Years ago, when I was still a baby in fandom terms, I started writing about television. I was a regular Livejournal user back then, and I would write lists of stream-of-consciousness observations. The lists were typically exactly twenty items long, and for some reason, the handful of followers who read these posts enjoyed my musings, and 20 Thoughts became something of a regular event.
Unfortunately, real life became very real and I abandoned both the platform and the writing. But now that I have rediscovered the joys of episodic television, this is where I'll be logging my ramblings on various television shows I have watched recently (and I use the word "television" loosely to describe episodic series, including those that are not actually on television).
Why television you might ask? In terms of storytelling, there is almost nothing that surpasses the written word, but I think television comes the closest, marrying the visual technology of film with a much more ancient tradition of oral storytelling. Television didn't exist a century ago, but in a sense, it's a part of a continuous history of stories, once told by jongleurs in the streets of medieval Europe, in masked noh plays in Japan, in the nautanki tradition in the streets and villages of India, or even the campfire stories that became a part of American folk tradition.
In other words, television series (and even the medium itself) may come and go, but storytelling is forever, and these are the stories that have moved me.
A note and a disclaimer: nearly all the content here revolves around non-English series. There are two reasons for this. First, there are approximately a million blogs where fans gather to talk about English-language content, and I have nothing of value to add to that vast ocean. Second, and more importantly, I love language, and watching television in languages other than English has been a great portal into other storytelling traditions and cultures, particularly for me. However, I'm American and speak English as a first language, so much of my understanding of non-English content is filtered through subtitles and uneven cultural context. So, yes, I will get things wrong in other languages, and your patience is much appreciated.
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