30 Days of TV: Day Four

My Favourite Show Ever

Days of Our Lives

 

As you might have already noticed, I love me some soap operas! Far and away Days of Our Lives, DOOL as it is affectionately called, is my absolute favourite of all the soap operas I follow. In my household, it's always been called Roozaia Zendegi, and it was watched every day without fail. Mum would get so cranky when I would forget to tape DOOL and The Bold and the Beautiful, which, let's be honest, was quite often.

Days of Our Lives holds a special place in my heart because I've grown up watching the show and it's characters have been a constant in my life since I was in the womb. I love good soap and, for the most part, DOOL has delivered tenfold. From Marlena's possession to Sami and Lucas scheming to come between Austin and Carrie to Vivian burying Carly alive DOOL has always been the craziest of all the soap operas...and it's been a hell of a ride following along. 

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30 Days of TV: Day Three

My Favourite New Show of the 2011 Season

Downton Abbey

Seven episodes of goodness make up my favourite new tv show of the season this year. I've always been interested (read: obsessed) with period dramas, in particular those that revolve around the English aristocracy. I guess re-reading Pride and Prejudice and re-watching the BBC miniseries every single year without fail since I was 15 might possibly have a little something to do with it. 

But what you'll find in most novels about the English aristocracy is that it will solely focus on the social dynamics within that particular class. You'll be introduced to accomplished aristocratic ladies whose lives centre around parties, gossip and finding a gentlemen worth 10, 000 pounds and a large country estate to settle down with. And a title, if possible!

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30 Days of TV: Day Two

A Show That You Wish More People Were Watching

It'd be a cop out if I said American Soap Operas once again...so I'm going to go with...

Parenthood

This warm little nugget of television goodness is shockingly underrated and mostly ignored by mainstream viewers. I'm not entirely sure why Parenthood hasn't reached the popularity levels that family-centric shows like Brothers and Sisters and Modern Family have, but I suppose it comes down to a few factors.

• Going up against uber popular crime and legal shows on other networks
• Lack of star power
• Lack of storyline sensationalism

To put it bluntly, Parenthood just isn't sexy. It's dysfunctional (without being pretentious) and, while it has some recognisable tv stars, they're mostly faces you might remember from a show way back when, but you can't quite make out their name. Are Peter Krause, Monica Potter and Craig T. Nelson household names? No. Not even close.

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30 Days of TV: Day One

A Show That Should Never Have Been Cancelled 

American Soap Operas

It's hard to say what show I'd like networks to desperately bring back. As an avid soap opera watcher, I'd like to reserve the right to group all cancelled soap opera shows together as my "Show That Should Never Have Been Cancelled". 

There's something about sitting down with the women in your family and watching your stories. It's something that was passed down from my grandmother to my mother, and hopefully, if the survivors stick around, to my daughters. Soap Operas are about family, love and life in its essence and it's about setting aside the dreary doldrums of life for an hour or two to watch the characters on your favourite show. It's about following along with the show's decades old family circles as they got married, broke up, had children and we all watched those children grow up within the show's context. I grew as they grew.

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The Woman in a Chair

Yes, I know...a chair theme. That was the unexpected theme of my day.

About an hour ago I was watching Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill on cable. While I love this movie dearly and always get those tingly, fuzzy feelings in my tummy when I watch it, a new kind of feeling took over me this time around. I hadn't seen this movie for a few years and so when I watched it tonight, I couldn't help but tear up towards the end of the film. See that usually happens when Roberts starts her "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her" speech to Grant, but, oddly enough, I found myself greatly touched by another couple in the movie- Max and Bella.

Grant's character William's best friend is Max, who has a paraplegic wife named Bella. It isn't the fact that she is paraplegic that moved me, it was the love these two characters shared. After William has turned down Roberts' Anna, even after her romantic overture, his friends make him realise he has made a terrible mistake and rally to go in search of Anna on her last day in London. Max brings his car around and the whole gang squashes inside to go along for the adventure- except for Bella.

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The Man on the Bench

As I was walking to the mechanic's today to pick up my car I saw this elderly man sitting on a park bench by the road. He was an unassuming man, dressed in grey trousers, a white shirt, a beige cardigan and was topped with a tweed flat cap. This elderly man was sitting on this bench by the side of a boring road near my house. All that was in this man's line of vision was a petrol station and a mechanic's shop. But there he was in the middle of the afternoon on this park bench, one arm across his torso supporting the other that was supporting his chin.

I stared at this gentleman for quite some time. I'm pretty sure he knew I was there, but that didn't deter him. In the time I spent looking at him, I couldn't stop thinking about how content and focused he looked. There he was on this park bench, on a road whose most exciting activity consists of people pumping petrol into their cars. Yet, he seemed to derive pleasure from watching these cars pull in, get their fill of petrol and drive off to an unknown destination. The intensity in his expression was so powerful that I couldn't get his image out of my mind all day.

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