Place your bets

I had originally planned to do "Survivor" and "The Office" as one post, but figured the events of the latter were so momentous that they deserved their own entry. I'll get back to Captain America and Hydra later, maybe around lunchtime. Now, onto the doings at Dunder-Mifflin...

Can I get a "HELL YEAH"? I'm not even that big a Pam/Jim 'shipper, but I have to applaud Daniels, Carell and company for having the stones and the brains to have them confront their feelings for each other this quickly.

The mistake that all Unresolved Sexual Tension shows make is to drag things out long past the point where anyone should reasonably care whether two fictional characters ever make the beast with two backs. For some reason, the TV business has a bad case of "Moonlighting" Fever, convinced that that show was doomed the second Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd got frisky -- when, in fact, what really killed the show was the prolonged wait for them to finally, finally, finally hook up. (That and the prolonged wait for any new episodes, thanks to the slowest creative process this side of "Deadwood.") I've seen far too many shows destroyed by this panic -- I firmly believe that "Ed" would still be around if the writers had just put Ed and Carol together during season two and shifted their focus to the town -- while the only show that ever had a healthy run after will-they-or-won't-they became they-did was "Cheers," where Diane and Sam slept together at the end of season one. They, of course, broke up and got back together about 70 times after that, but the point is, the writers didn't try the audience's patience with endless teases and near-misses.

I'm not saying that Jim and Pam's kiss means they're now a couple, or even that Jim's not going to take the job in Stamford. But the show had to bring Jim's feelings out in the open, both for the sake of the 'shippers and for the sake of the other viewers who, if this had gone on much longer, would have started screaming, "For the love of God, can they just talk already?"

Now there are lots of possibilities, including:

• Pam dumps Roy on the spot, she and Jim begin dating, and suddenly things get awkward at work because their relationship is different;
• They could also have a Dave and Lisa-style (or Dwight and Angela-style) secret romance, or the entire office could find out and Michael's constant inappropriate comments would put a damper on the whole thing;
• Pam backs off and goes back to Roy, and Jim takes the Stamford job, only to have circumstances (possibly a downsizing/consolidation like in season two of the British show) bring them back together.

And there are dozens of variations within that. The point is, the writers have just given themselves a lot of potential material to play with, when Jim's endless pining -- or, worse, one of those Ross 'n Rachel situations where Pam realizes her feelings for him just as he gets serious about another woman -- would have started feeling very played come fall.

And while the Jam stuff was the heart of the episode, there was so much other goodness happening that I think Greg needs to petition NBC for a super-sized timeslot every damn week. In a normal episode, would there have been room for Kevin's music video ("Haven't seen that since 1983") or poker skillz? For Michael's defense of Comic Relief ("Comedy is still very much alive.")? For Kelly's treatise on Kobe Bryant ("Maybe he did it")? For the genius that is Creed? (Not sure which I loved most: the revelation that he eats at soup kitchens, the running klepto gag, or his "I've never owned a refridgerator.")

Steve Carell wrote himself a bang-up episode, though I have to confess that when Pam and Carol met, I actually had to take off my headphones and shut my eyes until Marian said it was okay to watch again. I love that Jan actually was considering spending the night with Michael (the outfit, the overnight bag), and I love how only Michael could potentially screw up having two beautiful women interested in him. This could have been a Vinnie Barbarino-level dumb plot, but Melora Hardin and Nancy Walls played Jan and Carol's reactions so well that it worked. (And was I the only one who thought, even for a moment, that Jan and Jim were going to hook up out of desperation for what was happening with Michael and/or Pam?)

I'm not sure it would be possible for me to love this show more, so let me just rattle off a few other quotes and moments before we kiss this season goodbye:

• "I consider myself a great philanderer."
• Oscar hating the Boy Scouts
• The entire telekinesis running joke (particularly the silent cut to Pam holding the umbrella for the interviewer)
• Michael's continued hatred of Toby, and Toby's joy at beating Michael at cards. ("I'm gonna chase that feeling.")
• Michael's entire speech about things that are and are not okay to make jokes about ("The Lincoln assassination just recently became funny")
• Pam not connecting Michael's calls until after he gets his moronic opening joke out of his system.
  

Great, great, great show. Me so happy. Me want to cry. Click here to read the full post

"Just take it."

For me, the highlight of last night's "The Office," if not the last year of TV comedy, was Toby's despair and frustration as he had to pose for the employee ID photo.

Simply a brilliant episode all around. Since I wrote about it in Wednesday's column, let me just list some of my other favorite bits:

• Stanley's "We sit close" to Phyllis.
• Michael trying to swap clothes with Ryan.
• Pam using the word "hussy."
  
