TV, Top Chef, Stuff Like That

So there is more on television than there… was a few weeks ago.

I have been watching more Netflix streaming — specifically burning through Spartacus and Spartacus the past couple of weeks — but all that deserves its own blog post (or more than one, probably). For now I’ll concentrate on regular tee vee stuff.

Monday

“Gossip Girl” is back!

I love “Gossip Girl”!

I love Blake Lively!

I loved Blake Lively before you ever heard of her!

Everyone knows all this!

Seriously, Lilly is a disaster. Thea Steele says you almost have to forget everything Lilly has ever done to watch any episode of “Gossip Gir”l. I think she might be a worse mother than January Jones on “Mad Men”.

Did I mention I love “Gossip Girl”?

I think there might be an inevitable end game where Dan ends up bumping up against Blair… I mean they are almost the only main cast members who haven’t hooked up with each other.

Tuesday

“V” has been okay. I hope it keeps going is all I can say… The first hand full of eps this season have been weaker than the first couple of eps last season, &c.

I have been enjoying “White Collar” immensely. The USA shows are lovable in general, and “White Collar” is basically about a well dressed guy who runs mono-shenanigans for a living.

Wednesday

Dagger!

“Top Chef” was a disaster for the good guys this week.

Spoilers! in case you didn’t see it coming…

I had two horses amongst the Top Chefs (out of four), and lost the win to Antonia (Megan’s only remaining chef).

Then, in the bottom three, PNaps had two horses there; both of whom prepared worse dishes than Tre. As far as I could tell, Mike Isabella — who is an Italian American chef — completely botched his pasta, and Filipino Dale made a dish “he makes for his girlfriend” that would keep him from ever getting laid… Tre on the other hand cut his vegetables too thick or something.

Standings:

  1. Phil Napoli: 1
  2. YT: 5
  3. Luis Neiman: 15
  4. Megan Holland: 29

Thursday

Thursday is like a renaissance of television. “30 Rock” has had two eps this season that rival the best episodes ever, and this week’s “Community” — centered around Dungeons & Dragons — was absolutely charming (especially for gamers like YT). But the one show that I look forward to the most is the returning “Parks and Recreation”.

I have been watching a lot of “Parks and Recreation” on Netflix streaming while I have been working on my big upcoming project for Star City Games. Sister City from last season is simply one of the funniest half hours of television you could ever watch… But I couldn’t find a link to embed. So instead, here is last night’s “Community” … Which any fan of The Lord of the Rings movies (or most gamers) will appreciate:


A Dark Elf.

Friday

I have to catch up on “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”. I have basically every ep from this season on DVR but have only watched maybe two or three. I fault the kids, who have vastly diversified their limited tee vee time across more varied (but not interesting to me) interests. A lot of the commercials and teasers have looked absolutely awesome.

“Young Justice” returned to form this week! Last week was only okay, and I didn’t love the week before, but this week’s Schooled was very nice. It featured the first training session with Black Canary (one of my favorite characters in the DC Universe) teaching the kids how to fight. Canary opened up with this nugget of wisdom (before being hit on by Kid Flash):

“Combat is about controlling conflict — putting the battle on your terms. You should always be acting, never reacting.” -Black Canary

I am 100% stealing that for some future Magic article on mindset (surprising, I know).

Last, “Ben Ten: Ultimate Alien” returned tonight with a pretty decent ep. Not the best Ben Ten effort, not by a wide margin, but still a good fight with an always welcome short cameo by Azmuth. I like how, even though Ben has to use all different new aliens for toy sales purposes, he is more adept with some of the older models (or variations), and can close out basically any opponent. Per usual Kevin evolves in terms of model just a little bit as he has with every season… Still 100% recognizable, but with big Popeye forearms in his “stone” mode this week. As humans we love a mixture of the familiar and variation, and little tweaks like Kevin’s visuals offer just that.

It’s possible I will be able to watch the new Spartacus: Gods of the Arena later tonight, but probably not. It’s probably the best show on television right now.

Saturday

Who knows?

Sunday

I’m a bit behind on some of the premium cable shows, but have been religious with “Episodes” — the new Matt LeBlanc vehicle on Showtime. Very good… funny… and eye-opening, kind of like the first season of “30 Rock” alongside “Studio 60 and the Sunset Strip” (but a slightly different subject matter, obviously).

That’s it for this update.

LOVE
MIKE

Currently Reading: The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, Book 5)
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3 comments ↓

#1 MTGBattlefield on 02.04.11 at 10:09 pm

TV, Top Chef, Stuff Like That…

Your story has been summoned to the battlefield – Trackback from MTGBattlefield…

#2 Alfrebaut on 02.04.11 at 10:40 pm

As much as I love Blake Lively(I loved Blake Lively even before you ever heard of her, as I saw Sisterhood in theatres) I couldn’t make it past the first few episodes. Maybe it gets better, I don’t know. I’ve been wrong about shows before. I’m watching Skins right now, both UK’s series 5 and the brand new US Skins, and I love Skins, but I didn’t start out loving it. The first episode was a slog to get through, and while the second episode was amazing, the next two were back to being so challenging I didn’t want to go any further. But I digress.

I haven’t been terribly impressed with “V” at all, but it’s interesting and features Juliette and Inara, so I’ll keep watching. Top Chef was a blowout this week. I mean, the top dogs are going to start dropping off sooner or later, because this season is all killers. Marcel and Tre out in a row is devastating. I was convinced Dale was going to lose, since the criticism of his food was much harsher than Tre’s.

Community is my favorite comedy on TV right now aside from HIMYM(which has been off air for some weeks). The cast is great, the writing is great, they have gags and side gags and they operate with a cheeky post-modernism which is refreshing, though it could get old soon. But for now, it’s definitely the cleverest show on air and definitely one of the funniest. This week’s episode was awesome in the very way that I feel the Big Bang Theory tries and fails to be.

I haven’t seen the Friday shows yet, but I did see the first two eps of “Episodes,” and while I feel like there’s a lot of room for the show to be funny, it’s hard to sit through because it’s all awkward comedy. It’s funny, don’t get me wrong, but if I watch that much awkward comedy at once, it makes me want to take a shower immediately.

#3 Thea on 02.05.11 at 8:35 pm

Definitely Dan and Blair… I don’t see how that can’t happen at this point. Show’s not exactly subtle. What I meant about that show is that some plot points are clearly not thought-out at all. Ben’s storyline is atrocious- the character he is supposed to be now is totally inconsistent with the guy that threatened his sister into working for him by hospitalizing her boyfriend’s dad. So dumb.

Same thing with Lily and Rufus right now- a few episodes ago Rufus was totally done with Lily’s shit, and now he’s holding her hand and giving her stay strong looks when Serena says completely true things. Oh well. I’m basically in it for Chuck and Blair at this point. The W thing has promise, too.

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