What I'm Watching - Fall 2014

Hey, friends! So Fall TV is officially back, and I couldn’t be more excited. There are some great shows coming on this season, some new and some returning. Now, there is a lot of garbage on TV these days, and sometimes it’s hard to separate the good from the bad. But if you take the time to do so, you can actually find some interesting, enjoyable programming.

On that note, I’ve decided to write up a list of some of the shows I’m most excited about watching this Fall. You may have heard me talk about some of these shows before, and you may see a Stuff Devon Likes post about one or two of them in the future, but I just wanted to right a quick blurb on some of the shows I’m watching in case any of you find them appealing. So here we go. This is my Fall 2014 “What I’m Watching” list.

Once Upon a Time

For those of you who didn’t read my Stuff Devon Likes article about Once Upon a Time, it’s pretty much Lost, but with fairy tale characters. Snow White, Prince Charming, the Evil Queen, and the like get trapped in our world and can’t find their way back to the Enchanted Forest. Throughout the show, they explore magical lands and face increasingly formidable foes. The show makes excellent use of flashbacks to give us information about the characters and even to move the plot forward. Although a show featuring fairy tale characters may sound a little odd, it actually works really well. This season, they’re including characters from Frozen, so if you enjoyed that movie, you might want to give Once a try. Once Upon a Time airs on ABC Sunday nights at 7:00 Central Time, and the season four premiere is this Sunday.

A to Z

This is a new one. I actually discovered A to Z because NBC was letting people stream the pilot for free for a while. I’m a big fan of Christin Milioti, so I decided to give it a shot. The show is actually really cute. It tells the story of Andrew and Zelda (thus the title), two star-crossed lovers. I really like the cast and the humor, but the most interesting thing to me about this show is that they tell you from the very start how long the relationship between the two main characters will last: around eight months. Is the show stating from the start that it’s only going to last a season? Do the two end up getting married after eight months? Do they break up? Or is this some kind of trick the writers are playing on us? I don’t know, but those questions alone are enough to keep me interested at least for one season. A to Z premieres on NBC October 2 at 8:30 Central Time.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Andy Samberg’s hilarious new show on FOX is back for another season. It’s a cop show with a lot of heart and even more laughs. I dedicated an entire Stuff Devon Likes article to this show simply because I think it’s that funny. The cast is perfect, and Andy Samberg leads with humor and very little tact. The show saw a lot of success in season one, so I’m excited to see what they have for us in season two. FOX moved Brooklyn Nine-Nine to Sunday nights this season, and it premieres September 28 (this Sunday) at 7:30 Central Time.

Gotham

This show has already premiered, and if you haven’t seen it, you should. It follows Detective Gordon (who we all know will later become Commissioner Gordon) as he starts off on the Gotham Police Force and learns just how corrupt the city is. The show isn’t about Batman, but it does feature a young Bruce Wayne interacting with Gordon during the investigation of his parents’ murder. Other familiar faces include the Penguin, Ivy, Catwoman, and mob boss Falcone. The show features the origins of many of the people who will go on to be Batman’s greatest enemies, and it explains how Gotham got to the point where it needed someone like Batman to set things right. Gotham airs Monday nights on FOX at 7:00 Central Time.

Arrow

When I first heard that The CW was doing a DC Comics show, I was skeptical. But The CW isn’t just about gossip girls and vampires anymore. Arrow is their most successful show right now, and for good reason. It tells the story of Oliver Queen, a rich heir to his father’s billion-dollar company, who returns home from being shipwrecked on an island for five years and dawns a green hood to fight crime and right his father’s wrongs. The premise of the show actually sounds like a more twisted version of Batman’s origin, and there are some similarities at first, but as the show goes on it, it finds its own voice. The show has an interesting format in that most episodes feature flashbacks to Oliver’s time on the island that have some relevance to what’s going on in the present day. Arrow is definitely worth watching, and its season three premiere is Wednesday October 8 at 7:00 Central Time on The CW.

The Flash

After the success of Arrow, The CW decided to create another DC Comics superhero show, this one based around the superhero Flash. If you’ve seen season two of Arrow, then you’ve already met Barry Allen, the police consultant who gains superhuman speed after an accident involving a particle accelerator. The Flash picks up Barry’s story where Arrow left off, with Barry waking up from his lenghty coma induced by the accident and finding out about his new abilities. The Flash and Arrow will cross over early in the season this year, and there is potential for characters to cross back and forth between the two shows, which could lead to some interesting plot points. If you enjoy Arrow, The Flash is the logical next step in your TV-viewing experience. The Flash debuts Tuesday October 7 at 7:00 Central Time on The CW.

