By KYLE JOSEPH
features editor
It was nice to actually experience spring-like weather over spring break in upstate New York this year. I felt like I had experienced all the seasons by the end of break.
I drove home to Rochester with the windows down for the entire 2 1/2-hour ride.
The first weekend saw me doing things I never expected to do in the middle of February, like fishing in jeans and a T-shirt or golfing in 60-degree weather.
Not more than three days later, after accounting for the brutal wind chill, it felt like zero degrees outside and there was snow on the ground again.
It’s a personal nightmare of mine that I live through every winter, but this hurt after the weekend I’d just had.
Since my options were limited at that point, I didn’t feel bad about catching up on what I’d been missing on Netflix.
My mom and I watched the 10-part mini-series “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” the first installment of the “American Crime Story” series on the FX network that will later focus on issues like the controversial outcomes of Hurricane Katrina and the Lewinski scandal.
“The People v. O.J.” was awesome. It was insightful, especially to someone who didn’t live through the whole fiasco, and really entertaining, which is an accomplishment when most viewers already know how the story ends.
It was cool to see older actors like David Schwimmer and Cuba Gooding Jr., who haven’t been seen in any major roles in years, revive their careers in a sense.
I mean, who could forget Cuba in “Snow Dogs?” OK, maybe not the best example, but the point is he may be back to his former glory, if you can say that.
Other shows I’ve watched in recent years like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” have also blown me away. The writing for these shows is easily on par, if not better, than a lot of movies these days.
“Mad Men” in particular is probably as close to a novel playing out on screen as I think I’ll ever see. Of course, I’d love to be proven wrong about that someday.
I’ve seen enough on Netflix over the past two or three years to have the somewhat-educated opinion that television is better than it’s ever been, at least in the drama category.
I’m probably not qualified to make that statement, being born in 1995. According to the internet, the real “Golden Age of Television” happened during the ‘50s and early ‘60s, before my parents were even born.
Obviously people weren’t blessed with the magic that is on-demand television back then. You needed an antenna to receive television signals out of the air.
With a limited number of channels available and the technology being fairly new, everyone gathered around to watch a program when it was on.
Although watching our favorite show isn’t exactly the family event that it once was, it hasn’t changed the fact that people love their TV programs. Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu give us access to the best of the best at any time that’s convenient to us.
Hopefully the healthy competition that results from these streaming services continues, because with shows under pressure to continually raise the bar, it’s definitely made for a fortunate time to be a viewer.
KYLE JOSEPH
