Ottoman out!

Is there anything more luxurious than the modern practice of building up then satisfying that over-excited urge for the Next Episode of something? We're lucky--we're really lucky. Not just that we get to take in big gulps of well-written long episodic stories as much as/as fast as we want, no waiting til next week, no commercials, no agonized anticipation, but that there's just so much of it. The world really wants us to be entertained. Distracted. Drooling in front of a rectangle. Whatever. Hours and hours of stuff.

(I think it's a luxury--sometimes I wonder. Sometimes that excruciating can't-wait-til-next-week feeling is a good thing. You can get kind of numb or sick to your stomach from too much episodic stuff sometimes.)

I've been really enjoyin Arrested Development, which I mainlined through Netflix streaming. It's great, it's fun, there are things that make me bark out loud with laughter. I do think the female casting is weak, in a way I associate in my head with the talent level of the Imagine people involved: funny, risk-taking, interesting, but also kind of Hollywood. Portia de Rossi is a weak link in that cast, and Charlize Theron was pretty awful; the show bounced back up noticeably high as soon as that plotline was over (it was a decent goofy premise--at least the Americans thinking everything Brits say is intelligent bit--and I don't think she pulled it off). And I wish they would have let the show have more of an arc with set design--letting the show home disintegrate around Bluths, or be customized as the series went on, rather than just little nods to it, like the fake turkey that would show up over and over. That seemed less like surreality and more like a missed opportunity. But still, totally fun.