Oh Yah, You Betcha

TigerBlog stumbled on "Dancing With The Stars" last night.

Ordinarily, something with the word "Stars" in the title wouldn't hold TB's interest unless it was on PBS or National Geographic and was about astronomy. This time, TB was actually impressed with what he saw. There was real talent involved, and the teams seemed to be working really hard to be on top of their games.

He saw enough that he might watch it again.

He will definitely watch "Fargo" again. And again and again.

If you haven't watched it yet, you have two options. One is to go on-demand and watch the first three episodes so you're caught up. The other is to wait a few weeks and watch the entire season all at once. Not watching at all? That's a bad option.

"Fargo," as everyone knows, was a 1996 movie that won two Academy Awards, one for Best Actress for Frances McDormand and one for Best Screenplay for the Coen brothers. Ethan Coen, by the way, is a 1979 Princeton grad.

The movie was about a quirky policewoman who pursues quirky criminals while encountering other quirky people along the way, all of whom have quirky accents.

The show has those same elements, but without the same exact characters. It's actually a pretty good idea, take a famous movie name that conjures up the quirkiness and then change it around so it keeps some of what made the movie great without actually having the characters be watered down versions of the original.

It's not easy to turn a movie into a TV show. Some have succeeded, such as Hall-of-Fame shows like "The Odd Couple" and "M*A*S*H." Many more have flopped.

The TV show version of "Fargo" is off to a great start, largely because of how great the new characters are, especially Billy Bob Thorton as the really bad guy and whoever it is who is playing the policewoman. Actually her name is Allison Tolman, and this is her first big part.

Episode 4 is on tonight. TigerBlog thinks Season 1 is just eight episodes long, which will take it to June 3.

Princeton Athletics won't be quite over by then, unless no Tigers qualify for the NCAA track and field championships, which is unlikely.

Still, it's getting quiet around here. At most there are around 20 more competitions left for the 2013-14 academic year.

The next two  are NCAA tournament opening round matchups: women's tennis between Princeton and Arizona State, to be held in Alabama Friday, and women's lacrosse against Penn State at Virginia.

There are still five Ivy League titles to be award, beginning this weekend with the men's and women's track and field championships at Yale. Next weekend are the three Ivy League rowing championships.

And that's it for Ivy titles for this year.

Every May is like this. The calendar of events starts to get shorter, and the last chapters of the academic year are written.

This time, of course, it's all different.

The last event of this year will also be the last one of the 20-year tenure of Gary Walters as Ford Family Director of Athletics. TigerBlog hasn't seen the schedule yet for next fall, but whenever the first field hockey or soccer or women's volleyball game is contested, Mollie Marcoux will be the AD.

It'll be a big summer of transition from Gary to Mollie. This is all going to be new for almost every  person who works here.

But that's still a few weeks away.

Now it's time to compete for championships for the remaining sports.

And for the final five episodes of "Fargo."

It's not quite Season 1 of "Homeland." It's close, though.