• The perfect camera pan to Jim lip-synching to Michael's "That's what she said."
• Creed being the one who complained about the men's room being whites-only.
• Creed keeping mung beans in his drawer ("very nutritious, but they smell like death")
• The Raiders of the Lost Ark/Citizen Kane homage at the end. (Does that mean that Toby has hundreds of these complaint boxes, or that Toby wants the complaints to be shipped out to a customer?)
• Jim's dawning realization about how wasteful his relationships with both Pam and Dwight have become.
• The Photoshopped picture.
  

Just superb. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Urine town

This post will only be about "The Office." I may not get a chance to watch "The O.C." and "Earl" until the weekend. Since "Office" isn't really a show you can spoil, I'm going to leave this all on the main page (again, now that I can spoiler-protect posts, let me know if you'd like me to do it with everything, just with some shows, or never).

Last week, I mentioned seeing an advance copy of an an episode that made me feel like "The Office" had finally made The Leap from very good to great. That's next week's show, but last night's was so damn funny that I may have to reassess exactly when The Leap was made. It's been in reruns for so long. Maybe the Christmas episode? Or Booze Cruise? Valentine's Day?

I have a constantly-expanding list of Things That Are Always Funny (Al Pacino with a Cuban accent, Homer Simpson's whiny voice, the books of Carl Hiaasen), and to that I think we can add Rainn Wilson in a goofy hat. Dwight in the sheriff's uniform with the shiny boots was bad enough, but when he put on that Smokey hat, I just about died. And him carrying a coffee cup of his own urine around the office? Jim was right: this was the absolute worst day ever to be silenced by Jinx.

And speaking of which, this may have been my favorite Pam/Jim subplot to date. The pleasure she took in putting him in situations where he couldn't talk was great (though my recollection of the Jinx rules is that she also could have freed him by saying his name, or punching him in the arm once if he spoke on his own ), and his impression of Stanley was dead-on. (I'm assuming Krasinski does impressions of everybody off-camera, and they wrote it in.)

With "Arrested Development" gone, this is now the densest comedy on TV, and I feel like I need to go back and watch it again two or three times to make sure I catch everything. There was another squirm-inducing Angela/Dwight scene (two, actually, if you count the veiled birth control discussion in front of the other accountants), Creed identifying the marijuana by brand (of course, he would know; he's Creed Bratton), Ryan trying to get a job at the urine-testing lab so he can get the hell out of Dunder-Mifflin, and any scene with Kevin. (I've met Brian Baumgartner, and he's a really bright guy; his ability to do that dead-eyed stare is impressive.)

And in the midst of all the goofiness, there was room for some genuine heart that didn't in any way undercut the jokes: notably Dwight's look of disillusionment as he walked to the sheriff's station, and the final look shared between Jim and Pam. Can't say too much about the latter, since I've seen next week's show, but I can't wait to see what the hell Daniels and company try to pull off in the finale two weeks from now.

What did everybody else think?




Click here to read the full post

The more you watch

(In this fantabulous edition, in order: "The Office," "My Name Is Earl," "The Loop" and "The O.C.")

Sometimes, spoilers can mess you up on things that have nothing to do with plot. Take this week's "The Office" -- or, rather, this week's "The Office" parodies of NBC's "The More You Know" campaign. It seems like everywhere I went on Friday, be it in the physical world or this strange virtual one, someone was going on and on about the fake ads. So when I actually got around to watching them, the surprise -- which I think was half the fun -- was gone. Still, anything involving Mindy Kaling going on and on about Kelly's love of Ryan is always funny, even if you know it's coming.

And the episode? More cringe-y than it's been lately, but still great. I watched the rerun of "Health Care" last week because Marian hadn't seen it, and the Michael then vs. the Michael now is a very different animal. The hair and makeup people have him looking better (his hairstyle last year, which you could see in Michael's blow-up birthday card to himself, made it look like he had really bad plugs), and while he's still a self-involved loser, the writers have figured out a way to make him a little more sympathetic without ruining the joke. (Again, "40-Year-Old Virgin" was like a great instruction video for them.) Best moments: anything involving Angela and Dwight, especially Ryan's stunned non-interview in response to that horrific "cookie" discussion; Jim getting Pam into trouble with the supermarket manager; Oscar randomly twirling around on the ice rink; and Michael inevitable wooing his own wife. (Maybe Nancy can give a Golden Globes speech next year that she claims Steve wrote.)

