Opinion Five-Spot, WE 11/7/10 - Elections, Life Unexpected, Survivor, The Office, The Walking Dead

My second weekly Five-Spot gives some opinions on the stuff I watched this week. I found it pretty difficult doing this from memory, so some of these are more general thoughts on the season to date rather than episode-specific. I'll try to keep a notepad by the TV going forward, and maybe these will get better! For more on this whole "Five-Spot" idea, see my intro post from yesterday. Here's your Opinion Five-Spot for the week ending November 7, 2010:

Election coverage - I mostly watched CNN because I find all the obnoxious technology kinda endearing. I like to flip to other networks during commercials, and I always find it amusing how the cable news nets are even "biased" in their projection making. At most given points when I flipped over, Fox News was painting a slightly rosier picture for the Republicans than CNN. I might actually try to track this scientifically in 2012. I think there's something interesting there. (Well, to me, anyway.)

Life Unexpected - I hate to pile on since the show was effectively axed last week, but my enjoyment of the series has seriously declined in season 2. It's just so damn angsty, and of late the angst has gotten seriously repetitive. Each week the marriage between Ryan and Cate almost completely collapses and is somehow pulled back from the brink. Each week Lux and the teacher tell themselves they shouldn't date each other but the window opens back up somehow. Love the actors, but not sure I'll miss it that much.

Survivor - This is widely labeled one of the worst seasons of Survivor ever, but I'm actually enjoying it. And I'm not even really disagreeing that it's subpar. Why am I enjoying it? Probably because I took a few years off from Survivor. I was a mega-fan in the early 2000s, came back for the excellent Heroes vs. Villains season last spring, and now it all just seems a little newer. Recommended for any Survivor fan who's getting burnt out. (Though we don't really know how much longer the show will last, so it is a calculated risk...)

The Office - On Twitter last week I swore off reading reviews (and especially review comment sections) of The Office going forward. I'm gonna try to stick with that. It's pretty difficult to have to read over and over and over how a show still giving you a lot of enjoyment is completely creatively spent. We're a long way from the show's peak, but it's still better than almost everything else I'm watching. As for this week's episode, I thought Michael Scott discovering the warmth of a religious community was quite fascinating.

The Walking Dead - OK, I swear that all of these aren't going to be "ALL THE CRITICS ARE WRONG!" going forward. I'm not that much of a contrarian. But many thought episode 2 of AMC's The Walking Dead was pretty bad, and I still enjoyed it. I felt Rick's reunion with his family wouldn't come till the end of season 1 (cliffhanger, even?) but it looks like they're gonna get down and dirty with those dynamics right away. Bring it on. Maybe it's a sign that, for better or for worse, this show won't burn as slowly as other AMC shows.

More Five-Spots can be found in the Index.