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Hey there,

Great question and thanks so much for all the Dollhouse comments.

I guess there are several reasons why I review what I do. So like my reviews I will go into excruciating detail

1) You are right about procedural shows. It's difficult to argue that there is a strict criteria for what is or isn't a police drama or a hospital drama. Dexter is a police show in many ways but as the focus is so heavily on his psychology, I really enjoy it. But generally speaking I want to review comedies and dramas where the focus is primarily on the characters and not just on their work.

2) I want to build episode guides for shows and not just comment on a few episodes. My aim is to explore the art form of television in details. So I feel an obligation to cover every episode of a show I write about. How else could I chart its rise and fall and the reasons behind it?

3) With that in mind I can only review so many shows at one time. I didn't have a strict idea in place about which shows I would cover or not when I started this venture. So I just started reviewing the shows I was watching at the time.

4) In the case of Battlestar, Dexter and Curb Your Enthusiasm for example. They were all so many seasons in that I felt it would take me too much time to go back and cover their earlier seasons. For better or worse I took a gamble on a show like FlashForward and hope that I could provide proper coverage from start to finish.

5) In the case of The Simpsons and Family Guy, both way into their runs I also have sort of commercial considerations in mind. I get a lot of traffic still from people randomly searching for Friends episodes. So I know many years in the future there will be people searching for information on both.

6) As American TV is my passion and I want to be a well informed critic I still watch all the other shows I blog about. And I hope through the weekly podcast I can cover them a little without having to commit to reviewing them. As time goes by and shows like Dollhouse end, slots will open up for me to review other shows. But as FlashForward may prove, it's difficult to know what to cover until you see it!

Thanks again for reading\listening I really appreciate it.

Robin

Hey,

Good question and thanks for posting. The short answer is none of them I'm afraid.

My friend George whose opinion on TV I trust was a fan of "Dark Angel" especially early on. But even he was watching it after it was cancelled.

I know Kevin McKidd well from "Rome" but didn't watch "Journeyman." I hadn't really heard of "Wonderfalls" and critical reaction was mixed on "Dead Like Me" so I didn't start watching it either.

It's only in the last 2 years that I have started to watch the pilots of as many shows as I can which fit into my rough boundaries of comedy and non-procedural dramas. So I guess each of these slipped past me by not becoming bigger deals. Do you think I have missed out on anything special?

R

Hey Mike, thanks for the question. It gives me the chance to indulge and talk about myself.

I have a complicated relationship with all the shows I review. Since starting to chart their weekly progress by writing about them they have become like errant children to me - disappointing and delighting me in different measures each time I sit down with them. So as you can imagine some were once a delight and are now a chore (The Simpsons), some you think can do a lot better than they do (The Big Bang Theory) and some you can't wait to usher our of your house (FlashForward, 30 Rock).

The shows I enjoy the most happen to be the ones I don't write full reviews of at the moment - Dexter, Breaking Bad, Community, Parks and Recreation and now Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Sadly my time is limited and I can't write about them all in as much detail as I would like. As I go on I will have to work out each year how to go on with each show, which to write about, which to podcast about or whether to change the way I approach the whole game.

But as I'm sure you know Lost is above all those shows in my affections. In terms of drama shows there have been 3 in my life which raised the genre above others and made me really interested in TV again by their very existence. In chronological order they are Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape and now Lost. If it weren't for Lost I wouldn't have a website or a podcast.

The show's scope and depth are far beyond any other show I have ever watched. Season one and two of Lost hooked me emotionally like no other contemporary show has. There's no chance that any of the other shows on air right now will come close to what Lost has achieved.

But I will admit that Lost has become incredibly complicated. Each week is a slog of trying to justify and unpick at strands which stretch so far back. I have found myself more emotionally satisfied by the simple tales of love, betrayal and injustice being played out in Spartacus. But this is why I take my criticism very seriously. It's possible that I could conclude that Spartacus season one was more satisfying than Lost season six but that doesn't mean one is better than the other. They are so different and their goals and achievements need to be measured in very different ways.

So yeah, Lost is the answer you were looking for Thanks for letting me indulge.

What's nice about Wonderfalls is that you'll be done in about 13 hours. I believe only 4 of the episodes ever aired on tv.

Dark Angel had some wonderful characters and a lot of potential. The ending felt disjointed like Dollhouse but you can see where it might've been able to go.

Dead Like Me had fine dry humor and some marvelous performances. Like Dark Angel it only had two seasons. I have heard a movie was made to wrap things up but I was content with the series finale.

I think I just loved Journeyman because of Kevin McKidd and how he had such great chemistry with all his fellow actors. (Okay, plus I think he's hot in a non-pretty boy way that is so unusual in entertainment these days). It also called back nicely to Quantum Leap - an old favorite.