"My Name Is Earl" was pretty good, though during the alleged hostage crisis, I kept waiting for Harold Perrineau to start running around the motel yelling, "WALT! WALT! WAAAAAAALLLLLLTTTTT!!!!" Also, today's comedy equation: Joy + Breaking & Entering + Baby Bjorn = Funny.

This was probably the best episode of "The Loop" so far -- or, at the very least, the first one to be more funny in the non-work side of Sam's life. You have to admire the elaborate steps they took to set up a situation where one of his friends had to give him a hand job (though the dad side of me had a hard time fighting the "won't someone please think of the children!" reflex at the thought of this airing on a broadcast network at 8:30, 7:30 Central), and this was one of the few times I've seen a sitcom find a new laugh in the tired unrequited crush device. More comedy math: Dog + Zipline = Genius.

Finally, lots to like about "The O.C.": Summer finally, finally, finally telling off Marissa for being a selfish, spoiled, self-destructive skank; Seth and Kirsten realizing they don't spend enough time together, taking steps to remedy the situation, and having meaningful follow-up to the intervention; and Ryan talking the talk and walking the walk about ditching his savior complex. It was like the entire episode was devoted to answering fan complaints about the last two seasons. Well, most of it, I think. If I could stay awake during the Sandy scenes, I might have noticed some kind of meta-groveling there, too, but it's just so freaking dull, I can't bear it. I know it's hard to find stories for the one happily-married couple on a soap opera that's already focused on the kids, but I'd rather hear Peter Gallagher sing at The Bait Shop every week (maybe he can jam with Death Cab) than suffer through much more of this.

I'll post the "Sopranos" episode four review first thing in the morning (assuming NJ.com puts it up in a timely fashion). Click here to read the full post

Catching up

Hey, did you know I've been watching a lot of "Sopranos" lately? Wasn't sure if I'd mentioned it enough or not.

Anyway, last night's viewing was 100% moozadell-free. First, I zipped through the two "American Idol" performance shows as fast as was humanly possible (i.e. songs, some judges' comments, fast-forward, repeat). Still not much of a wow factor. Chris Daughtry (aka Bo Bice 2.0) was great on that Fuel song, Paris (aka Diana DeGarmo 2.0) is technically perfect but a little creepy, and I like a few of the other obvious favorites like Taylor and Mandisa. But for me, the highlight of the two shows was Will Makar's incredibly sincere rendition of Kenny Rogers' "Lady," which had me cackling for the full 90 seconds, even as Marian was trying to shush me so I wouldn't wake our daughter. Plain and simple, the formula of Bobby Brady+Kenny Rogers-irony=accidental comic genius.

Next up: "Survivor: Dysfunction Island," in which the assclown tribe finally lost a challenge. On the one hand, Casaya is much more entertaining than the nice guys at La Mina, who only have one semi-interesting member: Terry (aka Tom 2.0). On the other hand, I hate the people on Casaya. I hate them, so very, very much. You've got Crazy Ritalin Guy forcing people to swear on a kid they've never met, Sensitive Yoga Man giving constant lectures on work ethic, Egomaniacal Karate Sensei grumbling that someone was daring to do yoga in his zen garden (doesn't Adenoidal Hippie Girl know that you do yoga in more tranquil settings like bottling plants and tractor pulls?), etc., etc., etc. And Cirie, who I mocked for her leaf-phobia in episode one, has now become my favorite contestant for her running commentary on the idiots she's surrounded by. So I guess the formula I want is for Casaya to lose just enough so that the good guys don't get Pagonged post-merge, but not so much that we end the season with a bunch of nice but boring people debating moral relativity.

With "The Office," it's always about the little things: the constant thermostat adjustments, the look of disgust on Pam's face when Angela wished Dwight luck, Ryan's "I know what I said," etc. And Rainn Wilson knocked the Mussolini speech out of the park with his spastic fist-banging and halting call-and-response delivery.

Sacked out midway through "Earl" (the wonder of TiVo is I can watch in whatever order I want), but what little I saw looked promising. Click here to read the full post

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Galactica

It's not often that I find myself liking a TV episode more than its creator does. There are plenty of times where the opposite is true (see any episode of "7th Heaven"). But I was still surprised to hear Ronald Moore trashing Friday night's "Battlestar Galactica" in his podcast after I'd enjoyed it so much.

Basically, Moore spends the entire podcast rending his garments and throwing himself on the audience's mercy because he feels the episode doesn't do a very good job of establishing the questionable ethics of the fleet's black market, or of Apollo's relationship with his past and present women, and that pretty much every scene feels like something you've seen dozens of times before in other movies and TV shows.

