Summer Television

It seems like only last year that summer TV meant nothing but sports in this house. Reruns didn't interest us at all, and we hate so-called reality TV. We just rented movies occasionally and lived with it. Personally I would happily read the evenings away but my husband isn't a reader and he wants the TV on when he's in the house - regardless of the fact that he sleeps through most of the shows. :)

About the only program we watched last summer was "The Closer," in which Kyra Sedgwick's character, the police lieutenant, is a hoot. She dresses like a southern lady, but no one is better at closing cases. The cast of characters too is very funny, and the cases are sometimes interesting.

This summer we've found several good summer series to watch, including this week's premier of "Rizzoli and Isles," based on the Tess Gerritsen series of novels. I had taped the first one but we watched it last night and, like the books, it scared me half to death. It always bothers me when the bad guy is a psycho, but this one was really out there. He was not only nuts, he actually enjoyed killing, slowly. His favorite scenario was to rape a woman while her husband watched, then kill him, and take the wife's body somewhere that he hoped no one would find it so he could visit it. Yuck, right? Rarely am I on the edge of my seat watching a TV show, but this one had me practically falling off of my chair.

We're also enjoying "Memphis Beat" which is very funny, with stereotypical but fun nonetheless characters and good stories. Good music too.

And then there's the oddball news. Once you get through the terrible news about the wars and the oil spill, you hear that, for instance, Bristol and Levi are now engaged. Say what? There's always a bumbling burglar or two determined to show how stupid he is, or a streaker at some big event. I thought streaking went out decades ago but apparently not. I guess the news people realize that with the war news and the oil spill, we've had all the tragedy we can stand, so they try to lighten the mood. Well, it does make us laugh for a minute.

My major objection to summer TV is the same as the rest of the year. TV commercials are apparently all made now by Dumb and Dumber. Most of them are so stupid I can't bear to watch them, and I certainly can't tell you what product they're advertising most of the time. Hey ad agencies, you are defeating your purpose. Don't you realize that?