TV

The TV has become my best friend lately. (If Loki is reading this, he will ask "just lately?"). I got season 1 of Scrubs on DVD from Netflix, and I finished watching the first two discs. Kind of a silly show, but it made me laugh a few times, which is all I really need from a sitcom.

On Tuesday, I watch Veronica Mars and House. Veronica Mars is currently my favorite show, and it's getting killed in the ratings, just like all the shows I dearly love seem to (*sob* Firefly; adieu, Arrested Development). First, VM was opposite Lost, and now it's opposite House, both of which are ratings juggernauts. And VM is superior to both of them.

Lost was an intriguing concept that is failing in execution - I liked some of the early episodes, but I started feeling bored midway through season 1. House has an intriguing main character who I can't completely buy because Bertie Wooster should not be wearing a leather jacket and riding a motorcycle. Plus, as a person who walks with a cane, it drives me nuts that House does not use the cane properly. Are there no medical consultants on the show? You use the cane in the hand opposite the bad leg!!! That bugs me.

Veronica Mars, though...the Buffy shaped hole in my heart has been adequately filled. Intricate plots that actually advance, tragic characters, comic relief, witty dialog, tension, mystery. And that leaves out Veronica herself, portrayed in a beautifully complex performance by Kristin Bell. She's been compared to Nancy Drew, but did we meet Nancy Drew when she was trying to figure out who raped her while she was unconcious after being roofied at a party?

I feel slightly guilty about my love for two (well, three, but one is not on right now) reality shows: The Amazing Race & Top Chef (Project Runway is the 3rd). I love TAR because it is the reality show I would most want to be on, although Loki and I would totally lose because of my gimpiness and his inability to be on time for things. I reluctantly tuned into Top Chef because it was produced by the same people who did Project Runway. At first, I didn't really care for TC, since I can't smell or taste the food, which makes it hard to really determine who should win.

But they've had some great "characters" in this first season - Tiffani, the bitchy, no-nonsense bisexual; LeeAnn, who offers hilarious one-liners on her fellow competitors ("I'm on a team with the big thinker and the no thinker") and solid skills in the kitchen; Harold, who is just plain sexy, until he puts his glasses on, which makes him sexier; Dave, who twitches and swears and cries; and Stephen Aspirino, the tool & douchebag - at first he annoyed me, but then I couldn't stop laughing at his clueless arrogance and self-aggrandizement.

As Homer Simpson said: TV: teacher, mother, secret lover.