I love discussing tech...and games...and tech...and sometimes I love discussing it at a level that the average human being could care less about. But I also like entertainment...movies, TV, music...and sometimes it is ok to take a more relaxed approach to the LaBlog and just talk about that.

TV Seasons on DVD are one of the greatest inventions since the remote control. I like TV shows, but since I am basically obsessive compulsive when it comes to managing my time, I have a mental inhibit which prevents me from being required to be seated on my couch at a designated time on a designated night of the week to do anything. The sad thing is, when I find a show I like, I can not wait for it to go off of the air so that I can buy the boxed collection(s) and watch an entire season in a 3-day weekend if I so choose.

In the past couple of years I have expanded the media choices I purchase video content in since I have more devices that give me more options in how to carry that content with me. Retail DVDs are choice one. Blu-Ray, which I can not take with me on travel but can play on my PS3 connected to my 720p HDTV, is choice two. Choice three is video content downloaded from the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. Choice four is video downloaded from iTunes, which is my newest way of experiencing TV shows in a portable format, either via my iPod or on my MacBook.

So here are the lists of some of my favorite TV shows and why:

1. Angel: in 1998, I checked out an episode of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and pleasantly found that it was nothing like the atrocious movie of the same name. I got into it for a few episodes before I had to deploy that year. I caught a few episodes when I got back in November, but then moved to Monterey, CA for grad school. At the time, Buffy aired on The WB, a network not carried by the cable network I was on in Monterey. IN October of 1999, though, the spin-off series Angel launched. I did not get into it as weekly serial, but over the next few years, I caught handfuls of episodes and knew I liked it more than the Buffy series. I think in some ways I relate to the character, and on a simpler level, the show, set in LA vice the fictional town of Sunnydale, and the lead character being male, makes it easier for me to be immersed in the storyline.

Joss Whedon is an amazing storyteller, and you will see that just about every series he has done is on my list of favorites. Again with the OC lean towards any fiction that is very detailed and orderly, I drift towards Whedon's opuses because he loves arcs. When taken at face value, Angel, at least seasons two and forward, is one huge story arc. Even if you don't buy that, Seasons 2 through four are season-long arcs, with recurring characters and very few episodes outside of the main story-arc. Characters change from episode to episode, and there are almost no episodes that you could just lift form the storyline and make sense of as a stand-alone episode. The story of man traveling a road seeking redemption for all of the things he has done, and tripping and stumbling along the way is something that appeals to me, and this show tells a great story that lasts five seasons and ends with at a consciously chosen point to close the tale, not the hiccuppy, glitchy, jerky end of a show that has to be wrapped up because it has been cancelled for the next season.

2. Battlestar Galactica: I tend to find Directors and Producers whose work I like, more so than actors and actresses who attract me as a loyal follower. Ronald Moore was the heir to Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek legacy, but many fans have blamed him for the deterioration of the franchise from its golden years, since the move of the Next Generation to the big screen. Cutting his strings from the Roddenberry/Paramount Empire, Moore moved to a partnership with Universal to re-imagine this series in nothing less than what can be termed an epic production series. I only have Seasons 1 and 2 of this series (I think it is now in Season 4), and have only watched the first one-and-a-half seasons. Word on the street is that the current season will be the last, and that there will be a spin-off involving the Battlestar Pegasus.

Edward James Olmos has always been an amazing actor, and his portrayal as a subdued, soft-spoken, but unconquerable military leader results in consistent class A performances form episode to episode. BG shows the human race in all of the splendor and malevolence that people display in times of crisis. The estranged relationship between the elder and junior Adama, and the way in which the younger grows and changes during the series is an enjoyable transformation to watch. The Sci-Fi channel can only seem to maintain one or two marquis series at a time due to costs. The fact that this one has been chosen as one of those few has produced an enjoyable experience for me over the last three years.

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: there are a lot of poignant themes that go on in the 7 year run of this series. Buffy dealing with the immense responsibilities placed on her shoulders while also trying to be a normal teenage girl results in some dramatic moments that would just have never occurred to me. This is much more a rat-pack style show than Angel, whose cast grows from the primary three characters over its duration, but tends to remain focused on a relatively small group of characters. Buffy maintains an entire rogue's gallery of allies and enemies that are always introduce spurred elements into the primary tale. Each of the main characters goes to their darkest side and back, and no one quite winds up where you think their characters will be. The only primary male character of the primary three, Xander, after six seasons of being the show clown, ends up being a little more rough-and-tumble in the end. Again, Whedon weaves an opus that fans can travel along with over a much longer series run than is normal in the industry.

This series piqued my interest originally just because I wanted to see what Whedon really had in mind when he passed the original script off to the studio for the big-screen production. I drifted off from it because I found Angel much more appealing. If you watch Angel, however, there are so many crossover and references to events in Buffy that I really had to go back and watch the original series just to make sure I had gotten the entire story. While Buffy in no way beats out Angel for my favorite series of all time, it is so closely coupled with my number one show that it is hard to call them separate shows. While Angel certainly maintains its own identity as a storyline, if you consider the entire tale to be told over 12 seasons, that makes for a television story that exceeds the scope of any other fable told on the small screen before.

More to follow - next up: an animated series that just "went away", another Whedon tale, and the greatest comedy of all time.