Catching Up

So with summer gone and the new TV season starting up, a quick look back on what I wasted my time with over the past few months:

Under the Dome - we're about halfway through this, and I'm not particularly impressed. Too exposition-heavy, odd moments of illogic (a meningitis outbreak that can be cured in hours using one dose of antibiotics, no one finds that strange?), and not particularly great acting (though the guy playing James "Junior" Rennie could probably make a career out of playing sociopaths). But it's interesting enough for a summer series, I suppose. It is picking up a bit now that the thing that's apparently causing the dome has been discovered.

Hell's Kitchen/MasterChef - I found the former more watchable this time around if only for the casting of perhaps the most incompetent group of one gender in the show's history (the men, who proved almost incapable of winning a team challenge). The latter is much more watchable this time around, not sure if it's the contestants or the (relative) streamlining of the tryouts. It's not the Walmart product placements or the Glee-themed episode, which pretty much proved that Jane Lynch will appear in anything (as if Celebrity Game Night didn't do that already).

Masterpiece - after working through Mr. Selfridge (kind of not worth it, unless 14 episodes of Jeremy Piven given license to overact is your kind of thing), we got what appears to be the last season of Inspector Lewis (boo) and the first season of Endeavor, a Morse prequel series that I've enjoyed quite a bit. Neither have particularly long runs (3 and 5 episodes respectively, I think), so easy to cover if you're so inclined.

The Killing - you may have noticed that I tailed off of the weekly coverage, thanks in part to a move and in part to the show not really having three characters who have an "up" episode every week. Turns out the show's been cancelled (for good this time), which isn't helping me finish the season. Don't think I'll miss the show per se, but I will miss Joel Kinnaman's performances as Stephen Holder. Here's to hoping he gets the higher profile role he deserves, but soon.

American Ninja Warrior - modeled after a Japanese show, it features a variety of folks (many of whom are either rock climbers or devotees of Parkour/freerunning) trying to conquer obstacle courses in the hopes of conquering the final one (which has never been done). It's not something we'd have tuned into, but the oldest boy found it one rainy weekend afternoon and it quickly became his program of choice. I fear future trips to the park will be ruined as he finds that none of them have a salmon ladder or warped wall. Also problematic is the change from G4 to Esquire Network, as the show went off air for a few weekends, but it appears to be back, for better or worse.

The Beauty of DVR Viewing

The number of shows we record on our DVR generally has us catching up with regular season shows over the summer and watching summer programming during the first half of the new season, with occasional sampling of new shows to see if we're going to keep watching them. This puts me behind the eight ball in discussing developments on existing shows (like how much Glee apparently sucks this year, save Dot Marie Jones), but it has given us a great new approach to some of the summer shows, most notably Hell's Kitchen and Master Chef.

.The approach is simple: watch one episode of each show each night until it's over. I know this sort of condensed season viewing isn't new for folks (especially those of you who stream seasons or watch DVDs), but it's been very helpful for these two shows specifically, as:

1. You can blow through episodes quickly, as you can skip over the ads and excessive recapping (really, I don't need 30 seconds to remind me of what happened two to four minutes ago). Not too unlike regular DVR viewing, but some added value for these shows.

2. You get to know the contestants very quickly. This is less of a problem on Hell's Kitchen, whose contestants tend towards oversized personalities. But it's really helpful for Master Chef, whose contestant pool starts large and, even with a quick cutdown, remains large enough to allow you to lose people in the first few weeks. You see these people every night, though, and it's easier to keep track of folks.

(An aside for Master Chef: please stop the in-program ads for your knives and cookware. Graham Elliot deserves better, I think.)

I will say that this has helped Master Chef seem more compelling this season, though some more interesting competitors have helped, too. They're certainly easier to take than the braying jackasses who tend make up most of Hell's Kitchen.