Just recently I’ve begun watching a new show on Fox called FRINGE.  FRINGE was created by J.J. Abrams, the same guy who helped create LOST, Heroes, Alias and wrote/directed Mission: Impossible 3.  I’ve been a big fan of a lot of Abrams’ material but it was an interview he did with Teri Gross from NPR that sold me on checking out this new show.

Abrams inspiration for the show included two pseudo-sci-fi shows which many of us have come to know and love - The Twilight Zone and The X-Files.  This could be very interesting!  Unlike the gigantic unfolding epic that is LOST, FRINGE will be more episodic and accessible to someone who hasn’t seen all the episodes leading up to the current one.

After watching the pilot I’m already hooked.  You can see them all online at Hulu.com for free.

For Lent this year I gave up television with the exception of LOST. I got a lot of flak for including this caveat when I was asked about lent. I understand why people would think this was only going half-way or just a lazy attempt at spiritual discipline. The truth is I was really fasting from useless background noise.

Tv and film for all their similarities have very different effects on the viewer as well as the intended outcomes their producers have in mind. On a very basic level their relationship to selling products is very different. Insightful critiques about the constant product-placement in film not withstanding, the film is the product. The film is selling itself, we pay to see the film and then for 2 hours we watch the film uninterrupted. Television is set up to draw us to the tv for long enough that we will sit through commercials trying to sell us products. The show itself is not the product but the means by which we are exposed to the product. And so it is in the interests of television creators to create content that always leaves us unsatisfied, always wanting something better to watch. An excellent film will likely attract more attention and then more ticket buyers, but a television show that can be entertaining enough to keep our attention while always leaving us wanting something better helps to perpetuate the genre and expose us to more advertising. Bad tv is good for tv.

If you’re like me, you’ve fallen into this trap. I’ll turn on the tv hoping to find something good to watch (knowing full well that I can count the number of quality programs on one hand) and just end up having the tv on as background noise. After years of doing this I’ve become so comfortable with having the tv on in the background I felt awkward alone in a room with out it’s constant stream of sound. This is bad.

I never have a film on “in the background” simply to fill the air with sound. When I watch a film I do just that, sit down and watch it. So for lent I decided to give up all tv. I put the LOST exception in there because I interact with LOST like film, I sit down and engage the narrative and then turn off the tv and talk about it. LOST is never “background noise” I use to eradicate silence in my life. Tv in had become just that for me… a way to eradicate silence.

So for the entire season of lent I watched 8 episodes of LOST and the Oscars. That was it. In forty days I had watched 11 hours of television. It was so good. I wasn’t staying up as late, I was way more productive in my work and I began to read so much more. So I’m trying to keep up the habit. I haven’t been as strict as I was during Lent, but I’m trying to only watch tv if I’m going to engage it and turn it off if I find myself using it to drown out the silence. Because silence is good for the soul.

Now that the writer’s strike has ended we have been promised 5 more episodes of LOST to add to the 8 currently in the pipe. The season has been (mostly) saved! But I just found out today that the Office will return April 10th… when? Thursdays at 9pm.

That’s right, the ONLY two good shows on network tv are going to be on at the same time. I guess that means Fridays will be my new day to watch the office.

Last week Kara and I watched the final episode of Arrested Development. We’d stretched watching the three seasons of the show over two years. We felt guilty that we were not among the loyal fans of the show when it was on the air. But like so many people we only came to know of Arrested Development after the fact. How lame is that! COME ON!

Buster, we will miss your one-handed mama’s boy hilarity.

George, we will miss your fanatical drive to stay out of prison even though it was the only place you really belonged.

Lucille, we will miss your pre-lunch vodka rituals.

Gob, we will miss you accidentally spraying lighter fluid on strangers and then explaining how the magic trick should have worked with enough flare to last any normal human being a lifetime.

Lindsey, we will miss your sad attempts at flirting.

Michael, we will miss your constant need to be a better dad than your own… and how you always find a way to mess it up.

George Michael, we will miss you boyish awkwardness (actually we probably won’t because you’re in tons of movies these days reprising that part).

Tobias, we will miss all the ways in which you would unknowingly speak in innuendo.

Maybe, we will miss seeing all of your below average B-movies and their theme park offshoots.