And, in retrospect, I think he's right about a lot of the show's faults, but in the moment, I thought it worked much better than he did because of the performances of Jamie Bamber and guest star Bill Duke. I dismissed Bamber in the miniseries and early episodes as the token prettyboy that every sci-fi show, even the good ones, gets stuck with, but I've developed a real appreciation of him over time. This whole suicidal Apollo arc could feel out of left field, but he has me buying it.

Duke, meanwhile, is one of those guys for whom someone dreamed up that cliche aboutreading the phone book and making it interesting. I like Michael Clarke Duncan and all, but how much better would "Daredevil" have been with Duke as the Kingpin?

So while I think the overexposition by the hooker at the end was awful, and that the child prostitute thing was a cheat, I loved the two central performances, as well as a deeper look at the rest of the Rag Tag Fleet. Hey, they can't all be "Pegasus."

Meanwhile, I have this one reader who hated "The Office" on first sight, yet out of some masochistic or loyal notion, gives it another shot every time I write an article about it. So when he saw my profile of the supporting actors, he tried it yet again and hated it yet again -- with one exception. Even he had to admit that this exchange between Stanley and Michael was genius:

Stanley: "This wasn't a hate crime, Michael."
Michael: "Well, I hated it!"

This is the first time since the pilot that they've even come close to borrowing a British plotline, since the original had an episode where David gets all worked up because someone e-mailed around a photo of his head on a naked woman's body, only to cool it at the end when he discovers the prankster is his buddy Finchy. At this point, though, the American characters are all so well-defined that even when the plot is similar, the episode isn't. Loved Jim's increasing levels of annoyance with Kelly, Michael's creepy stalker look at Ryan the receptionist, Dwight trying to be caller 107, Ken Howard as the perfectly-named Ed Truck, and the two poignant moments: Pam's 7 voicemails to Jim, and Michael's realization (in the scene with Ed) that he has no friends or family outside the office. I know I've been tough on Carell at times in the past, but I think both he and the writers have finally gotten a handle on the irritation/pathos ratio with Michael.

(Interestingly, when the cast and crew were at press tour, Greg Daniels said that he and the other writers got a better idea of how to write Michael sympathetically after they saw "40-Year-Old Virgin.")

And, as promised 8,000 years ago, "Lost." After the great Mr. Eko episode a few weeks ago, we've had two stinkers in a row: first, the characters' chronic inability to ask follow-up questions reaches its ridiculous apex when Jack and company fail to come away from their parley with The Others with any new information; and this week, yet another attempt to apologize for Charlie's whiny uselessness by bringing up his family issues. Unless they involve a new character (say, Libby) or the writers think of something really new to say about an old one, the show just needs to abolish all the flashbacks. They're adding nothing except another excuse for the writers to delay answering anything. Click here to read the full post

There's such a fine line between stupid and clever...

...and "The O.C." has been on the wrong side of it all season. Two years ago, last night's episode would have been filled with meta references and gags -- at the very least, this should have been the show where Summer wore the "Donna Martin Graduates" t-shirt -- but here the silly Marissa plot was played straight. And for anyone who's actually watched the show for more than a few minutes knows what a bad idea that was.

Everytime the episode tried to firmly clamp itself to Marissa's ass, I found myself calling bullshit. Marissa was incredibly popular before Taylor's mom got her kicked out of school? No; she's been a Harbor School laughingstock ever since she OD'ed in Mexico. She was "a model student"? Um, isn't this the girl who basically stopped going to school for most of season two while she bunked with Alex?

Meanwhile, in the craptacular tradition of Evil Dean, we get another cartoon villain in Taylor's mom, who hates Marissa because... why? I get that once upon a time, it may have been a calculated move to increase her daughter's social standing and get her some friends, but now Taylor actually has friends, and mama Townsend is still waging vendetta against Marissa? Huh? Even before Julie had her occasional heart of gold moment, there was a little nuance to the awful things she did, most of which she thought were for the good of her family.

Between this episode and those skeevy commercials with that 14-year-old girl doing a Lolita impression as the long-lost Kaitlin, I think I may be out. The only reason I watched this one live was because I'd already seen last night's "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" in advance. And speaking of which...

I thought last week's "Earl" (written by an ex-"Arrested Development" guy) was one of the stronger so far, but this was a bit of a backslide. Some jokes worked, like retainer girl's crush on Earl (cheap but effective), but Favreau's karma-free life wasn't ridiculous enough for it to work. At the very least, would it have killed them to put in a mug that reads "Who's the big winner?"

