Top Ten Tuesday: Let's Talk TV

Top Ten Tuesday is weekly meme created by the lovely folks at The Broke and the Bookish. They created it because they're "particularly fond of lists" and since I also enjoy lists, I've decided to participate in this fun feature.

We all know I love books. You do too if you're reading this blog. But us bookworms seem to have a love of other types of stories as well and that's what this week's Top Ten Tuesday is all about. I've decided to list my favourite TV shows of the past and present (trying to choose favourite  movies is WAY too hard). What are some of your favourite TV shows? Are there any that you think I should watch?

Past

Gilmore Girls is my all time favourite show. I own all the DVDs and would watch them over and over again as I did homework in university. I loved the women, the humour, the boys, and the story. I wish with all my heart that Amy Sherman-Palladino had concluded the series but I suppose what we got wasn't too horrible (ok, just think that it could have been worse). Also: I never missed a single episode when it was airing live. Big deal in the time of no DVR or easy online watching.

I got into this show a little late but I adored it. It lasted four seasons (which was the plan) and it was amazing. Being Erica has a bit of fantastical twist (time traveling!) but it's so real. Plus, I loved that Erica was trying to make it in publishing in Toronto. 

My family and I started watching House because we loved Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster (a must watch!). He played Dr. House so well and I watched this show religiously. Confession: I still haven't watched the final season so don't tell me what happens! (The boyfriend and I are working on rewatching the series but got side-tracked with trying to rewatch all of 24 before the new season started!)

Oh, be still my teenage heart. I was the perfect age for this show when it started (just a year older than the characters). I already knew (and loved) my future husband, Adam Brody (thanks to Sausage Factory and the aforementioned Gilmore Girls), so that's why I started watching it. I was hooked after the first episode. A friend of mine and I have actually been rewatching the series and it's been SO much fun.

Current

I was a latecomer to Bones. My mom watched it and a couple of roommates in university watched it so I had caught quite a few episodes here and there. A friend lent me the DVDs one summer a few years ago and I powered through the series in time to start the new season. I was feeling "meh" about it prior to last season but they had a stellar season and I'm looking forward to next year.

Castle is another one I was late to the game to. My sister got into it and, thanks to her DVDs, I caught up and now eagerly look forward to the new episodes every week. Nathan Fillion is fantastic and I love the chemistry between him and Stana Katic. I like that the show is so funny as well as dramatic.

Sigh. I love Downton Abbey: the story, the actors, the scenery, the time period. Just love it. I bingewatched the first couple of seasons and am addicted (I believe I watched season two in one day...). I'm actually behind on this one too, thanks to being busy/away for a few weeks, so as soon as I get a permanent job I will be buying the DVD set of season four so I can catch up. 

Speaking of bingewatching, the boyfriend and I signed up for Netflix and I saw that Sherlock was available to us Canadians. I had had many people tell me I would probably love it so we decided to give it a try. We could not stop watching it. We didn't realize when we started it, though, that each season was only three episodes so we quickly finished the first two and were all "what the hell?" Absolutely cannot wait for the next season.

I love fairy tales so I was excited when I first heard about Once Upon a Time. I still love it and I love that it is a little bit cheesy. It plays with the stories we know so well thanks to Disney and puts their own spin on them. It's so much fun to watch and I cannot wait to see what happens with Emma and Hook (swoon). 

Yep, I like both Sherlock AND Elementary. I started watching the NYC show first (since it was readily available on network TV). It filled the hole House had left (which makes sense since House is loosely based on Holmes). And I just love Lady Watson! 

Honourable Mentions
24 - I only watched one season but I am LOVING the rewatch the boyfriend and I are doing. Jack kicks ass.
The Crazy Ones - I don't watch a lot of sitcoms but Robin Williams' new one is freaking hilarious.
Justified - This show is so bad ass but clever (and lacks the extreme violence of Sons of Anarchy which kept me from sticking with that show).
Parenthood - I started watching this because, duh, Lauren Graham. I've missed a bunch of episodes but it really is a great show.

Review: Longbourn

It's not often that I'll allow myself to have (ridiculously) high expectations of a novel. When you start to expect something out of this world amazing you start to set yourself up for disappointment. I think I set the bar too high for the newly released Longbourn. I expected too much from it. Jo Baker's novel was well researched and well written but I found myself feeling only so-so about it as I read it. I enjoyed it as a whole but trying to put my finger on what it was that let me down has been a frustrating process.

Here's the synopsis:

Pride and Prejudice was only half the story.If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended. 
Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own. 

I do think Pride and Prejudice fans would enjoy this. It's important to note, however, that the Bennets and friends are not the focus of the story. At least, not in the way that a lot of people might want or expect. The novel isn't set up like Downton Abbey where you see both upstairs and downstairs equally. You only see the upstairs when the servants are there. Everything is seen through their eyes - and I liked that. We didn't need anything more because we (at least the people who have read Pride and Prejudice) already know the upstairs story. This allows us to fill in some blanks. I liked that we got to see how the servants would have interpreted the goings on at Longbourn. Did you ever think about how their lives would be changed once Mr. Bennet died and Mr. Collins took over? I never did. This novel makes you realize how dependant the servants are on their masters. I liked knowing what was happening inside while James was waiting outside Netherfield in the carriage or upstairs when Lady Catherine de Bourgh sweeps into Longbourn. These parts of the novel, the adding to Pride and Prejudice, were nice to read about - if slow in the beginning.

I had some trouble determining exactly how much time was passing, especially near the end of the book. It was easy when the servants' story was running parallel to the story we know so well from Pride and Prejudice but once it went beyond the end of that novel I was quickly confused. I want to give examples to show why it was confusing but that would give away the end of the story! It's really not a huge deal but it distracted me a bit from the conclusion and bothered me enough that it warrants a mention.

I liked Sarah, the maid who serves as the heroine in this story. I was invested in her life and wanted only the best for her. There were other little stories that captured my interest as well but were slow to get really moving. We don't know exactly what James' story is, nor do we know why Mrs. Hill seems agitated (though I correctly guessed the reason). Even though I was glad to find out exactly what had happened to James, I wish there had not been 40+ pages devoted to explaining it. The history of it was mildly interesting but I didn't feel like it did anything for the story as a whole. The Mrs. Hill storyline contained a big shocker that Austen fans will probably really dislike because it paints a beloved Pride and Prejudice character in a less than favourable light.

Overall, I liked Longbourn. I didn't love it as I expected to and that probably coloured my review. I think if you go into reading Jo Baker's novel expecting a good story with an interesting and new take on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice you'll probably quite enjoy it. There may be things that irk you, as they did for me, but it is a good story. I just think it could have been a little better. For those of you who have read this one already, what did you think of it? I'd love to hear what you thought!

*A copy of this novel was provided by the publisher, Random House of Canada, in exchange for an honest review.*