TV - Steve's TV Five-A-Day: Day One

Television Five A Day

Steve Taylor-Bryant gets involved in social media games again, we do try and stop him, honest...

There have been a couple of great sharing ideas on social media recently and being the naturally lazy man I am instead of thinking up my own ideas for articles I have selfishly stolen other people’s ideas to fill these pages. One of my favourite ideas I stole from author Alec McQuay who in turn stole it on Twitter from @MiloBOK. It is a month of tweeting various things each day about television shows and your memories and thoughts. I don’t like doing just one thing a day though, so I am cheating (surprise, surprise) and I am putting the entire month’s choices into a few days. So here is your first “Five-A-Day,” otherwise known as Days 1-5…

Day 01 – A show that should have never been cancelled…

This is a tough one to answer as most things that I truly love end too soon, it’s almost as if networks hate me. First suggestion from the top of my head is an obvious one in Firefly but, the more I think about it, the more I come to terms with the fact that Firefly probably only lives so brightly in my heart because it was cancelled. In the cold light of day it was incredibly cheesy and looks cheaply shot. Whilst I love the show and the cast, it probably went off air when it should before it became a parody of itself. For that reason I am going to choose an Aaron Sorkin show; Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Sorkin himself admits that it wasn’t his best writing and he really struggled to get into the groove writing it but I fell in love with the show from the very first episode. Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry had an extraordinary chemistry, the show did great things politically, especially with drawing attention to what was happening in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a superb back up cast, really funny segments and, whilst Sorkin admits it wasn’t his best effort, the writing was still better than most things on television at the time. Everyone should watch at least the pilot episode for the Cold Open song.



Day 02 – A show that you wish more people were watching…

Well this one is a lot easier; Mr. Robot. Yep, it appears that there is some folk that still haven’t seen this extraordinary slice of television. Tackling greed, corporate corruption, hacktivism, mental health issues and starring some wonderful actors that are perfect in their respective roles, especially Rami Malek. And for those of you that think Deadpool had the best viral marketing campaign ever? You obviously haven’t signed up to the Mr. Robot email site.



Day 03 – Your favourite new show (aired this season)…

Not sure that shows that are exclusive to streaming sites count as ‘aired this season’ but for the sake of this choice I am going to pretend that it does. Netflix and Amazon are doing some amazing things for television shows and there isn’t much that either produce that I don’t enjoy but a new show on Netflix truly entertained me this year and that show is Santa Clarita Diet. Funny, dark, Drew Barrymore, what’s not to love?



Day 04 – Your favourite show ever

Hands down it’s the West Wing. It is by far the cleverest writing, best ensemble cast, best look at society and life ever put in front of an audience. There are elements of the show that are responsible for me still being alive (see my thoughts on John Spencer here), there are tearful moments (Two Cathedrals especially), moments of utter joy (CJ singing The Jackal), periods of time within a season and stand alone episodes that really make you think, that try and seep into society and try and make society better through smart storytelling and emotional content. It is perfect television.



Day 05 – A show you hate…

So let’s end this first one on a negative shall we? I think hate is too strong a word to use for any pop culture product. Whether you enjoy something or not, someone put a lot of work into their dream to bring an audience and I think, in this day and age of instant feedback, that borders on abuse we as a society, all of us, have to take a little more care in remembering that our words can hurt others. That being said… What. The. Actual. Fuck is Made in Chelsea? Utter fucking tosh and shite…

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