It's Freddie Highmore's Birthday!

I don’t relish the idea of watching medical dramas. The thought of all the blood and slicing and focus on gore-covered organs is nauseating and instantly off-putting. Nobody is literally beautiful on the inside, in my opinion. This is the main reason I chose to stay ignorant rather than submit to the mass hysteria that spread like the plague with series like House and Grey’s Anatomy. Medical dramas were not for me, thank you very much. I would happily go through life without watching a single one, without willingly inflicting such suffering upon myself.

Well, that’s what I thought until I saw the promo for The Good Doctor.

It looked very interesting, as most trailers do, but what caught my attention was the lead actor. There was something so familiar about him. Freddie Highmore.

I get very excited on unexpectedly seeing someone familiar onscreen. The excitement is directly proportional to how much I like someone and, often, the amount of time and energy spent in finding out who that someone is and where I've seen him/her before.

So, I figured that since they were airing the first two episodes of what seemed like an interesting show which happened to star someone I knew when he was "yea high", I had to check it out. Since it would be on TV, they’d probably censor some of the gory stuff with the careful precision of doctors cutting open patients. (I’m kidding, I know TV doesn’t care to be subtle about censoring)

Well, they did not edit out gory bits. But apart from that, the series is lovely. I'm not sure how different it is from other medical dramas - a gifted doctor who isn’t quite understood by most people shows up at a hospital and makes you wonder how many people who died there could have been saved if he'd been there before. There are some surgical procedures that are shown in excruciatingly graphic detail, but everything else is quite pleasant to watch, although it's often quite emotionally heavy.

There are lots of lovely characters, including gentle, kind Dr Glassman and sweet, spunky Dr Brown, but Shaun Murphy is quite possibly the most beautiful character I've seen on TV in a long time (or, quite possibly, ever). I may be a little biased since I already love Freddie Highmore, but he makes Murphy instantly likeable, and everything about him feels authentic. He reminds me of a high-functioning autistic student I had - the incredible elephant memory, the visualisation of places as maps, the attention to detail, the discomfort with physical contact, the repetition of words and phrases when upset, and so on.

Murphy is so adorable and simple he'll make you laugh and cry, often at the same time. I love that part in the pilot where he talks about wanting to make lots of money so he can buy a TV (and his TV is, in itself, pretty darn adorable). One of my favourite moments on the show so far is when he says he likes Hershey because "Lea is there". Hits you right in the feels.

The Good Doctor is moving but not depressing, and I love it (/him) enough to watch every single episode despite all the blood and gore. Kudos to the writers and everyone involved in making this. And thank you, Freddie Highmore. You're awesome. Here's to many more wonderful characters. Happy birthday.

To Do or Not to Do

Because this always happens to me, no matter how I try . . .

Hopefully this holiday will be more productive than usual.

Watching TV on TV

First of all, thank you to everyone who’s still reading and/or following this blog despite my recent negligence and laziness to post anything new, even after my vow to post at least every Sunday, if not more often. I’ve hardly been online recently because the easiest thing to do after getting back from work late in the evening is lie in bed, turn on the telly, and doze off at some point.

Secondly, about the title: I'm talking about watching The Voice on television. After several shows with mostly average contestants, mean judges, intense melodrama, and bitchiness in the air, it’s nice to have one with great contestants and judges, healthy competition, and a positive approach.

The concept of blind auditions is wonderful, and the talent was amazing. I don’t know if it’s because all the singers were people who were selected for callbacks, or also because the show was well edited, but either way, the lack of terrible singers was a nice change (although terrible ones also have the potential to be the most amusing and entertaining).

Then there were the coaches. Ah, Adam Levine!

I think there were three others too.

Okay, I'm not that enamored by him. I loved all the judges. I was most excited about Christina Aguilera being one of them because she’s been one of my favourite artists ever since I first heard her. I’ve always loved her, and I always will, no matter what people may say about her unnecessary runs and slutty make-up and all that jazz.

Cee Lo is someone I liked as an artist, but I was pleasantly surprised at how nice he seemed as a person. I didn’t expect much depth from someone as blingy as him, but I was wrong. Blake, to be honest, is someone I hadn’t heard of before the show, but I loved him too, the main reason being the Papa Bear kind of pride and love he had for his contestants (although I did find it really strange when he said “Dia reminds me of my wife”. And Adam, well… HOT!

I’ll skip to the final four contestants, because I’ll have way too much in here if I have to rewind even one step back. Javier and Beverly I loved right from the blind audition stage. Dia is someone I liked to a point but then started to find slightly annoying, although I can’t deny that she really knows how to make a song fabulous. Vicci Martinez is someone I noticed in the blind audition because when she started singing, I thought, “Oh no, yet another person singing Rolling in the Deep!” Then she sang a couple more songs and quickly became my favourite contestant. Here’s one reason why:

Gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.