Agents of SHIELD

Agents of SHIELD had a rough start last year, but it really found its voice in the second half of the season. I won’t spoil anything, but something happens in the Marvel Cinematic Universe partway through the season that changes everything, and SHIELD handles it perfectly. This season is guaranteed to feature more of the fallout from last season, along with some fresh new faces from the Marvel world. If you like the Marvel movies and want to know more about what goes on in between them, Agents of SHIELD is for you. Plus, who doesn’t love to see more of Agent Coulson, right? Agents of SHIELD airs on ABC Tuesday nights at 8:00 Central Time.

Girl Meets World

These last two shows on the list are a little different from the rest, but I’m equally excited about them. The first is Girl Meets World, the highly-anticipated sequel series to the 90’s sitcom Boy Meets World. The original show capture the hearts of a generation, and now Girl Meets World hopes to do it again. The show is equally geared towards the Disney Channel target audience and fans of Boy Meets World who are now grown up but still want to know what’s going on in the lives of their favorite Boy Meets World characters. Girls Meets World has already aired nine episodes of their first season, and they’ve been picked up for a second. I know the fact that the show is on Disney Channel may cause some concern, but the show really is enjoyable, and it’s worth a watch. Girl Meets World airs on Disney Channel Friday nights at 7:30 Central Time.

Star Wars Rebels

And finally, I’ll be watching every episode of Star Wars Rebels this season. I had the opportunity to watch the premiere earlier this week thanks to Disney releasing it early on their Disney XD app, and this show is just good. It captures the feel of the original trilogy in an animated series that can be appreciated by Star Wars fans of all ages. Star Wars Rebels tells the story of the motley crew aboard the Ghost, the ship where the Rebel Alliance was started. These are the unknowing founders of what will later become the group that opposes the Empire under such leadership as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa. But Rebels isn’t about them. It’s about the original rebels, including a runaway Jedi named Kanan and his newly-discovered apprentice Ezra. I’m very interested to see how the Rebel Alliance goes from one crew to the giant, inter-system group that it becomes in the movies. I’m also excited to see how a Jedi and his apprentice interact and train in a world without the Jedi Order. Plus, it will be cool to learn more about how the Empire operates, and how it deals with the discovery of a rogue Jedi on the loose. Star Wars Rebels premieres on Disney Channel on Friday October 3 at 8:00 Central Time with a one-hour movie, and then it will air on Disney XD Monday nights at 8:00 starting October 13.

So that’s what I’m watching this season! I hope my suggestions are useful to you. I tried to suggest a variety of shows so that maybe at least one of them will interest you. I’d also like to add that all of these shows get my stamp of approval for appropriateness, but some of them may not be suitable for children. I’d love to hear what you guys are planning to watch this year, so contact me via social media and let me know! Thanks for reading, friends. I hope you have a great rest of the weekend.

Rude

Hey, friends! So I’m trying something new. Every once in a while, I’ll be doing a post about faith and pop culture. In these posts, I’ll analyze something in pop culture (such as a song or movie) that’s become really popular lately, and I’m going to see what insights we can gain from it about our world and about living the Christian life. Sound interesting? Good. Let’s get started.

For my first post in this series, I’m going to be looking at the song “Rude” by Magic. You can listen to it here. Mostly, I chose this song because I cannot get it out of my head no matter how hard I try. Regardless of its message, this song is ridiculous catchy just from the melody, which I think is part of the reason it’s so popular. But I think there’s more to Rude than just a memorable tune that has made it such a hit.

Rude is a song about a young man who is in love with a girl. He decides he wants to marry her, so he shows up on her father’s doorstep and asks for his permission to propose to her. For whatever reason, the girl’s father doesn’t approve of the guy, so he says no and adds that he’ll never approve of his daughter marrying him. The young man then proceeds to ask the father, “Why you gotta be so rude? Don’t you know I’m human, too?” and then finishes by announcing, “I’m gonna marry her anyway, no matter what you say, and we’ll be family. Why you gotta be so rude?”

This song has a lot going for it as far as connecting with our culture goes. It’s got a love story. It’s got an underdog hero who has to face a mean (or rude, rather) tyrannical foe. It includes a scandalous secret marriage. And it features something that connects with an unfortunately high number of teenagers and young adults: disrespect for parents. I know I sound old-school saying that, but I think it’s true. There is something about our culture that encourages young people to show disrespect to those in authority over them, especially people that are older. I think this says a lot about our society.

