American Television..

I have recently been watching American TV quite frequently...I am watching Glee and Modern Family..(and of cos the new season of The Amazing Race). Don't get me wrong, I seldom watch TV whilst in Australia but when I go back to Penang, I watch alot of Astro Cable TV and recently on my July trip back, I watched a few episodes of Glee and Modern Family and really liked them..but then i just forgot about it until earlier this week when The United States of Tara was showing on TV and I caught a couple of episodes n really liked the storyline of the son whom's gay...and then on the same night i caught an interesting doco on dharavi, the slum of Mumbai on ABC 1 channel and also came across a 1996 Australian drama called 'Sweat' with Heath Ledger in it! I was going to switch channels until i was stumpped when one character was telling Heath' No I didn't tell about the GUY you are dating'..and i was like WHAT?! I knew this was a pretty old drama and so I was surprised there was actually a gay plotline for one of the main characters...turns out Heath was playing a gay athelete in this drama (way before his Brokeback Mountain days) which is a drama revolving around a group of students in a Sports Academy..i am going to follow the drama now...i am just surprised that Aussie dramas were so progressive back then, it was a positive portrayal and Heath did not play a stereotypical effeminate gay role but was a normal Aussie bloke into sports...he also has a bestfriend n straight roommate...

I also like Modern Family for its quirky lines and unique mockumentary format...its really good ..well recommended...love the Columbian wife plot as well as the gay couple plot, which once again depict non-stereotypical gay characters, one being overweight, the other being non-good looking with a beard...as opposed to the stereotypical image of gay men being fit and in shape and good-looking...

I also came across The Amazing Race, new season, on TV, the day after I 'rediscovered' all these wonderful dramas and as usual got hooked...i watched through several seasons earlier this year on youtube when i found out they were available online as i'd missed several seasons before...great to be able to catch the new season on tv...once again, there's another Taiwanese-American team:-) The father-son team..as i've written about before, i kinda knew they were Taiwanese-American (and not Chinese-American) by their looks and the fact that upwardly mobile and famous Americans of Chinese Heritage tend to be Taiwanese-American..I do hope that they go far. By the way, the son is an internet youtube sensation even before he joined the show, he has millions of youtube subscribers apparently, this is one of his videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gdCjQw6Lb8&feature=related

Anyways, I'm going to be enjoying myself for the next few weeks, esp since we can watch catch-up tv and episodes online for episodes we missed on the tv network's website here:-)