My lastest addiction

[jmc_bks]

Everyone in my office raves about the tv show Lost. There's no water cooler, per se, but whenever people gather together on Thursday morning, Lost is always the topic of conversation. I didn't watch the first season, because it was on at the same time as West Wing. I know, the writing has declined dramatically since the exit of Aaron Sorkin, but I really like CJ and Will, so I have hung around to see what happens next. With the move to Sunday night, WW's star is clearly on the wane...and now I can try to watch Lost on Wednesdays.

When I watched the first episode this season, it was clear that this was not a show that I could just jump right into -- too much back story. So I put Lost in my Netflix queue. The first disc arrived on Wednesday. No one warned me that the show would be more addictive than Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies or Reese's Peanut Butter cups! I'm hooked! Like the aforesaid junkfood, I want to gulp down all the episodes of Lost, regardless of information overload. Love the broken timeline and the variety of characters. Usually I mix and mingle the discs of TV series in my Netflix queue, but I had to reorder the queue so I could watch all of these in order and have multiple discs on hand while doing so. I'm imagining a Lost marathon over my Christmas holiday.

Christmas shopping update: I am finished! Done! *happy dance* The only thing I have to do is go to the post office for three books of stamps and to mail a package, then all of my holiday preparations will be complete.

Another happy thing: my mom loves Gabriel Garcia Marquez's writing. I got her hooked on him and several other Latin American writers when I was in college (I started book pimping at an early age, what can I say?). She really, really wants to read the second installment of his memoirs...which hasn't been published yet, or even written yet, as far as I know. But I discovered that his most recent book, Memoria de mis putas tristes, has been translated into English and is available at my local bookstore. Woo hoo!

Shopping gripe: I could not find a Slinky anywhere! I was looking for a Slinky or other Rubic's Cube-y kind of toy for my brother's stocking. Apparently you had to look for that kind of thing earlier in the shopping season.

Beth (host of SBD) has posted a website that I really didn't need to know about: www.IdealCheese.com. I could spend way too much money there. Must resist the urge to check it again.

Comments

Lost

[rosario001.livejournal.com]

I'm SO addicted to Lost! The only problem is, I watched the entire first season and now none of the channels I get here in Uruguay is showing the second one! And the worst part is going to the AAR message boards and seeing those huge threads about the previous night's episode, and reading those cryptic subject lines and wanting to know what they mean. I've almost given in to the temptation and gone to read the recaps at Television Without Pity, but I still have some hope someone will start showing the second season.

Re: Lost

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

I've avoided TWoP for Lost...but only because I didn't know who was who well enough to be able to understand the summaries. And the AAR threads just confuse me.

I've got the second disc of episodes waiting for me at home. Couldn't watch on Monday because of a holiday party, or last night because I was writing out my holiday cards (I procrastinated), so I'm hoping to watch an episode tonight :)

Is there usually much of a lag time between the American airing of a program and the pick up by a Uruguayan channel? How do the channels decide which programs they'll pick up? Just curious.

Re: Lost

[rosario001.livejournal.com]

The lag is huge when it comes to Uruguayan, open-television channels, but we usually get them much sooner on cable channels. The first season of Lost was shown on Sony's AXN Latin America channel (and a quick look at its website shows the second season is starting next March... there hadn't been any info the last time I'd checked).

The LatAm versions of channels like WB TV, Sony and Fox show most of the series and sitcoms you get in the US, sooner or later. Uruguayan channels (much) later will pick and choose some more or less at random, and show dubbed episodes with absolutely no regard to the order they should be shown in.

Re: Lost

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Another question: is there a thriving tv industry in Uruguay? I can watch Mexican and Venezuelan telenovelas on Univision and the other Spanish language cable stations, and I've read about their tv/movie industries in magazines. Is the tv/film industry of a comparable size in Uruguay?

You can tell me to stop asking questions at any time :)

Re: Lost

[rosario001.livejournal.com]

Oh, ask away! I'm sure you've already noticed by now that I love blathering on and on! :-)

The answer in the case of TV is no. TV industry in Uruguay is very definitely not thriving. There are some ok journalistic programmes produced, but the last fiction show that got made here (that I remember) was a few years ago, and it flopped. So I don't think you'll see any Uruguayan telenovelas on Univision, LOL!

Film industry is doing a bit better. For one thing, we've been producing some good films lately (albeit only a couple a year), even if most try too hard to have a Message. There was one last year, Whisky, which I especially enjoyed. That one even won a prize at Cannes, which is a first for us.

Also, Uruguay has been taking off as a filming location, both for ads and for movies... good technicians and low prices, basically. We had the Miami Vice movie cast filming here a couple of weeks ago, for instance. If you ever see that one, the scenes which are supposed to be set in Switzerland were filmed one block from my office!