Catch Up

With every season comes a shift (big or small) in our lives. People start preparing for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. No grace period or halftime in between Americans' holidays. We are all just on to the next biggest event. Football season changes people's weekend agendas for a solid 6 months. That's half a year for you mathematicians. Just like summer brings bikinis, winter brings Uggs, spring brings baseball, and the fourth of july brings the words idiots and severed fingers to coexist, September brings happiness to millions of Americans. And I'm not just talking about football.

September brings back the people we love, hate and record each week on our DVR's (greatest invention ever). The end of september is when most of the major networks (CBS, NBC, KAKE) start their new seasons for their respective shows. I, being a TV show fanatic, love this time of the year. It's a time to see shows (happens to most shows) you once loved start to fade away (Two and a Half Men, The Office, Weeds). September is also a time for new found shows.

Normally, a newfound show would be one that is having its 1st season air this fall. However, thanks to Netflix, I come across a few shows that are fairly new (within their first 3-4 seasons) that catch my eye and then eventually hook me into the story. A few shows I still am currently watching that I got started watching from Netflix include Weeds, Sons of Anarchy, and most recently Breaking Bad. Of these three, Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad are still in my opinion on the rise in the quality of shows they are producing. Not anything against Weeds but they have just ran out of great plot ideas to go to but they are in their 7th season which is an impressive statistic in today's TV age.

The TV shows I'm most looking forward for their new seasons (spoiler alert, all of the ones I watch) include the following.

Two and a Half Men: Although I feel very twisted and saddened to see the path Charlie Sheen took in the last year, this show was a personal favorite of mine during the first 5-6 seasons. I have no real expectations for Ashton Kutcher coming onto the show but I will give it a change nonetheless. Nothing against Ashton personally but I liked in That 70's Show and that is about it. I just don't expect the fan base for the show to respond to the replacement and more importantly the loss of Charlie Sheen. Hopefully I am wrong and the show continues to be great.

How I Met Your Mother: I just got into this show within the last 2 months but have seen nearly every episode already (thank you syndicated television). Neil Patrick Harris does an awesome job in this show in about every episode. A great storyline that may seem to drag on is covered up by the bonding group of friends and the sometimes separate and sometimes shared plot.

New boss, James Spader, known from shows such as Boston Legal

The Office: Probably the show I'm least interested in. The loss of Steve Carrell would be like if Seinfeld Jerry Seinfeld. No one else can play the character like Steve Carrell played his or fill the void that the show has without him. Like Two and a Half Men, I do not have high hopes for the future of this show but I have been wrong before.

Tosh.O: Nothing new here, just great videos of why you can't stop people from being stupid. If you've never watched this show, Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Comedy Central. Watching this show will make your "shitty day" seem like you got a free weeks paid vacation.

Sons of Anarchy: This show has already begun its new season and I'm currently watching the previous season that just recently was released to Netflix on DVD. Thus the blog title "Catch Up", I am trying to get caught up on the shows that are currently or are starting their new season soon. The show centers around a biker gang that has chapters all across the country and in foreign countries as well (Ireland). They work the black market and the local law enforcement to make a living, a modern day group of outlaws.

Weeds: A Showtime production. Netflix hooked me on this show last year. The seasons are starting to lost the need for more after each episode but a good show for anyone looking for a drama-filled and climatic TV show. The show is based around a suburban mom who loses her husband and is left with bills to the ceiling. She finds that she has a 6th sense for the sales trade. Her sales trade is specifically strongest in selling marijuana. Thus the title of the show.

Modern Family: This show has been great in its first few seasons. A great play off modern-day society with it's characters: a gay couple raising an adopted baby, a wealthy and elderly man married to a young and beautiful woman, and a "traditional" family that is far from perfect. All these characters in the show are related and make for great family fun.

The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon Cooper and "Bazzinga" are all that really needs to be said about this show. This show has nearly had me crying laughing multiple times. The basic premise of the show is 4 super intelligent and very nerdy friends that hang out constantly but interact with the polar opposite type of person that is an extremely more good-looking girl that can't help but like being around these four guys.

Breaking Bad: Another Netflix fire-starter, Breaking Bad is a show I've just started to watch. I'm about halfway through season 2 and can officially say I'm hooked. The show is about an overly-qualified high school Chemistry teacher that finds out he has lung cancer. His brother-in-law, a DEA agent, takes the main character on a bust of a meth-lab. Once the chemistry teacher sees how much money is in the meth business and understands that he has the knowledge, tools and ability to cook meth to near perfection. His main objective for this is not leave his family with a ton of debt from his cancer bills. He learns early that his is in over his head in the drug game but uses his smarts to get him out of many tight situations.

These are all the shows I currently am watching but I will be looking for completely new shows to start watching and will fill you in with what I find. Until then, stay tuned.

