Now that it’s winter, I’m willing to bet that there are a lot of people spending their evenings curled up on the sofa watching TV. In my opinion, anyone who voluntarily goes out in this chilly & wet weather is mad – are they looking for a cold?! Luckily for us, Homily hates wintery weather as much as we do, so we are free to slob out during the cold dark evenings without any dog walking guilt! And so James, Homily & I curl up together on our three seater most nights to watch a few hours of TV. Ok, so Homily mostly sleeps!
My picks for some great TV this winter are:
Glee
This pick is a no brainer, and there are people gushing over this all over the place at the moment. Glee is a brilliant musical comedy currently airing on FOX in the USA. Coming to E4 in the UK next year, it is a fabulously entertaining 45 minutes of fun each week, peppered with some excellent musical covers.
In Glee, a group of high school students who have formed a musical show group deal daily with the trials & tribulations of typical high school life, including the cool kids class system, teenage pregnancy, disability, and so on. The characters in this show are brilliantly written – from the slightly neurotic Rachel desperate to be a stage star, to the crazy cheerleading coach Sue, who is determined to bring the Glee club down. You simply have to watch this, it’s fantastic!
I am not homophobic. In fact, I have two gay dads. See, I was born out of love. My two dads screened potential surrogates based on beauty and IQ. Then they mixed their sperm together and used a turkey baster. To this day we don’t know which one is my real dad, which I think is pretty amazing.
Gossip Girl
Set in the Upper East Side of Manhattan & based on the books by Cecily von Ziegesar, Gossip Girl is a weekly dose of guilty pleasure. Torrid affairs & teenage dramatics combine to make an amusingly inappropriate touch of drama to liven up your evening. The main character, Serena van der Woodsen is an It girl who never seems to learn from her mistakes, and who has been blessed with a completely non functional family!
My favourite character in the earlier seasons was Jenny, who is (let me see) Serena’s boyfriend-now-brother’s little sister, her brother’s ex best friend, and also the successor to Serena’s best (some of the time) friend as Queen Bee of the posh high school for Upper East Sider girls, Constance. Yes, it really is that complicated. But don’t let the complexities of the plot put you off, as this one is really worth a watch, if you haven’t tried it already. I would recommend starting at the beginning though!
And who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. You know you love me, xo xo, Gossip Girl
Numb3rs
Now for some slightly geekier picks. Numb3rs is one that James & I just discovered this year, although it is already in it’s 6th season. The brothers Eppes are a strange sort of crime fighting duo; an FBI agent working in homicide, and his math genius brother who helps him to solve problems & hunt down the bad guys. The plots are good, the characters and the relationships between them are evolving well, and I’m really (and very nerdily*) enjoying the mathematical bits! If you’re after a bit of geeky entertainment, then you should definitely try this!
We all use math every day; to predict weather, to tell time, to handle money. Math is more than formulas or equations; it’s logic, it’s rationality, it’s using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know.
*that’s not a word, but never mind.
Fringe
Another geeky choice for you, Fringe is a cult sci-fi classic in the making. Dawson’s Creek bad boy Joshua Jackson plays Peter Bishop in this fantastic show about the fringe of science. His father, the nutty professor Walter, has been taken out of a mental institution in order to help FBI Agent Olivia Dunham to solve mysterious cases assigned to the ‘Fringe Division’. The various weirdness has included spontaneous combustion, parallel universes, telepathy, hypnosis, communicating with the dead.. you get the idea! The wackiness of the Walter character adds a fun comedic element to the show, along with the bantering between Peter & Olivia. If you’re into science in any way, I suggest you give this a go.
Only thing better than a cow is a human. Unless you want milk. Then you’re gonna need a cow!
I am also loving:
Bones, Grey’s Anatomy, Top Gear, Veronica Mars re-runs, Dollhouse & the guilty pleasure that is America’s Next Top Model.
On my list to catch up with/try out:
Stargate Universe, How I Met Your Mother, Sanctuary, Flash Forward, and House.
I keep meaning to watch Glee, but I never get around to it somehow. Maybe once this season is over, I’ll go through that and The Good Wife all at once — I keep hearing good things about both of them.
I watch Cold Case, Bones, and 30 Rock every week, although I’m not sure that any of them are so good that I would recommend them without reservation. I do *like* them, of course. They’re just not as good as they used to be.
Glee is really fun, you should definitely give it a try. I’ll have to add The Good Wife to my ‘to try’ list!
I tried watching Cold Case for a while but lost track – I was recording it on my Sky+ box and it was recording faster than I was able to watch it! I love Bones though, watch that one religiously! 30 Rock is another one I’ve never tried, there is just too much good TV to be watched, and not enough time to watch it in!Twitter: zoecorkhill
[...] a lot of people in the UK are talking about how much they love Glee right now (told ya so!), and so I decided to share some happiness with some Glee iPhone ringtones that I made in [...]