And you say that long enough and you start to get a rep for being into zombies and people give you books (World War Z) and throw you zombie themed events (Birthday Zombie Race) and recommend TV shows (The Walking Dead).

The Walking Dead on AMC

At first I didn’t want to watch The Walking Dead. I don’t like zombies, they personify my biggest fear of society crumbling, and this is a show based in that world. But I couldn’t avoid the rave reviews and decided like Selena petting a snake, I should face my fears.

And I’m so glad I have, because it is a brilliant show, so compelling with so many characters to care about. It is probably the best new TV show of the year, but still it stresses me out.

After every episode I am awake for hours thinking. I am playing back the episode in my mind with myself in those same situation, how would I handle it, where we would go, how could I keep Selena and Kaylee out of harm’s way.

So with tonight’s final episode I am sorry to see such a great piece of television go away for the better part of a year, but relived to know the stresses it provokes will likely also go out of mind for a year as well.

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.

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.