"Office," on the other hand, was brilliant. I didn't think they could get broader or slapstickier than the martial arts episode, but somehow, they did. The bizarre cause of the injury, Dwight's frenzied attempt to get to Michael even after crashing his car, Ryan's constant look of anguish at realizing Michael is about to ask him to do something horrible, Michael trying to stick his foot in the CT machine... I was in pain for all of it, and not the usual kind of pain associated with watching this show (that kind popped up during the staff meeting with the wheelchair-bound building manager). Originally, the episode last night was supposed to be a follow-up to Jim telling Michael about his thing for Pam, but I guess NBC wanted to go with the stronger show early in the new timeslot.

Morning links: Matt reviewed AMC's first original drama, "Hustle," in today's column. The press tour blog hasn't been updated as of this morning, which means either a slow day (nothing to blog about) or a busy one (no time to do it) at the tour. Click here to read the full post

To thine own self be true

As Harry Callahan once said, a man's got to know his limitations, and I came face to face with my own twice yesterday.

First, I popped in a review tape of Bravo's "Project Runway," a show I missed altogether in its first season. After hearing so many fellow critics rave about it, I gave season two a shot, and I had a conflicted reaction to it. On the one hand, it was as well-produced as any reality show this side of "The Amazing Race." On the other hand, all the debate about muslin fabric and whether pretty=fashion just put me to sleep.

I didn't want to slam the show for the sin of not being tailored directly to my tastes, and I also didn't want to ignore it. What to do... what to do? In a nice bit of deus ex machina, our fashion writer Jenifer Braun -- who briefly wrote about TV before I got hired a decade ago -- walked past my desk at exactly that moment. The light bulb went off, and a couple of hours later, Jen had written a very special guest review for today's column (which also features me begging Mark Burnett to never, ever, ever let former contestants compete again).

Then, as I was casting about for things to watch for upcoming columns, an editor forwarded me a press release put out by our state's interim governor (a very popular guy whose recent "Daily Show" appearance was hysterical) condemning an assault by a radio talk show fan who assaulted a local TV reporter. I told my boss I had no idea what this was about, and she said, "Well, maybe you should make some calls and find out."

Now, I work for a daily newspaper, but I've never pretended to be a real reporter. In college, I wrote movie reviews for the school paper's weekly entertainment magazine, and I've been writing about TV since my third or fourth week here at the Ledger. Fortunately, the paper employs plenty of genuine reporters, several of whom helped me and Matt chase down the story:

Opie & Anthony have some running contest on their show called "Assault on the Media" where fans are encouraged to appear in the background of live TV shots holding O&A signs. Some idiot took the game's title way too literally and blew an air horn directly into the ear of a local TV reporter. That kind of thing can cause permanent hearing damage, moron. Our governor, who already is anti-shock jock ever since a local radio bozo made fun of his wife's postpartum depression, issued one of those "the offender will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" press releases, and I sure hope it happens. People that stupid shouldn't be allowed to breed, let alone live free.

And speaking of idiots, Michael Scott was in rare form on last night's "The Office" in a cringe-worthy but very funny episode that made good use of the entire office staff, including tightly-wound Angela's meltdown over losing control of the Christmas party, Creed giving Jim the laziest Secret Santa gift of all time and, best of all, a drunk and topless Meredith throwing herself at Michael, who just flashed her picture and ran away. On "My Name Is Earl," it was nice to see Brett Butler acting in something other than "Vampire Bats," but I wanted to see more of Randy and Catalina during the hands-on-the-car contest.

Oh, and today's "Arrested Development" moment: Rita deliriously singing along to "Hot Potato" by The Wiggles, which I sadly know by heart. Ah, parenting. Click here to read the full post

Sometimes, I amaze even myself

Another day, another attempt to mention "Arrested Development" in the column for at least an entire week. (Today's column talks about it in context of the ratings for "Prison Break.") So as I'm sitting around, scratching for an excuse to name-check it again, Matt says he just heard that HBO is pushing the premiere of "Deadwood" back to June so that the new Bill Paxton polygamy show "Big Love" can get the post-"Sopranos" timeslot. I call up one of my friends in the "Deadwood" production office, and after we discuss the scheduling move, he says, "You know what you should write in your column? Write that HBO should pick up Arrested Development." Bingo. These things write themselves from time to time.

On to the last couple of nights of TV...

Well praise the lord and pass the ammunition: Rory and Lorelai finally got back together on last night's "Gilmore Girls." Took 'em, what, nine episodes into the season? I'm so glad to be done with The Passion of the Rory that I'm willing to overlook all sorts of awkwardness, like:

• Rory actually being rewarded for stalking the newspaper editor, when said behavior would have at best gotten her tossed onto the sidewalk by security while the editor told her, "And you can forget about that recommendation." There's a difference between perserverance and simply refusing to accept reality as it is.
• Lorelai letting Emily off the hook for the many awful things she's done to both herself and Rory in the last season or so.
• Rory magically getting reinstated at Yale with only a few weeks to go in the fall semester.
• The reconciliation scene coming together so quickly that, even though we've been waiting months for it, it felt rushed.

