I can't believe it's September already. But while some folks are busy bemoaning the fact that there's going to be snow in three or four months, I'm happy that the worst of the summer's heat is over and that there are so many things in the next few months that I'm really looking forward to.
September 23rd: Fringe - Fox starts off with a bang. Fringe remains my favorite show on TV, and despite Peter Bishop's unfortunate circumstance as of the end of last season, I cannot wait to see what happens next.
September 26th: Terra Nova - It's 2149, and life on Earth is all but extinct. The solution? Not space travel, but Time Travel. They send people back 85 million years. Sounds very Land of the Lost, but I'll check it out. Could be bad, could be good. The only thing we know for sure is that Fox will cancel the show before the sixth episode.
September 27th: The Ico / Shadow of the Colossus Collection - Yes, it's a video game. You didn't think I was going to be writing only about TV shows, did you? Shadow of the Colossus is a Playstation 2 game that I wrote about on this site in 2005. It was a fantastic cinematic game, and I'm really looking forward to playing through both it (again) and its predecessor, a little game called Ico that I've never had the pleasure of playing. They've redone both games in HD for the Playstation 3, and added achievements.
Sometime in September: Amy - I really enjoy survival horror games, and it's been a while since I've played a good one. Amy looks like a good one. But time will tell, I suppose. This game could come out any time in September - Sony isn't exactly forthcoming with this stuff.
October 2nd: Dexter - The laters seasons aren't nearly as amazing as the first few, but Dexter continues to be a good show, and one that I'll definitely continue to follow.
October 3rd: House - I can't help but feel that House is in its later seasons - the twilight of its life - but the show has good actors, good characters, and good writing, which is more than I can say for many other shows.
October 14th: The Thing - This remake comes out in the theaters in October, and I'd like to see it. It focuses on the story of the alien monstrosity before it ever got to Kurt Russel's group for the classic John Carpenter eighties movie. The trailer looked pretty good.
October 16th: The Walking Dead - This adaptation of the comic went very well during it's first season, and I'll continue to follow it during season two. The only real problem is that from October to November, AMC will be airing six episodes, and then the show takes a break until February 12th, at which point the season finishes up. I thought we finished this split-season crap back in 2007.
October 18th: Batman: Arkham City - I recently re-played Batman: Arkham Asylum on Hard, and loved it, although I nearly couldn't get past Poison Ivy. The mix of combat, stealth, collection, and platforming in the game is exactly the kind of thing I love. So often, I wait until I can buy games used for cheap, but I'll pick this one up for $60.
Sometime in November: Castle Panic: The Wizard's Tower - As board games go, Castle Panic is amongst my favorites. The Wizard's Tower expansion adds new monsters and new cards. I'm all about that.
November 11th: Skyrim - The latest incarnation of The Elder Scrolls series. I spent an embarrasing amount of time with Oblivion - probably over 200 hours. I'm looking forward to the release of Skyrim with an odd mix of yearning and trepidation.
November 20th: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - After playing (and loving) Twilight Princess, I went back and played Wind Waker. Both were good, but I preferred Twilight Princess. Skyward Sword is the latest in the Zelda series, and the only Zelda game to ever be made for the Nintendo Wii. It uses the new(ish) Wii Plus functionality, which means I'll need a new controller, but it should be interesting to have the angle of sword slashes matter in a game.
And that's about it for the remainder of 2011. There are sequels to both Torchlight and Trine supposedly coming out this year, but no details as to when.
Granted, I DVR'd the first season of FALLING SKIES (or is it SKY? And is it FALLING or BURNING? I don't even know), but I have yet to watch a single episode. I think I may have recorded the first episode of ALPHAS, too.
When my wife informs me that my shows are taking up too much DVR space, I'll probably just delete them, unwatched. Fast-forwarding through commercials? That's so 2007.
The DVR changed the way I watch television...more than a half a decade ago. Now I don't even bother with the DVR most of the time; I wait for the show to be available on DVD and get it through Netflix (yes, I'm keeping my DVD delivery even as scads of outraged customers fume and fuss and wail and gnash their teeth) or buy complete seasons on Amazon's Video On Demand service when there are sales or tweet-for-credit deals (I am Amazon's Twitter whore).