Recent updates from the TV world - The 'TV Matters and Me' opinion column 101

I am back! My vacation has been absolutely amazing and a good break from this blog but I have now returned and will continue to share my insights and opinions of TV culture throughout the year and continuing. I really like maintaining this blog and I am glad to see that my number of readers is rising. So here's to another year of TV Matters and Me, otherwise known as 'Picking NCIS:LA apart and critisizing'. And here is my take on recent event. It has crossed my mind, the possibility that one of these days I will be 'hunted down' by someone from the NCIS:LA franchise and asked to please stop picking the show apart ;) Sadly they ended up with a fan like me!

NCIS - Cote de Pablo is quitting
I read recently that the actress Cote de Pablo has decided to leave NCIS. This has apparently garnered some controversy. This is one of the moments where reality kicks in. The people on the TV screens are not just mindless machines playing characters, they are real people leading their own lives beyond the scope of the camera. Being an actor on TV is well paid but it is a very difficult, time consuming and demanding job and does not offer much leeway. It requires more of people than the rest of us realize and with it come many downsides and demands, fame being one of them. I fully respect and appreciate the actress's decision of walking away. Cote De Pablo has given us 8 fabulous years of Ziva and wonderful acting. Ziva will always be one of my favorite characters on TV and even if there will not be more new material with her, there will be 8 season which is enough. Cote De Pablo is a wonderful actress and I'd personally like to thank her for her contribution to NCIS and making it such a wonderful show. I wish her all the best in the future.

NCIS will of course change but we will still have Tony, McGee, Gibbs, Abby, Ducky and Palmer. It'll still be good ol' NCIS and I am looking forward to seeing how the show will develop. So this does not worry me in the slightest. It'll be sad to see Ziva go but NCIS has always bounced back and will no doubt continue to do so.

NCIS:LA

My good ol'd pick apart show. Apparently, they began shooting the first episode of season 5 today and they begin straight off from where they left. My own opinions of the extremely bad finale can be found here (under 'Popular Posts') so I am rather skeptical of how they will pull this off. Because, they have a lot to redeem and fix. But NCIS:LA has a strange ability to bounce back so I am not hopeless about the episode. I have not watched a NCIS:LA episode in a long time but I grin and laugh each and every time I watch the video 'Jungle Cat'. It never gets tired and it makes me happy. The sheer absurdity, silliness and childish joy in that scene is a wonderful blend and it is one of the reasons I enjoy the show so much.

So thank you to NCIS:LA for bringing me some great lightness and grins. You really do it well!

And on a side note - Why oh why am I not living in Connecticut at the moment so I could have seen Barrett Foa in the Music Man?! I love musicals and it'd have been such fun.

Castle

I have been re watching old Castle episodes and this series is just such gold, it's absolutely amazing just how much fun it is to watch and how well done every single episode is. I have been a solid Castle fun for 3 years now and will continue to follow. I am super excited about next season and it'll be so wonderful to see how they will work things out.

Barrett Foa singing as Mitt Romney - an ode of love (and a rant on politics)

So just to get it cleared up - I love musicals, absolutely love them. I am a classically trained musician and music is a big part of my life. And I am a proud musical geek (favorites are Wicked and Mary Poppins).
So understandably I devour any piece from a new musical that comes my way.

But I am also a thinker and an observer with a great interest in international matters and media. And learning new things. And I have a tendency to get extremely interested in certain things and try learning about them as much as possible (this includes my long standing love affair with Russian culture and the language). And last autumn was an absolute field day for a nerd like me. The American presidential election was on!

I dove into it with enthusiasm and started following Romney and Obama and enlightening myself on their policies on various matters, the most interesting one being taxes, health care reform and international matters. And was I in for a "treat" (written with great sarcasm). or what. From the beginning of the campaigns, I sat in shock in front of my computer as I watched video after video, read article after article with misconceptions and slander about Europe as a whole. Mind you, the entire continent was spoken about as if we were one collective country (which we are NOT!).

Europe as a whole continent was called a socialist state and candidates promised they would NOT have a socialist government like Europe. 
Because yes, we are all socialist pigs and all belong to the same country and all have the same government
Russia was declared as USA's main enemy
The Cold War and WWII are still going on apparently and Russia still aims to destroy USA - the rest of Europe did not get the memo apparently
European health care was described as terrible over and over again
Yes, our hospitals are ran by government agent with the sole purpose of killing people, you found us out USA sadly
European governments control everything people do and have their nose in people´s personal affairs
Yes the government watches my every action and even has a camera in my bedroom

I can tell you that my jaw fell to the floor over and over again and I ranted again and again about the insanity of this. And Romney was at the top of his game when it came to international policy and Europe.
His Europe trip was England, Poland and Israel. Apparently Europe only consists of three countries.
His vice president candidate declared Russia to be USA's number one enemy and talked about it being communist
He spoke in his foreign policy (and I read this with my own eyes) of having people come over to USA from Russia to get ideas on democracy and such things and then they cold go back home to Russia and educate people on it.
And Europe was time and again declared a socialist place (nice putting us all under one hat)
And to cap it off he had international policy towards all continents except Africa and Europe. he had a specific international policy towards Russia (so quite clearly we do not exist as a continent).

So I was feeling like losing my head. You might say I was letting this get too much to me but I care dearly about where I come from and seeing it talked about like that annoyed me to no end. It was as if the world had gone mad for a while. And I was not okay with it.

So when I found the gem of a song that is Barett Foa singing as Mitt Romney it meant a lot to me. I know it sounds incredibly silly (and it is) but the song instantly got to me. I loved it so much and still do. It made sense to me in so many ways and considering the politic situation it was perfect. I listened to it over and over again and each time I laughed my head off. I learned it by heart and started singing it when on my way to work. I realize how dorky this is but I arrived in good spirit at work every time. I still listen to it regularly and it makes me grin each and every time.

And here is why
-The song is a very good musical number - like really good
-Barrett Foa sings it really well - he has an excellent voice and you can tell he is a trained singer
-The lyrics - all my opinions and thoughts on Romney and politics in general expressed in fund and thoughtful lyrics - it expressed everything but also had valid political concerns
-It was fun - I love things that make me happy and make me laugh and this did and still does

It was such a relief to get this song and it came at the right time. I have played it for friends and family and they all think it's great. Barrett Foa managed to address the concerns and thoughts of pretty much all Scandinavians (save a few) in one song when it came to politics and Romney.

Music is something I respond very strongly to (I am a classically trained musician and have been a music nerd since infancy) and it helps me make sense of things. And this song did.
So thank you Mr. Foa for saving the political sanity of a Scandinavian :) And for making me laugh time and again!

And here is the gem on a youtube link - Click here!