School starts Monday

My cat does this. I always thought it was just him, but apparently not, lol

My new cat Murray is coming along swimmingly. This summer since I've been home, he as taken to seeking me out for company. He will sit or lay at my feet, request grooming and actually purr, or bump noses with me as a hello. This is wonderful progress since for the last year since I brought him inside as a stray, he has pretty much fled whenever I even looked in his direction.

I found another television show that I really like. As I've mentioned many times, it's hard to find one that is interesting, clean, well-written, etc. And more often than not when I do find one, there was only one season of it. See Terriers (2010), Firefly (2002), Enlisted (2014), sadly, so many others.

The show I found on Netflix is "The Finder." It got one season in 2012. The premise is "An Iraq war vet suffers a brain injury that triggers the ability to see connections between seemingly unrelated events, objects or people." The setting is Key West so it would seem we can call this one a "blue skies" show. I have seen two episodes and there is an undercurrent of Christianity running through, something that others have noticed as well. Probably why it got only one season.

Ha ha now that I am looking at the cast and crew for both Enlisted (2014) and The Finder (2012) I see that the lead male character in both shows is Jeff Stults. Coincidence? I think not.

I still miss Terriers and I love Donal Logue. What a great show Terriers was.

As for Firefly, well all that's been hashed over so much. We've been mourning it for 15 years now. I notice that when Firefly was canceled its lead Nathan Fillion was depressed for a long time, heartbroken he said. When Terriers was canceled Logue became a truck driver he was so heartbroken and disgusted with how shows are made and kept and canceled. Coincidence? I think not.

I found Castle online. Yes I know it has beenon for 7 years. It really does take me a long time to wake up to things. Its lead is the aforementioned Firefly lead, Nathan Fillion.  I've been watching this summer. I like all the Firefly references in Castle. They're great insider jokes.

I like TV shows, when they're good. (Sea Patrol). I like bingeing on them when they're really good. (Sea Patrol). But all that is coming to an end. Monday I go back to work. This year they have bumped back the starting bell for parapro's day to 7:10, so I will have to leave home at 6:55 latest. Early.

We have a three-and-a-half hour convocation starting at 8:00 Monday, and then after break for lunch I'll be in my shared  classroom setting my section of it up. I'm anxious to see the schedule, how my day will go and into which classrooms I'll be sent to support the teacher. And which groups of kids I'll be taking out for small group or tutoring work. I know already that in addition to Kindergarten I'll be used in first grade and second grade. It's a busy day for sure, but good days, because they involve kids!

I will miss my afternoon naps though, my studies, and my kitties. All good things come to an end, while other good things come in to take their place. In my case, fulfilling and enjoyable employment.

Firefly: gone too soon. Hope Island, gone too soon.

Firefly was a set-in-the-future science fiction cowboy television show. It still pains me to write "was". TV Guide ranked the series #5 on their 2013 list of 60 shows that were "Cancelled Too Soon", says an article about the show at Wikipedia. A one-hour pilot and thirteen too-few episodes is all we have.

I've deliberately left the last two episodes unseen on Hulu, so I still have the opportunity to anticipate.

I found a great program on Hulu called "Hope Island". A young-ish pastor accepts a call to a little church on a small island off Seattle. The scenery is gorgeous and so are the people, though they are all real looking. The show was on Pax channel, and was their highest rated, most beloved, and best award winning show ever. So they cancelled it right away.

I started watching Hope Island on Hulu and the first episode was a winner for me. Some of the characters were a little broad but the writers solidified them quickly and the story arc over the 22 episode season was the best I've ever seen in terms of character development, plot advancement, and pacing.

The pastor looked to be from a Lutheran or Anglican denomination according to his vestments. The church was called Hope Community Church. The preaching scenes were general, but nothing doctrinally awful, and Jesus, God, and prayer were mentioned, though the show was light on religion but heavy on compassion.

That is what I loved about the show. It built a pretend community of people interacting in love and tolerance and compassion. The show was kind. It was Mayberry of the 1990s, and it was a place I would love to live. For 22 episodes, I did live there.

Some people might take offense at this, but as much as I enjoy Andy Griffith and his fictional town of Mayberry, there were many times I didn't like the overlay of lying on the show. Too often, people lied to one another and performed elaborate pranks to perpetuate the lie. They lied to Aunt Bee about the pickles. They lied to Barney about his operatic voice. The lies were always for a good reason, but the hijinks that ensued were because of the necessity to cover up the lie.

On Hope Island, there was a Catholic priest and though they gave his religion credence, (which I wish they hadn't) the show did not focus on him, and often showed him as a real person. I'm glad they didn't make the focus of the show Catholic, because the British show that Hope Island was based on was the Irish show Ballykissangel.

I looked up Ballykissangel and was prepared to watch, until I learned it was based on a Catholic priest, and worse, this:

The name of the fictional village in which the show was set is derived from Ballykissane, a townland near Killorglin in County Kerry, where the show's creator, Kieran Prendiville, holidayed with his family as a child. The village's name in Irish is shown as "Baile Coisc Aingeal", which means "The town of the fallen angel" on the sign outside the post office. Wikipedia

Town of Fallen Angel?!?! Might as well call it Demon Town. Delete that one from my queue.

Anyway, Hope Island has none of that vibe, it is just a great, GREAT family show. There is no swearing,  no drugs, no adultery ... I was so upset that it was cancelled. You'd have thought it was canceled last week instead of 14 years ago. I miss Hope Island but I'm glad I got to see 22 episodes. I recommend the program. You can watch free here at internet movie database/via Hulu for free. This link is to is episode 1. If you watch, think of Daniel Cooper as Jonah, especially when he falls into the water and the seaweed tries to entangle him.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi77835545/

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Watch the elaborate lie set up to save the Mayberry Choir from Barney's bad voice.




Here is the same situation, dealing with Reverend Cooper's non-audition choir and the fact that everyone but Reverend Cooper knew that Brian's voice is awful. But with non-auditions, Cooper must accept all comers. The situation is dealt with compassionately.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1000582425/