Introducing the newest addition to the FOTS team, Keff Ciardello!

If you’re confused by first name, the title should help you pronounce it. We won’t even get started on how to properly pronounce my last name. Just know it’s Italian.

I’m a 27-year old aspiring writer living in Texas. I’m not from Texas, but I’ve been here since I was ten. My father was in the Navy so I moved around quite a bit growing up; my mother is from Texas so my father did everything in his power to get orders to the Lone Star state, before retiring in Boerne (north of San Antonio)…so here I am.

Having to make new friends every two to four years growing up was kind of a drag. As soon as I would start to build up my cool points, it was on to the next place. Aside from my family, the one constant in my life as a kid was TV.

Don’t get me wrong — I love movies too, just not as much as TV. There is something about getting to know and watch characters grow over three, four, five seasons, that is more satisfying than a short, two-hour window. If the show is done right, you develop an attachment to the characters that feels like a friendship or even a family member. If Game of Thrones were a movie, would everybody have been as upset when Jon Snow died? Probably not. They would have only known him for an hour or so. But we’ve known Snow for years in the show, so his death resonated with a lot more people. (Don’t worry if you are one of these people — he’ll be back.)

Part of what makes TV great is that it’s at home, where you control everything. The volume, snacks, where you sit (or lay), you can even push pause when you have to go to the bathroom. I hate going to movies. $10 ticket, $8 popcorn, and no control? Hard pass.

“But it’s so much better on the big screen,” you say. I have a big enough screen in my living room. I don’t need 50 feet — 50 inches will suffice. Hell, I can even plug computer speakers into my TV for a makeshift surround sound system. (I’ll plead the fifth on how I’m able to watch new movies from home.)

This is the golden age of TV. With Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO on the go and countless other viewing platforms, everything is at your fingertips. Any show you can think of is readily available.
I guess where I’m going with this is that I’ll be mainly doing TV reviews here. I’ve only been writing about sports since I graduated from Texas State in 2012, so I’m very excited to expand my horizons.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch Arrested Development for the millionth time. Never gets old.