Viewing Report

I'm in possession of a second episode of Jekyll. I haven't watched it yet. I'm going to save a few and them binge. Don't you find tv is better that way? You immerse yourself in a show.

I don't want to watch tv the way they dole it out: in weekly installment. Imagine trying to read a novel that way. You have seven or eight books on the go and you read one chapter of each every week. Okay, maybe I've been known to do that.

But I watched 10 hours of Friday Night Lights in three days in January and that was fabulous. And I had similar The Riches and The Tudors binged this spring (although I never finished either series, my interest seems to have dwindled). Dirt was excellent binge viewing. I don't know if I would have liked it so much if I would have had to wait. I slurped up four seasons of The Wire in a couple of months and then watched many of them over again. This is the way to watch tv, I think.

Anyway, I haven't watched the third John from Cincinnati either, but I am still willing to invest in it after episode two. Again, I'll build up a critical mass before digging back in.

I did finish watching Durham County, which was a really impressive creation written by Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik. Well done from beginning to end and proof that there's hope for us yet. (It would have been even better if I'd watched all the episodes at once, which I may yet do.)

And I caught the pilot episode of The Flight of the Conchords, playing on HBO and here in Canada on TMN (catch it on demand). HBO describes the series on their website:

Flight of the Conchords follows the trials and tribulations of a two man, digi-folk band from New Zealand as they try to make a name for themselves in their adopted home of New York City.

Not a setup pilot by the way. It almost starts in the middle of a sentence.

The series is created by James Bobin, Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie with the pilot written by James Bobin and Jemaine Clement. James Bobin, by the way, wrote on the Ali G show and helped to create the character of Borat. There are some comedy chops behind this series.

What makes the show unusual is that the characters break into music video every now and then. The lyrics made me laugh out loud quite a few times, so I'm including a sample.