Tag Archives: television

January 24, 2018 · 5:07 pm

Cooking Shows

Cooking shows are awesome. That’s why there’s a whole network about food. I used to not enjoy them. That was mostly because I was stoned and being tortured by tantalizing food that I couldn’t eat. Now I see cooking shows for what they are: a celebration of culinary creations that bring people together. Food is the great equalizer. Everyone needs to eat. It’s only natural to talk about the things we share. Different cultures have different cuisines and you can’t travel the world without expanding your palette. Cooking is an art and the cooks depicted have honed their craft.

Cooking shows are the televised window to all the things you are missing out on. They make you want to go to Vietnam and eat phò. Or to Mexico for some tacos al pastor. Every host enjoys the food too much and always praises it highly, and that makes me want to try it more for some reason. I want to scrutinize it and put it to the test. Every meal brings them to orgasm. Can it really be that good? Let’s see.

Cooking shows are postcards to what the world has to offer. It’s great to look at but it’s not real until you experience it for yourself. They give you incentive to try new things.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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October 16, 2016 · 1:48 pm

Sling TV

If you frequent my blog you might have noticed that I’ve writen about how I cut ties with cable a few years ago. I mostly watch stuff on YouTube, Netflix, and HBO NOW for entertainment. I only miss cable when it comes to sports. Earlier this week the Giants were still in the playoffs and I wanted to watch the game but had nowhere to watch it. I knew the game was going to be aired on FS1 so I googled ways to stream it for free. That’s when I discovered Sling TV’s free seven day trial membership and my life was changed forever.

In case you don’t know what Sling TV is (just like me earlier this week), it’s basically streaming cable with select channel packages. Sling Orange is twenty bucks a month and Sling Blue is twenty-five bucks a month. They have a lot of the same channels, but Sling Orange has ties to Disney so they have Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3. Sling Orange has ties to FOX, so they have FOX, FS1, FS2, and FX. The Giants game was on FS1, so I got the Sling Blue package.

I was planning on getting it just for the free trial and canceling it after 6 days, but I think I’m gonna keep it for a while. It a lot of the channels that I actually watched when I still had cable. It has FOX, NBC, AMC, History, Comedy Central, TBS, TNT, National Geographic, Viceland, NFL Network, CNN, Cartoon Network, and more. It even has a few local channels so you get regional news. You can watch whatever the channel is broadcasting live and there are a few shows that are on demand. If you change the channel it gives you the option of starting the new show from the beginning or picking up in the middle. 

I didn’t set out to write a commercial about how great Sling TV is. It just sort of happened. That’s how rad it is. It’s not perfect. There are commercials. You can’t pause certain programs. It’s still worth it. Try it for a week if you kind of miss cable. There’s nothing to lose. You can thank me later.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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April 9, 2016 · 2:56 pm

Being on TV

Everyone wants to be a little famous. You want people to know who you are. It’s human nature. That’s why everyone gets so excited about being on TV. You see it all the time. There’s always some jackass waving his arms and ruining the shot whenever a reporter is doing a live segment on location. People will make clever signs to get camera time at sporting events. They’ll sign the consent form to show their face on Cops. They’ll talk about shit they don’t know about if it means that they’ll be on the 6 o’clock news. I know because I’ve done it. I’m guilty, I’ll admit it. Being on TV is always a thrill. I once saw myself shaking my head in disbelief on SportsCenter Top 10 in the background of a botched SF Giants play. I once camped out all night on the street to get into The Price is Right during Bob Barker’s last year. It was worth it. I was on TV. National TV. Millions of people saw me even if they don’t know it. That doesn’t make me a celebrity but I still feel like one. Get on TV if you haven’t and you’ll see what I mean.

Critically Rated at 12/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 28, 2014 · 8:35 am

Binge-Watching

Binge-watching (sometimes called binge-viewing) is when you watch two or more episodes of the same show in one sitting. Watching episodes back to back is the best way to really become immersed in a show. Nobody wants to wait a week between episodes to find out what happens next. This is the MTV generation. We need instant gratification. The binge-watching trend started happening in the early to mid-2000s. TV shows started to become more cinematic. Productions costs went up, shooting in HD became the norm, and they started releasing full seasons of shows on DVD, all while Netflix began to popularize streaming. This was the perfect storm which lead brilliant writers, directors, and actors to realize that TV was the perhaps the best way to tell a story. The stories became longer, more complex, and more compelling for the viewer to keep on watching. And if you have access to a full season, why would you only watch one episode of Breaking Bad at a time if you can watch four episodes? Binge-watching isn’t going away. You sit on your ass for a few hours, watch an entire season of Mad Men, you feel like you accomplished something, and nobody can blame you because they’ve done the same exact thing.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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December 11, 2012 · 12:07 pm

TV Shows are Better than Movies

Movies used to be the premier form of Hollywood entertainment. They were the pinnacle. They had the best actors, the best directors, the best stories, and the best effects. But then HBO started making their own shows. They had the budget to hire quality actors to portray quality characters. Characters are the most important part of storytelling. If you don’t care about the character, then you don’t care about what happens to them. And a TV series allows a character to get developed over multiple episodes and seasons. You get to know their personality, their quirks, their pet peeves, and you feel like you truly know them.

AMC has a lot of amazing character based dramas, like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, with interesting characters and intriguing storylines. The Walking Dead not only has great characters but also feels like a zombie movie that never ends. And it has more graphic and creative zombie deaths than anything in the movies. There are shows like True Blood that are extremely sexual and violent and Spartacus (which makes True Blood seem like a family show). The quality writing on television is extended to Cartoon Network. Even the worst season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is better than anything the prequel trilogy has to offer.

In the old days, any actor could be on TV but only a few actors could transition to the big screen and be a box office draw. Now movie stars want to be on television. The Simpsons and Scrubs are famous for their celebrity cameos and guest roles. Former Hollywood heavyweights like Keifer Sutherland got a career boost by turning to TV. Dustin Hoffman, Steve Buscemi, and Sean Bean put aside film opportunities to star in HBO shows. Kevin Spacey, Christian Slater, William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Kathy Bates, Zooey Deschanel, Danny DeVito, Christina Ricci, Laura Linney, Don Cheadle, and Glenn Close have all chosen television over film. Who needs to go to the theater with that kind of star power available on a weekly basis?

With HBO hits like The Sopranos and Sex in the City, other networks started paying more attention to quality programming. Premium cable channels like Starz and Showtime stepped up their game. Basic cable networks like FX and AMC had to keep up and they did. And the major networks took note and started taking more risks. We get shows as diverse as Lost and Community and everybody wins. The production quality and star power of television shows is only going to increase. It’s a good time to be a couch potato with a Netflix subscription.

Critically Rated at 16/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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