television

Deja Vu

I’ve mentioned the professional level of Cyprus television in a very recent post, and here I am, got hit with a deja vu. It’s Friday night, and I am at home, after taking a long walk, trying to avoid all pubs and restaurants. Watching Capital channel, which has a 1984 classic – “Starman” with Jeff Bridges.

About 40 minutes into the film, it suddenly restarts. No advertising, no breaking news. Just starts showing from the very beginning all over again. Instant rewind to the opening credits. It’s been going now for at least 15 minutes…

I am not going to watch it once again. Especially when there are no guarantees that they won’t rewind it again a couple of times.

Off to bed.

Carlton Draught – The Big Ad

I don’t care that much for television. Even less I care for advertisements. And even les than that I care about advertisement on television. You can easily say that I don’t care about them at all.

But that didn’t stop me from seeing one of the funniest things that I’ve seen on TV ever – The Big Ad for Carlton Draught (It doesn’t look that as good in the tiny window as it does on a large TV screen, but at least you’ll have an idea of what I am talking about here.). That was something!

It turns out I am by far not alone. A lot of people enjoyed it. There is even a Wikipedia page for it.

(singing)It’s a big add. Expensive ad! …

Finally, I’m done

The other day I mentioned that I am watching “Oz“. Well, I sure did. I have watched the last episode today.

I am very surprised as to how addicting it was. I have seen a total of 56 episodes (each one is about 1 hour long) from all 6 seasons that I got my hands on. And it took me less than two weeks to go through all of them.

As usual with series, the quality suffers towards the end. The first 4 seasons or so were the best of all. But the degradation wasn’t as bad as it may sound. It’s just the intencity was gone. Actually, it was gone from most episodes, but not all. Some had it at maximum level. Like that one with Cyril’s execution, which I had to pause about five times so that I wouldn’t burst into tears. So dramatic…

Overall, not only it was entertaining to watch, but very educational and thought provoking. I’ve learned a lot about prison life and confirmed my suspecion that I don’t ever ever want to go into one of these places. I am alo thinking a lot of about many subjects brought up in the episodes – crime and punishment, law and ethics, family, friendship, survival of the fittest, love, and stuff like that.

I’m also planning to get the complete series on DVD. I will watch some of the episodes again. And I also have a few people interested in watching the whole thing.

“Oz” prison series

Somehow I got my hands on 6 seasons of the “Oz” series from HBO. I have to tell you that it’s something.

I started watching the first season and I wans’t liking it much. There were too many things going on and some places were somewhat underdeveloped. But it had something in it that kept me in. With every one of the eight episodes I liked it more and more.

The series show the daily life of a number of convicts in an experiemental prison. I guess that teenagers are the target audience for these episodes, because it can sometimes seem too naive or simplistic. But there are interesting thoughts and scenarios for everyone.

Yesterday, I started watching the second season. It was getting late and I thought I would watch one or two episodes (each one is about 50 minutes or an hour) and go to bed. I found myself eight hours later, at 5:30am, finishing the 8-th episode – the last in the second season. It has been a long time since I was so interested in what was going on that I watched it for 8 hours straight – no sleep, no food, not even a bathroom trip.

Today I am carrying the third season home and I have this doubt in my mind – should I start watching it or not? On one hand, I am sleepy and tired. On the other hand I am very interested in watching it and tomorrow’s scheduled is somewhat relaxed.

Maybe just one episode…

Comedy Central’s shows online

Comedy Central started to publish some of their shows online. And not only that – they’ve added an RSS feed for all of us outside the US television coverage to catch the shows on time. I haven’t yet seen all of the clips, but I already came across a few that are hilarious. Knock yourself out!