New Favorite Shows

My new favorite show is on BBCAmerica: Creature Comforts. It's a British claymation show, reminiscent of Wallace and Grommit (actually I've just learned that they are both done by the same studio: Aardman).

It features the voices of regular people with their great English accents talking about random subjects, but they are depicted as animated clay animals. It's like a wonderful oral history project thrown in with a postmodern audio/visual collage, like a Negativland song, where certain sentences can achieve greater meaning and significance by throwing it into a different context. Very funny!

My new favorite channel is Fine Living. And it has two shows that I like, maybe because they are both about drinking: Simply Wine With Andrea Immer and The Thirsty Traveler.

Andrea Immer is like the Martha Stewart of wine. Her show has a great premise and it has a great structure. I thought she looked a little contrived on the cover of her book (that I totally loved), but on television she has a natural exuberance and down-to-earthiness, as well as extensive wine knowledge. She totally wins me over.

The Thirsty Traveler is like a fun travel show, but with an emphasis on the drinking, which is what everybody does on vacation anyway. The show on cognac was both informative and fun. I just wonder how the host stays so physically fit with all the daytime drinking he does. It's reminds me of the Anthony Bourdain show, but without all the Fear Factor-ish eating of strange foreign foods. I mean, I like foreign foods, but luckily my vegetarianism keeps me from eating the truly freakish stuff like Bourdain does.