So I previously mentioned that, having finished “Breaking Bad“, I have now been charged with finding a new show that can catch and hold my wife’s attention. Although there’s been no shortage of suggestions on shows that might fit the bill, those who are familiar with my movie rating system (“This movie put my wife to sleep in X minutes”) will not be surprised to hear that the search is not going well. WARNING: Minor spoilers below!
| SHOW | NOTES | MINUTES ELAPSED | RESULT |
| “House of Cards“ | Probably the most-recommended alternative to “Breaking Bad”. | 02:30 | “Did he just kill a dog?” |
| “Dexter“ | Probably the second-most-recommended alternative to “Breaking Bad”. | 05:00 | “Why is that guy strangling that other guy right off the bat? That’s gross.” |
| “Bates Motel“ | Entertainment Weekly seems to like it. | 00:00 | “Who’s Norman Bates?” |
| “Weeds“ | Similar general plot to “Breaking Bad” (in fact, Vince Gilligan thought about abandoning “BB” when he learned that “Weeds” was already airing), but apparently with a more comic tone. | 06:00 | “I don’t want to watch a show that has parent/teacher group meetings.” Also:
Me: “This one is supposed to be a comedy.” Wife: “When are they going to do something funny?” |
| “The Following“ | Recommended by several people. Features Kevin Bacon, one of the few actors my wife would probably recognize if she saw him waiting for a bus. | 00:00 | I may have been able to get my wife to try watching “The Following” if I had done so before this conversation with the dog chiropractor (another “Breaking Bad” fan BTW) occurred:
Chiropractor: “So you finished ‘Breaking Bad’?” Us: (wailing and gnashing of teeth) Chiropractor: “Have you seen ‘The Following’?” Me: “Not yet, but I heard it was good.” Chiropractor: “Oh it is. But it’s really violent and gory.” Wife: “How violent and gory?” Chiropractor: “You know how violent the end of ‘Breaking Bad’ was?” Us: (wailing and gnashing of teeth) Chiropractor: “Well ‘The Following’ is like that for the entire thing.” NOTE: This is almost exactly how I describe A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder and Night Watchman. |
| “True Detective” “The Fall” “Top of the Lake” |
All three were profiled in a recent article in “The New Yorker” by Emily Nussbaum. She only hated one of them. | 00:00 | “Detective shows are boring. It’s always the same thing every week. Catch the bad guy, catch the next bad guy, catch the next bad guy.” |
So those are all things we’re not watching. What are we watching? Well, I finally made an executive decision. We’re watching this:
Wife: “Robots and space battles? That’s exactly what I was looking for.”
Now there is precedent for my wife watching a science fiction show — as you can see below, she knows who the Borg are and why you wouldn’t want to surrender to them. Also, she surprised me by getting into “Firefly” when I finally started watching that show, a mere ten years or so after it was cancelled partway through its first season. And she is sort of kind of paying a little bit of attention to “BSG” at this point:
Wife: “She wants to surrender to the Cylons? Isn’t that kind of like surrendering to the Borg?”
Me: “Yes, it is. So you do know what’s going on, then?”
Wife: “Yeah, the Cylons are trying to kill all the humans and the humans are trying to run away.”
Me: “Right! Do you want to watch another episode?”
Wife: “Episode? I thought this was a movie.”
Me: “No, it’s a series. It aired for four seasons.”
Wife: “How are they going to drag running away from the Cylons out for four whole seasons?”
Well, I guess we will find out!
Speaking of science fiction, and to answer Mango Momma‘s question on a previous post about my wife’s reaction to Gravity, which we watched at home in 3D several weeks ago: She did stay awake for the entire thing, but I’m pretty sure that’s only because we had a friend over to watch it with us. Here is a recap of what each of us said after the movie was over:
Me: “That was the best use of 3D I’ve seen since ‘Silent Hill: Revelation‘***.”
Friend: “That was intense!”
Wife: “That was 90 minutes of someone jumping off of stuff just before it gets hit by other stuff and then explodes.”
Me: “So you’re saying it was like watching Sandra Bullock play a platformer for an hour and a half?”
(explanation of what a “platformer” is ensues)
Wife: “Exactly.”
*** I am not saying “Silent Hill: Revelation” was a good movie (its 5% “Fresh” rating doesn’t lie), but what it lacked in plot, characterization, coherence, acting, and directing, it made up for with cool 3D effects. And oh, look! Explosions!
Viscosity 
I still fail to see what was so great about Gravity. I mean, really, Sandra Bullock in her underwear in 3D should not have caused that much of a fuss.
I say you skip the first, say five minutes, of The Following and just let it play without saying what it is. I’m not a fan of blood and gore just for blood and gore’s sake, but I really like it. The thing with that show is that every episode, you think they can’t surprise you again and you’ve seen it all, and then you get surprised yet again. They just never stop surprising you!
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Excellent summation of Gravity by the Mrs.
If it helps, we are currently watching House. Sure, we’ve watched it before, but it’s always fun to see how long it takes a patient to have a seizure or require a spinal tap.
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I hope your newest show turns out to be a good one.
Love the title of this post. 🙂
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