TV to grade papers to

Today Maggie brought me on her lot for a sale of old props. I bought lots of cool stuff, including some items I can use for set decoration for Game Night. I paid $35 for like a dozen different items. It's cool knowing the top I'm planning to wear to the club Friday night was worn by somebody in some movie some time. I also got kicky new boots and a purse, and a sign I want to put up in my classroom that says "No Smoking in the library, only in the yard. A message from the Templeton County Correctional Facility."

I came home to the less glamorous job of grading papers. Grading papers is every teacher's least favorite task. It's this giant stack of essays you know are going to be kind of dull and filled with too many grammatical errors to correct and obvious disregard for everything you've been teaching them for the past two weeks.

So to help keep me from pulling my hair out I grade the papers in front of the TV. I put on something I don't have to pay attention to, but can still be entertained by when I need a break from the student who continually spells the word "since" as "science". Today I watched Mo'Nique's Charm School.

That show is good, man. Those girls are seriously messed up.

Then I watched Traveller. Traveller, for those of you who haven't paid attention, is a new show on ABC about two recent college graduates on the run from a crime they didn't commit, caught up in the middle of a government conspiracy they have to investigate to clear their names.

Sound familiar?

I can't figure out why it's so boring. Why do I love Wentworth Miller so much and care about Michael Scoffeild, yet every time I watch this show - and I've seen every episode because I'm convinced I have to - I find myself drifting to sleep or running off to do work or checking emails. And I'm not sure why. Why do the same things that I like so much about Prison Break not engage me here?

The best I can figure it's because I don't feel very attached to the characters. Michael Scoffeild is willing to do anything to save his brother and very often makes things worse in the process. And his brother feels the same way. But I don't feel the dedication between the two leads on this show. They almost seem like they annoy each other all the time. And nobody gets backstory until it's necessary for the moment, so it seems like they're making up a history as they go along. Or maybe all that's just fine and they simply miscast their leads.

I'm not sure how the show's doing in the ratings, but it does keep coming back each week. It's probably because people like watching that kid from X-Men and the awesome Neal McDonough. Or maybe they're like me and want to see if it turns into the off-season Prison Break any day now.