I haven't been on TV.com in a year!!

Ooops.

I wasn't on here during the summer last year because of the reruns. Then my computer died right before the season started up. Then I decided not to replace it and see how much money I would save if I didn't have access to internet shopping - A LOT! I didn't replace my computer until February. From the looks of my bank account, maybe I shouldn't have replaced it at all... lol.

And THEN my NEW laptop decided to just go ahead and die on me in May, so it was in the shop for a couple of weeks. I'm just now at a point where I am remembering all the sites I used to frequent.

And tonight I discovered this show - a 16yr old show, go figure - called The Odyssey. Wow. I can't figure out if it's really morbid or really good or just both. I think now I understand a little bit more where Tin Man came from (instead of just coming from DSotM and SW and WoO) (and Indy). Tin Man is my new all-time favorite mini-series (I love the 10th Kingdom, too) (need to watch them both), so I'm really glad to have found something new - er, new-to-me - to watch... and hey! Three seasons worth!

It is a bit dark, though. What if Dorothy had never come back from Oz, never woke up at the end of Wizard of Oz, and Aunt Em had to put her in an extended stay facility?? And they were to have cut back to Kansas to show her almost coding and having seizures, etc. That's the basic idea. I'm very surprised that this was listed as a children's show. Granted, in college I wrote a very dark fairy tale which got criticism from the only other girls in the class for being - gasp - a dark fairy tale - and was defended by the people who had actually read the original versions of Grimm... but still. That was a long time ago. And this show is a bit graphic at times, showing how bad off Jay is.

Was. The show WAS graphic at times. I forget it's been off the air for thirteen years. :-)

Anyway - I just know my sister would NOT let her kids watch it. They are 9 and almost 11. But I LOVE it.

I have never had any problem doing anything on TV.com. I've rated shows with no problem, and saved them to my favorites, and rated episodes. I've found actors and rated them and saved them to my favorites. TV.com is well set up and always seems to work. I can't say the same for filmspot or mp3.com so far. My main problem on filmspot is that my ratings don't seem to "take" - I rate something and then later it hasn't been rated by me. That's frustrating. On mp3.com, it's not saving my ratings OR saving artists or albums to my favorites. I have a few in there right now, but not nearly the number I tried to save.

Also on mp3.com, it SAYS you can rate AND review artists, albums, and songs. HOW?? I see how to rate the artist and the album (if the rating will "stick," that is), and I have seen the spot for reviewing the artist, but there doesn't seem to be a separate place for reviewing each album, much less a song, and I can't even find a rating scale for the songs. I see where other people have posted album and song reviews under the artist without saying what song or album they were talking about - THAT'S not confusing at all...

I'm starting to wish I hadn't ventured out from TV.com, but I have a lot more music I could rate than TV shows, and I figured I might as well start in on the movies, but the sites are driving me so crazy I don't know if it's worth it!

I really do love JJ Abrams. Granted, I have refused to watch Lost after the first season because I was irritated at the way the third season of Alias was mangled, and I blamed it on his distraction with preparing for Lost... but I was SO thrilled to find out that he was going to be in charge of the new Star Trek movie! That just sounded perfect! Such an amazing producer in charge of one of my most beloved shows? GREAT!

And then I check the credits on filmspot, and I see two things. Number one, Matt Damon is listed in the cast???? I don't want to think of him as Spock OR Kirk. Ack.

But even more disturbing, when I click on JJ's credits to add him to my favorites, I see... that HE is the one who wrote the script for Regarding Henry.

Sigh.

That is one of the few movies I ever saw with my late husband that he just truly, truly hated, and for good reason. Like the kid in the movie, he had a father who suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was a child - but unlike Harrison Ford's character, Ian's father didn't change for the better in the end. He went from a wonderful, loving father to a man who had violent mood swings and had to be helped with everything, and in the end, Ian's mother - with a five year old and a new baby (she was pregnant when the accident happened) ended up divorcing him to protect her children. Ian never saw his father again. His sister grew up being told that her father had died, not learning the truth until she was in either high school or college, I forget which, when she visited her paternal grandparents (their mother had died when Ian was nine - they were raised by their maternal grandmother and had little contact with their paternal grandparents) for a weekend and suddenly was introduced to her father. The only memories Ian had were of a man who was wonderful when he was four, then went away for a while and came back completely different - mean and unpredictable and NOT his father, and his life was torn apart. It wasn't ANYthing like the movie, and he resented the implication that it should be. I think he kind of didn't like the end to Return of the Jedi for close to the same reason... he never wanted to see his father again - he wanted to try to keep the memories of the highly intelligent man who was going to college and the editor of the literary magazine on campus, and not see the man he had become.

I met his father at the visitation before the funeral. It was strange. This Tuesday, the 26th, it will be 10 years since Ian died. He would have turned 39 in August. As far as I know, though, his dad is still alive. After the funeral, his sister tried to keep in touch with her father and that side of the family for a while, but old habits die hard - they didn't keep in touch with her for long. I guess because none of them had actually kept in touch with her father, either... keeping in touch with her would have reminded them of that.

Anyway. That movie was over 15 years ago, and JJ isn't actually writing the Star Trek show, so I'm sure it will all turn out fine.

But seriously. Matt Damon??? What, is Ben Affleck playing Captain Kirk??