At first glance, one may think that this song has nothing to offer Christians, who emphasize respecting authority and take marriage very seriously. Many Christians may reject this song as immoral and choose to ignore it completely. But I think that if we take a deeper look at Rude, it does have some things to teach us.

Human Rebellion

First of all, I think that if we’re really honest with ourselves, we can each see a little bit of ourselves in the song’s protagonist. He sees himself as the hero standing up against a great, evil foe. When he hits a wall, his first inclination is to push against it, without even considering that maybe the girl’s father is looking out for everyone’s best interests. Isn’t that so much like us? When God tells us no, don’t we all have a tendency to fight against that? We see ourselves as the great heroes in our life stories, and sometimes we go against what God has for us. It’s human nature, and I think we see a little bit of that in this song.

If we see ourselves as the guy in the song, then the story has a little bit of a different spin to it. It’s no longer about a disgraceful young man being disrespectful (or rude) to his girlfriend’s dad. It’s about us and our own sinful tendencies. Sometimes we look God in the face and say, “Why you gotta be so rude, God?” But just as we understand that the guy in the story is out of line, so we must understand that we are out of line, too, when we treat God in this way. So this song teaches us that we can all be like the guy in this story if we aren’t careful, and we all need to fight our tendency to rebel when God tells us no.

A Loving Father

Obviously, the song is meant to cast the girl’s father in a negative light. He’s supposed to be the bad guy, the rude one that the title refers to. But as Christians, we can look at the song in a different way. In truth, the father in the song is probably right for turning the boy away. As far as he knows, the boy has nothing to offer his daughter. He is ultimately protecting his daughter from someone who may cause her harm down the road. That’s how our heavenly Father is with us.

Among the many things that God does for us, he is our protector. He knows better than we do what is good for us. And he fights for us. He defends us from the evils of this word. To us, that sometimes look like God is shutting a door in our face or trying to ruin our fun. It may look a little rude. But the truth is that God’s plan for us is the best life we could live, so we have to trust him as the loving Father that he is.

The Bride of Christ

There’s one character in the story who doesn’t get a chance to speak, and that’s the daughter. We can connect with her, too. The Bible describes the church as the bride of Christ. Collectively, we are his true love, and we have committed ourselves to be faithful to him and him alone. And yet, like the girl in the story, we are often faced with opportunities to “run off” with other things. It’s true that we don’t serve other deities like the Israelites often did when they were accused of cheating on God. But we do let other things take his place sometimes. We’ve promised to make him our number one, but we sometimes elevate other things above him, making those things our “gods.”

So in a way, we are like the girl in the song. Like her, we have a loving Father who tries to protect us. But ultimately, it comes down to us. In the song, the unnamed girl has a choice: Is she going to say yes to the marriage proposal and forsake her responsibilities, or is she going to honor her father and turn the boy away? We are faced with the same question in our lives. Will we be faithful to Christ, or will we pursue other things and let them take his place?

I’m not going to lie. I bought Rude on iTunes, and I listen to it often. I know it has some issues. But it’s also catchy, and it’s something that has connected with our culture. So I’ve tried to find ways of looking at it that are positive and relevant to the Christian life, and I’ve tried to present those ways of looking at the song with you. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the song! Give it a listen, and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading, friends, and I’ll see you next week!

iOS 8

As many of you know, I’m an Apple fanboy. I love my MacBook and my iDevices. They help me do a lot of cool stuff. And I’m sure a lot of you are at least vaguely interested in Apple as well. Maybe you have an iPhone or an iPad, or you just like to know what’s going on with the most talked-about tech company in the world. If you fall into any of those categories, this Stuff Devon Likes post is for you. It’s all about iOS 8.

iOS 8, the newest software for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches, released to the public this past Wednesday after a few months of beta testing. Although not as eagerly anticipated as last year’s radically redesign iOS 7, iOS 8 still made a splash with its new features. In this post, I’ll be highlighting just a few of them.

My favorite new feature in iOS 8 is responsive notifications. I hate having to open the Messages app every single time someone texts me and I want to respond. Now, I don’t have to. If I’m in the middle of something else on my phone or if I want to respond from the lock screen, all I have to do is swipe the notification, and a quick response text area opens up. It’s quick and handy. And this feature isn’t limited to Messages. It applies to emails, calendar alerts, tweets, Facebook notifications, and more. All of these notification types come with their own custom ways of interacting with them. I love it.

