Ep. 60: Happy New ... What Year Is This Again?

Hi! My name is Terry J. Aman and this installment marks my 60th episode of "VideoFuzzy," my twice-monthly progress report on cataloging more than 2,800 VHS transfers and digital recordings. In this installment, titled "Happy New ... What Year Is This Again?" I open with comments on recent celebrity deaths including Marie Fredriksson, Philip McKeon, Caroll Spinney, and under Cross Connections, a retrospective of René Auberjonois, highlighting his appearances on "Benson" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

I feature the appearance of the series premiere of ABC's "Life on Mars" in my collection, and include an expansive reflection of the connections I draw from that show through my formative media consumption, through "Barney Miller," "The Unusuals" and "Detroit 1-8-7" and potentially "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."

In my Classic Collection, I talk about the series premiere of "Sanctuary," a Waco-themed episode of "Criminal Minds," a promo that turned up for the Mouse River Players' production of Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite" I did with Kymn Quill in Minot, and series I encountered while plowing through my archives to get into my new binder, including "The West Wing," "Six Feet Under," "Fringe," "Eli Stone" and "My Own Worst Enemy," as well as highlights running up to the 2008 election.

In my Current Collection, I talk about the 12th season premiere of "Doctor Who," a whole bunch of music videos from the '80s and several movies including "The Revenant," "Fathom," the "Flatliners" remake, "Next," "Mr. Peabody and Sherman," "Stand By Me," "Gremlins." Then in What I've Been Watching, I share some thoughts on "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" from across four decades of storytelling.

Finally, in "By the Numbers," I talk about a couple milestones, first on hitting episode 60 in this podcasting effort, and then the somewhat more significant milestone of breaking into Binder No. 5.

At about 1,700 hours on 835 discs in my Classic Collection and some 1,800 hours on 295 discs in my Current Collection, I've cataloged nearly 3,500 hours on more than 1,100 discs in my media collection, which feels like a good amount of progress. Binder No. 3 took about a year, and this past one took about 10 months, so even my pace is improving.

All that said, I'm now in Binder No. 5 of thirteen, so ... definitely a ways to go yet. Cheers!