Wilfred

Ever since the TV show Lost ended, The Office fell apart, and Two and a Half Men went through it's tirades with Charlie Sheen, I was left with minimal TV to keep up with. I got into a few shows as a result of this. Some are new like Wilfred and Necessary Roughness while other's are a few seasons in, like Weeds and Son's of Anarchy. I got into Weeds, which is a show about a Mom and her kid's who lose their father due to a heart attack, because most of the seasons are available on Netflix. The mother is having troubles finding a means to an end to pay many bills, but finds a knack in selling marijuana to the suburban town she lives in. It's a dystopian show, where everything that can go wrong, does. It's a comedic drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat and makes you anticipate the next episode minutes after the end of the previous one. Son's of Anarchy is a show on FX about a biker gang that run's a small town in California. They own/pay off anything that stand's in their way but can't pay off rival gang's or government agencies that prove to be the antagonizers in the storyline. It's a more violent but still dramatic show that will make you choose favorite characters and get involved with those characters like they were real. 


But since Weeds is a Showtime production and I don't get Showtime, I have to wait until each season comes out on DVD to keep up. I've gone through the first two season's of Son's of Anarchy, twice, on Netflix, and am waiting impatiently for the third season to come out. So without these two show's on my weekly watch list, I've had to look for new show's. Luckily, I've found a couple of shows that are worth the watch. 


Wilfred is probably my new favorite show. The idea behind it deserves five stars by itself, but the acting complements it perfectlyWilfred is a half-hour, live-action comedy about "Ryan," a young man struggling unsuccessfully to make his way in the world until he forms a unique friendship with "Wilfred," his neighbor’s canine pet. Everyone else sees Wilfred as just a dog, but Ryan sees a crude and somewhat surly, yet irrepressibly brave and honest, Australian bloke in a cheap dog suit. While leading him through a series of comedic and existential adventures, Wilfred the dog shows Ryan the man how to overcome his fears and joyfully embrace the unpredictability and insanity of the world around him. I would highly recommend this show, if you don't laugh throughout the show, there's probably something wrong with you. It's on Thursday's on FX at 9 p.m. CT. 


The next show I've started watching is Necessary Roughness. It is a show about a therapist that get's involved with people with serious problems while trying to deal with her issues at the same time. The main character, Dr. Dani Santino  seems to have it all figured out: she's got a beautiful home, a successful husband, two great kids, and a satisfying career as a psychotherapist. But when she catches her husband cheating, Dani's perfect world begins to unravel, and she is forced to find a way to keep her family, her finances and her sanity intact. Luckily, a chance encounter with the trainer of the local pro football team offers Dani a chance to show off her counseling skills, and before she can say "Hail Mary," Dani has taken on the team's star wide receiver as a patient and become the most sought-after therapist on Long Island.Now, high-profile clients from athletes to entertainers to politicians are clamoring for Dani's unique brand of therapy during their moments of crisis. But though her career is reenergized, Dani soon discovers that balancing her workload and the new demands of single motherhood won't be easy. With two teenage kids driving her crazy, an obnoxious ex-husband stirring up trouble, and desperate patients constantly showing up on her doorstep, one thing's for sure: from here on out, Dani's going to have plenty of issues to tackle. This show is only a couple of episodes in but I've enjoyed them both and learned a thing or two at the same time. 

If you haven't seen the commercials for the new law show, Franklin and Bash, you don't watch much TV, because they are on all the time everywhere. I like the show so far but don't love it by any means. It will have to start to impress me more on a weekly basis for me to follow it more closely but I'll watch it when I have time. Here's a brief description of the show and what all the buzz is about. When they're not hanging out at their favorite hot dog stand pontificating on what they'd go through to enjoy a night with their favorite female celebrities, Jared Franklin (Breckin Meyer) and Peter Bash (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) are chasing down their latest clients...sometimes literally. With business cards in hand, they're ready to nab a client within seconds after a car accident, arrest for solicitation or any other incident where their legal services may be needed. Once in the courtroom, they show their flair for the dramatic and the shocking. Peter has a knack for connecting with jury and judge, while Jared loves sticking it to authority every chance he gets. Despite their bad-boy antics, brash presentation and devil-may-care attitudes, Jared and Peter are good lawyers who are willing to do anything for a client, no matter who the client might be. That quality catches the attention of Stanton Infeld (Malcolm McDowell), a Renaissance man and the patriarch of Infeld Daniels, one of the top law firms in Los Angeles. He sees a lot of himself in the young men and decides to recruit the pair to bring a fresh energy to the firm. Jared and Peter are joined by their two legal aides, the brilliant, brassy Carmen (Dana Davis) and the agoraphobic, verminophobic Pindar (Kumail Nanjiani). Infeld's decision to take on fresh talent doesn't sit well with his nephew, Damien Karp (Reed Diamond), a lawyer who has his own plans for the firm and a particularly shifty way of doing business. The arrival of Jared and Peter also threatens Karp's romantic - albeit celibate - relationship with Hanna Linden (Garcelle Beauvais), a lawyer who takes an immediate liking to Jared. In their new digs at Infeld Daniels, Jared and Peter handle a variety of clients, from a woman fired for being too beautiful to a family feud over a cherished baseball. But their story is really about the incredible friendship they've built and how their relationship is challenged now that they find themselves working in a more corporate atmosphere. Only time will tell if these devoted buddies can survive in this new environment. 

That about wraps up what I've been watching, TV wise, this summer. One more, if your still reading, is Tosh.0. It's a highly inappropriate show that entails showing youtube and video clips from the internet and making fun of them. Daniel Tosh is the host and he is the perfect fit for it. The show will make you cry laughing but can make you say "wtf?" as well. That's all I got on the TV scoop, stay tuned.