Television

I've written before about how we can only watch television on Hulu. This means we don't do much casual TV viewing; we watch shows we've seen since the beginning (30 Rock, Bones, and Up All Night), and not much else.

All of our TV shows took most of January off, and we were in the mood for some TV watching, since I was finished with a semester of class. We had to find a show that was in its first season and which still had all of its episodes available on Hulu. And that was how we ended up watching Revenge.

Thirteen episodes later, I wish I could come up with something more that recommends the show. If you like to see a character show her cold-bloodedness by crossing out pictures with permanent markers, then you should start watching Revenge. If you like to see the bad guy from Clear and Present Danger play the father of the pre-teen girl from 13 Going on 30, then you should start watching Revenge. And if you always wondered what a rich married couple says to each other over dinner, this screenshot from Revenge will satisfy your curiosity.

Here's what's most frustrating about the show to me: the first episode starts with the end of the season, so most of the drama is lost. When Tyler holds a gun to Emily's head, is he going to fire? No, because she's still alive three months later, remember? Are Declan and Charlotte going to break up? No, because they're still together three months later, remember?

Something interesting about the show is that all the characters have terrible traits, except for one, and guess who gets shot at the beginning of the first episode? Emily is supposed to be the heroine, but her pursuit of revenge (hence the show's title) is not praiseworthy.

This show would really suffer beyond a single season. And if the season-ending cliff-hanger is "Who shot the guy from Episode 1?", then the 22 episodes of the first season would have been totally pointless. When I start back up having things to do, this show might fall by the wayside. Until then, though, we'll continue watching.