If there’s one thing we know here at The Largesse, it’s condescension. And TV. (Math, not so much.) So, we know there’s a lot of crap out there – shit, we even watch some of it (or at least Plax does) – and we thought we’d help you people out a bit and give you some DVR tips. Well, “tips” is probably misleading. These are more like commands, really. Or suggestions that you’d have to be stupid not to follow. Yeah, that’s the one.
We’re going to take this day by day so you don’t screw it up. You’re welcome.
Monday
Kind of a slow night, especially after football season ends.
You might be watching: The Big Bang Theory (also known as Why I Hate Middle America), House (provided you haven’t yet realized that it’s the same damn episode each week. “Oh,” you’ll say, “but it’s really the characters that draw you in. Did you know House ended last season in a mental institution?” To which I respond: “You’re an asshole.”), Dancing with the Stars (Fuck you.), 24 (I’m sure at some point this was a worthwhile endeavor, but that point has passed. I truly believe they missed the real potential of this show – they could have focused on a different character from an entirely different social world each season, and it would have remained fresh and exciting. Instead, we get to worry about Jack will make it out of the next inescapable situation with nothing to help him but a pencil. You know, there was a reason they cancelled MacGuyver back in the day, so why do they expect us to just swallow this shit again just because there’s some ticking clock to tell you when to stop fast-forwarding through the commercials? Plax will surely disagree with this, but deep down he knows I’m right.)
You should be watching: How I Met Your Mother, Monday Night Football, Big Monday
MNF should be a given, and Big Monday is simply the best games each week in the best sport in the history of mankind – college basketball. (Unless, of course, Duke is playing.)
H.I.M.Y.M. is the last viable sit-com in today’s more media- and story-savvy television world. It’s got a larger plot arc that ties everything together and demands that the characters can’t remain in static situations that simply reset each week, and it’s got all the traditional roles filled in non-traditional ways with a wink and a nod. It’s got the total waste of time main character (Ted), the oddball (Barney), the softie (Marshall), and the hot chick (both Lilly and Robin in two very different ways), but they fill all these roles with a twist – Barney is weirdly successful while most oddballs are social failures (see: Kramer, Jim from Taxi) and he’s a womanizer played by an openly-gay actor, Marshall is somehow the best character on the show instead of just a total buffoon, Lilly is secretly a sexpot, Robin is Canadian and a former teen pop star, and I’m convinced they don’t even try to make Ted interesting to the point where it’s bordering on a level of meta-awareness that broadcast television hasn’t even thought about since Arrested Development went off the air. Sure it isn’t perfect every week, but when it’s good, it’s very good. Watch it.
Tuesday
My off night. We play pub trivia every Monday (well, we win most weeks, so I don’t really know if you can call it “playing” anymore), so I use Tuesday to clean out the DVR each week. Sons of Anarchy is the only show worth watching, but it doesn’t come on until 10, so you’ve got plenty of time to go back and watch everything from Thursday and Sunday that you haven’t had time to get to.
What you might be watching: 90210 (Grow up already. It’s not 1992 anymore.), The Hills (Some of my compatriots at The Largesse watch this suckhole, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Nothing ever happens. Nothing. The “characters” are brainless, self-absorbed, utterly worthless as human beings, and not nearly attractive enough to make up for it. I will never understand the appeal of this show.) The Biggest Loser (Nothing more than self-esteem porn for most of its audience. You should be ashamed of yourself.)
What you should be watching: Sons of Anarchy, 30 for 30, Rescue Me, American Idol
Rescue Me might be the single most unpredictable and wildly entertaining show I’ve ever seen. It’s not the best show of all time (that would be The Wire, of course) but it is the show that swings from slapstick to pathos to danger in the quickest and most effective manner possible. SOA has the killer tagline of “Hamlet on Harleys”, and the weird thing is that it doesn’t even do the show justice. The addition of Henry Rollins this season essentially makes any argument I might make irrelevant, because if that’s not enough to get you to check this show out then I’m pretty sure you’re beyond help (and I’m not entirely sure you’re even worth helping, frankly). 30 for 30 is, simply put, the best series of documentaries TV has ever produced, and they’re only about six or seven episodes in. Oh, what’s that you say? Ken Burns? Sure, you can go watch twelve hours of a camera panning over still photographs of national parks to trick you into thinking he hasn’t just strung together something my niece could have made on iPhoto, OR you could watch Len Bias run the floor and throw down dunks that can only remind you that his death could legitimately be considered a national tragedy and make you wonder why there’s still nobody who can do what he did twenty years ago.
* A brief note on American Idol: There’s nothing worse than the assholes who claim to only watch the first few episodes so that they can see the trainwrecks (except maybe the people who claim to like all music except for country). AI is the single best lens through which to view and understand this world we live in, from the preening psychos who show up in costume, intent on getting the constitutionally-mandated fifteen minutes of fame, to the enduring myth that small-town, everyday America is a land of possibility and greatness. You should be watching this, cringing and singing along all the way.
Stay tuned for more next week. Same bat time. Same bat channel.
