fandomhigh | Teevee for Beginners, Wednesday

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Teevee for Beginners, Wednesday

Mitchell had sprawled back in an armchair of his own today. If he looked visibly relieved to be here, well-- back home wasn't exactly pleasant at the moment.

"Today, we'll be discussing recent television," he started, "It's faster-paced than it was in the old days, cut more rapidly, making its departure from the theatre. Some say it's because our cultural attention span has gotten so short. Some say it's simply because we can absorb more information than we did previously. I'm not a scientist, I can't tell you which one it is, but I can tell you that modern standards of comedy seem to have fallen quite a bit."

"The television medium is much more scattered now. There's far more channels than in the past, when at best you'd get five or six. Now, you can watch a hundred different things or more, geared towards your tastes, wishes, and expectations. Cooking channels, comedy channels, news channels. Anything you might want to learn, anything you might want to follow, anything you might want to have fun with? It's there on the TV. Just a click of the remote away."

He went into a bit of a routine about sci-fi and fantasy channels and fiction, but it was a bit sketchy. "Science fiction and fantasy have grown popular as a genre nowadays," he said, "After a stint of being mostly ignored. Basically, they're the same kind of thing: speculative fiction. Except science fiction is about the future, and fantasy is about an imagined past. With dragons, that kind of thing." He smiled. "Then there's the sitcom. Developed back in the 50s, perfected in the 80s. Situational comedy. A cast of characters operating from the same 'situation', like a drama with jokes. It's often about the dialogue."

He pointed at the TV with the remote. "Today, we'll be watching different channels. You'll discuss what defines each and every one of them. What are the most obvious visual markers? Who does the channel seem to be geared at? Would you watch it on your own?"

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Modern!

Kate Gregson

Chloe Saunders

Medusalith Amaquelin

Helen Haras-Uquara

Rilla Blythe

Joolushko Tunai Fenta Hovalis

Maladicta

Or pass notes, or whatever it is you do.

Make your observations. There's a couple of them.

Food Network is doing a special on Indian cuisine today.

Joolushko's first observation was that she was hungry.

After establishing that, she moved on to considering who might watch these programs on a regular basis, besides people who wanted to make themselves hungry.

Ghost Hunters does Virginia City, Nevada.

Mitchell might have a sense of irony today.

There's a rerun of an old episode of the Colbert Report on right now.

Rilla had absolutely no idea what was going on in this show, but she was going to sit here, pen in hand, until she figured it out.

...it could take a while. Rilla wasn't exactly up on 21st Century politics.

The news channel is currently reporting on flooding in Pakistan.

When she pings in!

Chloe was indeed here and looking cheerful.

That's what he's here for.

Kate hadn't seen Mitchell in what felt like forever (two weeks was a long time, okay?), so a check-in was inevitable.

"Yo. You look fairly pleased to be teaching."

"I was gone for a week," Mitchell returned, glancing up. "Teaching's my vacation."

Because that wasn't sad.

"Wow. That's pathetic."

What? It was! A little.

"Hey, before I came here, I was cleaning up old granny vomit in hospital," he pointed out, "In comparison to that... Eh."

Edited 2010-08-04 14:18 (UTC)

"Eww." Kate made a face, predictably. "I didn't know you used to work at a hospital."

"Same one George is working at now," Mitchell said, shrugging a little bit. "It was quiet, it paid some money, and it was occasionally a bit disgusting."

"Eww."

You already said that, Kate. It wasn't polite the first time, either.

"Can't imagine why you you'd ever give up a dream job like that."

Deadpanning probably didn't help, either.

"Don't knock it, now."

Mitchell stretched his arms back out over the couch. "I mean, say what you want for my old place of work, it certainly had less windows to deal with. I'm not all that fond of the sunlight."

"Yeah well, haven't seen you majorly struggling with that here, either," Kate replied, rolling her eyes before making a rather self-centered observation. "God, what is it with me and pale people?"

"Oh, yes," Mitchell replied, dryly. "We clearly flock to you. You'll have to do something about that."

"Push you all into sunlight," she retorted. "Easy way to get rid of you all."

These pale people were the core part of her support system. She didn't want to get rid of any of them. And she wasn't exactly tan, either.

"Or at least make you less pale."

"Aren't you from some midwestern place where the sun never shines?" Mitchell's eyebrows went up.

Kate made a face at him. "Come on, we get sun in Kansas."

She just never went out in it. Big difference.

"Well, I suppose Dorothy did," he said, grinning a little. "You, on the other hand..."

"I also haven't been transported anywhere via tornado, what's your point?"

"You're pale," he said, smirking. "Admit it."

"I'm not." Well... "In comparison, I'm not all that pale."

"You want to see about that?" Mitchell asked. He was already making a big show of pulling his sleeve down. "And keep in mind you've got a certain advantage on me." What with, you know, actually having a pulse.

"I'm not as pale as you are," Kate replied, actually pretty confidently. She'd been comparing herself to Bod a lot, lately, so that might have had something to do with it.

Mitchell would have been less pale if he'd had something to drink as of recently, and he was definitely Irish.

That didn't mean he wasn't raising his eyebrows and holding his arm up higher. "Come on. Let us see that arm."

Dork.

Yes, for two people who preferred to think of themselves as pretty damn cool, this was a fairly dorky thing to do.

And they were doing it anyway.

Kate leaned down some to hold her arm next to his. She'd managed to get a tiny bit of a tan, but yeah. Midwestern pale, still.

"See? I'm totally less pale!"

"You call that less pale?" Mitchell asked, critically, and turned his arm over. "I don't think so."

"It is," Kate insisted. "Come on. It totally is."

Possibly not.

I'm being unusually productive this morning. Something must be afoot.

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Teevee for Beginners, Wednesday

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Listen to the Lecture

Watch the Channels

Food Network

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Travel Chanel

Comedy Central

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CNN

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Talk to Mitchell

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OOC