I’ve been on a bit of a Hulu bender recently, attempting to slog my way through the deluge of queued-up television shows that need to be watched before they expire, like a bad piece of fruit. I’ve probably got roughly 372 videos in my queue. Last night I calculated my total remaining watch-time and it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve years. So, you know, I have to get through some of that before my oldest graduates high school.
In an epiphany likely sparked by my algebraic formulations, I realized that I’m simply following too much television. So I decided to cut some shows from my subscription list that I really don’t need anymore. I’ll keep favorites like Castle, The Office, Community, and Flash Forward. But there’s some things that just don’t need to be there anymore. I missed season one of Fringe, so I’ll drop season 2. Warehouse 13 got boring, so it’s gone. I was interested in Modern Family due to Ed O’Neill, but I really don’t know a whole lot about it, so I guess I don’t need to watch it. The Dresden Files? Maybe I’ll pick it up on Netflix.
Then I came down to Dollhouse. I was a fan of this show through season one and I was initially one of the seven people disappointed when news came out that it had been canceled. Then it came back for a miraculous second season. I knew that the show (and Joss Whedon in particular) enjoy a somewhat rocky relationship with Fox, so I assumed from the get-go that it wouldn’t survive another season. This is likely the case, as the show’s ratings have apparently been so bad, the show is being temporarily pulled from the November line-up and then brought back in December to conclude. Those are not the signs of a healthy production.
So, I considered dropping the show. But then, last night, as my cursor hovered over the “remove” button, I decided to go ahead and watch the first episode of season two. That was a bad idea. It was, in a word: disappointing. After such a hail-mary last-second rescue of the show by dedicated fans (and a miserly Fox network looking for potential cost savings) I fully expected the first epsidoe of the second season — which by all accounts simply should not exist — to absolutely blow me away. It didn’t. It was bland and flat. I learned some things, but not the things I wanted to learn in order to continue to be interested in the show. I aired my distaste on Twitter and received some good feedback. Most people were telling me that I should give it another chance. That it starts slow, and builds from there. But honestly, builds to what? I feel very strongly that this show will not survive to see a season three, regardless of my feelings on the issue. I’ve decided to keep watching through the Summer Glau guest-star episodes and see how I feel after that. If it can’t capture me after five episodes, it has no business being on television (or my Hulu queue) at all.
On the other hand, Stargate Universe has absolutely enraptured me. After just the opening pilot. I was never a big SG fan. I’ve seen the movie and watched a handful of SG-1 episodes. I completely missed SG: Atlantis, but when John Scalzi talked up the show (he’s a creative consultant for the production) I felt the need to at least check out the pilot. Out of courtesy, of course. And I’m immensely glad that I did. I love the premise and how it’s tied into the SG universe as a whole (pun unintended). I’m hoping beyond hope that the show doesn’t end up going straight downhill after the pilot, but I have faith in SyFy’s ability to create quality productions.
On a somewhat-related sidenote, isn’t Hulu just the greatest thing ever created? For viewing television shows on the internet, I mean.
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