So Tuesday night there was nothing to watch and last night (Thursday) there was too much to watch. When I think about how many viewing options I had to navigate through last night, it almost infuriates me that I blew a night this week watching a Jeff Goldblum "mockumentary".The viewing schedule was heavily debated going into last night, but I'm proud to say that we pulled it off nicely.
I really wanted to check out the NBC premiere of "Kath & Kim" (starring one of my favorite "Saturday Night Live" alums, Molly Shannon - one of the greatest two first name names of all time, by the way) and the special "Saturday Night Live Primetime Weekend Update Thursday" (that has to be the GREATEST, nonsensical title in the history of television); but I knew they probably weren't going to make the cut, so I recorded them and will have to watch them sometime this weekend.
The real issue of the evening was the fact that Game 1 of baseball's National League Championship Series featuring my beloved Philadelphia Phillies was starting at 8:30PM on FOX and "The Office" was airing at 9PM on NBC.
Here were the options:
1. Watch the game first and "The Office" (on DVR) afterwards. Plain and simple, I've been waiting 15 YEARS to watch the Phils in the NLCS again. I was 13 years old the last time they made it this far and I've been excited about the series all week. I couldn't shake the down side, however, that I knew I would want to watch "The Office" at some point last night and if the game went into extra innings, that could make for a late night (and there was no way to tell what my mood would be like at the end of the game).
That got me thinking about trying to pull off the second option:
2. Watch "The Office" first and then the game (on DVR). This was was obviously the more riskier of the two choices because I didn't think I could make it through the 8PM block and "The Office" without getting a text or call from someone or just randomly seeing the score on a random channel. But there was just too much up-side involved to ignore. If we watched "The Office" first, we could then catch up to the game in real time by skipping through the obnoxious pregame festivities and the commercials. The game would end at it's normal time and we would have seen both in the same amount of actual time.
We turned off our phones, threw in an episode of "Cheers" in the DVD player at 8PM to avoid seeing the score, watched "The Office" at 9PM, started watching the game at 9:30, and caught up to real time in the ninth inning.
It was a team effort, but we pulled it off and it made for a beautiful night.
Sometimes you just have to take the risk.
A couple quick notes about "The Office":
- Um... so yeah, it was AMAZING last night. Every time I get wrapped up in "How I Met Your Mother" or "Big Bang Theory", "The Office" slaps me in the face and says, "Nope, I'm actually still the best show on television right now."
I can't disagree anymore. After a lack-luster hour long premiere, they just went back to a solid half hour episode and it felt like a classic ep from season two or three. I appreciated the way they handled Jim's announcement of his engagement to Pam in the cold open ("The Office" has always done a fantastic job of refusing to dwell on a story line), we got treated to a meeting in the board room (where we found out just how little work everyone does), and Jim toyed with Dwight (the "Battlestar Galactica" conversation with Andy was the highlight of the night for me).
Like I said, it felt like a classic episode from the first few seasons that made the show great.
I read a lot of show recaps on other websites and I'm noticing that a lot of newer fans of "The Office" get frustrated with these kind of episodes. They want to see plots twists and turns, but I don't think they realize that in season one (it was only six episodes) there was no plot. None of the episodes were really connected - you could definitely tell that Jim had a crush on Pam, but beyond that, it was just one brilliant half hour of brutal awkwardness after another.
So, needless to say, I liked this one a lot.
And I love Holly. She is really opening up the show for me like Andy did with Michael and Dwight in season three. The funny thing is that I really liked Toby and was sad to see him go.
But after only two weeks, I'm now like, "Send us a post card from Costa Rica, Toby, Holly's filling in just fine!"
I can't wait to see where we go from here.
- Believe me, I'm not being cocky when I say this - only because no one is more pessimistic about the Phillies than me - but other than Manny Ramirez, I'm just not afraid of anyone in the Dodgers lineup. I never thought I'd feel confident with Brett Myers, Jamie Moyer, and Joe Blanton pitching Games 2, 3, and 4 of the NLCS, respectively, but I kinda am.
