Layman state of Television 2006: TUESDAYS

TUESDAY:
The best night of TV all week, up until a couple of weeks ago.

My Name is Ed: Part of the Layman-staple of Tuesday TV. But NBC just moved it to Thursdays, so look for the write-up of this show in the appropriate upcoming blog posting.

The Office: Definite required viewing, but also recently moved to Thursdays.

House: I’ve heard good things about this show, and I know a couple of people who swear by it. But I won’t watch it. Wanna know why? Because it’s a medical show. I don't watch medical shows at all, because they only have two plots: Somebody gets sick and they either get better, or they die. And half the time they get sick because they are old. I don't particularly give a crap about sick people, or old people, or relationships between medical staffs, so I avoid medical shows like the plague.

Law & Order SUV: Far and away my favorite Law & Order. Not only does it have the most consistent cast, but it’s also the most salacious, and you never know what crazy, depraved stuff they are going to come up with. You know they are just one bad writer away from child-molesting space-aliens. Also, I like Olivia, and the guy from Oz, and, as an old Homicide fan I’m always comforted by Richard Belzer’s Munch character. Best of all is Ice-T, and I really love the shows where he is the featured cop. Or, better yet, when he is the featured cop dealing with things like a gay son or returning some lost kid to her grandma. Considering this is the guy who rapped about killing cops in the late 80s and early 90s, I am just endlessly amused by the fact he plays a cop now on TV. Plus, most of his albums are on my iPod, and are some of the tunes I enjoy the most when they come up on shuffle. I can remember in 1991, at my friend Craig’s college graduation party, when I was peaking on acid, and there were a bunch of old people who showed up at the party... aunts and grandmothers and elderly well-wishers, and they were seriously freaking me out. After a while, Craig decided these old fogeys were a serious drag on the party, so he put on Ice-T’s heavy metal Body Count album (with the notorious “Cop Killer” song) and he turned it to deafening, window-shattering full-blast. And it seems like every single one of those old farts simultaneously dropped dead of a heart attack. Anyway, every time I watch Law & Order and see Ice-T I have a mini acid-flashblack to that crazy party of Craig’s.

South Park: I don't know. Is this even on on Tuesday’s anymore? I don’t know. A couple years ago South Park creators Parker and Stone came out in support of George Bush, and ever since then, I have nothing to do with their show. I know SP fans will say that everybody gets skewered equally, but I don’t believe that. After five years after George Bush’s goddamn nonsense, anybody who still remotely supports him is an asshole in my book, and if I can avoid supporting a Bush fan, I will.

Nip/Tuck: Man, my whole inspiration for this little TV-series of blog posting I’m doing was Nip/Tuck, and the god-awful Season 3 finale where it jumped the shark with a sonic boom. N/T has always been a guilty pleasure, with a lot of “I can’t believe they are showing that on TV” shock value, and just low-brow, salacious soap. But the last 15 minutes of the final episode abandoned all pretense for logic, and was just shocking and stupid (most stupid) for stupidity’s sake. I could go on, but I don't have the heart to. This was a show I really enjoyed, and I’m not sure I can every watch it again, it was so wretched and insulting.

The Shield Probably my favorite show, given that Sopranos is so erratic, and the last Sopranos seasons have been kinda a let down (more on that in an upcoming post.) What I love about the Shield is how they ratchet up the tension, and just when you think things couldn’t get more fucked up for Vic, it seems to. Plus, I think my friend David Baron does a great job playing Vic's crooked-cop little buddy Shane.

The winner:



Law & Order SUV. The Shield is a better show, but Law & Order is around more, and so it provides me more bulk hour entertainment. Plus, the Ice-T thing.