Once Removed

I am a little behind. I have two episodes of Big Love waiting for me. I can't really build up the enthusiasm to watch them. It's too much like hard work. So I started watching trash instead. I was thrown into a slump by the sub par episode of the last but one Fringe (you know, the one where we find out all of a sudden that Peter is some sort of fly-by-night-shape-shifter-assassin) and started watching The Vampire Diaries. 

I've been good lately. I stopped watching all the crap that I used to watch. All the soapy stuff with no real story line pay off. Private Practice gone. Smallville gone. ANTM gone. I have yet to get rid of Gossip Girl. It's like a UES limpet, hanging on for dear life as I try to appear erudite in my television choices, giving me away as the cheese-whore that I really am. I'm a sucker for the Dan/Blair frenemy thing that they have going on at the moment. So what I thought I was doing, adding some more cheese to the proceedings is anybody's guess. I've worked my way through season 1 in mere days, compelled to watch more and more until I have the whole story. I'm anticipating the sugar crash when I catch up to current time. The anti-climax of no more episodes to binge on. 

Maybe then I can start cultivating my high brow (ha!) persona again. After all, Fringe was back to its glorious self this week. And The Good Wife managed to restrain itself with the dun-dun-duns. Also, I have finished season 1 of Breaking Bad and hope to be up to speed enough to talk about it in the present tense at some point in the near future. Maybe soon I can start on that pesky new year's resolution to watch the tiny amount of a bazillion West Wing episodes. But who am I kidding? I love the low brow. I love all  kinds of brow.

When it was Good, it was Very, Very Good.....

99.6% of the time, when watching Gossip Girl, my thoughts go along these lines. Why am I watching this tripe/why do I subject myself to such farcical rubbish/why is a grown woman watching a show designed and aimed at girls half her age? Generally, these thoughts occur when certain images are on the screen, ones resembling these:

 

But then, sometimes...there are these moments of glory. When something so ridiculous comes on screen that makes me think..."Yes, this is why I watch this show." Of course, all of these moments generally involve the same person. And this week is no different.

That would be the Chuckmeister, in a teeny robe. Holding a macaroon.

Swoon.

This show is ridonkulous.

Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Bass

Chuck Bass, just like everything in the show, is back to normal.

Gossip Girl starts this week with Serena. She has a dilemma. And it's not whether she should wear the blue or the pink circus pants. (Blue, der!) Does she choose Nate or Dan? The loveable scamp with little brain (currently schlepping around with a young Heather Locklear), or the step-brother with a baby? Tough choice. What other teen show has one of the main protagonists umming and ahhing between her boyfriend and her step-BROTHER? Come on people, you don't find this shit anywhere else! Well, unless you happen to be reading Virginia Andrews right now. In which case, you should be ashamed.

On the other sides of this faux-triangle, Nate is busy scheming to win Serena from Dan, who in turn is not that bothered about Serena. He is too busy doing what every young man, recently shocked by a surprise baby with a woman with whom you always wore a condom should be doing. That is, jumping into bed with someone else. A new, shiny, snarky!Vanessa.

Chuck is dead. Or he's not. And when he's not, he's charming Fleur Delacour out of her wizarding robes in the continuously ridonkulous Paris subplot. When your attempt at pretending to be dead and starting a new life with a new name can be uncovered by Serena Van de Woodsen in about a week, you know you need to rethink. Not exactly the devious mastermind that we all know and love, I hope Chuck doesn't plan on being this ineffective all season.

So basically, nothing happens. This show is rapidly stagnanting. Events happen, disasters, tragedies, exposes...but nothing ever results in any character development. Chuck and Blair split up again, never to be reunited. Only for them to immediately start working towards Chuck and Blair being together again. As for the incest love train, don't get me started.

And someone take Milo's hat off. Nate is wearing shorts. The child is going to overheat.

And We're Back in The Game

So the first of the rubbish-programs-that-I-should-not-be-watching-any-more-but-can't-seem-to-help-it has started. Gossip Girl! Actually, I'm quite embarrassed even writing that, but seeing as a) no-one reading this blog knows me, and b) I suspect no-one is reading this blog, it makes no difference...I'll hold my head high. Maybe. Plus, I gave up on Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters AND Smallville last year so I suppose there is still a small amount of room in the schedule for tat.

And just like that we return to the machinations of the over-privileged residents of the UES. But not before we visit Blair and Serena in Paris. Where Serena wears a pair of trousers with enough pink material to start a Mr Blobby army and the streets are cleaner and emptier than ever before. Really, I have been to Paris. It's not that clean. Dan is having another crisis and Vanessa still exists. It's like we were never away. This image encapsulates everything that is wrong with this show - Dan, Vanessa, characters like Georgina Sparks and a bloody baby! Yes! Of course! That's what we need to breathe life into the show! A baby with dubious paternity, that always works!

Now tell me why I only dropped three shows last year?