Watching Stuff

Here are a bunch of things I've been watching lately. In no particular order. For no particular reason.

"The New Avengers" - This is the TV show from the 1970's that was the sequel to the TV show "The Avengers" from the 1960's. Though I am quite familiar with the original I've never seen any episodes of the 1970's version. They were never the cult classic the original was and therefore not shown on TV as much. I remember seeing commercials for the show when I was kid but I never saw the show then and I don't think it's popped up on TV since then.

I've watched about ten episodes so far and I have to say that I like them. Patrick Macnee reprises his role as John Steed and we get Gareth Hunt as Mike Gambit and, Joanna Lumley as Purdey. There are three Avengers instead of two now. I think the two new Avengers do an excellent job. Plenty of action and double dealing in the world of British intelligence. This show is much better than I expected it to be.

"The Hollow Men" - An Australian show that I stumbled on to is a comedy about working in the office of the Prime Minister of Australia. "The Central Policy Unit". There are two seasons of six episodes apiece all about the absurdities and crazy backwards logic of politics.

A favorite episode of mine was when there was going to be a budget surplus and that triggered a "crisis". You see a surplus was a sign that the PM had no big plan for the country and was floundering. They had to create a huge project to spend some money so that the PM would have "Momentum". Whether the project even got done or the money actually spent was irrelevant. Definitely my favorite new comedy.

"Mad Men" Season 2 - This is the show that is about an ad agency in NYC during the early 1960's. The ad game was a man's world and woman's lib not even a notion. Men ran the place and women were secretaries and wives. But things were changing. Slowly.

I liked the first season of "Mad Men" better than the second. Only because the first season dealt more with the drama of the ad business. In the second season they got more into the drama of the characters personal lives. I wasn't as interested in that. A solid show though. It does it's best to capture a time period.

"The Mentalist" - This is a new show this year and it's a cop drama. The lead character is a former fake "ESP guy" who now consults for the California state cops. His schtick is that he's really good at noticing things and reading people. It's also kind of an anti- "The Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer" show.

There is nothing really special about "The Mentalist" but it's okay. The characters are likable and do their jobs well as we watch them track down criminals. It's a good show to accompany me on the stationary bike.

"Burn Notice" - I've watched a bunch of episodes of season one from this show. It's about a spy who worked for the US government until he got a "Burn Notice" put out on him. This means all his spy privileges have been revoked and he can't be trusted. All his old government contacts have to turn their backs on him. Bank accounts frozen and all that.

So now he is stuck in Miami trying to earn a living and helping people out with his spy skills. All while trying to figure out who put the burn notice on him so he can get it removed. It's a pretty cool show with lots of violence and style. You get to see all sorts of neat spy tricks that we all wish we could pull off. As if we have a reason to. I'm going to have to watch some more of this show. It's in season two now.

"Big Apple" - Here's a show from 2001 that I didn't even know existed. Probably because there were only eight episodes and who can hear about every new TV show? It stars Ed O'Neil as the quintessential New York City cop. He doesn't trust anyone. Not the criminals and not the feds he has to work with.

"Big Apple" is basically an eight part miniseries about local cops and federal cops working together to bring in a big case. Another cop show that walked on familiar ground but did it pretty well. Who are the good guys? Who are they bad guys? Can all the good guys work together well? You know the drill. But still it was okay if you like that sort of thing.

So there has been some of my TV watching of recent days. Most of the time I'm doing something as I watch TV. A lot of the time I'm working so I'm just listening to the TV. That's why I like dialogue based shows. So your milage may vary.