But whatever. They're back together, and much like Lorelai, I'm just gonna let all that other water wash under the bridge. (Or is it over the bridge? My cliche dictionary's missing.)

The other big development, and the one that has the message boards filled with screams of shark-jumping, is Luke suddenly having a 12-year-old daughter of his own that he never knew about. On the one hand, I think it's a stupid idea and I'm going to be pissed if Amy uses this as an excuse to bust up Luke and Lorelai for a while just as we got her and Rory back together. On the other hand, I liked the actress playing Mini-Rory, and I thought Scott Patterson was great at both the comedy and emotion of this ridiculous twist, so I'll give it a little rope. A little.

An uneven "The Office." I know Carell's the star and the boss was the main character of the British version, but at this point I think there needs to be a refocusing, because the Jim/Dwight/Pam stuff is by far the highlight of every week, while Michael works best in small doses. Michael's attempt to turn his one-night stand with the boss into something more made me uncomfortable; Jim's mission to maintain Dwight's mistake about the days of the week just made me laugh. Given Carell's movie prospects after "Virgin," I don't know that he'd object to becoming a supporting player if it freed up his schedule for more film work.

On a very special sweeps episode of "House," Lance Armstrong -- or a reasonable facsimile (who used to be on "North Shore") -- comes to the hospital for... something to do with blood transfusions, I think. Marian's a hospital administrator, so when I watch medical shows with her, she's constantly pointing out inaccuracies (I'm sure I'd do the same if someone was ever dumb enough to create a show about a TV critic), and at one point she asked me if I minded the frequent interruptions.

"It's okay," I said. "I don't really pay attention to the medical stuff."

"But the medical stuff is the whole show!" she said.

So after hitting the TiVo's pause button, we got into a discussion of whether the cases in "House" matter at all, or if they're just the MacGuffin, the excuse to hang House's funny lines and fragile emotional state on. I went with the MacGuffin route; she said she likes the medical investigations (not to be confused with this) as much as the character material. What say you?

"Prison Break" edges ever closer to fulfilling its title. I'm disappointed that, one week after the writers felt the need to introduce a Super-Evil Secret Agent to put the two Regular-Evil Secret Agents in their place, they got rid of the guy, but I'm not surprised. With a show like this or "24," killing time is one of the hardest things to do. (Can you say cougar? Or amnesia?) So the writers vamp for a couple of weeks by introducing another bad guy, then throw him down a well when he's not needed anymore. A shame, really, as I felt he was much more legitimately threatening than Kellerman or his sidekick. As for the rest of the episode, T-Bag seems like the obvious one to get dumped from the escape team (again, Abruzzi should have several dozen ways to kill him without exposing their secret), which means I'm sure we'll go in a different direction. Early on, I suggested that the writers might try to really surprise people by taking a page from the "24" season one finale and having Michael escape while Lincoln dies in the attempt. Maybe they've got the onions to do it.

We're running long here, so I'll dispense with "Grey's Anatomy" pretty quickly. I'm surprised the writers didn't follow George's "carpe diem" day to its logical conclusion and have him profess his love to Meredith. Sooner or later, they need to pull a Sam Weir/Cindy Sanders and have the two of them hook up for a few episodes, only to have George realize he's really not that into her. Burke and Cristina's strained date was really funny, and it was weird to see the lead from "American Embassy" as a contemporary of McDreamy and Mrs. McDreamy. On "Embassy," she was playing the Ally McBeal part and was supposed to be in her late 20s at most, but according to IMDb, she's over 40. Huh.

I have nothing more to add, except: "Arrested Development," "Arrested Development," "Arrested Development," "Arrested Development," "Arrested Development," "Arrested Development"...

Click here to read the full post

Double feature

It's not often I can use this job to impress chicks (aka my wife), but last night was a good one. We had just finished watching "Gilmore Girls" when she said, "Oh, I wish there was more!" I took a dramatic pause, then said, "Well, it just so happens that I have next week's episode in my bag!" Major, major brownie points there.