Another cool feature is Notification Center widgets. Android users have been boasting about widgets for a long time, but now they’re finally on iOS! When you download an app from the App Store, many will now come with an accompanying widget that you can place in your Notification Center. That way if you want to check the score of your favorite team without opening the app, you can do so right in Notification Center. You can also manage your bid on an Ebay item, create a new note in Evernote, and more, all from Notification Center.

iOS 8 also gives users a smoother flow when switching between devices. If you start an email on your iPad but have to leave before you finish it, you can pull it up on your iPhone instantly and complete it on the go. If you open a web page on your phone but want to see it on your iPad’s bigger screen, you can do so instantly from the iPad’s lock screen. You can make and answer phone calls on your iPad as long as your phone is on the same WiFi network. And you can receive and send SMS messages on your iPad, too. That way all of your messages are on all of your iOS devices. This smooth flow between devices is called Continuity, and it’s automatic. It will also work with your Mac when OS X Yosemite drops, possibly next month.

These iOS 8 features are just a few of my favorites. There are so many more I could list. Extensibility. Better Siri. Simple audio and video messaging. New photo editing features. Family Sharing. The all-new Health app. Third-party keyboards. The list goes on and on. The moral of the story is that if you’ve got an iOS device that’s capable of running iOS 8, you should install it. It looks a lot like iOS 7, so you won’t have to re-learn anything. You’ll just have a lot of cool new tools at your disposal. Thanks for reading my quick review of iOS 8, friends. See you next week!

Misguided Gratitude

In case you’ve been living under a rock lately, the iPhone 6 was announced last week, and it’s awesome. I stayed up late Thursday night (and into Friday morning) to be one of the first to pre-order the new phone through Apple’s online store. These pre-orders are always crazy and difficult. The servers get slammed by the thousands upon thousands of people clamoring to be the first to get their hands on the precious new hardware, so it takes a while. When I finally got through and was preparing to check out with my new iPhone 6 Plus, I realized a horrifying fact: I couldn’t change my shipping address from my parents’ house to my apartment in Waco. Not wanting to miss out on my opportunity to buy the new phone, I checked out anyway, hoping I would be able to change the shipping address later.

Well, I wasn’t able to change the shipping address online due to some kind of weird new AT&T policy (shocker), so first thing Friday morning, I called Apple Support to see if they could help me. I ended up waiting on hold for an hour. I had time to go to the gym, eat breakfast, and get ready for the day all while listening to Apple’s hold music, which gets really old after a while. But finally after an hour of waiting, I was greeted by the friendliest customer support representative I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. He apologized for the long wait and immediately changed my shipping address, all while being kind and personable. The experience actually made the hour-long wait seem not so bad. As soon as I got off the phone with him, I took to Twitter to post about what a great experience I had had. But then I realized something: Why was I posting my gratitude toward this individual on Twitter, where he would probably never see it, when I could have actually told him what a great job he had done over the phone?

I just got off the phone with the nicest and most helpful Apple customer support agent ever. And he fixed my shipping address!

— Devon Michael Dundee (@devondundee) September 12, 2014

This is an example of what I call misguided gratitude. Instead of showing sincere gratitude to the person who deserves it, we proclaim our thanks to the world. But for what purpose? Sometimes the person may receive the gratitude that way. For example, if you know the person and tag them in your post. But usually, the person we should be thanking is someone we don’t know, and they never get the pleasure of knowing that their kindness and courtesy was appreciated.

I think that ultimately, misguided gratitude is more about ourselves than about the person we claim to be thanking. We want to seem grateful, but only in a way that benefits us. This isn’t the way we should be. Gratitude isn’t about building ourselves up. It’s about encouraging and affirming someone who we feel deserves some sort of recognition.

And gratitude doesn’t have to be a public act, either. Usually, it’s the smaller, private acts of gratitude that mean the most. If I had taken a few seconds to tell that Apple employee, “You did a really great job. Thank you so much for your help. You’re very good at what you do,” it might have made an impact on his day. It may have even given him that little extra encouragement to keep up his positive attitude, knowing that it was doing some good. But instead, I chose the route of misplaced gratitude and missed out on a great opportunity to build someone up.

