no second watch

I sometimes see people mention that they're watching their favorite series again, sometimes even a third time. Thinking back to my favorite series, I can't think of one I've watched twice. I've thought about watching them again, but it keeps not happening.

This would be a good time to recount favorite series.

ST:TOS (60s) the first example is almost a counter-example, lots of re-runs on TV, lots of random watching. But since the days where all the media could be accessed at once, I haven't sat down and watched it from beginning to end.

BSG (80s)

Max Headroom (80s)

Babylon 5 (90s)

DS9 (90s)

Daria (90s)

Buffy/Angel (90s)

Lost (2000s)

Firefly (2000s)

BSG reboot (2000s)

Aang / Korra (2000s)

The only series I'm close to wanting to see again right now are the Avatar series, which should be easy because I think they're all on Amazon Prime.

Deadwood (2004-2006)

2016.04.02
Watched first two episodes, will continue.

2016.04.13
An obvious character is killed. Seems like he wanted to go.

2016.05~
Started second season. Vibe is all different, but is it wrong? The wild west is getting civilized, as promised right from the beginning.

2016.06... or maybe 2016.07
I thought the series was going to end mid-sentence, cut down in its prime cruelly and unfairly like Firefly, but actually it wrapped up about when it should have. It was starting to run out of steam and I don't think there was a whole lot more left to say.

Now free of spoilers I read up to find out what happened, only to find things got a little confused and boring, and probably because of drugs. It looks like the creator of the show got lucky, and in the years that followed never really did anything good again. Only now, after 10 years of nothing really going on, is he contemplating returning to the universe he abandoned, or ruined, or who knows what, its hard to decipher through the long abandoned rumor mills.

Like a lot of art, it had its moment in its moment, and having once had that moment, the moment is then gone.

Adding a surreal layer that most media doesn't have is looking at the long list of real people versus people made up for the show, and realizing there were more real people than made up. Though many of their stories were altered to make a show out of it, some lives may have been more interesting if presented more real. I understand reality is harder to productize.

This show and the movie Unforgiven are now my top favorite versions of the Western.

Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa (2007)

Two or three cable/FIOS plans ago, I had saved some movies on a DVR, but ran out of time and had to turn the box in before I could watch them. They weren't special or rare enough to justify any great effort in copying them off, so I put them on a list. Years later I find the list, enter the name into YouTube, and I'm watching.

I think the first time I started watching Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa I was attracted to the post-apocalyptic theme. I just recently played Fallout New Vegas, and it got my attention again for the same reason.

What holds my attention is the look into how society works, and how it doesn't. And how people work, and how they are broken. As tough as this life might be, with Fallout on my mind I can't imagine what this kind of life would be like with added starvation, radiation, raiders, and limitless small arms.