Couch Potato Chronicles: Cabin Fever Edition

In case you haven't heard, this past holiday weekend was pretty much a disaster for the East Coast, which got absolutely slammed with completely ridiculous temperatures.  Here's one example from the Big Apple.  In my corner of Nerdworld, just about everybody I knew (and I) stayed indoors the entire time.  It's not the same as being properly "snowed in," but the effect is the same.  On the bright side, you can't get frostbite from sitting on the couch and bingewatching TV shows.

Speaking of, here is the list that I marathoned via Netflix and Amazon Prime during WindChillpocalypse 2016:

• Extant.  I'm always looking for new sci fi.  This one somehow managed to land Halle Berry, of all people, as an astronaut.  Season 1 was bumpy but interesting even if it wasted some good actors and really didn't fulfill its potential.  Season 2 was pretty much silly and overwrought, but I stuck with it mostly for Jeffrey Dean Morgan's dimples.
• Stargate SG-1.  It was time to revisit an old favorite.  The show is a rarity: it's the only example I can think of right now of a movie spinoff TV show that is actually better than the source movie.  In all honesty, SG-1 was really only good as long as Richard Dean Anderson and Don S. "Hammond of Texas" Davis were on the cast, but it's still way better than its spinoff Atlantis.  I spent a lot of time wanting to slap Michael Shanks, but I'll also love Teal'c forever, the perfect deadpan straight man.  Indeed.
• X-Files.  You know I've already been at this, but I kept going.  The truth is out there, even if the 90s special effects look really dated now.
• Justified.  I finally got to the last season of US marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) taking on his nemesis, the almost unsettlingly articulate villain Boyd Crowder (Walter Goggins).  Givens has a great cowboy vibe, right down to the hat and drawling voice and all.  Besides, Nick Searcy as his often frustrated avuncular boss is a great supporting figure.
• Vikings.  Way more entertaining than I thought it would be.  Season 1 has - get this - Gabriel Byrne as a Viking chieftain.   The Cine-Sib gives his seal of approval too, especially to shield maiden Lagertha because she's "a badass."