TV Binge

I've been watching so much TV lately that I worry this might mark the beginning of my downfall. There is just so much fucking amazing TV on TV that I couldn't get away from it.

I watched all 5 and a half seasons of the Good Wife in a very short period of time. The show makes me appreciate Chicago as the big, beautiful, but dirty and rough and tumble place that it is. Some of the shots of the skyline and the historic towers are stunning. Sadly, though, the show is shot in New York and sometimes it is obvious. In one park scene you could see clearly marked NYC recycling receptacles. In another outdoor scene, you could actually see the Radio City Music Hall sign.

I watched Amazon's original series Transparent and...Wow! The show progresses like a deep and carefully crafted novel that illuminates everything it touches. Yes, it is about a man transitioning to female. But I think most of all it is about a sad and emotionally broken family. There is a scene where Jeffrey Tambor as Maura declares to her transgender support group that her kids are "so selfish". That statement proves true as her adult children nearly drown in their extreme self-absorption. It reminds me of the novel The Corrections where all the adult children are a mess while the matriarch is becoming a surprisingly balanced human being. And Jeffrey Tambor--I never would have expected him to play a role so well. It has to be one of the best acting performances I've ever seen.

Mozart in the Jungle, another original series from Amazon, is also very well done. I enjoyed Alpha House too, and I think John Goodman is underrated. But I know I really want to see House of Cards, but I just don't have Netflix.

I also watched Amazon's pilot for Man in the High Castle. It is based on novel about a 1960s America after losing World War II to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The continent is partitioned so that Germany controls east of the Rockies and Japan west. Hitler is dying and it looks like whoever succeeds him will go to war to take the western states from Japan. The scenery is amazing. Nazi New York and Japanese San Francisco are dreary but eerily beautiful places.

So that's what has taken up quite a lot of my time lately. I don't think it is a total brain fry, since the shows are very high quality.