What are you laughing at?

I went with "Rock Star" over "Rescue Me" last night, so I won't get to Tommy and pals until sometime this afternoon at the earliest. In the meantime, the daily column link: the upcoming showdown between new sitcoms with laughtracks and those without. Click here to read the full post

Rock Star: Come down here and take it, bitch!

"Rock Star" line of the night, if not the season, goes to Storm for her comeback to Navarro. (Which I understand wasn't even the sauciest thing said during that exchange, since they had a whole back and forth about safewords and ball-gags. Ah, the FCC.) Singer-by-singer breakdown after the jump...

Patrice, "Beautiful Thing": This, I liked -- and a lot more than that T-Rex by way of Poison and Warrant song that Supernova (Featuring Dilana!) performed last Wednesday. Peppy guitar pop is one of my things, and I could imagine this in heavy iPod rotation without difficulty. As Dave said, not sure it's right for whatever the hell it is Tommy and the guys want to do, but the best Patrice has been since "My Iron Lung," if not "Somebody to Love" on opening night.

Magni, "Smells Like Teen Spirit": Tough song to make your own, because it's so indelibly Nirvana in a way that no other Cobain song is. Magni played it straight down the middle, doing a very faithful cover (has he ever really mixed up an arrangement?) and screaming his lungs out in honorable fashion. Not mind-blowing, but solid, and one of those numbers that I imagine played better in the room than at home. Also, why hide the head vein beneath the wool cap on a song where you're going to go this bonko?

Ryan, "Back of Your Car": No. While his ability to move with the guitar was better, I feel like this guy gives the same. exact. performance. every damn week, and I'm bored with him. Plus, how much of a blatant suck-up was the guitar toss? Way to congratulate him for doing something the guys just suggested five minutes earlier, Dave.

Storm, "Crying": Stormy was in her element on this one, with the dramatics and the high notes and all the gyrations, and yet I kept being reminded of how much better Steven Tyler's voice sounds on this -- and that's coming from someone who always gets sad listening to early Aerosmith and imagining what Tyler would sound like today if he hadn't done so many drugs. Storm has a great voice and nobody else left would have come close to what she did with this, but if you can't match an iconic singer's voice, you should change the song up enough to cover for that.

This is also, like, Storm's fourth ballad in a row, and if she wants to even be included in the discussion with Lukas and Dilana, she needs to get out there and kick some ass on a harder, preferably faster song. That's why I was so frustrated she gave in to Ryan on the original song. (If you want an R-rated preview of what she plans to sing if she ever gets that chance, click here. There's a version with PG lyrics out there somewhere -- "What" in place of the F-word.) Question is, does she even want to win anymore, or does she just want to stick around a long time, then go back to doing her old gigs, only with a higher profile? I have this weird feeling her heart's not in it anymore, but I enjoy watching her and hope she has another "Anything Anything"-esque performance in her.

Dilana, "Every Breath You Take": OMFG, did she really sing her own name repeatedly at the end? I don't care if the "la la"s in the actual song sound a little like "Dilana," that's like one of those Pizza Hut pizzas where, just in case your cholestorol wasn't already jacked up, they have to shove extra cheese into the crust. That moment was an angioplasty special, and the capper to Dilana's most pedestrian performance by far. (Though it was still a step up from the version she was practicing in the webisode, where her falsetto sounded like a strangled dog.) I still think she has in the inside track on the job, but it's been a while since she really dazzled me performance-wise.

Toby, "Layla": I'm usually pro-rearrangement, and anything to take the song the hell away from the godawful Unplugged version Clapton perpetrated a decade or so ago is alright in my book, but this one just felt off. In general, Toby's been really manic and trying too hard the last few weeks. Plus, with the hoodie on, I kept wondering when he was going to break into "You All, Everybody." (Or am I the only one who thinks he looks a bit like Charlie from "Lost"?)

Lukas, "All These Things That I've Done": Great manic energy and vocal intensity, if not quality. Maybe he was just out of breath from all the moving around, but his voice wasn't a patch on the original, which is one of my favorite songs of the last five years. Still, I like watching the guy jump around, but I'd like to hear him sing in his "Creep" voice again, and soon.

I think Patrice is going home no matter what. Hard to figure the encore, since nobody was head-and-shoulders dazzling. I'll be stunned if anyone but Lukas gets to play with Supernova.

