The State of Television - The Post

I'm sure many of you have noticed the new direction the blog has been gradually taking over the last year.  I am concentrating more on blogging about some of the great television shows I have been watching.  By doing this I hope to inform you, my readers and anyone else who may stumble upon these pages, about the great television shows that ARE still being made.

Television can be and should be once again, a great institution in the home.  It should not be dressed up in a cheap mini skirt and heels, stuck on the street corner that is the Saturday night 8pm reality slot, and told to dance, sing or fake anything for it's money.  It's time to say we have had enough cheap thrills.  We want more.

More already exists!  Television is not just a world of reality shows where orange Z-list celebrities get semi naked and have fake "some scenes have been dramatized" relationships.  Television is still about good old-fashioned storytelling, in the most, and the GOOD part.  Don't be a slave to reality shows that leave little to the imagination, and send your brain cells into a deep coma.   Rather stimulate them into a frenzy with impossibly imaginative twists and turns of thrillers, such as "Scandal".  Test them to their intellectual limits with political dramas such as "House of Cards".  Make them feel alive with joy and the laughter provided by comic genius from shows like "Community" and "New Girl".

Sadly, some of these shows do not get the press the reality shows are afforded and as a result I regularly see decent shows getting cancelled and replaced by yet more low budget television.  "Ringer" cancelled after 1 season, "Fringe" cancelled after 5 seasons, "Zero Hour" cancelled during the first season.  These are just three off the top of my head!  There are many, many more and these are mostly shows that people haven't had the chance to even get to hear about yet.  That's where I am hoping this blog will begin to help fill the information void!

So if you are interested in finding out about some shows that I think you will enjoy, please feel free to subscribe and I will try to keep you all updated.

Thanks

NB - this post can be seen as a page on tangerine dreams at all times.  It remains there as a reminder of my mission!  Please feel free to access it by going to the tab at the top of the page.

House of Cards

Genre - Political drama
Distributor - Netflix or online
My rating - 4 stars out of 5

This is a political drama rather than political thriller (as I would probably describe Scandal).
It isn't so much fast paced as fast talking. If you know nothing about American politics then you may struggle with some of the concepts and less so, the storylines (the same way detail can be lost in The Newsroom to a foreign, i.e. non American, audience).  Lets face it, the American writer does not write with a non native audience in mind, selling to other territories is just a bonus to them.
That aside, this is a fairly gripping tv show. I am yet to finish the season but I am liking what I've seen to date.  I'm finding myself recommending it, but I fail to be convinced if that is just because there are few shows separating the wheat from the chaff so far this year....

Red Widow

I plan to blog about this soon so watch this space!

I have decided that this poor effort of a show really isn't worth 2 posts.  I don't even think it is worth this one revised post!

Network - ABC
Genre - Boring sorry I mean drama?
My rating - 1 star out of 5

Bad acting, bad and predictable storyline, bad, bad, bad.

GIVE IT A MISS!

G-dog millionaire

Love this hound!

My new role...

I've just started working as a Trainee Biomedical Scientist within the Cellular Pathology department of a local hospital.  I've just completed my first week in the lab and I LOVE IT!

At last I have found a job whereby I actually look forward to going to work each day.

Yes, I'm finding it quite tiring (who wouldn't after 4 months off) but that doesn't matter because I really am loving what I'm doing.

So far I have spent my time in the dissection room watching Pathologists at work and learning how to book in samples to the lab.  I get to see some pretty gruesome stuff I can tell you but it's all amazing!  I cannot quite believe just how unaffected I am by all the things I've seen this week.  Just a few years ago I couldn't stand the sight of even the smallest drop of blood and now, well without painting too horrid a picture, I see a lot of it and it's pretty much all day every day now.  Before you think I'm incredibly disturbed or macabre, I'm not I just find it all so fascinating on a purely educational level.

I'll try to post more as my year long placement continues.