Categories
Uncategorized

2018: Books vs TV

Last year I read zero books, although I began several. I felt quite strongly I had let myself down, given that I read several a year usually.

I recently looked at and updated my personal lists, and found out why. Here goes:

1. TV Shows Seen in 2018

Californication S05-S07
Archer S01-S05, S09
Rotten (Netflix) S01*
Dark Net S01
Race for the White House S01
Dirty Money S01
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee 2018
The Grand Tour S02
The Vietnam War*
1983 – Polish TV Show
Follow This S01 S02 S03*
Borderline S01, S02
Patriot Act Hassan Minhaj Volume 1
Ask the Doctor S01*
House of Cards S06
Maniac – single season*
Brooklyn 99 S05*
Call My Agent S01 S02
A Very Secret Service S01* S02
The Cube Libre Story S01
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman
Liquid Science S01
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt S04
Wormwood S01
Dreamland S01 S02
Bobby Kennedy For President – single season*
Trump An American Dream – single season
The Patriot S02*
Wild Wild Country – single season*
Very British Problems – S01 S02
Ken Burns: The Roosevelts: An Intimate History – single season*

2. Movies seen in 2018

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Unbreakable
War Dogs
2001: A Space Odyssey*
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

3. Documentaries seen in 2018

Print the Legend*
Innsaei: The Sea Within
Betting on Zero (Herbalife)*
Risk (Julian Assange)
The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms
Fat Sick and Nearly Dead*
Fat Sick and Nearly Dead 2*
Forks Over Knives
Ram Dass, Going Home
On Yoga – The Architecture of Peace
In Defence of Food*
Sustainable*
The  Bleeding Edge
The Most Unknown – experts meet other experts
Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia*
The Magic Pill
Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee
Guru: Bhagwan, His Secretary & His Bodyguard
Best of Enemies: Gore v Vidal*
Inside Job
Take Your Pills
The Final Year – Obama, Kerry, Power, Ben Rhodes in 2016*
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room*

I’ve marked some of my favourites with asterisks. A lot of it is cheap entertainment, entire seasonfuls of it. Hundreds of hours. But some, especially the documentaries and the docu-style TV shows, are worth the time they take – when we say we are living in the golden age of television, this is what we’re talking about.