Greg and Selena » TV

Appreciating LOST

Greg — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:27:09 +0000

Farewell LOST

The series finale of my LOST is starting, but I want to wait about 30 minutes to watch so I can do so without commercials, so in the meantime, I think I’ll blog a few thoughts about the past seven years of my favorite show:

Most heartfelt moment:The Desmond and Penny phone call on Christmas Eve. Runner up, Jin joining the raft crew cause he feels he doesn’t deserve to be with Sun
Best turnaround:Season three, which started off terrible with Jack, Kate and Sawyer captured and ended brilliantly with contacting the freighter and the introduction of flash forwards
Most shocking twist:The switching from flashbacks to flash-forwards
Most confusing Islanders:(Three-way tie) The Others who appeared to be a rag-tag group of lost boys but turned out to be a commune of average joes. The Dharma Initiative that appeared to be brilliant scientists but also turned out to be a commune of average joes and the Monster that appeared to be a dinosaur and turned out to be ticking smoke.
Most frustrating writing slip-up:The inconsistencies of who can travel on and off the island, like when Christian Shepherd visited Jack in his hospital
Best of a bad situation:Taking our least favorite characters (Nikki and Paulo) and burying them alive.
Worst of a bad situation:Killing off the characters Ana Lucia and Libby because the actors got a DUI on Oahu.
Worst episode to date:The back story of Jack getting a tattoo in Thailand
Best episode to date:The Not Penny’s Boat episode that ended Season three.

That’s enough for now if I think of any more I’ll amend later. Besides, all this could change tonight (especially the best or worst episode ever). Happy LOSTing.

Macy’s 2009 Parade Broadway previews review

Greg — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:08:12 +0000

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

In the past I’ve had trouble waking up by 9am on Thanksgiving morning in order to catch the Broadway portion of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This year was very different, since our new puppy, Sookie, had me up at 4:30am to take her out.

So, by the time the Broadway shows performed I was up and about and working on unpacking our home, and didn’t give the performances my undivided attention, but here are my thoughts all the same

Hair – Nothing wrong here, but nothing remarkable either. It looks like a very professional restaging of Hair, but I didn’t see anything to entice me to go see it.
Bye Bye Birdie – Selena says “I’m just a fan of John Stamos in general” and I have to agree, he does look like he’s bringing a lot of fun to the part of Albert Peterson (a personal favorite role of mine since I performed it senior year of high school). But, nostalgia aside, this was a safe choice of songs from that show, and it didn’t go well, unless the choreographer intended for Stamos to fall and miss marks that many times. Looks like it could use some work.
Billy Elliot – Selena started tearing up, as she does now – pregnancy hormones – when this was announced up next cause she loved the movie. I’ve never seen the movie and with this teaser I sure doubt I’ll be seeing the play. It reminded me of a British retread of “Little Girls” from Annie. It did not interest me at all.
Shrek – I loved it. The costuming is fantastic. The song was so much fun and will be a great punctuation on the musical (I’m assuming it comes at the end as it did in the movie). Combined with the Prince’s number from the Tony Awards, this show is looking worth the trip to the Great White Way.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Turning ourselves into Mad Men

Greg — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:57:47 +0000

We loved watching Mad Men’s first season, but somehow missed season two. Now, we have the DVD and are ready to begin catching up while the TiVo catches and holds season three for us which is just starting this weekend.

As part of the marketing push for the DVD release and the new season, amctv.com has provided an engine for you to Mad Men yourself. Here are Selena and I:

Selena as a Mad Men

Greg as a Mad Men

And if you are thinking, that doesn’t look at all like you two, then I challenge you to go to madmenyourself.com and try making a better version of Selena or I. Or just make yourself, and send us a copy of the final result. We’d love to see.

Our own, personal EW

Selena — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:24:11 +0000

For the past few years now, I’ve had a TV informant with an uncanny ability to scoop Entertainment Weekly and the TV Guide on every “Best Show You’re Not Watching.” Our friend Doug has been able to pick out the gems to follow, that then break out into phenomenons. Then these shows get big. Really big. My favorite shows of all time, Emmy-Award winning, fanatic-fan followings big.

Consider Doug’s track record: In 2008, he brought us Gossip Girl while the CW was still re-running its episodes non-stop, desperately hoping to pick up an audience. Before that, it was Mad Men, which went on to rake in the Emmys MONTHS after the TV Informant put it on our radar. By the first episode of True Blood, the Informant was already a fan on Facebook, and I knew I had to watch it, just because he picked it. I went on to watch the entire season in three school nights, leaving all my other shows by the wayside. Then I watched the whole thing again.

We are still behind on 2009’s prediction: Breaking Bad. The last episode I saw of this show was the most morally heart-wrenching thing I had ever seen on TV. Immediately afterwards, I remember thinking, “Damn you, Doug!” and proceeded to stay awake all night thinking about the show and questioning my morals.

Typically, we have so much to watch between the DVR, Tivo AND Netflix now (worthy of a post of its own), that we are very resistant to picking up new shows. At least not without a lot of research before we give in. But the moral of this story is that if the Informant says not to miss it, the space WILL get made and we convince ourselves that whatever we dropped won’t be worth missing the latest recommendation for.