Ah, Easter weekend. Four days of uninterrupted nothingness and sunshine. But no, you can't go out gallivanting the whole weekend, can you? Because you have things that need doing. The lawn needs mowing, or some important DIY job needs doing; and that, my friends, is why you end up watching television. Because you're almost doing what you're supposed to be doing, but you're *just* going to finish watching this first, and then you'll do it. Bank Holiday Procrastination is the matter that greases the network wheels, my friends. And speaking of grease (see what I did there?), the weekend saw the first in the new series of Grease is the Word, the new star-finding reality show for ITV. While Unreality TV reported on an unseemly split between judges (ALREADY?), The Stage ruminated on the idea that, after all the hoo-ha, this might not be the greatest thing for the craft of musical actors after all.
After the weekend, the end came for Life on Mars, one of those rare series that had the good sense to quit while it was ahead (*Ahem* My Family *Cough*). Before the series ended, it was already being mourned, on LowCulture, and, of course, here. And then the episode actually aired, and some people liked it, and some people didn't, and some people just remained quite confused. I'm one of the last set, I admit it, but that's mainly because I only got to see the last eight minutes after the stupid football had finished. Still, it's almost as if I didn't have to watch it at all, as it's being discussed artily on the this blog by the lovely Jon Wilde, on Media's Organ Grinder over here and Nancy Banks Smith has summed it all up in her inimitable style anyway, so it's almost as if those two hours watching some team kick a ball at some other team weren't completely wasted after all.
To be fair, even TV bloggers seem to have had the good sense to go out and do something sunny and constructive with the first proper sunny bank holiday in Britain since 1765, because posts over the last week from UK blogs are thin on the ground. Luckily for us, it must have been raining over the whole of the US, because there's plenty to read from over there.
Ken Levine, august writer, producer, director of shows such as M*A*S*H, Cheers, Fraiser and The Simpsons, and now a blogger (he must be so proud), has a bee in his pants about trying to watch The Cartoon Network, and to be fair, he has a great point. To quote: "Where does this clutter end? Between crawls, logo meatballs, running scores, promos, peacocks, TV-MA boxes, the Aflac duck, and time & temperatures, watching the actual show is like playing Where's Waldo?"
And there was I getting annoyed by the More4 graphic in one tiny corner of The Daily Show. Things will only get worse, it seems.
They're well into the final stretch of the last season ever of The Sopranos over there, too, and dissection of the series as a whole is beginning in earnest, as well as posts considering these last few episodes in light of all that has come before. For those who don't like spoilers, look away now. For the rest, here's intelligent recapping and consideration of the impact of the series overall to be had, if you want it.
And for a moment of Zen - or rather a moment that has nothing to do with this week on television but is worth a squizz anyway - Smashing Telly, who do a lovely line in rounding up full downloadable programmes from all over the web, have sourced Jesus Freaks, a worth-watching documentary about Creationfest, a four day Christian Rock festival in Eastern Washington. A good a way as any to waste 25 minutes on the web, I say.
