definitely, possibly, maybe

the start of the year is always so hectic, you both want to start things fresh, but you have so many things hanging over your head from the previous year. that's why it's always nice to reflect on things. 2009 was a strange year. a lot of celebrities died unexpectedly. life itself has been insanely busy. i traveled so much, that now as i face a year with less travel, i'm not exactly sure what i should do with myself. the nice thing about a new year is that you get to figure it all out. but before i get to that, here's the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2009: the good grey's anatomy's creative resurgence at the end of 2008, grey's had sunk pretty low. izzie was having sex with visions of denny. the show had ceased to be compelling. but then, a turn-around marked by the new year, izzie's cancer storyline went full steam ahead, the character's suddenly grew up, with meredith and derek finally committing to each other in a meaningful way, alex and izzie...

so i started writing the previous post last monday, and it took a week to post because the carpenter redoing the basement door decided to cut our cable and "fix" it with electrical tape, ensuring that our cable, internet and phone were completely out for over two days, and then we had out of town guests for the rest of the week. so, even though it took me all weekend, i've finally caught up with television that aired last week. show more monday's premiere: "gossip girl" oh, upper eastsiders how i've missed you and your ridiculous parties. and even more ridiculous clothing. and utterly ridiculous lack of plot and character development. " reversals of fortune " feels like a transition episode from start to finish, the gang is recovering from their summers and are eagerly anticipating their falls, and the show tries to balance recapping everyone's summer with some teasing of storylines to come, but it's just not that good at it. here's...

it seems that vampires are all the rage, no? so after a summer of avoiding "true blood" [for no specific reason, dh and i just never got our act together.], i spent the weekend catching up on the show just in time for the season finale. and what a season it was. watching it almost all in one go, i think, gave me a sense of what worked and didn't work this season. in list form, here are my thoughts on season 2 of "true blood": 1. maryann and the zombie-eyed orgies one of the challenges i face when i watch this show is that i really love the books. and i've read the books. so going in i knew that maryann was a maenad. what alan ball did with the character expanded on what happened with that character in the books. and it did give tara a significant storyline for the season, obviously an area that ball will tend to have more creative license with, since her character in the books is almost tertiary. the story about maryann was the frame for the whole s...

ah, it's back. network television in the fall. professional football. reasonable weather in new england. these are all good things. this week started off light, giving just a small taste of the fall television goodness to come, but i think that was a good thing considering i essentially stopped watching television this summer. [i'm not one to turn on the t.v. and flip. i'm the absolute opposite of a channel flipper and happen to be very lucky to not have married a channel flipper. we lose track of the remote so often in our household we wish it would come with a pager from the cable box. why hasn't anyone invented that yet?] anyway, so this week the cw premiered about half of its fall schedule and fox premiered "glee" [if other channels premiered things i don't know about them, the aforementioned lack of channel flipping and the fact that most of what i watch i schedule on the dvr and watch when i'm in the mood to.] anyway, here are my thoughts on the ...

the latest season of " true blood " will kick off this coming sunday, and in honor of the occasion i thought i'd share my thoughts on the latest installment of the sookie stackhouse-southern vampire mysteries, dead and gone . since i first read the first eight books, i've gone back and re-read several of them...okay fine, i'll admit it, i've read dead to the world and from dead to worse multiple times solely because of the eric and sookie relationship. i have no problem confessing to the fact that i'm obsessed with eric! not only the fictional book character, but also the actor who plays him on tv: alexander skarsgård is freaking hot!! anyway, the latest installment of sookie's story begins on the night that were-creatures and shifters come out of the metaphorical closet, an announcement that seemingly upsets the balance between the supernatural and natural worlds. surprisingly this isn't the chief conflict of the book. instead the supernatural ...

i meant to do this earlier, but circumstances beyond my control prevented my posting this any sooner. without more ado, the 2008 year in review... the good true blood and all that is sookie stackhouse i fell in love with the television series and then with the books. i can't believe that i have to wait until summer for the second season and until may for the next book to be released. i fell in love with vampires again, who knew that after "buffy the vampire slayer" and "angel" ended that i would one day be anticipating a show about vampires every week. "true blood" is a lavish production with amazing visuals and a lush sense of ambience. it's a pleasure watching not only for the story, but also for the amazing sense of place that the show gives you. it's like bon temps is real and all the crazy vampire stuff a possibility. gossip girl i can't say enough about "gossip girl" other than it is the best show on television. again a show...

in honor of today's finale of "true blood" i thought comparing the show to the original charlaine harris novels would make an excellent topic for my print versus screen feature. the sookie stackhouse/southern vampire series currently spans a total of eight full length novels and a handful of related novellas/short stories. i've read all the full length novels, and plan to catch up with the short stories at some point. a ninth book in the series is scheduled to be published in may 2009, which i personally cannot wait to read. because the events in the first season of "true blood" correspond to the events that take place in the first sookie stackhouse novel, dead until dark , i've decided to limit my comparison to only that novel and to speak in generalities. i particularly don't want to spoil things for people who haven't read the novels, but are enjoying the show. there are a couple of major differences between the books and the television seri...