Far too much television

I loved this theme song. I loved it so much that I used it as the background music for the end a montage of photos and video footage I made at the end of one of my high school retrospective videos, created in the melancholy of graduation when most of my friends were moving away. I could still totally cry watching those videos if I ever watched them anymore. Great TV show theme song. GREAT. I wish I could find out who sang this. And I've got to figure out how to get those videos on DVD before they disintegrate.

And ... here are my thoughts on Friday Night Lights. I didn't mean to watch this show. But my friend and I canceled an ice cream date because we were both too tired and surly to deal with it, so I flopped on the couch after coming inside from mowing the backyard and flipped on the TV and there it was. And it was so good in, like, the first five seconds. It was exciting and funny and tense and the performances were so natural and easy that it was sort of amazing. It was all just so deliciously, scrumptiously, authentically Southern. (I know some people argue that Texas isn't the South, and maybe it isn't in some ways. But it definitely seems to be the South when it comes to football.) The quarterback's girlfriend bugged me a little bit, but other than that, I think this show's cast is mighty fine, especially Connie Britton, whom I've always liked, as the coach's wife. And Kyle Chandler (whom I've liked since Homefront) as the coach could not be more perfect. I'm definitely going to watch it again. They're re-airing the pilot this week on USA, NBC, and Bravo, so try to catch it if you can.

I also watched The Lake House. I'm not sure what possessed me to rent this. I have such affection for The Time Traveler's Wife and for time travel stories in general. (One of my favorite projects in graduate school was a paper / presentation I did on multicultural time travel stories in young adult literature.) And I'm not sure that the time travel issues in this movie made any sense, but I decided that was okay because when do they, really? I haven't seen Keanu Reeves be this good since, well, ever, and it was just a pretty movie to look at -- all of the shots of Chicago and the amazing lake house itself. It was cheesy and ridiculous but really kind of romantic and sweet.

I missed the Veronica Mars premiere because my TiVo still had it programmed for a channel it's not on anymore, but luckily I was able to watch it online. It was enjoyable. It certainly has to be better than last season, which I think was kind of a mess from start to finish. I loved it so much its first year that I'm not ready to give up yet. I think this premiere was definitely promising. And I love Tina Majorino. It's weird to see her all grown up, though. I still remember her so well as the little girl in Corina Corina and the older daughter in When a Man Loves a Woman and how she made me sob when crying and yelling in the park to Andy Garcia, "I want my mom, I want my mom!" (Horrible title notwithstanding, I will totally sit down and watch this movie whenever I catch it on cable. Is that weird? It's depressing but somehow really good.)

Lost. This show exhausts me. I don't know how long I can stick with it. I love the characters (the old ones, anyway, the original ones), and of course I want to know what the deal is and what is going on, but it's just not as interesting to me now that they're being locked in cages and are obviously mice in some large experiment. I have always liked Elizabeth Mitchell so it's nice to see her again, but I think that watching this show every week might just be too frustrating. I don't really want to see any more flashbacks. I just want to know what's going on and how they're going to get away.

And ... The View. I'm still enjoying it because Rosie is awesome, Elisabeth seems to be loosening up somewhat (even though she is clearly still crazy), and it's got some good guests. As for the guest hosts who seem to be auditioning for a permanent slot, I think that Audra McDonald and Deborah Roberts have easily been the best. The woman from Dancing with the Stars was not very good. I have a total blind soft spot for Audra McDonald and would love to see her get the gig if only because I fantasize that she will occasionally get to sing like she did recently when her rendition of "It's Not Easy Being Green" left me in tears. And since we're talking about Audra McDonald, you can watch the performance of the Ragtime cast on the Tony Awards here. And it is awesome. I love Ragtime so much. (It won best book, best orchestrations, best score, and of course Audra won -- but did it win best musical? No. No, it did not. I loved The Lion King as much as the next person, but that it beat Ragtime for best musical is still very bad and wrong.) If you watch that clip, the part when they start sort of stomping their feet on the beat of the part when they sing "it was the music of something beginning, an era exploding, a century spinning, in riches, in rags, and in rhythm and rhyme" -- that part makes me very happy.

I just thought of another show! God. I guess I've been watching more TV than I thought. I watched Ugly Betty. And I'm just not sure. America Ferrera is outstanding, and I want to see her succeed, but I don't know if I could take the camp week after week of all of the nonsense around her.

Youtube is sort of awesome. This one's for my sister. And Melissa, Brian d'Arcy James' other girlfriend.