If there's one thing I really hate, it's reading a TV blog entry I wish I'd written.
And if there's one thing I really, really hate, it's reading one of those every day.
Too bad for me I'm hooked on Jaime J. Weinman's
TV Guidance blog on Canada's
Maclean's magazine site. Weinman writes about "new shows, reruns and forgotten classics" (as his page logo promises), but mostly he writes with aplomb about the first-person
experienceof watching TV, which has always been one of my passions.
I love quality shows, of course. But I also love absolute dreck and inexplicable obsessions.
I love deconstructing shows that lose their way along the way, or find it.
I love saluting the people who make TV great or aggravating (or both).
I love discovering vintage TV hallucinations.
I love little tube-as-life anecdotes.
And of course, I love just riffing on my favorite medium because it's so gosh-darn wacky!
Weinman not only does all of the above, he does it in one week of TV Guidance. Look back just a tad further, and he's eyeing TV DVD, the re-invention of Jay Leno (watch NBC tonight to see the latest incarnation), "shows you liked better after crass re-tooling," and one of my own personal obsessions, film vs. videotape. (Please tell me you can tell the difference, too.)
He seems to read every other cool TV blog, and to have an encyclopedic TV memory, not to mention a wonderfully intimate yet detached writing style, all of which only make me exceedingly more jealous.
But I love TV Guidance so much, I can't resist sharing its fun. Just promise you'll come back to TV Worth Watching, too.
At least Weinman doesn't make any nightly viewing recommendations.
Thank goodness he's Canadian.