it possessed a DNR. DNR be damned! Get the paddles, charge to 250, clear!!! I Watch Too Much TV: the other night, I was watching Party of Five (yes, my walk of shame is very long and winding) and was traumatised not only by Matthew Fox's tragic hair and manwhoring ways, but also by the naked torso of one Dr. Kerry Weaver who was sharing his bed, aka Charlie's older woman. Traumatised, I tell you, traumatised! Oh, Kerry...what about Sandy?! Seconds later, who do I see bouncing alongside Bailey in the school halls but that bumblebum, Morris, looking as incompetent and as ranga as ever. More so, because he had more hair back then.
• Party of Five - Season 1. Okay, this was one of those buys where I thought $15 for a whole season of TV was a bargain you couldn't argue with. Except for the fact that I had no previous interest in the show. And the show is kind of shit. Actually, the show is really shit. Neve Campbell is particularly atrocious. And what is up with her face having that squinty, dazed, someone-just-sat-on-my-head look all the time? How can it be that their late father owned a restaurant but the 24-year-old head of house can't get his hands on the money when they need it? Where is the damn Child Protective Services person who should be checking up on them? Why is there at least a 23 year difference between the oldest and the youngest in the household? Why is Lacey Chabert, a mere child here, the most convincing actor in the cast? Why does Scott Wolf still look exactly the same now? Why couldn't Matthew Fox realise how much he would one day regret that hair?! Granted, I'm only up to the second episode, but the amount of questioning that generates inside my head is just...insane. So bad, it might turn out to be good. TBC. I Watch Too Much TV: Brian Stilman is played by The L Word's Tim Haspel, he of the once-engaged to psycho-crazy Jenny Schecter. I'm struggling to decide where Eric Mabius had it worse.
• The L Word- Season 5. Oh, fluffy lesbian romps, how you have deserted me. Or is it I who has deserted you? I can't tell between all those moans and sighs and jiggly bits, which are all starting to look the same and definitely don't get me excited and oh my God, am I becoming desensitised to lesbianism?! Oh, erotic female homosexuality stylised to within an inch of its passion, come back to me, come back and entice me with your glamourous lipstick lezzies! Why do I feel such apathy, why?! The world is such a straight place without the heaving bosoms of lovelorn ladies. Why do I feel no desire to see Shane do what Shane does best? (ie. be a whore) Why do I not get a tingle of glee over Jenny's rampant run of crazy? Why don't I find Alice and her outfits adorkable anymore? Why do I not care about the fate of TiBette? Oh, wait...I never did. I struggled my way through season 4, really, really struggled through the Angus-cheated-on-Kit-with-the-nanny-but-he-believes-in-her-anyway-and-they'll-always-have-that-retardmo-pseudo-sexual-song-about-riding-bareback-or-something. Struggled to believe that Shane even liked Paige to any extent past random hook-up. Struggled with the concept that Helena would be anyone's bitch, let alone that scary-nippled, skinny-arsed stick of a Catherine (aka the bitchy twisted ankle patient Abby and Neela encountered on the train on ER). Really struggled with Jodie and everything about her, including Bette. Come season 5, my suspended disbelief over everything that came from Ilene Chaiken's head could suspend no more, and I just don't care any longer. Stuck on episode 2 and stranded, like Jenny and her raft out at sea. I Watch Too Much TV: Lisa, the Lesbian Identified Male, who had a clingy relationship with Alice, is more often known as the slightly-icky (although I think I'm meant to find him endearing?) Brian Krakow on My So-Called Life, where I always think of him during the shooting, and how he had stomach pains and had to rush off to the bathroom when it happened, and now, whatever else may transpire, I'll always associate his diarrhoea with that episode.
• My So-Called Life - Season 1. Because it was so acclaimed and so coming-of-age and defnitely from the people who made Once and Again, which I loved. Maybe it was another case of over-hype. Whatever the matter, I'm still on the first disc, and even though I love Claire Danes and think she's amazing, she's not enough to keep me coming back for more. I think Jordan Catalano is meant to be the heartthrob, but am I the only one who thinks he's a retard? And I don't mean that as a derogative insult, I mean it in the, "guys, I think he's functionally retarded". I know he's dyslexic and all, but sheesh. He's also a retard to boot. And I do mean that as a derogative insult. I Watch Too Much TV: Angela's dad, Graham, is the father of that girl who came into the ER and whose meds were wreaking havoc with her kidney and it was all so tragic because they'd had so much trouble finding a donor in the first place and then spent all that money on the meds that ended up ruining her donoted kidney anyway and she was dying and he was depressed and seperated from the mother so he took his gun out and asked the docs to give his daughter his own kidney and then promptly shot himself in the motherfuckin' mouth and added some nice blood decor to the wall behind him and Carter said something wanky about how much he loved his daughter and maybe he loved her too much and essentially gave an incestuous undertone to what was otherwise a really sad episode. Stupid Carter.