Paulie called it last night: as soon as the Phillies hitters stopped swinging at Lowe's low pitches and taking them for the balls that they were for the first four innings, he started leaving them up and Utley and Burrell each saw something they could drive out of the park. That's why I love baseball. It just comes down to easy fundamentals sometimes.
Have a great weekend and GO PHILLIES!
- Josh Mahler
Here were the options:
1. Watch the game first and "The Office" (on DVR) afterwards. Plain and simple, I've been waiting 15 YEARS to watch the Phils in the NLCS again. I was 13 years old the last time they made it this far and I've been excited about the series all week. I couldn't shake the down side, however, that I knew I would want to watch "The Office" at some point last night and if the game went into extra innings, that could make for a late night (and there was no way to tell what my mood would be like at the end of the game).
That got me thinking about trying to pull off the second option:
2. Watch "The Office" first and then the game (on DVR). This was was obviously the more riskier of the two choices because I didn't think I could make it through the 8PM block and "The Office" without getting a text or call from someone or just randomly seeing the score on a random channel. But there was just too much up-side involved to ignore. If we watched "The Office" first, we could then catch up to the game in real time by skipping through the obnoxious pregame festivities and the commercials. The game would end at it's normal time and we would have seen both in the same amount of actual time.
We turned off our phones, threw in an episode of "Cheers" in the DVD player at 8PM to avoid seeing the score, watched "The Office" at 9PM, started watching the game at 9:30, and caught up to real time in the ninth inning.
It was a team effort, but we pulled it off and it made for a beautiful night.
Sometimes you just have to take the risk.
A couple quick notes about "The Office":
- Um... so yeah, it was AMAZING last night. Every time I get wrapped up in "How I Met Your Mother" or "Big Bang Theory", "The Office" slaps me in the face and says, "Nope, I'm actually still the best show on television right now."
I can't disagree anymore. After a lack-luster hour long premiere, they just went back to a solid half hour episode and it felt like a classic ep from season two or three. I appreciated the way they handled Jim's announcement of his engagement to Pam in the cold open ("The Office" has always done a fantastic job of refusing to dwell on a story line), we got treated to a meeting in the board room (where we found out just how little work everyone does), and Jim toyed with Dwight (the "Battlestar Galactica" conversation with Andy was the highlight of the night for me).
Like I said, it felt like a classic episode from the first few seasons that made the show great.
I read a lot of show recaps on other websites and I'm noticing that a lot of newer fans of "The Office" get frustrated with these kind of episodes. They want to see plots twists and turns, but I don't think they realize that in season one (it was only six episodes) there was no plot. None of the episodes were really connected - you could definitely tell that Jim had a crush on Pam, but beyond that, it was just one brilliant half hour of brutal awkwardness after another.
So, needless to say, I liked this one a lot.
And I love Holly. She is really opening up the show for me like Andy did with Michael and Dwight in season three. The funny thing is that I really liked Toby and was sad to see him go.
But after only two weeks, I'm now like, "Send us a post card from Costa Rica, Toby, Holly's filling in just fine!"
I can't wait to see where we go from here.
- Believe me, I'm not being cocky when I say this - only because no one is more pessimistic about the Phillies than me - but other than Manny Ramirez, I'm just not afraid of anyone in the Dodgers lineup. I never thought I'd feel confident with Brett Myers, Jamie Moyer, and Joe Blanton pitching Games 2, 3, and 4 of the NLCS, respectively, but I kinda am.
Paulie called it last night: as soon as the Phillies hitters stopped swinging at Lowe's low pitches and taking them for the balls that they were for the first four innings, he started leaving them up and Utley and Burrell each saw something they could drive out of the park. That's why I love baseball. It just comes down to easy fundamentals sometimes.
Have a great weekend and GO PHILLIES!
- Josh Mahler
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1 comments:
I'm afraid of the Dodger's lineup.
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