too much time on my hands

I called out of work today. I've got the flu bug that's been going around. My temperature was 100.3 F this morning and 100.9 F as of 30 seconds ago. I've been generally sore and listless all day. Bored too. I've been resting off and on all day and intermittently playing on the computer.

My being ill though has afforded me the time to get into this old television series, which I picked up about a month ago. I remember when it was on regular television (the USA network, I think) but as usual for me, never got interested in it. How fascinating that I'm considering this an "old" television series, when it just came out a mere dozen years ago.

One of the reasons I bought the series is because some of my faithful blog commenters have said that if I liked "ALIAS" then I'd be sure to like this series, too. They even said that this series is better than "ALIAS" was.

That remains to be seen. After the first disc, La Femme Nikita holds much promise to at least be as good as "ALIAS" was.

Meet me at Shooters for drinks

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had started watching two old television series that I bought on DVD. The first of these series, of which I finished season one last night, is Melrose Place, which ran for seven seasons, from 1992-1999. As with many television shows, when they are running for the first time, I generally ignore them, though I do remember catching a few bits and pieces here and there. Recently though I've gotten into watching some of these old shows from the beginning to see what I was missing. I'm disappointed that I didn't pick up season two recently for cheap money when I had the chance. I'll keep my eyes out for it and rectify that error as soon as I can. Warning: some plot spoilers follow, so if you've lived your adult life in a virtual prime time television vacuum like me, beware! Don't say I didn't warn you.




The thirty-two episode first season cast included ten major characters living at 4616 Melrose Place:

Sandy Louise Harling (Amy Locane): Blond bombshell from South Carolina who moved to Los Angeles to wait tables while trying to become an actress. Unfortunately her character was written off the show after only twelve episodes, though her leaving was adequately explained within the story. Apparently part of the problem was that they saddled the New Jersey born actress with a Southern accent, she didn't like working in LA and the producers saw limited future in her character's story line.

Rhonda Blair (Vanessa Williams): Trendy hip hop aerobics dance instructor gets engaged towards the end of season one and is married off the show after thirty two episodes, some of which must take place in season two, since I would hope they wouldn't drop the character without reasonable explanation. Season one ended with her getting re-engaged.

Matt Fielding (Doug Savant): One of the first openly gay television characters who runs a soup kitchen and halfway house, mentoring kids. His major story arc is that he gets beat up for being a homosexual, gets fired from his job for the same and wins an out of court settlement from his employer, whom he sues for discrimination, to get his job back.

Jake Hanson (Grant Show): Bad boy character from whom the show spun off after a short two episode stint in season two of Beverly Hills 90210. Major story arc character is unemployed before getting a job as a motorcycle mechanic. When the store goes out of business, he partners with Jo to buy the shop and run it himself. Also discovers he's a dad through an old girlfriend and also that he may have HIV, as a result of a relationship with another former girlfriend.

Jo Reynolds (Daphne Zuniga): Moved to Los Angeles from New York to escape an alcoholic husband. Works as a freelance photographer and is Jake's love interest. She joined the show to replace the departed Amy Locane in the 13^th or 14^th episode.

Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro): Apartment building manager and resident intern at local hospital who works long hours. Because of that practically ignores his wife, which leads him into an affair with another doctor at the hospital. His turns out to be the longest running character on the show. Generally likable until his affair storyline.

Jane Andrews Mancini (Josie Bissett): Homemaker, boutique shop worker and budding clothing designer had several interesting plot lines including struggling as a newlywed, getting pregnant, having a miscarriage, struggling at work with an obsessive anal retentive boss and her husband's extramarital activities. This character wears some of the ugliest outfits ever. Must be the result of her character being a clothing designer. Few women look good with boyishly short hair. Josie Bissett is not one of them.

Billy Campbell (Andrew Shue): All around nice guy who struggles with trying to become a writer. Supports himself by driving a taxicab and then eventually gets a job working as a writer for a magazine. He has several interesting story lines, including getting mugged while driving his cab, the death of his father, a boss who throws the seduction moves around like a beach ball and dating your roommate's sexy boss. Not to mention a platonic relationship with his very attractive female roommate. Of all the characters on this show, I can relate best to him.

Alison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith): Receptionist for D&D advertising, then promoted to a creative role, then lets job responsibilities slack and even quits her job because she's obsessed with a man who happens to be married. Finally has to deal with workplace rivalry caused by her boss dating her roommate.

Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear): Becomes Alison's boss when she gets promoted in the ad agency. Falls immediately in love with Billy and dates him despite Alison's objections, then uses that to cause workplace stress and friction. Gotta love a little workplace cat fight between two good looking women. After breaking up with Billy, discovers that she's pregnant with his baby and uses that in her feud with Alison to make her jealous and drive a wedge between her and Billy. She joined the show about 2/3^rds into season one and will end up appearing in the second most amount of episodes of all the cast.