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

Vanished: I already have

I feel like I said everything I care to say about "Vanished" in yesterday's column. I may give it one extra week, given that it's summer, but this was one of the few absolute dud drama pilots I saw this season. Anybody watch, and, if so, what did you think? Click here to read the full post

Prison Break: Locked up

Anyone who was expecting Bill Fichtner to enter "Prison Break" with a monologue about how he wants a hard target search of every dog house, hen house and outhouse, raise your hands. Just me? Why is it always just me? Spoilers after the jump, with the biggest one first...

VERONICA'S DEAD? I'm both shocked and excited. Rarely have I seen a character with more show-ruining potential than Veronica, whose naivete and involvement with the show's lame-ass conspiracy storyline were a drag on every single episode last year. I almost don't care whether this was a course correction in response to the fans' hatred of her, an attempt to deal with the loss of two of the conspiracy's main actors (a very happy accident, far as I'm concerned), or just an attempt to jolt the audience by getting rid of a peripheral character. I'm just glad to see her gone. (And Dominic Purcell played the hell out of Linc's end of that phone call.)

Rest of the episode was more promising than I was expecting when I pretty much dismissed the show's future last spring. Fichtner's a good addition, an actor I always like (especially when he's selling Confederated Products) and a more challenging nemesis than Bellick, who would never have figured out about the tattoos in a million years. Scheuring and Olmstead insist that the tats are still a crucial part of this season; maybe Michael's just so damn smart that he had some red herrings designed in for just this eventuality.

While some of the details of the escape were lame (a train happens to come by at the exact moment that all the search copters are refueling?), putting the guys out in the open has created some good new dynamics. Exchange of the show:

Abruzzi: "Trousers are too short."
Linc: "Chop your feet off. You're good at that."

And speaking of the choppee, T-Bag remains a very, very bad boy. I'm a little disappointed they went for reattachment right away, as I was hoping they would go in either Buster Bluth territory or, even better, Carl Hiaasen territory and have him attach a weed-wacker or something to the stump. This makes life easier on the makeup people and on Rob Knepper, but they better not show T-Bag touch-typing anytime soon.

Not much else to say. With Veronica dead, the conspiracy back-burnered and no other network show in the timeslot for a month, I'm back, at least temporarily. It's not a great show (never has been), but the premiere was significantly better than I was expecting. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Deadwood: But does she get a set of Mardi Gras beads?

Serious "Deadwood" spoilers after the jump...

First of all, Trixie's botched hit on Hearst shows the perils of nude assassination. If she'd just gone topless, she might have been able to aim better and do more damage with her teeny purse gun, but she had to go a step too far by lifting her skirt and trying to distract Hearst with her answer to the carpet/curtains question. (Question for the gallery: did Trixie have more than distraction on her mind when she popped her top? She's been fairly respectable for the last two seasons; was there a part of her that felt she had to look like a whore again before doing such an extreme, illegal act?)

Second, let's all hang our heads in a moment of silence for our pal Ellsworth. In his honor, I present the first, and arguably best, of the show's profane monologues:

"I may have fucked up my life flatter'n hammered shit, but I stand here before you today beholden to no human cocksucker, and holdin' a workin' fuckin' gold claim, and not the U.S. government tellin' me I'm trespassin', or the savage fuckin' red man or any of these other limber-dick cocksuckers passin' themselves off as prospectors had better try and stop me."

Poor damn Ellsworth, sweetest man in the Black Hills (the above speech excepted). He's happy to be Alma's beard (and to let Sophia touch his own) and he has to die because Hearst was in a snit that no one rose to his bait last week? I should've known he was in trouble as soon as he began that monologue to the dog (ala Steve's speech to the horse what kicked him), or even last week when Alma started displaying genuinely wife-ly feelings towards him, or hell, when Hearst and his goon started talking about tents, but the shooting caught me unawares. And Gregg Fienberg's decision to use the corpse-eye-view camera to show Alma's reaction was just devastating.

What Hearst doesn't get -- what he'll never get, at least Milch's interpretation of him -- is that every time he tries to scare the citizenry, he only brings them closer together. A couple of years ago, Al killed Alma's husband and tried to kill both her and Sophia; now he's her port in a storm. Ellsworth's death has turned Charlie into drinking buddy with Dan and Johnny, had the guys helping Jewel up those damn steps, had Aunt Lou send over a sympathy basket (and can she start putting some freaking grinded glass in Hearst's food already?), made allies of Sol and Al (who have always been uneasy around each other because of Trixie), and brought the best out in the Doc. (The scene where he explained to Alma the import of Sophia getting to see Ellsworth's body was a thing of beauty.)

