I don't understand why I watch tv, really.

On right now: VH1's Friday Night Alright: Adam Lambert Unplugged. (or Friday Night A'ight, as Jim Shearer pronounced it. That scamp.) I really did not enjoy most of his performances on Idol last season, I haven't heard his album, and am not in love with what I've heard on the radio and around, but I'm sort of digging the first song, Music Again. Adam's the mentor on Idol next week, and I'm looking forward to it.

The (very small) audience appears to be full of women who are more-or-less my age, sitting quietly and smiling somewhat awkwardly. Not that I'd expect anything else from them, but I seriously can't imagine sitting that close to someone performing, so I keep getting a sort of awkward chuckle out of it. I have eye contact issues. I really hated that moment when Usher stared at the camera on Idol last week.

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In other news, I did not love the third episode of Justified. There was way too much boring fugitive-of-the-week, and way not enough featured/recurring characters. At the end of the episode, I didn't feel like I'd learned anything about anyone I cared about, and if I wanted to be watching an episode of Law and Order or CSI: Wherever, I would be.

However! The fourth ep totally made up for it. Cameron Frye! Happy partner times, great antagonist, great bad-guys-for-hire.

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On a sort-of-related note, let's talk about when our protagonists kill people, yeah? So, Justified, he shoots people, right? (and kills them, like law enforcement officers do when they aim like they're supposed to) Hence the title. I'm a big fan of Generation Kill fic (and Fick! but that's beside the point), and clearly they are soldiers, so people get shot there too. There was an AU this week though, that totally lost me halfway through because I needed a reaction (or even a pointed non-reaction) to some death, and I just didn't see it.

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In slightly-less-homicidal news, Stargate: Universe is back. ( this got wordy, but not spoilery beyond the episode description )

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Uh, and Merlin is on SyFy, which is to say that Merlin is on, again. I've still only seen the first few episodes. It's being billed as an Original Series, which, yes. But it's not your Original Series, SyFy.

delightfully unexpected, but only because I'm forgetful

So, I'm walking down W. 44th, and suddenly the street is awash in men in kilts. And bagpipe music. In the past 12 hours I managed to forget that I'd be walking through the Tartan staging area on the way to the St. James.

Lee Dewyze is slightly - slightly - forgiven for the bagpiper this week now that I've realized that Tuesday was National Tartan Day. Slightly, because I don't think he realized it.

American Idiot on Broadway: I won't call this a review, because I am so, so unqualified.

I went to see a preview matinee of American Idiot today!

The really short version is that it was awesome, I had a great seat (first row center mezzanine) and if I could get away with it, I would buy each of my friends tickets for their birthdays to have an excuse to go see it at least a couple more times.

The medium short version is this:

This is not a happy show, which should come as a surprise to no one who's heard the album. Or heard any of Green Day's music, ever. It is, however, really entertaining, and even fun at times, though most of that is in the earliest songs. I went to a matinee, and was sitting a row in front of some 9-12 year old kids there with their parents. I hope those parents knew they were getting into, because I would not have brought my kids to that show without some serious talking about it first, no matter if the kids are huge Green Day fans. There is for-serious drug use and sexual content, and some (briefish) violent incidents.

It's a busy production. Many of the songs carry multiple storylines, and there's a fair amount of overlapping action, such as the part at the end of Holiday when I looked over and noticed oh, hey, Stark's taking off his clothes.

The staging is pretty consistent, with Will to house-left, Johnny center stage and Tunny to the right, so if you don't want to miss, y'know, someone's reappearance on stage, you know where to look.

And now for the long version -

I'm going to disclaim this part by saying that I haven't read any in-depth articles about either the show or the original album, so the conjectures about characterization are totally my own for now. I'm sure I'll go looking for more later when I'm less exhausted, but if you know of something, feel free to point me towards anything online.

It is hard-wired into my brain to split spoilery things from non-spoilery things, so I'm going to do that here, though I doubt it's warranted.

( tl;dr for noodling )

So, in conclusion. Yay!