breaking up is hard to do

breaking-bad

As a person who clearly loves some television, and spends a decent amount of time watching it, even I can’t watch everything. I’ve found over time that I like a well balanced portfolio… a little quality drama, a little comedy, a little procedural. Sometimes I want to sit down and focus on a show I think is great and sometimes I want to have something on in the background while I write a pchron post.

What I need to avoid is having a TiVo backlog so large that I feel like it’s a to do list or I’m spending time watching something I don’t enjoy all that much and haven’t gotten back to Friday Night Lights for example which I happen to really be enjoying.

So why can’t I let go? Some shows used to be good. Some shows are good enough but there are too many things that I like more. And some shows may be great but they drive me crazy for one reason or another (stop being so dumb/mean/crazy!). So cutting the cord on committing to the rest of Under the Dome (which I felt great about until someone started talking about how good it was getting) made me take a look back at some of the shows I’ve let go.

  • American Horror Story (Fx) – Loved some of season one just too random crazy.  
  • American Idol (Fox) – Over the judges and the repetitiveness of the rounds.
  • Bates Motel (A&E) – I liked the way they recreated the characters but too much crazy in that town.
  • Breaking Bad (AMC) – This is the one that gets most people, I like an anti hero but I still need someone to root for.
  • The Carrie Diaries (CW) – This show was cute, but a little too cute.
  • Criminal Minds (CBS) – I still occasionally catch this in reruns, just not enough interest in cast or cases to keep me invested in the brutalness.
  • CSI (CBS) – Again just not interested enough in cast or cases.
  • Franklin & Bash (TNT) – I like a dumb cable show with quirky leads, but there are a lot out these days so not all make the cut.
  • The Glades (A&E) – I almost like the leads, just not quite enough.
  • Glee (Fox) – This show had some amazing moments but it just started to falter too much.
  • The Killing (AMC) – The leads are great, particularly Holder, but the misleads and unsolve were too much for me to return to S2.
  • L&O:SVU (NBC) – Whatever Benson.
  • Perception (TNT) – Not sure if it’s that I don’t love RL Cook in this or if I’m not quite sure about the cases or McCormack’s ‘perception’ solving them.
  • Person of Interest (CBS) – Intriguing but somehow not engaging…
  • The Voice (NBC) – I get why people dig Blake and Adam but tuning back in second season not as into the competitors.

And some of these are on the chopping block:

  • Awkward (MTV) – I loved the first season of this but now Jenna has just gotten more annoying, we’ll see what the new showrunners bring.
  • Bones (Fox) – This was once one of my favorite procedurals, but I’m kind of over it, not because they’re together or not but because it’s hard to stay fresh after eight seasons.
  • Burn Notice (USA) – Ok it’s in the final season I’m hanging in there.
  • Castle (ABC) – Ditto Bones though season 5…
  • Crossing Lines (NBC) – If this show hadn’t been on when there wasn’t a lot else I’m not sure I would have stuck out the first season.
  • How I Met Your Mother (CBS) – Another last season that is keeping me hanging in for my need for completion and hope for a few of those choice moments.
  • Major Crimes (TNT) – I did love me some Closer but our new lead’s calm might be working against the show.
  • Modern Family (ABC) – I find this show brings some funny, but its gotten a little too stereotypical and repetitive.
  • Nashville (ABC) – I remember really enjoying the first couple eps, but saved almost all of season 1 on dvr and have yet to return, not a good sign.

There have also been a few shows that for me have come back from a drop:

  • American Idol (Fox) – Ok I dropped this again but at one point I got sucked back in, reality shows can do that any season for me.
  • America’s Next Top Model (CW) – I have a couple of friends who watch this so it’s harder for me to chat about the silliness that this show is if I don’t watch.
  • Parenthood (NBC) – The Bravermans sucked me in after dropping them one day when I was sick and checking out OnDemand.

The fall season is always a good time to reevaluate so we’ll see what makes the cut. I’m sure there are other things I’ve cut or am about too cut, what about you, anything getting the ax?

