Television Tuesday

This may or may not become a regular feature here on the blog. At the moment there is so much great TV playing in my house, I feel like I need a place to talk about it..

Coming up : a few words on Survivor season 29 – The Walking Dead season 5 premiere “No Sanctuary” – Homeland Season 4 – The Good Wife season 6 – Scandal seasons 3 and 4 –

Plus new shows – Madam Secretary & Gracepoint

I tested the read more tag yesterday with the mPress Custom Feed Excerpts plugin and it worked. There aren’t many spoilers but there are one or two, so to avoid spoilers if you have not seen these shows yet, you’ll need to click through to read my thoughts..

Survivor Season 29

Why do I love this show. So many reasons. I love the challenges. I love Jeff Probst. I love that now, I am not forced to rely on a TV channel to present this show to me – I can source episodes myself. For those who cannot, at least the Nine “Go” channel is showing the episodes reliably on a Thursday night, not long after they air in the USA.

Previous to this season premiere, the one thing on my bucket list involving a helicopter was to be winched down. Now, I want to do this – stand on the skid of a chopper while it banks. Bad Ass, Jeff Probst!

The reason I mention this show first is because when I watch an episode of Survivor and there is a challenge on, I will be loudly screaming at the teevee – and the exact same applies to the next show I will talk about – I am really glad FX shows new episodes of The Walking Dead at 1:30pm while the other half is at work because the yelling at the TV is LOUD with TWD.

The Walking Dead – No Sanctuary

What a fantastic start to Season 5. That entire time while they were kneeling at the trough I was SCREAMING at the TV. I love that Carol has become so capable of deading both zombies and baddies. I loved that moment with Daryl hugging Carol, and the moments with Rick, Carl, and Judith. I loved *everything* about this episode with the following tiny exceptions.

1. I did not love that there was no Gareth VS Rick showdown, and no showing us Gareth dying, though I think we saw him get shot. This leads me to believe we might see Gareth again. I can do without any more Gareth. But man, in that scene with the two of them at the trough, I was remembering Rick taking a chunk out of that guy in the season finale with his teeth, and SO wishing that could happen again, right then.

2. The scene with Eugene in the box car. Yes, I know, this was trying to give us an idea of where this season might be going – to Washington DC – but how about you let our characters focus on their escape to the future before they start talking about having one. It seemed a little unrealistic.

While I think going to Washington DC would be excellent, I also think it will not happen. AMC does not give TWD that kind of budget. They could certainly use White House and Washington sets which exist in Hollywood, but I just have this feeling it won’t happen. I would love to be proved wrong on this one. :)

Overall, a great start to Season 5, and I have to say this show has been improving greatly since The Governor met his maker mid Season 4. I will be looking forward to where the show goes from here. :)

Homeland

I was not a great fan of Homeland Season three. I was of the belief that while Damien Lewis was absolutely incredible as Nicholas Brody, the character of Brody, Brody’s family, and the relationship with Brody and Carrie was dragging the show to places it should not have gone. So once Brody was no more, I was excited about the new season.

I was hoping for more Quinn, and we certainly have been blessed with plenty of Quinn in S4. I think he could easily be considered one of the lead characters now. I think this season could be interesting, and I’m looking forward to seeing where these storylines go.

The Good Wife

I am a new convert to this show, binge watching all 5 seasons in the past few months. I deeply love this show and am hugely enjoying Season 6. I have an ambition to create a The Good Wife Outfits Blog, eventually. Alicia dresses gorgeously, as do all the people on the show.

Scandal

I’ve been re-watching Season 3 (along with the crew at Unpopcult, one of my favourite TV sites) and have been watching Season 4 as episodes appear at the same time. It is an interesting way to watch the show. I am a huge fan of Scandal.

Madam Secretary

A new show this year, Madam Secretary has Tea Leoni as the Secretary of State with smart and sassy staffers. It is like West Wing Lite, in an excellent way. I have been enjoying this show and especially Keith Carradine as the President, as I was a huge fan of his role in Dexter. I’ll likely stick with it long term, once I start watching a show I am usually there for good, unless really not great things happen. There are some annoying moments, most of which occur with the family of the secretary of state, where things tend to become irritatingly smug while trying to be heart-warming.

I like the world they have built but if we are honest about it, no one show has built the world of Washington DC. That has been done by many movies over the years, and also by TV shows like The West Wing. We know this world, and we are reasonably comfortable in it. So if you set your show there, you have a bit of a head start in some ways.

Gracepoint

While I love Anna Gunn, and was excited for this, I did not make it very far into the premiere episode. Not great at all. Disappointing. And I never even saw the original Broadchurch this was based on.

Snoskred – Life in the Country