UW

A few random notes, mostly television-related:

• This season of Archer has been AMAZING. I enjoyed the first season, but it has become insanely hilarious in the second season. They're striking the perfect balance between episodic and serial humor: each episode is a great little self-contained adventure, but a lot of jokes become far more hilarious if you know what happened last week. I'm sad that the finale is approaching.
• After some prodding from a brother and sister, I've finally jumped on the Community bandwagon; I've watched the first season and about twelve episodes in the current season. I think this might be the best comedy I've seen since "Arrested Development." Yes, it's really that good.
• On the other hand, I'm getting increasingly bored with "30 Rock". I don't think it's becoming worse or anything, I'm just getting too used to it. There's a decent chance that I'll drop it from my list for next year.
• Let's talk Game of Thrones! Consider these SPOILERS, just for the pilot, not for the series or books.
• The reason why there aren't spoilers for the books? There's pretty much no significant difference (so far) between the two. I was really impressed by the fidelity the show shows to the source material. I think there may have been a few things that weren't in the text - one thing that springs to mind is a conversation between Jaime and Cersei. Even that fit in perfectly with what we know so far.
• I had a feeling that they'd end the pilot on that scene. I'm glad that they did. "Ah, the things I do for love..."
• Wow, the show looks GORGEOUS. At first I thought it was a bit of a bummer that so many of the outside scenes were shot on cloudy, overcast days; but, that just makes the blazing sun across the Narrow Sea look even more incredible. Anyways, everything looks top-notch, from the scenery to the costumes to the cinematography. (I watched a standard def version first, and can't wait to check out the HD version.)
• So far, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. I think my biggest hope now is that the show is hugely financially successful, so HBO goes ahead and does the rest of the series. And, if they manage to finish before GRRM does, then maybe he'll be able to finish the series through scripts instead of through novels! I would gladly accept that.
• I don't think I ever commented on the Onion News Network. It was pretty interesting; I've enjoyed the clips on The Onion's web site, but it reaches a sort of surreal insanity when they're fully committed to it for half an hour at a time. It's pretty interesting how both it and The Daily Show can perfectly be described as "fake news shows," yet are totally different. ONN is almost a fantasy, while TDS and TDR are straight-up satire.
• I'm finally watching a new anime: Welcome to the NHK. It's pretty good so far; it seems vaguely like a comedic version of Serial Experiments Lain. It's about socially isolated Japanese young men, and is one of the more neurotic things I've seen.
• Quick note on the book front - I finally picked up a copy of Masterpiece Comics, from the library of all places. It was totally awesome, but much shorter than I had expected. Given that he's been doing these for decades, I was hoping for more source books to skewer. It's hard to think of more iconic comics that he could have used as a lampooning tool, though... it seems like he grabbed the best examples from each of the major genres of mainstream comics.

It's funny how time seems to flow together when you're no longer in school. When I was in college I wouldn't always know what day of the week it was, but always knew how long I had until finals. Now, I always know exactly what day of the week it is, but often need to think a while to remember what month. (It doesn't help that in the Bay Area all months seem more or less alike.) All that to say, I find I'm caught off-guard now that the TV season is winding down and my favorite shows are headed for hiatus. Fortunately, there's a wealth of great stuff out there that I haven't yet seen, and I'm looking forward to exploring more of it.