And meanwhile, ol' George stands around, barely slowed by the bullet wound, whining about how "I was not made to crush my own kind." Poor, poor baby. And great, great Gerald McRaney, who scared me about 17 different times in the episode, most notably when he sent Langrishe scurrying into his room. Given the historical straightjacket Milch has to write in, can this season end with anything more than Hearst deciding on his own to get the hell out of town? Do the reinforcements provided by Wu and Hawkeye (who I'm guessing is going to prove Al very, very wrong) lead to a full-on battle, or just a stalemate. Or do we, for the love of God, end this "season finale" (one of the phoniest uses of that phrase I've ever seen) on a cliffhanger?

Some other random thoughts:

• It's hard to look at the scene where Seth hugs Sophia and Alma and not think about what might have been. Poor Martha. Every time it looks like she has all of Seth's heart, some tragedy has to befall the other woman in his life to distract him.
• Pick a theory for why Cy had a hissy-fit with his whores: 1)He thought Hearst had hired bare-breasted Trixie for a quickie and was annoyed that his fancy-dressed women were passed over; 2)He thought Hearst was dead and was mad that he backed the wrong horse; 3)He saw Ellsworth's body and realized that Hearst was prepared to kill anyone and everyone in camp -- including Cy himself; 4)Like last week, he's just mad at feeling left out of all the action to hang around with his whores and Leon and Con.
• Good of E.B. to grow a pair and all, but why would Al or Seth or anyone else want the two-faced weasel around for any kind of discreet strategy session?
• Not since Spider-Man and Superman met for the first time have I been so excited by a cross-universe team-up like the one between Jewel and Richardson.
• Richardson also had the one saving moment of the usual time wasting with the theater company, when he introduced himself to Claudia by reminding her that he juggled on Amateur Night. I've said it before and I'll say it again: as a foil/sidekick to Al, Langrishe has been a great addition, but as emcee of this pointless group of actors, he can't get out of town fast enough. (Though here's another case where history gets in the way; Jack was apparently a Deadwood fixture for years.)
• Duck, duck, duck... Goose! Just thought it had to be said.
• Line of the night: "Wu big man!" Had to smile for the guy having his moment. Though did I miss the explanation for why he's stopped dressing American?

One more episode. I can't believe it -- especially since I'm skeptical that the movies will ever happen. Sigh...

What did everybody else think?

Click here to read the full post

What if I was to tell you...

... that in today's column, I review the season premiere of "Prison Break" and the debut of "Vanished"? Is that something you might be interested in? And what if I was to tell you that today's paper also features Matt's review of Spike Lee's Katrina documentary? Now, is that something you might be interested in? And what if I was to tell you...

...sorry, had to get that out of my system. Martin Landau does that to me (or, at least, he has for the last eight days). "Entourage" wasn't as good this week as last -- not enough Bob, the sneaker story wasn't very funny (even if it did do a good job of showing where Vince and Turtle's heads are at after the last few weeks) -- but I can't complain too much about any episode featuring a mic'ed Drama practicing the self-love that dare not speak its name, or one that allowed Bob to be so gloriously vindictive at the end. For him, it's clearly not about the money. He wanted to be a player again, and Ari tried to deprive him of that. We'd heard that Carla Gugino was going to pop up at some point this season as an agent who interests Vince; based on the previews, I'm guessing we see her next week.

(The Drama scene reminded me a bit of the classic scene in "The Naked Gun" where Drebin, still wearing his radio mic, takes the world's longest, noisiest piss in the middle of a press conference -- and in turn reminded me of something that happened on the L.A. trip. When we were leaving the "Rock Star" mansion, I checked my digital recorder to make sure all the interviews had gone over okay, and discovered that I had accidentally left the recorder running for the entire two-hour jam concert. Excited to have an accidental bootleg, I was preparing to send copies to some of the other reporters who had been there when I went back to the beginning to discover that, in addition to the concert, the tape also included a couple of trips to the bar and a Drebin-esque men's room stop. To quote Frank, "Whoops." Suffice it to say, the recording remains unshared.)

Even though Fox has been jumping the gun on the season for years, it still feels odd to have two network dramas premiering this early. Time to start prepping tomorrow morning's "Prison Break" review -- after, of course, I finish with "Deadwood." Click here to read the full post

Sunday links

Catching up, in reverse order: this morning, I have an interview with Jason Ritter where he talks about trying to learn the sitcom craft and what he inherited from his old man; on Friday, I panned Lifetime's Fantasia biopic (not that the review matters now, since it aired last night); on Wednesday we ran a mailbag topped by Jim Beaver (aka Ellsworth on "Deadwood") saying nice things about Matt; and on Tuesday, I wrote up my most recent encounter with Katie Couric, minus Wardrobegate: The Sequel. (For my brief account of that, read the comments in this post.)