Let’s take the time to show gratitude to one another, and let’s make sure we’re doing it in the right way. A thank you card. A short text saying how much you appreciate someone. Or even saying the two simple words, “Thank you,” to someone who does a small kind act for you as you’re going about your day. Showing gratitude isn’t difficult, but it’s something we all struggle with. Hopefully we’ll all learn from my mistake and direct our gratitude in the right direction in the future.

Friday Night Lights

Those of you who (like me) grew up in Greenwood know what it’s like to live in a small town that centers its identity upon the local high school football team. The whole town shows up to the home games, and the streets are deserted during away games. The head coach and the main players are treated like local celebrities. And it seems like all anyone can talk about from August to December is the next big game.

I’m not critiquing this kind of local football culture. I loved growing up in it. I wasn’t totally sucked into it like some people I knew, but I enjoyed going to the games on Friday nights, and I really appreciated the sense of community and identity that Greenwood Bulldog football offered. Now that I’ve gotten older and moved away, I can’t attend the games anymore, but I still root for the Bulldogs every Friday night, especially now that my little brother Drew plays on the team. I think my upbringing in Greenwood is part of what led me to connect so strongly with the TV show Friday Night Lights.

Friday Night Lights tells the story of Eric Taylor, the head coach of the Dillon Panthers football team, and his family as they try to navigate the crazy, hectic world of Texas high school football. The first season of the show begins with Eric’s becoming head coach of the Panthers after working as an offensive coach for several years. Expectations are high, and Coach Taylor’s skeptics are vocal as the season begins. Everyone in town has an opinion about how the coach should handle his team. And everyone wants to see the team win the holy grail of high school football: the state championship.

The team’s entire strategy is based around Jason Street, the best high school quarterback in the nation. Jason has been training for years for this season, his senior year, and everyone expects him to do great things. But in the first game of the season, Jason gets critically injured, leaving his team and new head coach Eric Taylor with a huge problem: How do they carry on without their star player? Part of the story of the first season is about Jason dealing with his injury and about his backup, sophomore and all-around nice guy Matt Saracen, trying to find his place as the team leader.

Although on the surface, the show seems to be about football, football is really just a tool that the writers use to develop the characters. Everything that happens on the field reinforces and symbolizes what is taking place in the characters’ personal lives. Friday Night Lights is extremely character-focused, and the characters they’ve created are dynamic, realistic, and very easy to connect with. It’s easy to find a favorite character or two that you really root for, and it’s fun to see their stories unfold. The show’s creators use a unique three-camera filming style and allow the actors to do a lot of improv, which leads to very real, very relatable conversations.

There’s no way I could cover all the characters on Friday Night Lights in this short blog post, but I will name a few of my favorites. Tami Taylor is the coach’s wife who finds herself working at the school as a guidance counselor. She’s sassy but wise, and she has some great one-liners throughout the show. Julie Taylor is Eric and Tami’s daughter, and she serves as the main love interest for Matt. Landry is Matt’s best friend. He plays a small role in the first season, but he becomes more and more important as the series progresses. Tim Riggins is the team’s fullback. He has some behavior issues, but he’s also got a good heart, and he’s grown to become one of my favorite characters. Buddy Garrity is a former Dillon Panther who now is in charge of the booster club. He’s the classic high school football player who never grew up, and his entire life revolves around Panther football. There are so many more characters on Friday Night Lights, and some cast members come and go throughout the seasons. If you decide to watch, you’ll find one or two characters that you especially connect with and root for, and that makes watching the show really fun.

Friday Night Lights really serves as an introduction to Texas culture. The show’s creator insisted on filming in the state, so the entire cast moved there for the duration of filming. The show captures the small-town feel and the state pride that comes along with growing up in the great state of Texas.

And the show deals with some real-life issues. Racism, sexism, drug abuse, grief, and abandonment are just a few of the themes that come up multiple times throughout the show. They have no problem taking these issues head-on and portraying them in ways that help the viewer understanding issues that they may not face in their own lives but that are problems in the world around us.

Friday Night Lights is a show about growing up in small football town. It tells some incredible stories about realistic characters whose lives revolve around God, football, and the great state of Texas. Football serves as a great mechanism for developing the characters and also adding to the show’s tension, but make no mistake: This is a show about life, not about football. I think Friday Night Lights is a show that can appeal to anyone who’s willing to give it a chance. It’s one of my favorite shows of all time. So check it out on Netflix or via the incredible DVD box set, and enjoy everything that the Dillon Panthers have to offer. Thanks for reading, friends! Texas forever.