SFist Watches: Reruns This Week
We didn't think our recent acquisition of digital cable would lead us to watch a bunch of shows we've already seen, but this is summer, after all. It's the season of reruns and crappy new reality shows. We already voiced our disdain for the latter last week, so this time we're going to wax nostalgic about some shows of yore, some shows that aired so long ago, you might have forgotten about them completely.
Like 2002's "Firefly." (2002?! Did they even have cars back then?) The Sci-Fi channel is re-running the Joss Whedon series that Fox cancelled before it even got a chance to finish (thus leading to the launch of a million fan sites). The Sci-Fi channel will rerun the entire series, including the episodes that never made it to the air orignally. All of this will, hopefully, get people excited for the release of the feature film spin-off Serenity, which will hit theaters in September. Now, we love us some Joss Whedon, and we were die-hard "Buffy" fans (yes, even the seasons where she was all depressed about coming back from heaven, and doin' it with Spike) but we will admit that we weren't completely blown away by "Firefly." There was something about the whole "wild west in space" concept that bugged us, and we also found lead actor Nathan Fillion bland and completely unappealing. But on the other hand, it was also filled with patented Whedon humor, and Gina Torres. So we're going to give the show another chance, and maybe even be there opening night for the movie. You can catch "Firefly" Friday nights at 7.
One person's heaven is another person's hell. Image from the "What's Happening!" TV Heaven page.
Nostalgia for 2002 is nothing like the nostalgia we have for the mid 90s, when flannel was king, radio was virtually free of rap-rock, and Clinton was president. Ahhh. Youth. So it was with much delight that we realized we could get a daily dose of the quintessential 90s show, "My So-Called Life" every night at 2 a.m. on The N. We recently watched the episode where Angela is secretly makin' out with Jordan Catallano in the boiler room, and then he disses her at the Buffalo Tom show, but totally holds her hand in the hallway at school in front of, like, everyone, and we almost DIED. Or something. Anyway, we're not sure how much longer they'll be re-running the show (they've been airing it since 2004), but they've recently completed one rerun cycle, and are now at about the third episode. And as every die-hard fan knows, there were only 19 episodes total, so catching them all shouldn't be too hard.
The 90s were also, save for "Cops," almost devoid of what we now call reality TV. How is that possible? What were people WATCHING? Were they actually sitting around watching a bunch of scripted sitcoms and dramas, like a bunch of ANIMALS? The thought fills us...well, fills us with joy, actually. But we aren't really the reality TV snobs we wish we could be. There are some shows that we just can't get enough of. Like "The Amazing Race." We don't know how we missed the first three seasons of what has turned out to be our favorite reality show, but thanks to the Game Show Network, we are catching up, and boy, are we loving it. How we got this far in life without wasting energy hating on Team Guido, we'll never know. We can actually say we DON'T know who wins the first season (so please don't spoil it for us) and we're getting a good daily dose of adrenaline watching it. Yes, daily, as the reruns are on EVERY DAY at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. It's heaven!
For a trip to hell, we'll venture on over to the Outdoor Life Network which will start airing "Survivor" reruns, starting with season one, on July 24th, with episodes airing three and sometimes FOUR times a day. (Check their schedule, as the times change.) Now, we think everyone and their mother probably knows who won that first season of "Survivor," and knowing the outcome will probably make it really hard for us to stomach watching the whole show again, so we'll just tune in to the finale, so we can hear that awesome Sue speech one more time. Who said reality reruns would never make it?