Shows To Watch (June 2016)

First off apologies for my long absence, as you may know from my blog procrastination is my thing. So in some ways writing this is a bit of a procrastination from uni exams but hey, it's still a post. I thought I'd start something off a bit easy and hope that there will be more posts to come.

Here are some of the shows I'm currently watching. For the show to be listed it must currently be airing or recently ended (or between series if it is still going). It can be from TV and online streaming services (such as Netflix, Stan, or Hulu [for all you Americans]).

Once Upon a Time (2011 - )

(Source: http://www.playbuzz.com/lilyanna10/can-you-match-the-once-upon-a-time-character-with-the-disney-name)

Once Upon a Time just finished it's fifth season and has already being confirmed for a sixth! Although this show hasn't been everyone's cup of tea it is still really good. After the whole 'curse' premise of the show ended in season 1, season 2 was definitely a bit Lost (haha, forgive me, if you know a bit about the show you will get the joke). However things did start to pick up from the third season and the show finally found a flow with it's half-season major plot points as well as story arches throughout the whole show. Plus there are some pretty amazing scenes in the show and plenty of emotion. If you love fairy tales give this show a try.

Wentworth (2013 - )

(Source: https://www.foxtel.com.au/watch/wentworth.html)

Wentworth is an example of great Australian television recognised around the world. It is the contemporary remake of the Australian classic drama series "Prisoner". It is absolutely amazing. So good in fact that despite its young age it has broken the glass ceiling of Australian television and become a worldwide phenomenon which has already sparked off multiple spin-offs in other languages and countries. The greatest thing about these is that they use a lot of the same cinematography and scripts (after translation of course) which really is a testament to how great this show was already. It really is filmed like a movie for the television and the characters are all so well-written (guards and prisoners alike) that you really feel for them all.

The Real O'Neals (2016 - )

(Source: http://www.citytv.com/toronto/shows/the-real-oneals/)

This hilarious new show with an amazing (and perfectly cast) cast is all about a seemingly perfect Irish-catholic family. The mother (Eileen) is practically head of the church committee, her husband (Pat) is a police officer, her eldest son (Jimmy) is a high-school wrestler, her middle son (Kenny) is a star pupil with a girlfriend and her daughter (Shannon) is a socially aware child who is always raising money for the church or other charities. Their family is the pride of the church. All this is turned upside down when Eileen and Pat decide to get divorced, Jimmy reveals he is anorexic, Shannon reveals that she keeps all the money she raises and Kenny decides to come-out as gay. All this is made all the more awkward by the fact that the whole church finds out at a charity event. With the help of Eileen's hilariously unaware sister Jodi the family try to navigate their new lives with all their secrets out in the open. It is a really great show that is equal parts funny and touching. The way they handle Kenny's coming out and subsequent coming to terms with his sexuality is also refreshing and realistic. It is a great show and I'm glad that it's being renewed for a second season.

UnREAL (2015 - )

(Source: http://blitz.arc.unsw.edu.au/2016/review-unreal-tv-show/)

UnREAL is the amazing new drama show about the producers behind a Bachelor-like show called "Everlasting". It's all about the manipulation and truth behind shows like The Bachelor. It is really well-written and has some really amazing scenes. The second season starts Monday in the United States and it has already being renewed for a third season (before the second even airs!). It was created by someone who used to work as a producer on The Bachelor and it's actually really interesting viewing. You will be amazed and everyone will be exposed.

Of course these are just some of the amazing shows out there right now. There are many more shows that I do watch that do also deserve to be on this list but maybe another time.

Reality Television

Reality Television, what is there to say? There is so much variety out there and, as always, there are many hits and many misses. Sometimes you see a reality television show and it's just like "Wow! This show is going somewhere" and everyone raves about it and it has a long run and retains its popularity. Then there are those shows that are good but viewers quickly lose interest because it gets repetitive. You also have those shows that just make you wish you could wipe your memory. These are the shows that are often quickly shifted off from a major channel to a minor one. Then there are the shows that are just 'there' and you don't really have an opinion of them but you wouldn't sit there and watch it every night.

The hits, the shows we just love to watch. They hook us in and we just find ourselves connecting with the people on the show. Or we just discover a love of heckling we never knew existed. Shows like this tend to stick around for a long time because viewers just love to come back for more. Survivor is a great example of this and millions of people tune in each year to watch all the challenges and the people and all the alliances and backstabbing and starvation. It is just one of those shows you can watch season after season without feeling it is getting repetitive. The Amazing Race is another example of this. All the challenges the pairs have to complete are always different and there are all the amazing landscapes and places that they visit and it really must do a lot for tourism.

There are also many shows that are good but get repetitive and the audience soon loses interest after a few seasons. These are the shows where at the start everyone loves it but a few seasons in the producers do everything they can to make the show seem new and more appealing because some shows you've seen once and that's all you need. A good example of this would probably be Masterchef Australia (the most successful Masterchef Franchise worldwide) which started off strongly and the producers were happy and then the viewers started tuning out and they brought out Junior Masterchef and Celebrity Masterchef. It just shows that good shows are those that don't become repetitive.

You then have those shows that people love to hate. Those shows that are built up to more than they could ever be. They start off on the main networks before being shunted off to a minor one when the ratings don't get to the level hoped. Excess Baggage from the Nine Network was an example of a show that was built up to be something it wasn't. It only took a few weeks before they moved it over to Go! where it spent its dying days with low ratings. Despite the 'famous' celebrities (I used quotation marks for a reason) taking part there wasn't anything really appealing about the show and if people wanted to see other people sweat-it-out to lose weight they would just watch The Biggest Loser.

