30 May 2010

TV Rewind: Everybody Loves Raymond, The West Wing & Mad About You

I am currently alternating watching three old TV programs. Call this my "TV Homework", but I still do have a long list of shows, long cancelled, that I really need to check out and finish COMPLETELY.

The first one is Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Series, which aired from 1996 to 2005.  I used to wonder why this show would always get a lot of nominations from the Emmy's before. I didn't use to get its appeal. But the husband and I have been watching it, beginning with the first season. We started sometime October last year. We're almost down to the final episodes. And after what we've  already seen, I've no doubt now this show deserved all of their awards. I also like that it mirrors a lot of what many couples are going through, with the Barones being married for years and years. Only in this series, they poke fun at plenty of stuff husbands and wives fight about. And on hindsight, it actually helps to see that marital challenges can also be handled funny, especially when there's too much tension in real life. Sometimes, my husband and I end up slapping each other silly after watching an episode that we can relate to, as if to say, "See....see? THAT's what marriage is about!"

We're also watching The Mad About You Collection. Now, I used to like this show when it was on television for the longer part of the '90s. I thought of Jamie and Paul Buchanan as a cute couple. Maybe I grew up and my preferences are constantly changing, but re-watching the series today made me see how utterly unrealistic and unbalanced this marriage is. No, they're not cute. They're annoying. We started with the first series about a month ago and guess what? We haven't been watching any more after four episodes since. Boring. But we're gonna get to it sometime again....if only to finish off something in our "list of shows to watch".

And finally, I've picked and decided to watch The West Wing: The Complete Series Collection because I've been feeling the election hype here, after May 11. I've always meant to watch this show, but figured seven seasons with 24 hour long episodes each is such a chore to go through. But, I'm now kicking myself for not having checked this series a lot earlier.  I looooooooove Aaron Sorkin's work (Sports Night, Studio 60). And West Wing was one of his finest, if not THE finest. The West Wing is written so smartly and acted out so effortlessly. And I would like Jed Bartlet as my President. :P  The show ran from 1999-2006 and I really feel I've missed out on one of TV's best from those years. Good thing we've got tons of media readily available for watching shows we've missed, huh?

So, what about you? What's on your list of cancelled programs to watch and have you started out with them already?


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