And it was everything I thought it could be. No really, for the vast majority of my weekend, I watched television primarily, and for the first time in a while feel like I actually had a nice relaxing weekend.
Prior to this past weekend, I’ve had to go into work at least once per, in four out of the last five weekends, and was just coming off a stretch where I’d gone into the office twelve straight days. Working overtime for the betterment of the team, keeping shit on schedule and because the season occasionally dictates it isn’t really that big of a problem, but the sheer volume of my work compounded by a faulty machine that failed more frequently than a Volkswagen was putting me into a situation of rapid burnout, and this past weekend wasn’t so much of a deserved weekend off, it was absolutely necessary.
Needless to say, I slept in both days, which relatively speaking, means I slept like eight hours, instead of like six. Granted, my body is so accustomed to waking up at like 6:30 a.m., I hit points where I always wake up between 6:30 and 7:30, panic about having overslept before realizing that it’s the weekend and then crawl back into bed with tremendous relief and try to go back to sleep and hope the animals didn’t hear any commotion and start trying to wake me up.
And when you’re feeling rested and caught up on sleep, everything afterward feels leisurely and relaxed. Coffee tastes better. Going to the gym for a run felt pleasant and not like a nuisance chore. Taking the dogs out is more leisurely without a clock over your head on when it’s time to head to work. Going out to hang with friends is more enjoyable when you know that there’s no drop dead cutoff time to get back home and get to sleep in order to get enough rest.
And then there was the whole shitloads of television I watched in between everything else to unwind with. It’s not that I’m some sort of inherent couch potato or anything but there are a lot of shows that have come out over the last few months and years that I’d simply never felt like I’d had the time to watch, and now I feel like I’m slowly being able to play catch up with some of them.
The biggest tragedy that could happen to the tsunami of successful Marvel movies and shows is the fact that the X-Men franchise and (most) related properties have been under the lock and key of FOX. While the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has flourished and exploded under the Disney umbrella or Netflix, as well as Sony relinquishing the license to Spider-Man, the poor X-Men have been languishing mediocre film after mediocre film under FOX, save for the crown jewel of Marvel properties, Wolverine. It’s like if BMW were acquired by General Motors and suddenly a reputable brand for performance is bastardized and distributed incompetently next to Chevys and Buicks.
Needless to say, I guess I’m not the least bit surprised that Legion is a real steamer of a show, given the fact that it’s related to the X-Universe and therefore shown on FX, which is obviously a FOX network. Not to mention Legion himself is a character that showed up waaaay after the X-Men popularity had already DJ Tanner Wrestling’d, and was well beyond the peak of their popularity. Like anyone would really give a shit about (spoiler alert) Professor X’s bastard child; maybe if it were Wolverine’s, but not a legless psychic.
The first episode of Legion was way more than I could tolerate, and I do not intend on continuing. Given the fact that I saw a billion commercials for it while watching another FX stinker in Taboo, I’m actually quite disappointed in the network outright. The next season of American Horror Story really kind of needs to be a really good one to really bring some goodwill back to the network.
I can’t really remember when or why, but a long time ago, I do remember reading the original story in which The Handmaid’s Tale was based off of. Needless to say, watching a television show based on the original story has legitimately been one of the scarier shows I’ve seen, and this is coming from someone who is still fresh off of watching shows like Black Mirror.
Whereas the book didn’t really delve as much into the past as the show does, it always feels like it entirely took place in either a Victorian or a kind of Salem-era time, which made appropriate concepts like handmaidens and blatantly classist societies. However, the show depicts through flashbacks how society was once modern, and through the fall of society, reverts back to extreme classism, where the upper class is treated like nobility, and the rest are either killed or basically slaves.
However, the scary thing about the show is simply the fact that it’s an extreme example of a very possible outcome for current reality of the world as a whole, and given the general turmoil and lack of cohesion when it comes to supporting the political environment, it’s a story that could very well be reality with enough poor decisions. Honestly, the flashbacks that depict the fall of society are scarier than the present-day storyline, because all throughout watching them, one can’t help but feel that this shit really could happen.
In the same light of really could happen, I have to applaud the writing and the direction of The Girlfriend Experience. I was intrigued by the show partially because it was inspired and produced by Steven Soderbergh’s original film of the same name, whose works I always seem to enjoy, and let’s not sugar-coat the other part, the idea seemed arousing and attractive in the private way that people don’t want to admit that they occasionally want to see sex scenes.
The thing is, this too is a story that is intriguing in its overall believability, and I’m not even a girl. But money talks, and the sheer believability of women capitalizing on the simple notion that dudes want to bang, and those with money are more than willing to burn it in order to get their dicks wet from time to time is very much plausible.
I think the most entertaining thing so far has been that whenever a screen goes black, and the brain wanders, and those with occasional dirty thoughts often joke about how characters are probably now fucking; in The Girlfriend Experience, whenever a screen does go black, there’s always a few seconds that pass before it is revealed that people are fucking, often revealed by sounds of sex before some tasteful nudity appears on screen.
And then, I watched the first two episodes of American Gods, to which I can’t really say I get everything that’s going on, but I’m intrigued by it, and still on board with continuing watching. I’m not going to pretend like I’m some gigantic Neil Gaiman fan, or pretend to have more nerd cred than I do and quickly fling out the Sandman name, but I had zero knowledge of the property before watching the show. But I’ve found the first two episodes to be interesting and watchable, albeit far more gratuitous than other R-rated television in terms of gore and seeing dongs, and I have to admit that I’m enjoying seeing Ian McShane in more than just a guest appearance capacity, and I think Mr. Wednesday is a fascinating character.
Needless to say, I’ve been watching a lot of dark and black storied television lately. This isn’t to say that it’s any indication to the state my mind, but I certainly have been gravitating towards some depth in storytelling, even if it involves going down some dark and scary rabbit holes to find them.
Regardless, this is how I spent my past weekend, and for the first time in a while, I feel like I had a very nice relaxing weekend, where I did little, got some rest, watched a lot of television and nothing I didn’t want to do. Hopefully, more weekends like this will be in my future than those that aren’t, because I could certainly enjoy more of them.
