Monday, February 01, 2010

Family Time

NetFlix was hooking us up very well, actually, until season five.
Most afternoons we'd gather around the television in the living room under a too dense mat of cats and watch, together, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I had watched the entire series on my own while I waited on Shana and Gwynyth to finalize our move and rescue me from the horrible hotel I was living in.
But this was different. This viewing prompted discussion not only on the proper method for dispatching a vampire but on human relations and the role of women in society and the correct verbing of nouns. That is what most Joss Whedon works are about, after all.
And then, after we'd slogged through the first couple of seasons with their hyena people and preying mantis monsters, NetFlix failed.
Season 5, disk two, LONG WAIT.
But we couldn't skip it, right? I mean, I know everyone was in a hurry to get to the musical episode and everything but even the preying mantis episode gets mentioned again. Watching episodes out of order is just bad form.
So, after gazing at our suddenly unsatisfying DVD collection and dreading even a brief break in what had become a family ritual over the course of about a month, I did the reasonable thing.
Amazon.com delivered the Complete Chosen Collection of seasons 1-7 the following day, and balance was restored.
We have since started watching Angel, the Buffy spin-off, since none of us had seen it and Firefly was disturbing and complicated and difficult to explain, not to mention really, really dark at points.
But Angel is only five seasons, and on the other side of that is a glaring abyss of non-Whedon. Bad TV is way worse than no TV.
We aren't the type of family that sits around and puts together quilts, really, but sharing an experience, especially with discussion, has become a needed part of our evening.
I'm not hooking cable back up, though.
There is entirely too much crap television.
Maybe I should pick up some fabric squares and thread, just in case.

3 comments:

Ellie Bates Chappell said...

We've been watching Buffy marathons on Logo but the commercials for the Sarah Silverman Program and Rupal's Drag Race make it almost unbearable. They also run them completely out of order, not even from the same season. We only own season one on DVD but that may be about to change. Think we own more Six Feet Under than that and it may be time to bust those out too.
Even watching hockey has taken a dive, during the holidays, we just got a lot of catchy HTC ads but now it's all Quizno's and their chicken "sammie" all the time. Will, Jake and I put our hands over our ears and sing LA LA LA at the top of our voices when it comes on. WTF is a "sammie"? It's a goddam sandwich for chrissakes. RIP JD : )

Garrick said...

We have an extra Season 2! And we deliver.

Ellie Bates Chappell said...

Cool. I'll swap you for a knitting lesson.