NBC's Heroes

As if Rising Stars, from what little I know about it, wasn't borrowing heavily from other comics?

 

Whoever likes Six Degrees should enjoy it while it lasts, which probably won't be much longer.

If you're holding only 40 percent of the best lead-in on network TV, there ain't a time slot they can put you in where you'll be successful.

 

It's going against one of the most established shows on television. I think it's a great show, and I think it can succeed in other time slots that aren't against a show that's been on for forever. ER is losing steam, according to those in my family who watch it, but it's still going to be tough to beat ER no matter what show you're following.

 

It's easy. The wife gets home from work. I blow off the feature story that I was supposed to be doing. We let our 9-month-old daughter play with an uncapped bottle of concentrated bleach and hand our 3-year-old son some matches. Then we start rolling through them show by show, stopping once every few hours to eat or rinse the baby's eyes.

Honestly, it's no way to live. It's pathetic. We probably start in at 7 p.m. on what we have recorded. At 8 p.m., new shows start. Sometime between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., I watch the previous night's Daily Show and Colbert Report. Then I might play some recorded show that my wife doesn't like or do my weekly hour-long ritual of programming shows to watch.

We usually watch TV from about 7 p.m. until about 11 p.m. The kids are generally fed and on their way to bed by this point, so they don't much care. They've already had their trip to the park/pool/OBT/grocery store.

And, frankly, we're lazy. We don't get much exercise, or sunlight, as it happens. Of course, we can't fit it all into our schedules. Since I cover games three to four nights a week, our schedule is put on hold. Since she doesn't watch shows without me present, it means a backlog. We catch up on weekends by watching about five hours of stuff on Saturday. We work in some play time with the kids, so they're not neglected or anything.

The odd thing is that, as much as I know I'm watching too much television, I'm not sure what I'd be doing if I wasn't glued to the tube. I suppose I might read for leisure more often. The house might be a little tidier as well. And maybe I'd post on here more often. But that's about it. I can't say that I'd spend more time playing with the kids. I do a lot of that as it is and, frankly, it's nice to have an evening of adult time.

Such is life when you're married with children. Perhaps I should get a hobby.

 

Rising Stars was well done, an excellent synthesis of a bunch of different influences. Sort of like a Tarantino film. Yes, it was heavily derivative (borrored heavily from Highlander, the Squadron Supreme 1980s miniseries, X-Men, etc.), but I thought it was great.

As for Heroes, it seems like they're taking their time to weave a narrative, and asking the audience to come along for the ride. Invasion tried this last year, and was cancelled. I went on the ride there, and I'm in for Heroes.

Even if I forgot to tape it each of the last two weeks. So if anyone can provide a synopsis, I'd appreciate it . . . . . .

 

Watch 'em online ...
http://www.nbc.com/Video/rewind/full_episodes/?show=heroes

 

We didn't use to watch anything. Then, for some reason, we picked up The Sopranos one night at Blockbuster and figured out that we really enjoyed TV shows with a continuing storyline. Went from The Sopranos to 24, from 24 to Six Feet Under, from Six Feet to etc., etc., etc.

And once we watched them, we wanted to continue watching them. When we picked up TiVo, the schedule really blew up. Like I said, you can watch a boatload of TV in no time and the shows tend to hold your attention better because you're not given that turn-the-channel option every eight minutes or so.

Mostly, though, it's what we like to do. We watch the shows, have conversations about them and enjoy the time we spend together watching this stuff. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I really don't get the stigma that's attached to watching TV. If I told people that me and my wife went and watched a play for three hours every night of the week, no one would say a word. Yet, you put those plays on TV and watch them over dinner and people think you're lazy.