Hello obsessives!

I notice from my WordPress stats that since I wrote about the West Wing my hits have rocketed past all previous records in the space of 48 hours, all of them from livejournal posts sharing any new items of fan fiction, YouTube clip videos, and blog discussions, etc, that have appeared each week on that theme. Now, obviously I am about to attract another deluge of these people by tagging this post with the name, so I just thought I should say:

It’s just a TV show. For your own good, just go outside for a while.

Things That Have Happened Recently But Are Unimportant

Let’s run down some of the titular events, shall we?

First up, Terry Wogan’s announced his retirement from commentating on Eurovision. Now, I know some of my (former?) readers are not so keen on old Tel, but I for one will miss him very much, his blend of sardonic wit and genuine affection for the competition a big part of why I’ve enjoyed watching it so much. He clearly doesn’t think it’s much of a contest any more – at least not the kind he’s been used to – and that’s a pretty fair criticism. The Eurovision organisers did reveal a few months ago, though, that juries were coming back to help make the result fairer, although they haven’t yet said what weight their vote will carry in relation to the public’s choice. I sincerely hope that goes a way to levelling the playing field (although as long as the public are involved there will always be some bias – obviously the juries aren’t going to be squeaky clean either, they weren’t last time they were in use). And so Graham Norton is going to take the job  – well, I can certainly think of far worse people to do it, though wouldn’t it have been brilliant if they could have persuaded Simon Amstell to do it? He’s a riot on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, BBC2’s consistently hilarious music quiz, although that particular show is missing Bill Bailey more than it wants to admit.

Another thing that happened recently but is unimportant is that Pushing Daisies is now pushing daisies. I have mixed feelings on this – while I mostly enjoyed the first season (season two hasn’t made it to the UK yet), I have serious doubts about its potential longevity and actually two seasons seems an about fair shelf life to me. I will miss Anna Friel and Chi McBride – I won’t miss the shoveling of honey down my throat and Jim Dale insisting on calling Lee Pace’s character ‘the pie-maker’.

And of course who could forget that this is the time of year for that annual triumvirate of reality TV behemoths – Strictly Come Dancing, The X-Factor, and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here? Sadly, I didn’t forget, despite no longer really having the excuse of ‘well, my family were all watching it’ to hide behind, and I’ve tried my best to keep up with them all. Unfortunately, the most entertaining of all of them, I’m A Celebrity Etcetera, was the one I was able to watch the least of, as its every-day-at-9pm format was clashed spectacularly most days with my student lifestyle, so I missed out on such great TV moments as eventual winner Joe Swash having his bottom felt up by Mr. Sulu, Robert Kilroy-Silk threatening Timmy Mallett for laughing at him (good on you, Timmy), and Boobs (pen name: Nicola McLean) being voted out of the jungle. It’s the only show in its genre that successfully pulls off the not-taking-itself-seriously vibe, and as such is vastly more fun than any talent contest.

Meanwhile, over a far longer and therefore more boring time period, the reliable Strictly overblew itself completely on the John Sergeant “controversy” (for Pete’s sake…) and has now gotten to the stage where the audience was tonight booing judges who scored anything lower than a 10. The feeling that anyone would probably be a deserving winner at this point has sucked a lot of the interest out of the competition – I don’t have a favourite like I usually do, they’re all very nice people and they all dance very well. At least with Sergeant there was an excitement over who would win – the judges or the public? Now there’s nothing.

And, finally, the X-Factor. Oh, God, the X-Factor. Never have I been more mystified to find myself watching a programme as I am watching the X-Factor these days. It’s weird – unlike Strictly I do have favourites (specifically, anyone who isn’t that godawful talentless loofah-haired brat Eoghan Quigg) yet I do not care one iota.  This is probably because of the ITV effect – Harry Hill showed up the all-hype no-actual-excitement approach on his brilliant TV Burp by showing how hardworking, sad-to-see-him-on-a-show-this-annoying host Dermot O’Leary not once, not twice, but eight times announcing to the audience that BRITNEY SPEARS IS HERE IN THE STUDIO OH MY GOD IT’S BRITNEY PINCH YOURSELVES THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING SINCE TAKE THAT CHRIST WERE THEY ONLY HERE LAST WEEK IT SEEMS LIKE ALREADY THEIR APPEARANCE ON THIS SHOW HAS PASSED DOWN INTO BRITISH FOLKLORE BY THE WAY BRITNEY IS HERE WOW! and each time the audience exploded in cheers like the hideous, mindless robots they are. Typical. And don’t even get me started on the ever-more-transparent “tension” between the judges…

Yet I still watch. It’s because of the auditions – they’re funny TV, and I somehow get into an unbreakable routine because I too am a hideous, mindless robot – but don’t get sucked into them like I did. Only suicidally-bad television that way lies. It’s too late to save me, but you can still escape!

How The West Wing Ruined My Life, and other stories

So much for that, then. I’ve given up on actually keeping a schedule with this, but I’m gonna write things occasionally when I feel like it. And guess what? I feel like it.

Anyway – I’m now a university student (Translation, Media and Spanish at the University of East Anglia, since you didn’t ask) and this means that I don’t have to have a bedtime if I don’t want to. This is a bad thing.

You see, this sudden freedom comes with my late discovery of the superlative political drama series, The West Wing, that finished in 2006. I’m currently about halfway through its third season and so far it’s done a thoroughly good job of trying to kill me. It’s so good, I hardly noticed myself giving up sleep.

If you don’t know, The West Wing is set inside the White House, following the administration of fictional President Jed Bartlet. It covers all kinds of territory from election campaigns to international military crises, but despite the fact that it’s been lauded for being as close to the reality of life in the White House as could be possible on screen, the real focus is on the characters, which for me is always what lifts the truly great drama series above the rest. The entire cast is exceptional, but particular standouts are Martin Sheen as the inspirational but curmudgeonly President and Allison Janney as C.J. Cregg, his sassy, put-upon press secretary. It makes me wonder how I managed to avoid both the series and its cast for such a long time.

I’m not going to bang on about it – I certainly don’t want to tell you just how late it’s kept me up at night, as there’s an outside chance my parents are reading this and I’m hoping to get them to feed me for a month over the upcoming holiday period – but suffice to say that my one and only mention of Christmas this year will be to strongly recommend that you seek out the complete box set as a present to yourself or somebody who lives in the same house as you (trust me, that’s as far away from you as you’ll be willing to leave it). I’ve seen some great deals on it in various well-known retailers, so you have no excuse. Even if you already own it, frankly.

Before I shut up and watch some more, I feel that even though it was supposed to be for two months ago, I did promise last time around that my next post would answer some questions. And so here are the answers to those questions:

1) Yes, it’s decent, but apart from the opening two tracks, nothing is great. (But those first two are. Very.)

2) My god, it actually did! And the best man won. Optimism lives to fight another day (though I hope to be part of the crushing wave of cynicism that eventually finishes it off, if only to be popular).

3) No.

That’s all for now. Who the heck knows when I’ll be back?