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Thursday, March 8, 2012

Thoughts on Game Of Thrones & The Walking Dead, Plus Other Nonsense

The month is March. Two months remain in the network television schedule. Once April hits, new episodes of your favorite shows will trickle in, and then new episodes will be everywhere once the calendar flips to May, which is the month of finales. Until then, expect re-runs or nonsense like Revenge For Real on ABC. Amazingly I'm not completely devoid of writing about shows in this barren, useless month of TV. The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle return next Thursday for an undetermined amount of time before they break so that The CW is prepared for an uninterrupted five or six week runs into early May. Both fairy tale shows are airing new episodes in the next three days. SyFy's going to continue to run episodes of Lost Girl because they're a season and a half behind the Canadian production. But anyway, I have some thoughts to share:

-The River concludes in two weeks. Dancing With The Stars premieres the week after the Magus crew does or doesn't find Emmet Cole. The River's fate is in jeopardy. A friend of mine read a report in which someone considered The River sort of safe for a second season. I've read different reports that suggest The River's days are numbered. If ABC could justify another 8 episode season next February through March that would make the most sense. The River doesn't have a premise that's translatable to 13 or 22 episode seasons. I'm not actually interested in pondering The River's fate. Instead, I'm interested in writing about what I'm going to write about after The River concludes. I quite liked writing about TV on Tuesday nights. Ideally, I'd write 1-3 reviews every day of the week. The glorious 2012 Summer Re-Watch should 'officially' begin within the first two weeks of May. I'm still mulling over shows to watch for the first time, as well as shows to re-watch; and, of course, I'd write about both. The Re-Watch fun might begin on March 27. I learned from my re-watch last summer that re-watching and writing about 24 episodes every week for four months presents problems when the new and returning shows premiere. I'd be returning to the magical and melodramatic world of Capeside.

-The whole reason I'm writing today's nonsense 'Thoughts' post is because I'm uncertain about writing about tonight's Awake. The ratings were decent for NBC's low standards. The various warnings from TV critics about the ruination of the series after tonight's plot twist aren’t deterring me. I have a habit of writing about nearly everything I watch. Whenever I lose interest in a show, I stop writing about it. I always plan on keeping up with an Alcatraz or New Girl and writing a later post about how the show's been in the weeks I didn't write about it, but I never care enough to continue watching it. Of course, there are shows I watch and don't write about e.g., The Walking Dead, Community, Eastbound, Hawaii Five-O, The Challenge. Also, I'm writing today's nonsense because I felt a need to write something, even though no one would blink an eye if I opted not to write something two days in a row. The 'Thoughts' posts aren't particularly good or interesting or worthwhile; however, I may or may not be able to write about Grimm tomorrow, and the thought of not writing anything in three days did not appeal to me.

-The Walking Dead continues its season Sunday night with its penultimate episode. Glen Mazarra admitted his inspiration for the show comes from the structure of LOST. The "Pilot" had a LOST quality. Recent episodes have reminded me of LOST just from a plot and structure perspective. Sunday's episode blatantly ripped off the Sayid-Henry Gale scene from "One of Them." I originally planned on writing about the episode Monday after the previews for "Judge, Jury, Executioner." I anticipated the episode would've been "One of Them 2.0." I really did. For one reason or another, I didn't watch the episode until Monday evening. I lost the inspiration for the piece when the episode diverted from that season two LOST episode. The central conflict of the show is between Rick and Shane, which is Jack vs. Lost-lite. Rick vs. Shane is without the philosophical and religious themes that truly separated Jack and Locke. Anyway, I appreciate The Walking Dead's attempts to emulate the greatest TV show ever. Mazarra and his staff will never emulate LOST though. LOST will never be duplicated. If Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, former LOST writers, can't even emulate the show they worked on for five years, then no one will. This is good though. I don't need or want another LOST. I have LOST, all six seasons, on my DVD shelf. I enjoy The Walking Dead because of the unintentional comedy and slick action scenes. So, perhaps, I'll end this with a plea for critics to quit comparing zombies and LOST: think more about the zombie show and write something original; resist the temptation to write about what LOST executed so well vs. what the zombie show fails to execute each week, and so on and so forth.

-The second season of Game of Thrones premieres in 24 days. Each trailer released has been mind-blowing and amazing. I've resisted the urge to link the "Seven Devils" trailer on Facebook with 'OH MY GOD' written. Whenever I watch the trailers, 'OH MY GOD' is on a loop in my head. The shots of Melisandre and Stannis standing before their fires is an OH MY GOD moment; any scene in which Tyrion's at a table conversing with Varys or Cersei is an OH MY GOD moment because Tyrion's ACOK chapters in the book are simply splendid, and I truly hope Benioff and Weiss took all of Tyrion's dialogue directly from the book; the shot of Robb and Grey Wind standing before Jaime is an OH MY GOD moment because Grey Wind looks like an absolute beast, a beast that I didn't even conjure in my own imagination, mainly because the direwolves looked like mere wolves in season 1, and I had those images in my head through my readings of A Song of Ice and Fire. Indeed, there were many terrific shots in the 2 minute trailer, all of which I'll have plenty to write about when the time comes. I realized how underwhelming and dull TV's been since Game of Thrones left the air, with few exceptions, and its return excites me because it's absolutely richer and better than any show on TV right now. It's never too late to watch season one, or read the book, and discover why people get hooked.

THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK


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About The Foot

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Originally, I titled the blog Jacob's Foot after the giant foot that Jacob inhabited in LOST. That ended. It became TV With The Foot in 2010. I wrote about a lot of TV.