Finally you have some shows that you just have to ask "Why?" They are the shows that you don't really have an opinion on but are just there. It's sort of like Federation Square. You don't really have an opinion on it but you can see why people don't like it. Celebrity Splash is a great example of this. I can't actually believe I am watching it right now. The worst part is I neither dislike it nor do I like it. It's just sort of there and something to watch. I'm just annoyed because it pushed Revenge back to 9:30 meaning I have to tape it because I have to go to bed at 10pm on school nights (so what, at least I get enough sleep). So Celebrity Splash, I can't see it coming back for a second season (if it ever finishes its first).

With Reality Television there are hits and misses and those somewhere in between. If they made The Hunger Games into a reality TV show I'd watch it (as long as I wasn't in it) and that would be a hit (with The Hunger Games fandom at least).

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Quirks

Quirks, we all have them. They are what separates us from the billions of others in the World. It is because of these quirks that a mother can tell between her two twins, or an owner from their identical dogs. Quirks are what separates us apart from those around us and what makes us who we are.

We all have quirks, some have more pronounced quirks while others have quirks you don't actually notice until they are pointed out to you. Sometimes we have quirks that we don't actually realise we have until someone comments on it. My family has all sorts of weird quirks which, at times, can make us hate each other or love each other. Sometimes even both, somehow. My mother, for instance, has a weird (and annoying) quirk of wanting to pay in exact change so she doesn't have so many coins while my Dad, on the other end of the spectrum, has so many coins that they're everywhere he has been. It's sort of like Hansel and Gretel with my Dad except instead of breadcrumbs, there's coins. I don't mean he drops coins when he goes into shopping centers but I mean, when he's at home and he's walking around he'll leave a pile on his bedside table, at the front door (on the bench, not the floor) or in my room (I'm not complaining, it's money in my room).

My brothers also have their own quirks. My middle brother, Joshua, gets hooked on TV shows and so when he gets hooked on one he will go out to the store and buy a season on DVD and then he'll finish that and go onto the next one. Or he'll re-watch a series we have at home and just spend weeks watching it. It really annoys my Mum because he's in Year 12 and doing VCE and he watches more TV than he does studying.  I mean, I do more studying than him and I am in Year 10 and only doing one VCE Unit 1/2 subject whereas his are all Unit 3/4 subjects because he is in Year 12. My eldest brother has his own quirk where he'll watch football (AFL, not that American crap) but he won't just watch it, he'll start screaming at the TV and you can understand what's going on down the other end of the house without having to turn the TV on. It gets really annoying though when you're trying to go to sleep. He can be a pain sometimes. I also have my quirks. One of them is the way I write in my books during class. Instead of facing the book Portrait like everyone else I turn my book sideways so it is landscape but I still write in portrait so instead of writing horizontally my arm is hooked around at a 90 degree angle and I write vertically up the page. I didn't actually realise this was a quirk until I got to high school and people were amazed at how I wrote. I say amazed because I couldn't think of a better word. I guess they were more confused rather than amazed.

So you see, we all have our quirks even if we don't realise it. Our quirks are part of what make up that 0.1% of DNA that is different to everybody else. The other 99.9% of our DNA is identical to the others around us but it is that 0.1% that makes all the difference, that makes up our skin colour, our eye colour, our personality and our quirks. So, however annoying our quirks may be we just have to remember that they are a part of us and without them the world be a worse place to be.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Sickness

Sickness is something that can not only bring down the mood of the person suffering but also the mood of the people around them. Sickness is a disease not only affecting the ill, but also their entourage. Ok, I'm done with making up meaningful sentences. What brings this sudden post about Sickness? Well my Mum has been in bed sick all day except for short spurts where the medicine kicked in and she was able to stand up and walk around. I actually found her on the floor this morning with Mockingjay (yay!) closed (no!) beside her because she had to lie down she felt so bad. She always gets bad headaches and now and again she gets bad migraines that makes her feel so bad she has to lie down. (This picture is not of her, obviously)

How does this affect those around her? Well, somehow when someone is sick it brings down the mood of the whole house which meant we really had a lazy day and I couldn't do my Methods because it was in her room (yeah, I procrastinated) and so me and my brother watched House for a while. Then I got my laptop out of Mum's room when she went outside with the dog (see down the bottom) and was doing some stuff on that. I updated my YouTube channel to the new YouTube One layout which meant instead of a channel background I now just have a header which is sort of like the Facebook Timeline Cover. So I spent another 2 hours (I broke for a shower and dinner, Dad came home) creating it using a combination of Word (to get rid of the backgrounds of two photos of me), Lego Digital Designer (to create my name) and Paint (to get everything together) as well as a template that showed the different sizes for the different views (Desktop, Mobile, Tablet and TV) therefore I could decide what to show on each (Mobile shows the name Legolukey in Lego [creative I know], Tablet shows a little longer version of this, Desktop shows the name plus the two photos of me either side and the TV view shows all this plus a bit extra black bit either side) to know what I mean you can visit my YouTube Channel or Facebook Page (I used it as the Timeline Cover). Well that is all I have for today but above I typed (See down the bottom) because I have a photo of Sandy enjoying a small rawhide bone on a beanbag which was funny because he would not get off and Dad had to physically lift him off it to put him to bed.

That is a Lego helicopter, not an RC helicopter as someone thought it was on Facebook.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow.