Favorite TV Shows

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Today's topic: Favorite TV Shows and Why

Oh, this is a fun one! I could talk for days about television shows. Not that I'm addicted, but I do love watching TV. And there are more great shows out there now than ever before!

As a writer, I don't watch television or movies for only the pleasure, but I study these shows to strengthen my writing craft. I watch how the actors portray the emotions their characters are experiencing, from a quizzically raised eyebrow to a simple hand gesture. I listen to the dialogue, how it is structured, how it is spoken and word choice. And I study the plots and character development from the beginning of a show or series to the end. There's a lot a writer can learn from watching TV.

Okay, so that's out of the way, let's get to the good stuff!

(in no particular order)

Dark Shadows
Gothic Soap Opera Drama airing from 1966 - 1971
6 Seasons
1,225 episodes

This is probably the show that influenced me the most in shaping my creative life. My mother was a fan during the original airing of the show back in the '60s. She, like many others, ran home from school everyday so she could watch it.

In the '80s, it was picked up for syndication and after supper my mom and my brother and I would sit in the living room to watch two episodes from 7-8pm.

I was so hooked on this show. The suspense was mind boggling for a little girl. I remember constantly asking my mother after each episode ended on a nail-biting cliffhanger, "What happens next?"

She would never tell me. I'd have to wait until the next day to find out. (These are days way before Netflix binging!)

Dark Shadows centered around the Collins family, a wealthy and eccentric family who lived in Collinsport, Maine. It began as a simple gothic show filled with suspense, but became hugely popular with the introduction of the nearly 200 year-old vampire, Barnabas Collins. The show featured many supernatural storylines including witches, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, warlocks, and time travel.


I had so many favorite characters on this show. Barnabas because he was a vampire, at first evil but soon he became the good guy. Quentin, first a ghost, and also we discovered he was cursed to become a werewolf when Barnabas went back in time to find out why he haunted Collinwood. Tom Jennings was a descendant of Quentin's and also cursed to become a werewolf. Angelique, the witch, who terrorized Barnabas and his family, all because she was madly in love. Maggie and Joe were my favorite couple. I loved them together.

So many great memories of this show, and I will admit, this has influenced my writing. I write about witches, vampires and werewolves. They're my favorite supernatural creatures!

Supernatural
Supernatural Drama airing from 2005 to present
14 Seasons (15 will be the last Season)
307 episodes (and counting)

Which leads me to my adulthood supernatural addiction. Oh, Dean! I mean, oh, my! Several years ago, many memes were circulating the internet about SuperWhoLock. I didn't understand what that meant, but eventually I discovered it was a mash-up word describing fans of Supernatural, Doctor Who and Sherlock. Well, I gave Doctor Who and Sherlock a try (as I'll explain later), so I figured I'd might as well check out this Supernatural show that everyone was talking about.

My little Dark Shadows heart was in supernatural Heaven by episode two. The first episode introduced the brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester and the search for their father who went missing on a "hunting" trip. As we discover, their mother was killed by a demon when Sam and Dean were children and their father, John Winchester, has been hunting the thing that killed her ever since.

And so begins an epic saga that has lasted for 14+ seasons. This show has everything a fan of the supernatural could dream of. Two extremely handsome and sexy brothers who are knee-deep in a world of blood, knives, guns, curses and death, filled with ghosts, demons, angels, vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, Leviathans, evil clowns, a phoenix, the Four Horsemen, God and his sister, the Darkness as well as other Gods and Goddesses. And the list goes on!


Each episode alone is highly addicting, but the overall story arc and the development of these characters is what is really fascinating. It's a story about family and friendship and the lengths that two brothers and an angel will go through to save the world and each other.

I'll tell you that some of the episodes, especially in the first season were downright scary. And the cliffhanger at the end of Season 1! When that moment happened, while I was lounging on my sofa, I sat straight up and cried out in shock.






Thank Chuck for Netflix Binge Watching! I don't think I would've have been able to cope waiting so many month to watch the next season.

Doctor Who
Science Fiction airing from 1963-1989
A film in 1996
Continued airing from 2005-Present
37 Seasons
851 Episodes

My uncle was a Doctor Who fan and I remember watching a few episodes with Tom Baker with him when he came home to visit during his days enlisted in the Army. I remember distinctly Tom Baker's ridiculously long scarf and wondered when I was a kid, how did he not trip constantly over that thing?

I didn't get hooked on this show until it's new incarnation in 2005. It was actually a little later that I began watching. Matt Smith was already the Doctor, but I started with Christopher Eccleston's first episode, Rose.

I first thought it was cheesy. It was weird. I didn't quite understand why everyone was crazy about this show. But, I was curious enough to watch the second episode. It wasn't until the third episode that I was hooked. When Rose and the Doctor went back in time and met Charles Dickens and the ghosts who turned out to be an alien species, I was in total love! This was what I wanted to see!

The man could time travel! And not just to the future or distant worlds like I had thought from my memories of Tom Baker. He could travel back in time, too. Oh, yeah. Now we're talking. I would love to travel back in time and the Doctor soon became my hero.

The Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He travels through time and space in the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) a spaceship he stole and has been running every since. He typically travels with companions which fuels his joy in experiencing new adventures. It's filled with timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly stuff. It's a fun, exciting show that ignites the imagination of the viewer. And it's a family show, made with children in mind, although some of the episodes are downright terrifying!

Are you my mummy? 

I am completely addicted to this alien and his constantly evolving storyline. Oh, yeah. Another thing. He's kinda immortal. He has this thing that happens when he's close to dying.

He regenerates.

That's a neat trick that the writers came up with during the First Doctor's reign. William Hartnell, who played the First Doctor, was having health issues, so instead of cancelling the show or replacing him outright with another actor, they devised the regeneration so they could recast the Doctor as many times as they wanted. This kept the show going for decades.

Sherlock
Crime Drama airing from 2010-2017
4 Seasons
13 Episodes

 Once I got caught up with Doctor Who, I moved onto Sherlock. I was a little doubtful that I'd enjoy this version of my favorite mystery detective. I had read several Sherlock novels and short stories in my early 20s. I became addicted to reading the stories, so I eventually bought the entire collection by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I'd watch several different versions of Sherlock such as the movies starring Basil Rathbone and the newer ones with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law. When I was a teenager, my favorite Sherlock movie came in the version of the Young Sherlock Holmes which I thought was very enjoyable.

I knew nothing about Benedict Cumberbatch or Martin Freeman. Also, this version of Sherlock was set in present-day London, which I had trouble envisioning.

Oh, how wrong I was to doubt the creative genius of Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss! Each episode is really like a mini-movie. From the very first, A Study in Pink, I was enthralled. These were characters I fell instantly in love with and the storyline was engaging and mysterious. I was solving the mystery along with Sherlock and Watson, trying to figure out who did it. It was entertaining and fun!

And, again, we had these amazing and shock inducing cliffhangers at the end of each series! The kind that left you crying for days and days. I was lucky to binge watch, but eventually I got caught up and had to wait.

And I'm waiting again. Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss have both said they have not said good-bye to Sherlock and Watson. They foresee more mysteries for them to solve in the future. It's just a matter of when.

Farscape
Science Fiction airing from 1999-2003
4 Seasons
88 Episodes

I've talked about Farscape on my blog before, so you can check out that post about naming my baby girl. It's an amazing science fiction show about how an astronaut/scientist, John Crichton, takes an experimental spacecraft into orbit and inadvertantly creates a wormhole in which he is sucked into, shooting him across the universe to a place where he encounters aliens of all types and shapes and he must learn to survive and find a way back home. It's a compelling drama with interesting characters and storylines. It's really a fantastic show that ended way too early.

Firefly
Space Western Drama aired in 2002
1 Season
14 Episodes

Sorry! I'm so sorry!

Another show that ended way too soon was Firefly. This show was about a diverse cast of characters trying to survive in a space after a horrible Civil War. They live on a ship called Serenity. The dynamic between these characters keeps the drama and suspense at the addiction level. Each episode, you learn something new about one of them, their backstory and history and their goals for the future. It was a great show that should have been allowed to continue telling stories.

The Walking Dead
Horror Drama airing from 2010-Present
9 Seasons
131 Episodes (and counting)

My husband introduced me to this terrifying television series. I was never a huge fan of zombies. I mean, I watched the Romero movies, but I was more interested in vampires and such. The dead coming back to life? Not my thing.

This show doesn't focus so much on the zombies, but on the survivors. I was well and truly terrified by watching it. I seriously couldn't believe they let this kind of show on TV! The make-up and special effects were amazing. And no one is safe on this show. Anyone can die and any time. And they did! I've watched in tears as some of my favorite characters were killed off and then had to watch The Talking Dead to mourn them.

I'm so grateful for The Talking Dead. It's therapy after watching all that terror, fear, agony and heartbreak. Chris Hardwick, the host, walks viewers through the events of each Walking Dead episode and there are interviews with the actors as well as cool information about the creation of the show and special effects.

I wish some other shows had a therapy show afterward.









Honorable Mentions:

Star Trek
Star Trek: Next Generation
Lost
Penny Dreadful
Game of Thrones
True Blood
Law & Order

Reality TV

I'm not a huge fan of Reality TV, but there are, of course, some shows that are compelling to watch. These are some of my favorites.

Ghost Hunters
Paranormal Reality Series airing from 2004-2016
11 Seasons
217 Episodes
13 Specials

I went to a Romance Writer's Conference in Connecticut one year and was excited to see they had a workshop with two paranormal investigators. As you might understand by now, ghosts thrilled me and I was eager to hear what these guys had to say. Two men who were employed as plumbers during the day and investigated haunted houses at night. It was interesting to listen as they explained what they did and the things they experienced. Not much frightens me, but I'll admit that some of the stuff they talked about, some of the events they investigated were scary. The talk of demon and ghost possession was spooky. I believed and experienced hauntings myself, but demons?

Anyway, I checked under my bed at the hotel room that night.

A few months (years?) later, as I was watching (probably Farscape) on the Syfy channel, I saw a commercial advertising a new show called Ghost Hunters. To my surprise, I recognized the two lead investigators on the show.

Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson. The same two men who I met at the conference! Remembering their discussion about ghosts and paranormal activity, I knew I just had to watch the show and sure enough, I loved it. I watched every single episode as well as the eventual spin-off, Ghost Hunters International.

Anything with Josh Gates

We all have our celebrity crushes, right? Well, aside from Jensen Ackles and Gerard Butler, Josh Gates is mine. He is handsome, comical, adventurous and loves to travel. And he wears a Fedora! A killer combination. What more could a girl ask for in a guy?

I've watched Destination Truth and Expedition Unknown in which he hunts monsters and supernatural creatures.

There's a theme in my life, right?


Honorable Mentions:

Passport to Europe
Ghost Adventures
Dirty Jobs
Deadliest Catch 


Wow! This list ended up being way longer than I intended, but there are just so many great shows out there. I hope you found something that might entertain you!

Until next time!

 Happy Reading!

~Tricia

Check out the other Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge!

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Supernatural #25daysofbooks

This year I’m counting down the days ‘til Christmas with books and other fun things readers enjoy! I love the Holiday Season so I’m sharing ideas for you to fill your holiday stocking!

 


One of my newest favorite shows is Supernatural. I started watching it about a year ago. I confess, I binged on Netflix. Honestly, the show is addicting! I love the characters and the storylines. The creepy episodes of the first season had me gasping in surprise at times. And by the stunning and edge-of-your-seat gripping season finale, I knew that this show was on my must-see list.

The show is about two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, and their life of hunting monsters. Their mother was killed by a demon when Sam was 6 months old and Dean was 4. After their mother's death, their father took them on the road on the search for the thing that killed her. Along the way, they learned about other monsters, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and other types of ghouls and hunted them to help the humans that needed saving. It became as Dean says a family business.

There are so many plot twists and tragedies that leave me in tears, but there are also the humorous episodes and the quirky characters that keep me laughing in stitches. I'm telling you, if you like the paranormal or supernatural elements, this show is for you! Or if you like stories about family and close friends, this is also something you might like.

Since last summer, I was all caught up on the episodes and waiting impatiently for the new season to start, I need to do something to get my Supernatural fix. I found books at Barnes & Noble that satisfied that need. Here are a few you might want to try:

Supernatural: Nevermore 

by Keith R.A. DeCandido

 

Twenty years ago they lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. In the years after, their father, John, taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America...and he taught them how to kill it.

Sam and Dean have hit New York City to check out a local rocker's haunted house. But before they can figure out why a lovesick banshee in an '80s heavy-metal T-shirt is wailing in the bedroom, a far more macabre crime catches their attention. Not far from the house, two university students were beaten to death by a strange assailant. A murder that's bizarre even by New York City standards, it's the latest in a line of killings that the brothers soon suspect are based on the creepy stories of legendary writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Their investigation leads them to the center of one of Poe's horror classics, face-to-face with their most terrifying foe yet. And if Sam and Dean don't rewrite the ending of this chilling tale, a grisly serial killer will end their lives forevermore.

 

Supernatural: Night Terror 

by John Passarella

Alerted to strange happenings in Clayton Falls, Colorado, Bobby sends the boys to check it out. A speeding car with no driver, a homeless man pursued by a massive Gila monster, a little boy chased by uprooted trees — it all sounds like the stuff of nightmares. The boys fight to survive a series of terrifying nighttimes, realizing that sometimes the nightmares don’t go away — even when you’re awake...

A Supernatural novel that reveals a previously unseen adventure for the Winchester brothers, from the hit TV series!

Supernatural: Fresh Meat 

by Alice Henderson

A rash of strange deaths in the Tahoe National Forest bring Sam, Dean and Bobby to the Sierra Nevada mountains to hunt a monster with a taste for human flesh. Soon walking corpses, bodies with missing organs, and attacks by a mysterious flying creature lead the trio to a cunning and deadly foe which can assume a human form and will do anything to survive. When a blizzard strikes the area, and not knowing who they can trust, they must battle not only the monster, but also the elements to survive.
A Supernatural novel that reveals a previously unseen adventure for the Winchester brothers, from the hit TV series!

Supernatural: John Winchester’s Journal by AlexIrvine

 
Sam and Dean Winchester take up the reins of their father's quest to hunt down the demon who killed their mother. Lucky for them,John recorded the secrets of his dark crusade in his one-of-a-kind journal filled with hard-won knowledge of monster hunting and preternatural dealings—a tome revealing the heart of a man haunted by guilt after the death of Sam and Dean's mother . . . and a story that ends abruptly at John's own disappearance.Without the diary, Sam and Dean would have been lost during their adventures on the CW's Supernatural—and now, with the journal itself in your hands, you too can delve into the eldritch world of monsters, ghost, spirits and ghouls alongside television's hottest demon hunters. A opus of hidden knowledge, John Winchester's Journal is a must-have addition to any Supernatural fan's occult library.

Supernatural: Bobby Singer’s Guide to Huntingby David Reed

My name is Bobby Singer. In twenty-four hours I’m gonna lose my memory. So here’s everything you need to know. Monsters, demons, angels, vampires, the boogeyman under your bed: I’ve seen it, I’ve hunted it, I’ve killed it. I’m not the only hunter out here, but there aren’t as many as there used to be. Not near as many as there need to be. I’ve learned everything I can about every damned critter that walks, crawls, or flies, and I’m not gonna let that all be for nothing. I’m not going down without a fight. I’m not letting everything I’ve learned disappear. So that’s what you’re holding in your hands—everything I know. Anything that’d be useful for Sam, Dean, and the hunters that come after me.

It’s a guide to hunting...it’s a guide to me. My last will and testament. Ya idjits.

And there's a calendar, too! 

Happy Holidays!

~Tricia