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new and noteworthy tv: 5/28-6/3

And here I thought listings would start quieting down, a few summer series to check out…

Monday

  • French Open (ESPN2, Various) – Week one of play gets going, will Nadal crush another?
  • Hemingway & Gellhorn (HBO, 9pm) – Word is good for this dramatic look at Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman as these writers.
  • Cake Boss/Extreme Couponing (TLC, 9/10pm) Season Premieres – Cakes and coupons.
  • Gene Simmons Family Jewels/Monster In-Laws (A&E, 9/10pm) Season Premieres – Gene and his family and family in-law dynamics.
  • Hatfields & McCoys (Hist, 9pm) Mini-series Premiere – Family rivalries drama.
  • Single Ladies (VH1, 9pm) Season Premiere – A little cast swap but assume the ladies will still bring the same flavor of drama.

Tuesday

  • The Catalina (CW, 8pm) Series Premiere – A look at the goings on at a real South Beach hotel.
  • HGTV Design Star (HGTV, 9pm) Season Premiere – Twelve designers design.
  • Roadtrip with G. Garvin (Cook, 9pm) Series Premiere – Visiting eateries.
  • What Not to Wear/Big Brooklyn Style (TLC, 9/10pm) Season/Series Premiere – Stacy and Clinton return and then we visit a plus-size clothing store in Brooklyn.
  • Tosh.0/Workaholics (Com, 10/10:30pm) Season Premieres – The boys are back.

Wednesday

  • Dogs in the City (CBS, 8pm) Series Premiere – Dog trainer Justin Silver visits some dogs.
  • Melissa & Joey (ABCF, 8pm) Season Premiere – Who’s the Boss-esque update is back.

Thursday

  • Breaking Pointe (CW, 8pm) Series Premiere – The world of ballet reality-style.
  • Final Offer (Disc, 10pm) Series Premiere – A more selective bidding on big ticket items.
  • LA Hair (WE, 10pm) Series Premiere – Celebrity stylist.
  • Mountain Men (Hist, 10pm) Series Premiere – Outdoorsmen live off the wilderness.

Friday

  • Whale Wars/Louisiana Lockdown (AnPl, 6/7pm) Season/Series Premiere – Whaling and prison.
  • Culinary Adventures of Baron Ambrosia (Cook, 10pm) Series Premiere – On the hunt for tasty treats.
  • My Yard Goes Disney/House Hunters on Vacation (HGTV, 8/8:30pm) Season Premieres – Disney themed yards has a whole show? and you know vacation houses.

Saturday

  • The Glee Project (Oxy, 7pm) – The casting special heads into the show that I actually enjoyed for it’s focus on casting of a specific show and not just talent, I won’t hold lackluster performances by winners on last season’s Glee against them.
  • It’s Me or the Dog (AnPl, 7pm) Season Premiere – Dogs gone wild.
  • Easy Chinese (Cook, 8:30pm) Season Premiere – Chinese food made easy.
  • Iyanla, Fix My Life (OWN, 10pm) Series Premiere – Iyanla and Oprah patched it up now you can see her work again.

Sunday

  • Adele Live in London/Miss USA Pageant (NBC, 8/9pm) – Specials.
  • Secret Millionaire/Extreme Makeover Weightloss (ABC, 8pm) – Rich people pop by to visit poor people and focus on weightloss.
  • Drop Dead Diva (Life, 9pm) Season Premiere – Ridiculous premise made cute, with the merging of lives of the model drops into a lawyer’s body.
  • Empire Girls (Style, 9pm) Series Premiere – More reality of reality stars.
  • The Glades/Longmire (A&E, 9/10pm) Season/Series Premieres – The return of the detective that I almost find entertaining and a look at Wyoming lawman based on the book series with intriguing enough cast to tune in.
  • Ice Road Truckers (Hist, 9pm) Season Premiere – I think there’s ice, roads, and trucks.
  • MTV Movie Awards (MTV, 9pm) – Its own brand of movie awards.
  • Are You Normal, America? (OWN, 10pm) Series Premiere – Oprah’s look at what’s normal.
  • Call of the Wildman (AnPl, 10pm) Season Premiere – He’s looking into nature.
  • Head Games (Disc, 10pm) Series Premiere – Delving into the human brain.

The procrastinator lists items that may not be on your regular season pass, though notation does not imply recommendation other than those underlined. Times noted are typically PST.

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new and noteworthy tv: 5/30-6/5

It looks like summer is here, if not in weather then in the start of summer series…

Monday

  • Basketball Wives/Single Ladies (VH1, 8pm) Season/Series Premieres – Real life wives and then a fictional take with a Sex & the City-esque hang with some gal pals.
  • Cake Boss (TLC, 9pm) Season Premiere – Will the NASA cake fly?
  • Platinum Hit (Brav, 10pm) Series Premiere – Kara DioGuardi and Jewel bring us the latest singing slant on folks who write their own.
  • Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition (ABC 10pm) Series Premiere – Spending a year with one person instead of a couple weeks with a couple dozen contestants.

Tuesday

  • NBA Finals (ABC, 6pm) – Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks kick it off.
  • America’s Got Talent (NBC, 8pm) Season Premiere – Another season of random talent.
  • Deception with Keith Barry (Disc, 10pm) Series Premiere – A ‘mentalist’ looks at the world of deception.
  • The Little Couple (TLC, 10pm) Season Premiere – Fertility issues continue.
  • Love Handles (Life, 10pm) Series Premiere – How could a mix of reality, couples, and weight issues be wrong?
  • Million Dollar Decorators (Brav, 10pm) Series Premiere – Hmm, how far does a million dollars go?

Wednesday

  • Franklin & Bash/Men of a Certain Age (TNT, 9/10pm) Series/Season Premiere – Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Breckin Meyer offer up another take on unconventional lawyering then more conventional guys.
  • Haunted Collector/Hollywood Treasure (Syfy, 9/10pm) Series/Season Premieres – Not just places but things can be haunted and this guy takes a look, then a look at items more cinematic.
  • Man v. Food Nation/Sand Masters (Trav, 9/10pm) Series Premieres – Food challenges hit the road and then sand castles get serious.
  • Sweat Equity (DIY, 9pm) Season Premiere – More home repair.
  • Love in the Wild (NBC, 10pm) Series Premiere – Think Survivor as a dating show.
  • The World According to Paris (Oxy, 10pm) Series Premiere – I am not even interested in Hilton in a trashy sort of way.

Thursday

  • The First 48: Missing Persons (A&E, 10pm) Series Premiere – Spinoff of The First 48 follows missing persons.
  • Love Bites (NBC, 10pm) Series Premiere – I believe this is a summer burn off of a romance anthology that never quite made it into the schedule.
  • NY Ink (TLC, 10) Series Premiere – A Miami Ink guys starts up in NY.
  • Children’s Hospital (AdSw, 11:59pm) Season Premiere – This is one of those comedies that is so random I kept wanting to like it.

Friday

  • French Open (NBC, 11am) – The week on ESPN2 leads up to the men’s semis, with women’s final Saturday at 6am/pst and men’s final Sunday 6am finals.
  • Whale Wars (AnPl, 9pm) Season Premiere – More anti-whaling action.

Saturday

  • NHL Stanley Cup Finals (NBC, 5pm) – Go hockey, Game 1 is Wed at 5pm/pst, games 3 & 4 head to Vs. and returns to NBC for 5 and on if needed.

