What I"m Watching on Sunday Nights

The answer is "way too much."   I mean, I could go some evenings during the week and never turn on the television.   But, right now on Sunday nights, I can only get through it all with not one but two Direct TV DVRs in my house.  There is that much for me to watch.

Okay, admittedly, I could stagger this all out and watch stuff on my own convenience later on.  But, I'm still old school.  If an episode of a favorite show airs, I generally want to see it the same day.   Sometimes, plot points leak out the next day and ruin it all for me.   And, let's face it, I was born and raised in the non-VCR era.  This is what's in my TV DNA.

So, at the moment, I wind up recording five different TV shows on Sunday nights.   This is not going to be forever.  Most of them are short flight series and will disappear soon.  A good thing because Downton Abbey is back this January.  On Sunday nights, natch.  But, for now, I am carefully programming two different DVRs to capture all five shows every week.  Thank God for east and west coast feeds.

In its fourth season, Homeland has experienced a creative regeneration.  Over the first three seasons, the plot around Muslim terrorist Martin Brody and CIA operative Carrie Matheson's fixation on him got incredibly played out.  Producers wisely discovered that they needed to reinvent the show for a fourth year.  And, with their storyline this season of Americans accidentally blowing up a Muslim wedding reception in Islamabad, the show has been captivating and scary.  And I think the horrific world depicted over in the Middle East is one that is closer to truth than we imagine.

I wrote several weeks ago about this interesting new show on CBS.   Admittedly, the things that happen to Tea Leoni as the US Secretary of State are a stretch, but she's a damn lot smarter than Hillary Clinton ever was.   And the storyline is starting to move into a soapy area as she discovers that somebody in the White House may be a crook.   Surprise?  Meanwhile, I get a kick out of all the college campus scenes shot at my alma mater Fordham University.

I got into The Affair on Showtime because I was under the impression that it was simply going to be a ten episode series.  But I recently heard they got picked up for a second season and I have no idea where the story goes after this.   The Affair is essentially what the title is.   Two married people meet during the summer at Montauk and have a no-holds-barred tryst.  Lots of naked flesh flying around and you can't quibble with that.  But, there's also a mystery going on and the details are coming out at the pace of an IV drip.  Once that gets resolved, I have no clue what they can possibly do next.  But, for now, I'm in and so is my DVR.

The second season return of The Comeback on HBO has been long awaited, given that its first season ended in 2005.  Lisa Kudrow is a marvel in this reality series/sitcom about a washed-up sitcom/reality star named Valerie Cherish who is still trying to make a buck in Hollywood.  The show is incredibly inside Hollywood and wonderful.  Perhaps the most clever depiction of the world of television since Paddy Chayefsky's Network.  Valerie is tough to watch, but she's really that fender bender on the side of the 110 Freeway.  You can't help but rubberneck at her imploding life.

Adding to the Sunday night viewing frenzy is the second season return of this HBO comedy called Getting On.  It ran for six episodes last year and some wise cookie brought it back.   It's all about the nurses and doctors at a make-believe California hospital and, specifically, the geriatric ward.  Laurie Metcalf is hilarious as the head doctor who is so bizarre and quirky that you just know she exists somewhere in real life.   The physician is more interested in getting her studies published than the care and well being of her patients.  During the first year, she was doing a study on stool samples.   This season, she's all about photographing the genitalia of senior citizens.  Yes, the show is that weird.  The best part of Getting On is the guest cast which usually is a who's that of oldtime Hollywood actresses laid out on some hospital mattress.  Just last Sunday, Betty Buckley played an old alcoholic going cold turkey.  In the middle of the night, she wakes up and starts to drink the hand sanitizer from all the hospital dispensers.  How could you not tape that?

And, frankly, how could you not tape any of these shows?  It will be short-lived but, for now, my Sunday nights are jam packed with great television.  Who knew??

Dinner last night:  Ravioli and salad.