The Thursday Report – Looking Ahead to 2006

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A very merry/happy Christmas/Kwanza/Chunakah to you all. And if you don’t celebrate any of those, happy Festivus! It’s been a fun week for me. Here in Toronto the weather was above 0C (32F for you Americans) so we got… rain. At least until Christmas night, when the temperature dropped and we got wet snow. Which doesn’t sound bad, except that Dec 26 is Boxing Day up here in Canada, and it’s tradtionally the biggest shopping day of the year – basically our version of the Friday after U.S. Thanksgiving. So it generally works out that if you don’t get a present right at Christmas, you’ll probably get one a few days after.

So yeah, the wife and I did do some shopping during Boxing Day, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I spent money on myself – and not just for electronics. I like shopping at Mexx, and with everything at 50% off I ended up buying a few shirts in my continuing effort to not look entirely like a bum when I go out.

Well, that’s enough about my Christmas week. It’s time for the TV stuff…

Last week, I presented my year-end lists, and of course on Friday Josh called me out on that (ok, it was Monday, but let’s just pretend, ok?), asking why I’m doing an End-of-Year column with one week to go. Well, this week I’m looking at what I want to do with this column for next year. Back when I started this column, I really didn’t have much focus and I partially attribute that to starting at the tail end of May sweeps and coming in a bit late to really talk about Survivor and the like. Plus, I got married in July, which understandably and rightly took up much of my time. I felt that once ‘Survivor’ and ‘The Amazing Race’ started I hit a groove, but I’m still looking to find a way to diversify, since many of the columnists already talk about reality shows and I think that we tend to duplicate ourselves there.

So, here’s my plan for next year, which I hope to stick to:

Mini-Feature
I’m not sure how frequently this will run, but my goal is to have a TV-related mini-feature every 2-4 weeks. For instance, I have the ‘JLA’ telemovie, which is so bad that it deserves to be written about, plus there are some “cancelled before their time” shows that we didn’t cover in our December Feature. ‘Birds of Prey’ will probably be covered there. There are also some “nostalgia” shows that will probably be looked at, and that will encompass lesser-known cartoons like ‘M.A.S.K.’ and ‘Centurions’.

So probably a few comic-based properties will get the mini-feature treatment, and don’t be surprised if I show up in Mathan or Jim’s columns over in The Nexus asking some questions pertinent to a column I’m researching.

Reality Show Commentary
I’m still going to do commentary, but my focus will first and foremost be on ‘The Amazing Race’. I may focus on ‘Idol’ once it gets to the viewer voting stages, but that depends on a number of factors, the primary one being whether I’m doing recaps of the show or not. I think we have enough people talking about ‘Survivor’, so my thinking is that I will limit that section to the “prediction board” with comments added therein.

Other Shows
Similar to Josh’s “What I Watched” section in “The Weekly Pulse”, I’ll have a list of shows that I watched over the course of the week, with comments on each as warranted. Expect to see ’24’, ‘Lost’ and ‘Prison Break’ here.

Bits and Pieces
This will evolve into more of a “random thoughts” section, where I may post comments about sports, comics or even questions like “What the f*ck was interesting about ‘Deal or No Deal’?”

Miscellanious
My “featured article” logo made it’s debut last week. In case you’re wondering, that is indeed my last name as it appears in Chinese.

Outside of This Column
I’ll continue to contribute to the TV features on a semi-regular basis, plus I should have some DVD reviews out early in the new year. As for recaps, I’ll be back in February for ‘The Amazing Race 9’, so look for my pre-show ramblings and live coverage then. And of course you can find me trolling around the IP Forums.

One More Thing
Vinay Menon at the Toronto Star has a fun article covering some things that he thought about the television in 2005. Give it a look and see if you agree.

That’s it for this year. See you in 2006!

Kevin has been an Insider since 2003, writing on a variety of topics ranging from The Amazing Race to Mixed Martial Arts. His current hobbies include Fantasy Football, Sporcle, travelling, making liberal use of his DVR and wondering what the heck he's gonna do when his two daughters are old enough to date. You can follow Kevin on Twitter (@starvenger).