Sunday

  • Food Network Challenge/The Next Food Network Star (Food, 8/9pm) Season Premieres – 80s cakes and then 15 new chef’s arrive to compete.
  • MTV Movie Awards (MTV, 9pm) – Jason Sudeikis hosts the one where they vote for things like ‘The Best Kiss.’
  • Ice Road Truckers (Hist, 9pm) Season Premiere – More ice, more trucking, more truckers.
  • Locked Up Abroad (NGC, 9pm) Season Premiere – Crimes in foreign countries strikes me as a bad idea.
  • Finding Bigfoot (AnPl, 10pm) Series Premiere – Do you think they find him?
  • Freaky Eaters (TLC, 10pm) Season Premiere – I’m glad these people are getting help even if it is through exploitation tv.
  • The Glades (A&E, 10pm) Season Premiere – I found this fluffy detective out of his element in Florida series not necessarily great but enjoyable.
  • Mancations (Trav, 10pm) Series Premiere – Man friendly getaways.
  • The Real L Word (Show, 10pm) Season Premiere – Reality show lesbian-style.
  • Teen Wolf (MTV, 11pm) Series Premiere – I can’t stop picturing Michael J Fox and Justin Bateman but this is a much more modern take on a high school werewolf.

new and noteworthy tv: 6/6 – 6/12

June 5th, 2011

Monday

  • Masterchef (Fox, 8pm) Season Premiere – A few kitchen dudes look for the next amateur ready to make it big time.
  • My Yard Goes to Disney/House Hunters on Vacation/HGTV’d (HGTV, 8/8:30/9pm) Series Premieres – Outdoor spaces Disneyfied, travelers visit homes before selecting one as a vacation stay, and surprise makeovers.
  • Switched at Birth (ABCFam, 9pm) Series Premiere – It reads like a Lifetime movie but this latest fictional look at the rare familial entanglements will keep going week after week, this family channel is often too trite but sometimes worth a look.
  • Unfaithful/The Dr Laura Berman Show (OWN, 9/10pm) Series Premieres – A look at infidelities and then a camera joins the dr’s radio show.
  • Behind Mansion Walls (ID, 10pm) Series Premiere – Why just look at murders when you can look at murders involving rich people.

Tuesday

  • White Collar/Covert Affairs (USA, 9/10pm) Season Premieres – Campy spy business back to back, I’m more enamored with the likable hustler than the newest addition to the CIA.
  • 19 Kids & Counting (TLC, 9pm) Season Premiere – Please tell me these people aren’t still counting on more kids.
  • Love/Lust (Sund, 10pm) Season Premiere – The season starts out with a look at street foods.

Wednesday

  • CMT Music Awards (CMT, 8pm) – Country goodness.
  • Operation Repo (Tru, 9pm) Season Premiere – More repossessions.

Thursday

  • Nightmare Next Door (ID, 10pm) Season Premiere – Crimes in your own neighborhood, depending on where you live.

Friday

  • My Babysitter’s a Vampire (Dis, 7pm) Series Premiere – Disney’s take on vampires in our midst.
  • FBI: Criminal Pursuit (ID, 10pm) Season Premiere – Cops FBI-style.

Saturday

  • Color Splash (HGTV, 9pm) Season Premiere – A tranquil bedroom update.

Sunday

  • The Tony Awards (CBS, 8pm) – Host Neil Patrick Harris has been teasing me with glorious reviews of broadway’s best, via twitter of course.
  • Bridezillas/Amsale Girls (WE, 9/10pm) Season Premiere – Difficult brides from bride and bridal store perspective.
  • Finding Sarah (OWN, 9pm) Series Premiere – Folks like Dr Phil and Suzy Ormand help out Sarah Ferguson.
  • The Glee Project (Oxy, 9pm) Series Premiere – Real life Gleeks compete for a role on Glee, I’m mildly intrigued though don’t think I get this channel.
  • Swamp Wars (AnPl, 9pm) Series Premiere – Beheaded pythons and gator killings.
  • Keeping Up With the Kardashians/Ice Loves Coco (E!, 10/10:30pm) Season Premieres – Blah, blah, reality, blah, blah.
  • The Protector (Life, 10pm) Series Premiere – This series introduces us to a divorced homicide detective’s work and home.

The procrastinator lists items that may not be on your regular season pass, though notation does not imply recommendation other than those underlined. Times noted are typically PST.

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