Entries Tagged as 'TV'

Three TV Shows I Suprisingly Love

Top Gear from the BBC It’s not a surprise that a British accent and a British sensibility can improve almost anything. But since when do I care about high-performance automobiles? Truthfully, I don’t.

But these guys do. And enthusiasm is even more ingratiating than a British accent. I love watching geeks and nerds dork out about their passions.

Besides, they race cars against fighter planes and roller skaters wearing jet packs. Plus  they have a mysterious masked test driver named “the Stig.” Who doesn’t want to see that?

Wonder Pets from Nick Jr. The show is made for preschoolers, but I absolutely adore it. It’s full of charm and laugh-out loud humor.

Three preschool classroom pets, a guinea pig, a duckling, and a turtle, become superheroes when the children leave. Animals from around the world call on them for help.

The kicker though, the magic, is that they sing almost everything. It’s a moralistic and educational adventure opera for kids. Glorious.

The boyfriend introduced this show to me. From the very first Wagnerian notes of “The phone. The phone is ringing,” I knew this was a winner.

What Not to Wear from TLC It’s along the same vein as Top Gear. Who would have thought that I would care about clothes? Although at the heart, I still don’t care that much. The difference is—this show is not so much about fashion as it is about clothes.

Stacy and Clinton, the two experts, don’t teach people how to be fashionable. They teach people how to find and wear the right clothes.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I have learned and am applying a lot from this show. It’s entertaining and lively, but at its base, it seeks to teach. That’s what makes it watchable show after show, year after year.

Olympics: Shoot Tumbling Passes in Profile

What an exciting day for US Olympic athletes. Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh survived a scare. James Blake upset Roger Federer. The swimmers were simply awesome. Nastia Luikin and Shawn Johnson finished with clutch performances.

And these are just the performances that I saw.

Watching the Olympics this year, I have to ask again—Why are the floor routine tumbling passes constantly shown straight on? When they come straight into the camera, the viewer can’t get a sense of speed, rotation, or height. We need to see it travel across our screen instead of directly at us.

Figure skating has the same problem with the jumps. Show us the jumps in profile!

Once upon a time, when it seemed to matter if someone’s legs were not completely together in a layout position, it may have made sense to see a flip along the horizontal axis. Now, since those little form things do not appear to be worth mentioning, the straight on shot makes even less sense. Imagine watching the balance beam routines straight on rather than from the side. Why does this unhelpful perspective continue?

Olympics: NBC’s Coverage Features a Wide Variety of Sports

NBC is doing a really good job showcasing a lot of different events this year. In addition to the regulars of basketball, beach volleyball, and swimming, I’ve seen handball, badminton, and shooting. For the last three sports, I don’t think I saw one minute of them during the last summer Olympics.

As an Olympics junkie, I applaud their widened focus.