Yeah, I'm hooked. Can't you tell?

too close for comfort

I despise car repairs. Especially with older vehicles where I'm not the original owner and have no clue what was done repair-wise and what was not.

Every time I need my car fixed, I feel like I'm getting raped. See, I have no clue about the inner workings of a car's engine and other systems. About all I can do on my own is check the various fluid levels and add more when needed. So when I take the car into the shop, they could tell me just about anything is wrong with it and I'd probably believe them.

At this time and in this place, I drive a crappy green 2000 Chevy Lumina that had just over 100,000 miles on it when I bought it. I've owned this beast since December 2007 and for the most part have had no problems with it. Until about a month or so ago when my brakes started squeaking. I also started to hear a horrible sound coming from the engine area. Since my engine seemed to be loud, I thought I might have a hole in the exhaust system somewhere.

Last Friday, on my way to pick up V and M after work, I had some time before I was scheduled to meet them, so I pulled in to a local repair chain at which I've had work done before on other vehicles I've owned. I've felt in the past that they've treated me fairly and haven't gouged me too badly.

I knew I had multiple things wrong with the new beast and went in telling them what I suspected was wrong. They told me they could do a full check of the car and tell me everything that they found that needed attention, eventually, listing the most critical things first.

I told the guy behind the counter that I'd have to tackle the repairs in chunks for budgetary reasons and I asked him what the most critical repair was and how much it would cost. Turns out the price he quoted me was exactly 77 cents more than what I had in my checking account.

Good thing this Friday is payday.

----

I've started watching season one of two old television shows that I bought on DVD recently. One show I watched sporadically when it first aired and the other show I never watched at all but always wanted to see what the hype was about. The first show made its debut in 1982 and the second show made it's debut in 1992. What were the names of these shows? For now, I'll keep that to myself. Don't worry, I'll tell you what they are one of these days. In fact I think I'll watch a few episodes of one of these shows before I go to sleep for the night.

90210

For some reason, when new shows come on television, I rarely watch them right away. Such was the case earlier this year with Friends, as my regular readers will know.

That was also the case with Beverly Hills 90210 back when I was in college. I started watching that show sometime in 1994 or 1995, once it reached syndication. Quite frankly, what got me into the original show was Jennie Garth (Kelly Taylor) and Gabrielle Carteris (Andrea Zuckerman) whom I found incredibly attractive. I'm not so sure what happened to Gabrielle Carteris or what she looks like these days, but Jennie Garth is still hot (like last year when she did Dancing with the Stars).

Once I got into the show, I asked my wife (at the time) to tape it for me every day, since my job required me to work second shift two to three times per week. So for a time I was watching it in syndication and watching the new shows as they would come out weekly, starting with, I think, season five through season nine. I don't think I ever bothered with the final season, season ten.



Recently and much to my delight, I managed to acquire the first two seasons of the original Beverly Hills 90210 at a very reasonable price. I had seen some of the episodes but not all of them.

Did you know that a pre-"Friends" Matthew Perry has a guest starring role near the end of season one? Or that Vivica A. Fox has a guest spot in the first third of season two episodes?

Whether you were a fan of that show or not, it was one of those foundational shows that solidified FOX network as viable in comparison to the big three of ABC, CBS and NBC. You know, back in the day when there weren't a gazillion channels on cable and there was no such thing as tiers of channels that you could order from the cable company. When people said that there was no need for a fourth major network.


Which brings me to tonight's series premiere of 90210, the new spin off series I've been seeing the previews for all summer. I'm watching it now as I write this and I'm not sure what to make of it so far. Some of the characters from the old series have parts in this series and some of the characters of this series are the children of the kids in the old series. There are so many characters and plot lines in this two-hour episode that I'm not sure which characters we're supposed to like and which we're not.

I'm going to try and get into this show but my gut feeling is that it won't last but two or three seasons, if that. One of the reasons the original 90210 did so well at first was because the show was very topical and issues oriented for the first three plus seasons, blending the issues with the drama and character stories, then moving into pure glitz, glam and evening soap-opera plot-lines. This new show is getting into the soap opera style from the get go.

Yes, I know that I skipped tonight's Big Brother episode to watch 90210 and that's okay. I know I can watch BB tomorrow on cbs.com.

Anyway, I enjoyed watching the first two seasons of the original BH 90210, which means that eventually I'll buy the other eight seasons but not right away. Seasons three through five are still way too expensive for my taste and seasons six through ten haven't even been released yet.

Don't you worry about me, though. I've found some other older television shows on DVD to occupy my time, which I'll blog about after I've watched them.