Category Archives: Skip It/Watch It Guide
Want to catch up on a TV show, but want to know what episodes you should watch and what you should skip? You’ve come to the right place.
“Parks and Recreation”: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Ah, welcome to summer! That magical time of year when all the TV goes away. All of it! Even Game of Thrones is over now! WHY BOTHER BEING ALIVE?
The answer: To catch up on old television you may have missed! So we’re bringing back the Skip It/Watch It Guides for a few weeks, specifically to give you some extra viewing options as we head into the hot hell of July and August. And to kick things off — we’ve got Parks and Recreation!
Once upon a time, Parks and Rec was known as “the show that’s not exactly a spin-off of The Office that stars the blonde chick from Saturday Night Live. You know, the one who seems to be pregnant all the time.” But it has since evolved into one of the funniest and best-hearted comedies on television, with a top-notch cast and complex yet clearly defined characters. It is a show about a bunch of people who work in local government, but unlike local government, it’s hilarious, affecting and inspiring.
In case this isn’t clear: I LOVE this show, to the point of near obsession. And you should love it too! You probably will love it too. It’s great. But like many fantastic shows, it takes a bit of time to find its footing, and thus I have gone to great painstaking effort to create a detailed guide that will enable you to fall in love immediately… Read the rest of this entry
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Season 1: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Hey, want to check out on the complete series? A guide to all seven seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” as well as its spinoff “Angel,” can be found in “Liz Tells Frank: The Skip It/Watch It Guides,” now available on Amazon!
A quick bit of back story: Karmically I feel obligated to write this guide, because I never would have watched Buffy without my friend Nicky. Nicky was a good friend from high school who moved to Arizona my senior year; for the next five or so years, I’d visit every once in a while for a few days of sitting on her couch and watching TV. (It was glorious.)
It was on one of those trips — right before the premiere of Buffy season four, if I recall — that Nicky said “Okay, it’s time for you to understand Buffy,” and using her insane archive of videotapes (Nicky taped everything) I proceeded to get a highly compressed version of the first three seasons, which was instrumental in helping me fall in love with the show.
The first season of Buffy is a season spent figuring out tone and plot and character; there are a few great episodes, but nowhere near the number that would follow in subsequent years. So, if you’re new to the show that made Joss Whedon a nerd god and wanna get to the good stuff faster, here you go!
Buffy Season 1: The Skip It/Watch It Guide Read the rest of this entry
“Fringe” Season One: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Hey, want to check out on the complete series? A guide to all five seasons of “Fringe” can be found in “Liz Tells Frank: The Skip It/Watch It Guides,” now available on Amazon!
A few weeks ago, I spent a whole bunch of words telling Frank how great the show Fringe is. But I included this one caveat: The first season is pretty problematic, as it darts between narrative-heavy developments and stand-alone monster episodes almost at random. That might have worked for The X-Files in its day, but screw The X-Files, it’s the 21st century and Chris Carter floats in exile on a surfboard. We can demand more from our TV, is what I’m saying.
So (because I have had at least four friends request it) here is a guide to watching Fringe that should help you avoid the less consequential episodes and focus on the good stuff that relates to the ongoing narrative. I try to add as much guidance as possible when it comes to the Watch It episodes, so that if you’re on the fence about a particular storyline you can use your own judgement. But otherwise, trust in me to steer you around the dull bits.
Fringe Season One: The Skip It/Watch It Guide Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In... 