This Just Takes the Cake

Although N is the love of my life, he is not a TV-watching soul mate. These folks, on the other hand, threw a TiVo themed wedding. The couple that watches Nip/Tuck together stays together? I guess.

Those are their wedding cakes, MOMP! SFGate.com reports: "The groom's TiVo was chocolate with a cream cheese filling and the bride's TiVo was vanilla with a peanut butter filling."

Another Show to Watch: Brothers & Sisters

The folks over at TV Squad have been complaining loudly this season about the fact that all the new shows on TV have been serialized this year. And a bunch of them failed (e.g., the Nine, Daybreak, Jericho, etc.). The serialized shows are killing TV, they argue, because people can't commit to watching so many shows without missing an episode. You can tune in to CSI one week and then miss a couple weeks, then see it again and you're fine.

But if you take a look at the list of shows I watch over there on the lefthand side of this page, you'll quickly see that I don't subscribe to this theory of TV watching. I watch the shows I watch. I watch them every week. I am not a casual TV watcher. And I have TiVo, so I can still have a social life (not that I really do). I can watch my shows whenever I feel like it and never miss an episode. I watch TV because I love stories about characters that I am interested in. And if I'm interested in a character, why wouldn't I tune in every week to see what happens next?

With everything good on hiatus for about a month this holiday season, I decided to check out something I could stream from ABC. After suffering through some wholly unsatisfying nights of crappy, frequently freezing streams, I finally found some time to watch when everyone else wasn't on-line. And as I suspected, the serialized Brothers & Sisters is good enough to hold my interest for 43 minutes and has enough interesting characters to earn a season pass on my TiVo.

I realize that's not exactly a rave review, but I think this is the sort of show that will get better with time as the characters gel. It's like Everwood for a slightly older crowd -- no teenage characters at all -- which is sort of well... unique ... maybe even refreshing. And Sally Field is simply fantastic. Even Calista Flockhart is really good. I never watched Ally McBeal and was never drawn to Calista in general, but she and Sally have some of the best chemistry on TV at the moment. Who woulda thunk it?

And Rob Lowe starts a regular guest role next week... who could ask for anything more?

Friday Night Lights: The Best Show on TV that You're Not Watching

So it really ought to come as no surprise to anyone that I would be excited about a show about both football and the lives of teenagers. But despite that, I didn't start this season by tuning in for Friday Night Lights because it was up against Gilmore on Tuesday nights at 8pm. (I have TiVo but only a single-tuner TiVo; I try to make it a habit never to watch TV in real-time any more, so I really can only watch one thing at a time.) Well, one week this fall, NBC moved FNL to the Studio 60 slot on Monday night so my TiVo was free to record and I was free to watch... and I was hooked. The writing is smart; the characters are intriguing; and the plots are believable. The show does a nice job dealing with the game-within-the-show challenge too... several episodes don't feature a football game at all, so it's not always about the amazing last minute touchdown or crushing loss or whatever. It's much more about the characters with football only coming to play when it actually advances the plot. So, I've been keeping up since then by streaming the shows from NBC's website. Starting in January, FNL is thankfully moving to Wednesday nights at 8, and, really, what else would you want to watch in that slot? So if you want to catch up, set your TiVo for the Bravo marathon on December 30 from 9 am to 7 pm. Then the shows will all be sitting there waiting for you, and you won't have to deal with anything akin to my 24 dilemma. What did you say? You don't have a TiVo? Really? Really? You're kidding, right?