I've complained a lot in the past about how Amy Sherman-Palladino keeps fixing Rory up with these asshole boyfriends whom she thinks are much nicer than they actually are, so it was funny to see Asshole #2 (Jess) lecture Rory on dating Asshole #3 (Logan). (Asshole #1 was Tristan, who I'm sure Rory would've started dating if Chad Michael Murray hadn't left to do that "Lone Ranger" pilot.) Of course, this new Jess was more mature and decent than he ever was when he was a regular character on the show; I could actually buy Rory going out with him now. It bothered me that Rory needed an outside voice to shake her out of this stupid funk, but it's about freaking time. The scene at the end, with Rory and Emily turning into a young Lorelai and Emily, was great, one of the few times this year where I haven't cringed at Alexis Bledel's acting. (She's decent when Rory's upset; it's the comedy scenes that overwhelm her.) Next week's episode is even better, though I can't discuss it much without spoilage.

When that was done, I zipped through "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office." One of the better "Earl"s of the season, featuring not only an extended flashback to Bad Earl, but a funny karma mission. Some weeks, it seems like the writers just assume that the idea of Earl trying to do good deeds is funny in and of itself, when the comedy should be coming from the dumb screw-up ways Earl tries to fulfill his mission. (The beauty pageant episode last week was totally flat, except for Jamie Pressley dancing with her mom's ashes.) The "Say Anything"/golf club/burning cross scene is the sort of thing that should be happening every week: Earl going at his mission in exactly the wrong way and almost making things worse in the process. The "Smokey and the Bandit" subplot was funny, too, and the show followed through with the joke with the "Smokey"-style blooper reel over the end credits. (They're not the first show to use that gag, however; the best of them was on "The State," which for no reason whatsoever featured an exact recreation of the blooper reel from "Cannonball Run" at the end of one episode.)

"The Office" ruined my theory that Carell is playing another 40-year-old virgin, but I'll survive. This is the most competent we've ever seen the character (even as David Brent in the original), and I suppose it was necessary at some point. In the British version, the boss gets fired for incompetence within 12 episodes; if this show hopes to be around for the long haul, we occasionally need to see reasons why Michael gets to keep his job. The table read of Michael's movie script was another good Jim/Pam subplot, but I worry that they're pushing this UST thing too far. Will-they-or-won't-they is a trap that's killed many a good comedy before ("Ed" dragged out the Ed and Carol thing for so damn long that I just gave up), and in the event that "The Office" is around a while, I don't want to tune in three years from now and see Jim still awkwardly pining for Pam with no forward movement. Greg Daniels has said that he really sees the two of them as friends, but if that's the case, he needs to nip this thing in the bud, and fast. Just do an episode where they sleep together and it's a disaster afterwards and get it over with. Hey, if Michael can get laid, anyone on this show can. Except maybe Dwigt.

I had already seen "House," which is the episode I had alluded to in last week's column about how the writers are smart to occasionally let one of House's patients die. Very strong hour with a great guest performance by Clifton Powell as the patient's dad and some real relevations about House's past. But am I the only who, everytime I see R. Lee Ermey, I immediately want him to shout, "What is your major malfunction, Private Pyle?" No? Didn't think so. Click here to read the full post

It's my birthday too, yeah

Today is my birthday, which may have contributed to yesterday's long dark tea-time of the soul. As John Astin liked to say on "Night Court," I'm feeling much better now.

There's so damn much on every Tuesday night that it's difficult to get through it all for a timely Wednesday morning blog entry (especially in a week where I'm still catching up on Sunday and Monday shows). Would it kill the networks to put some decent stuff on, say, Friday? Please?

Anyway, on to what I've already seen (comments on "Commander-in-Chief," "Amazing Race" and others to follow):

"How I Met Your Mother": I was on the verge of writing a column about how this show has fallen prey to Herskozwickitis, a disease (named after the "thirtysomething"/"Once & Again" guys) where a TV show's supporting characters are infinitely more entertaining than the leads. I enjoyed everything about last week's episode except the Ted stuff, and had concluded that maybe a "Valerie's Family" situation was in order -- maybe change the title to "How We Dumped Your Father"?

This week's, thankfully, was strong in all parts, easily the funniest they've done since the pilot. Jason Segel got to dance (took 'em long enough), the subtitles in the club was a joke I hadn't seen before, and I could relate to both Ted's hatred of clubs and Marshall's fear of becoming a boring married guy. Good stuff, and if they can do episodes like this every week, I won't care if we don't meet the mom until season three.

"Gilmore Girls": Wow, was that a waste of time. When the writing is clicking, it doesn't matter if nothing happens in an episode (which is most of the time), but this was an episode with no plot and no memorable banter. When even Richard and Emily aren't funny, there be problems.

"My Name Is Earl": This is the first episode so far that didn't make me wish it was funnier. (It helped that Victor Fresco, creator of the brilliant "Andy Richter Controls the Universe," wrote the script.) The ESL classroom scenes were great (the first time I've liked that particular joke since they did it in "Stripes"), the flashbacks to Bad Earl were good, and Giovanni Ribisi (who'll always be the kid from "My Two Dads" to me) provided some additional Bad Earl-type mischief.

