Happy Endings

Something I really enjoy binging on Netflix is comedies. How I Met Your Mother, Friends, Better off Ted, all great shows in my opinion. Another that might be a little less known to some people is Happy Endings.

Focused on the lives of six people in a variety of social dynamics (2 are married, 2 are ex's, 1 is hopelessly single, and 1 is all about hookups), the show quickly establishes each character's relationship with the rest of the group.

Max's mind is a strange place

The comedy is great, with bits of different genres to appeal to many people. There's slapstick, sexual humour, wit, dry humour, sarcasm, and just flat out oddball moments. While each episode is part of the larger story, each one stands alone fairly well (If you are watching it with someone and they cheat an episode or two, you won't be totally lost).

"Bring the guns out!"

With the various personalities of the characters, there's sure to be someone that you'll enjoy watching. The situations the group gets involved in are hilariously outrageous, but you often know "those people" in real life who would totally do stuff like that. The couple who's way to comfortable getting it on with people around, the guy who never listens and is off in his own world, the girl who NEVER understands what's going on. Everybody has friends that act like that, in one way or another. Come on, if you pranked a friend by putting stripper glitter into their body lotion, do you honestly think they wouldn't try putting on a show, just once?

Happy Endings is a great, lighthearted show to watch. It's well worth having a Netflix account, and worth re-watching with people familiar with it or newbies alike.

Toodles!

The Mindy Project

As people should know, not all TV is amazing all the time. The Mindy Project is a perfect example of a TV show that I have conflicting feelings about. The episodes fluctuate from having me strongly dislike the main character and her morales, to actually caring about how she grows as a human being. The thing is, it's not like I hated her at the beginning and then grew to like her as she matured. She flips back and forth constantly, even within a single episode. The Mindy Project has a variety of main characters that all seem to fluctuate in this manner, going from being narcissistic assholes who treat people like dirt to becoming genuinely nice people who try to help their friends.

To get down to the actual premise of the show, The Mindy Project focuses on a group of workers in a gynaecology office. The doctors, nurses, and assistants all have their own life issues that pop up frequently during the show, but it mostly focuses on Mindy, one of the doctors. She is a 30~ year old East Indian woman who can't seem to get her life together, aside from her job.

Are there actually people in the world like this? That get to their 30's and still have no idea what kind of person they are? I don't mean what they want to do with their life, that's different. I mean that they have lived for three decades and still have no clue what their personal values are, they have no core beliefs. It's an interesting thing to watch.

This show grows on you, I'll give it that. It is certainly not a kid friendly show, but only because of subject matter. There isn't any visual stuff (Looking at you, Game of Thrones and Hannibal) that is really inappropriate, other than people making out and getting a little physical before a cutaway shot. It's worth a shot to watch, but you have to watch several episodes before making a judgement call.

Toodles!

Lie to Me

As someone who constantly studies how people interact, facial expressions are something I pay close attention to. Combined with the words people choose, how they speak them, and larger body language, you can learn a lot about a person without actually knowing them personally. There are obviously variations on these things between each person, but there are also many expressions that are universal. They apply to everyone, regardless of gender, race, culture, or age.

You may be asking why I'm talking about this on my TV and Movie post. There is a show that I really enjoy called Lie To Me. It's centred around a group of consultants that help people and organizations solve problems. They do this through their specialization in knowing how people act and speak, and how that correlates with telling the truth or lying.

The characters are witty and personable (and one is British, for you accent junkies out there). As the seasons progress, the characters grow in meaningful ways and you can easily grow attached to some of their personalities. The science behind the show is fairly easy to get behind, and is accurate as far as I can tell. Be warned, you'll start calling out your friends on manipulators and false answers after watching this show. Issues and crisis that occur each episode are interesting, and usually leave you guessing until near the end of the episode.

Seriously, check this show out. It's smart, funny, and interesting. What more could you want?

Toodles!

Scheduled Postings and Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I've been blogging now for a few days in a row, and finding topics to write about has been a struggle. In order to help with that issue, I've decided to schedule what I'll talk about each day. The schedule is posted on the right side of the blog, near the top. This will help me keep topics interesting, and for those of you who like certain topics but hate others, you can just check out the blog on the days you prefer. It also means that if I think of an idea before a scheduled day, I can write it and postpone the publishing of it (Yay, tech!). Of course, everyone will check on Fridays, because PORO. Yes, this does mean that Poros shall become a weekly does of adorable instead of a daily one. I may sneak some extras in there, because reasons. Plantie shall continue to receive daily posts so his growth can be charted by his government stalkers.

SO. Today is Thursday, which means TV and movies are the area of interest. I recently began (binge) watching the show Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Netflix. It's about a group of police officers and detectives that, somehow, solve crime. Pretty staple cop show description, I know. But BNN is actually really funny. The humour used hits a ton of varied tastes. Characters involved are very slapstick, dunder-heads, dry,  sarcastic, juvenile, romantic, cheesy, punny, and pull them all off well. The characters are almost instantly likable and there is at least one that is relatable in the small, but individualistic, cast. The shows uses cutaways for short jokes, similar to How I Met Your Mother or Family Guy, but keeps them brief. The story moves at a good pace, and episodes tend to start a story and finish it within the episode. There are broader arcs that run throughout the show, but each episode is fairly self-contained.

As someone who "watches" TV a lot by putting something on and then going to do something else, BNN does a great job of combining visual interest with well written comedy. Together, I actually find myself watching the show instead of using it as background noise. That's a pretty big compliment, coming from me. I highly recommend watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine if you're looking for a good comedy.

Now, as this is the internet, I feel I should say the following. THIS IS MY OPINION. You are more than entitled to disagree or agree, based on whatever reasons you like. Feel free to leave your opinion in the comments, or recommend a show that you think is worth watching.

Toodles!