  

Too bad the show wound up so soon! Now The X Factor has begun, and I do enjoy it, complete with all the drama, but it’s just not the same. And I swear I’m not saying that only because Adam Levine is way hotter than Simon. 

Stages of Reception

Since the new telly has been one of the major hindrances to my blogging recently, I felt the need to change that by making it the topic of a decent sized post.

Stage 0: Basically the background to make everyone understand what a big deal this is to me.
For over 21 years of my life, I’ve had just two TV channels: DD (Doordarshan) National, which had (and still has) vague shows and never bothered trying to look the least bit appealing, and DD Metro, which I used to watch for the daily half hour (or 1 to 1 ½ hours, at some stage) of cartoons. That was fine, because I had other things to do and one cartoon a day was enough to keep me happy.

Then DD Metro was suddenly replaced by the redundant DD News which consistently seemed to give one news from the previous day. Suddenly, the quality of the weekend movies on the National channel dipped, and my frequency of viewing them increased since they were the most watchable things at that time. Every time I went to a friend’s house and the telly was on, I’d be glued to the screen, no matter what was showing.

Kind of like these guys:

When I got my laptop, I started watching shows and movies on it thanks to friends who downloaded regularly—I never download any of that stuff because I like letting other people do the dirty work—and sites that allow free streaming.

At this point, not having watchable channels on the telly was something of an advantage. I could watch new episodes of shows airing in other countries almost as soon as they came out, unlike everyone else who had to wait for them to be aired here (if they ever were aired here, that is).

Stage 1 
And then, a couple of weeks ago, after a few years of debate, we got a new TV set. The deal was that if we bought a new telly, we’d get all those channels to go with them. The dish connection came only about a week after the telly, so the first week was kind of like this:

Stage 2
I returned home after being away for the weekend, and found hundreds of channels to flip through (although I didn’t bother previewing most of them), accompanied by mixed feelings of joy (“Oh, so many channels! I don’t have to wait for stuff to stream online and watch off a small monitor any more”) and cynicism (“Now I can watch shows at specific times dictated by the TV. With ad breaks. After they’re at least a couple of seasons old”).

Stage 3 
Despite the cynicism, after not switching on your telly for months because you knew it was pointless, you’re more excited than anything else, and so you decide to see what the channels have to offer. Initially, everything is awesome. Even the advertisements are refreshing, simply because they’re more aesthetically pleasing than the ones on the DD channels. So you're kind of going back to part one of stage 0, where you’ll watch pretty much anything.

Stage 4
After the initial excitement wears off, you fall into a routine. There are certain shows you watch regularly, and others that you watch while waiting for the regular shows to begin or return after the ad break. Not so much magic any more, but it’s nice to have a couple of good shows to watch and not be obsessed with simply any colourful show on the telly.

PS - Looking at this post makes me realize that I really should get back to my real drawing materials.

Where Was I?

Hello there!
Wow, it's been a while since my last post. Guess I took the procrastination really seriously. But that's not the only thing; I've been distracted by other stuff. Couldn't put up anything last Sunday because I went on a trip to a place where I didn't have access to the internet and didn't miss it one bit.  
The bigger distraction, however, is the new television set and the hundreds of channels. I try not to talk about it too much.

I've suddenly realized how much I miss college. I love work, but I really miss college. I actually went three times this week and talked to random juniors and other people I've never seen before. There are so many great things about going back after you've graduated, especially when people remember you and look happy to see you. Teachers treat you like old pals they're meeting after years, and students who don't even know you seem to treat you with utmost respect.
You can also wave your phone around and not care about it getting confiscated. Oh wait, I don't think we ever bothered to be discreet about our cellphones. But you know what I mean, right? You can walk around the campus when everyone else is in class.

There are those few awkward moments, though. I keep introducing myself to several juniors I don't remember having seen before, and when they say they know me, it surprises me so much that I can't help blurting out, "Really? I've never seen you before. (Oh damn, why did I have to say that?)" People remember you. Even when you don’t remember them. Then again, since you're the senior, you can get away with it.

It's also a little saddening when you see strangers in your classrooms and realize you can’t just walk into class and take a nap.

The most awkward thing of all is when people ask you what you do and you blank out for a moment because you're about to say "I'm in college", and then realize that's not true any more.

You can expect a nostalgic post about college some time soon, but this is it for now. The TV is distracting me. 

Malls: An Analysis

Total satisfaction provided by a mall -> negative. 

(I'm not calculating the numerical value. You can do that if you really want to.)

PS - Haven't been able to blog in ages thanks to problems like bad and/or altogether non-existent internet connection. Thus no post last Sunday, but I'm back, much to my own delight.