"The Office": First real dud of the season. Greg Daniels (the executive producer, who wrote this one) has been making a concerted effort to make Michael less of a bad guy this year -- not mean, just socially clueless -- and this went so far in that direction that I spent most of the half-hour feeling sorry for him. The Dwight/Jim scenes almost saved it -- almost.

"The Daily Show": One of two shows I watch every weekday ("PTI" is the other), and I won't be commenting on it all the time, but last night's Bill O'Reilly interview was just so damn bizarre it warrants mentioning. The interviews have always been the weakest part of the show, since Jon clearly feels uncomfortable savaging people to their face. This is the closest I've seen him come to outright dissing a guest, and he only started doing that after O'Reilly baited the audience and got repeatedly booed for it. But the mockery was still pretty gentle, and not helped by O'Reilly's belief that he should be funny, too. (At least, I hope O'Reilly thought he was being funny, because the alternative is too scary to contemplate.) Click here to read the full post

Catching up

First of all, today's All TV column about "Freddie." Didn't turn out as vicious as I had wanted, but I think I used up too much bile on "Hot Properties" last week.

I called Fox about the non-mention of "Arrested" and "Kitchen Confidential" at the start of Monday's playoff game, and was reassured that it was a "Prison Break"-specific promo, that "Arrested" would be returning with back-to-back episodes on Nov. 7, and that "Kitchen" would be on the week after that. And, to head out any other nervous media queries, Fox put out a press release about their return this morning.

I'm still running behind in my TV-watching (two hours got taken up last night by my wife's desire to watch "Hitch," the highlight of which was me winning a bet over whether there would be running in the climax), but here's what I've gotten to:

"Grey's Anatomy": Yup, Cristina miscarried, just as I figured she would from the minute she got pregnant. You can count the number of TV characters who've had abortions on one hand (Maude, Joanna Cassidy on "Buffalo Bill" and Claire Fisher are the ones that come immediately to mind), not because Hollywood writers are anti-abortion, but anti-controversy, and this is the hottest button we have. So when they make a character pregnant and then decide they don't want to deal with a baby, the writers induce a miscarriage to avoid the inevitable advertiser boycotts.

Predictability aside, this was a very strong episode, with two major personal/medical developments unfolding simultaneously (Cristina's miscarriage and the staff's discovery that Meredith's mom has Alzheimer's). My only worry is that this show, like other soaps of recent vintage ("The O.C.," "Desperate Housewives") is burning through so much plot in such a short period of time that there won't be enough material for the long haul. This is one of those leftover first season episodes, and already Meredith's secret is out and Izzy and Alex are on the verge of sleeping together. I respect shows that don't drag their feet on this stuff, but they all pay for it down the road.

One last "Grey's" thought: did Meredith's mom have an affair with the chief of surgery when they were younger? I couldn't tell if his concern was just friendship or something deeper.

"How I Met Your Mother": That left turn at the end of the pilot, where we find out that we won't be meeting the mother for a very long time, has left this as a kind of formless show. It's the best "Friends" knock-off ever made, but it's still a "Friends" knock-off. Willow and Doogie will always make me laugh, and I liked the subplot about Robin's discovery that no one watches her channel, but the main plot dragged. Plus, someone needs to sit the writers down for a "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared" marathon so they'll give Jason Segel more to do.

"The Amazing Race": Not enjoying this family tour of America, at all. This episode featured some of the least interesting challenges the show has ever done, and though we finally stopped at an airport, it was only for a 500 mile flight. When "House" comes back after baseball, this could fall off the viewing list until the next edition.

"The Office": Not as good as last week's office Olympiad, or, especially, the episode with the Dundies, but still some good stuff with Jim trying to keep everyone entertained during the fire alarm. For the record, my desert island books would be "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," "Empire Falls," "Lonesome Dove," "The Princess Bride" and "The Right Stuff" (or one of my other books on the space program, like "A Man on the Moon"). Also, the more hints we get about Michael's personal life, the more I'm convinced that Andy Stitzer wasn't the first virgin Steve Carell has ever played.

"My Name Is Earl": I know Earl's redemption is the whole premise of the show, but I enjoy the flashbacks to Bad Earl much more than the present tense scenes. Jason Lee is one of my favorite actors, and part of that is his ability to be likable while playing absolute pricks like Brodie and Banky and Jeff Bebe. The nicer he plays, the less interesting he is. Click here to read the full post