TV Tyrant

Boycotting the Emmys

September 20th, 2009 | by | 30 rock, battlestar galactica, bored to death, curb your enthusiasm, emmys, fringe, hbo, intervention, jericho, kings, the wire

Sep
20

I went back and forth on whether I’d live-blog the Emmys tonight, mainly because, after all, this is a TV blog.

But then I thought about it.

Picture 1

Where’s Battlestar Galactica? Kings? Did Jericho ever get any love?

Sure, critical darlings 30 Rock and The Office, though relatively low-rated (compared with the CSI juggernaut, anyway) get lots of Emmy love – as they well should. But most of the best shows on television rarely get any attention from the academy, unless they’re on HBO. And even there, The Wire never got recognition and it was, bar none, the best show on television during its run.

And if nothing else, this blog is about quality television (OK, and sometimes Charles in Charge, but I was young, sue me). And the Emmy broadcast itself is not quality television. How does the Oscar ceremony win a freakin’ Emmy every year? (Though I have to admit, choosing Intervention for Best Reality Series is a teensy bit redemptive.)

So tonight, I’ll be watching the Curb Your Enthusiasm season premiere and the series premiere of Bored to Death. We’ll probably catch up with the season premiere of Fringe, which I was waiting for my husband’s return to watch.

The Emmys? I’ll probably glance on Twitter every now and again. Or maybe I’ll just wait ’til morning.

2 Comments »

TV shows, the TV Tyrant and why I started this blog

January 10th, 2009 | by | miscellaneous, tv shows

Jan
10

As a child of the ’80s, I grew up with television – albeit the kind you had to get up and change the channel on manually. TV commercials were great for bathroom breaks or grabbing a drink from the kitchen.

tvs

By high school, we finally got cable and — gasp! — a remote control. HBO ran its movies somewhere along the lines of 35 times a day, and I saw Star Wars more times than I can even count. But no pause button, so if I had to make a trip to the little girls’ room, I’d miss something.

On viewing No. 4,236 of Star Wars, that wasn’t an issue, but if it was the HBO premiere of Down and Out in Beverly Hills, well, you just might have had to miss the part “when a dirty bum meets the filthy rich.”

We had one of those old clunky first-gen VCRs the approximate size of Rhode Island that actually had a remote pause button, but it had to be connected via a cord that snaked across the room. It was so unweildy, actually, that I believe I used it only once, during a marathon viewing of Galactica 1980. (Hey, I was incredibly crushed over the cancellation of the original BSG, I was ready to latch onto anything. Even Wolfman Jack with a Cylon.)

Read full story

9 Comments »