Last night's episode of The 4400 built nicely upon the first.  I like the idea that these 4400 mysterious abductees were apparently returned to fulfill specific tasks.  Perhaps it makes the show a bit Touched By an Angel-y, but not in a particularly stupid or obvious way.  It's also a gimmick that may work better in the limited series format than the long run.  We'll see how it all plays out, but I'm planning on watching it.
 
Tonight sees the premiere of the new TNT antiterrorist miniseries, The Grid.  It's a coproduction with (I think) the BBC, and my hope is that it's closer to Spooks than Threat Matrix.  I'll give it a shot, because what else is there to watch on Monday nights?
 
Well, obviously, there's always Joe Schmo 2, my favorite fake reality show.  (The executive producer has a pretty nifty blog here, with lots of nifty behind-the-scenes stuff.  Seriously, if you're not watching this show, you're totally missing out.  Or not a real man, I guess, since it airs on Spike!, the Network for Men.  Whatever that means.)  But I probably won't be watching Joe Schmo 2 live tonight, because I have to get up early for a job interview.
 
Yes, that's right; a job interview.  I'm happy where I am, but I've decided to at least explore what other options are available to me, and tomorrow, I have an interview at the local community college.  If it goes well, I have some difficult choices to make.  I'm not sure if I want to change career paths, which this would definitely mean, but I have to consider what opportunities will be available to me where I am.  (Of course, this is if they actually offer me the job, but if I didn't think that was a realistic possibility, I wouldn't even be bothering to interview.)
 
I received my DVDs of the first season of Boomtown today, the "groundbreaking" crime drama NBC canceled last season which innovatively told its stories from multiple points of views.  I don't know; maybe my expectations are too high, but I can't get excited over TV that gets labeled as "daring," or "innovative," or "cutting edge" any more.  To me, the shows that win all the acclaim represent the minimum acceptable level that TV ought to be.  They don't stand out from the pack because they're good; they stand out from the pack because they're not bad.  I'm not saying that everything needs to be as different as a Boomtown or a Nip/Tuck.  Shows like Judging Amy or Stargate SG-1 are told in a traditional manner, but they tell their stories well.  And I think Las Vegas is all flash with no substance, but it's hard for me to watch that show from an objective viewpoint.  (They never have to fight traffic, they never have trouble parking, nobody ever offers to box up their meals right in the middle, and I'd bet every grocery store they go to has the freaking soda they're looking for, and yet it takes place in the same city where I have to deal with all those things.)  I just wish "groundbreaking" hadn't become a synonym for "better than mediocre," because it loses a great deal of its meaning that way.
 
Oh, and I got bitched at by a deaf guy today.  He was panhandling inside the library, showing people a note asking for money.  So I wrote him a note telling him he couldn't do that.  And he wrote something nasty on the note back to me, which I can't remember, and didn't even make a whole lot of sense, but it sounded mean, and he gave me a really nasty look.  This is why I'd consider taking the job at CCSN if it were offered to me, even though I'd hate to give up youth librarianship: some days, I just want to get out of West Las Vegas like you wouldn't believe.  (Ultimately, though, I realize these are small things that will pass--perhaps as painfully as kidney stones, but still--and that I will get out of that branch eventually; these, on their own, are not reasons to completely change the direction of my career.  But they are considerations...)