Oh, and Fienberg has a good post about why "Snakes on a Plane" wasn't the box office phenomenon that some had predicted. Click here to read the full post

Okay. Snakes on a Thursday.

What the hell, I said. Now or never, I said. If I'm going to see those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane, it's going to be at the very first motherfucking showing, I said. So I drove to the local five-plex, plunked down my $9.25 and stayed up past my bedtime for a raucous screening of "Snakes on a Plane."

Short version: I had feared that, after all the hype, the movie itself would be underwhelming, neither good nor bad enough to merit all the attention. But it delivered exactly what the greatest title of all time promised: lots of snakes, lots of screaming, lots of silliness, and Sam Jackson again demonstrating that he can take anything seriously, so long as there's a paycheck involved. Not a great movie -- not even really a good one -- but no worse than, say, "Tremors," and with a more elegant concept. I definitely got my $9.25 worth. Of course, it helped that the small theater was packed with kids from the local high school who went nuts for everything, up to and including some of the trailers (whoever got Jackson's "Black Snake Moan" trailer attached to this movie deserves several raises).

Significant spoilers (of the kind you shouldn't read until after the movie -- though, in this case, does it matter?) after the jump. (And if you would rather read a less spoiler-y review that pretty much echoes everything I've said, go read Fienberg, who's certainly not doing his part to prove we're not the same person.)

First, the downside. As the witness who inspires the evil mobster to put those snakes on that plane, Nathan Phillips is laughable. (It doesn't help that it's never clear whether the murder he witnesses is of his dad, in which case he's even worse.) Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, but the movie takes so damn long (at least a half-hour) to actually release the snakes, and most of that throat-clearing time hangs on Phillips. The low point is his whine about how this is all interfering with his plan to go surfing in Bali, a weird, probably unintentional homage to Luke Skywalker's rant about going to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters. Also, the scenes on the ground with Bobby Canavale advance the plot (barely) and nothing more; when you've got weird character guys like Bobby Cannavale and Todd Louiso working together, how do you not find a way to make any of that funny? And the ending, again heavy on Nathan Phillips, is seventeen times cheesier than anything to come before.

But up in the air, once those snakes get loose, whoa Nelly. This is a gore-y, gore-y movie, more graphic than you'd expect even with the title. I think they picked every part of the human anatomy (male and female) that I would be most afraid to have attacked by a snake: eyes, mouths, genitals (the urination scene almost drove me from the theater), etc. The CGI was usually unconvincing, but it didn't really matter, especially in over-the-top moments like the boa constrictor crushing, then devouring the Evil Businessman.

And while I could see EB's demise coming from the second he walked on the plane and started bitching about having to fly coach, I like that the movie wasn't 100% predictable about who would live and who would die. You know the horny young couple trying to join the mile-high club are toast (has there ever been a horror movie where sex didn't equal death?) and that the two kids and the mom and baby will survive, but I never would have expected the sweet honeymoon couple would get it the way they did, and I had the germaphobe rapper marked for death from the jump, and he made it.

I was also glad to see Dave Koechner (who had the audience laughing and yelling "Whammy!" as soon as he walked on screen) die and come back to life a couple of times before they had to kill him for good so an amateur had to land the plane. (Though I had Julianna Margulies pegged for that job; maybe I've seen "Executive Decision" too many times on cable.)

But really, the entire damn movie hangs on Sam Jackson, who has long since established that he will star in any script you put in front of him while bringing more authority than most of them deserve. Doesn't matter whether he's striding along the armrests, tasering snakes without any of them attacking from above (you have to refuse to even think about the logic of when and where the snakes would and wouldn't attack or else you might as well not go at all) or pulling the plane out of a steep dive simply by gritting his teeth a little more: I believed every single ridiculous thing he did and said. And his delivery of The Line is a thing of beauty. You know it's coming, you're expecting it to come, you've said it to all your friends several dozen times in the last six months, and still he kills with it. (Though part of the genius of it is how blatantly it was inserted later, sort of like the high production values in the "Gotcha, suckers!" shot from the end of "Chubby Rain" in "Bowfinger.") And, of course, the theater went berserk as soon as he said it. I'm not sure I was able to hear another line of dialogue for at least three minutes.

On my way out of the theater, I got into lockstep with a middle-aged guy (I think we were the only non-teenagers in the crowd) and we were both just laughing our asses off. "I got up to walk out three or four times," he said, "and just as I was about to, there'd be something on the screen that made me sit back down again."

That about says it. Like "Rocky Horror Picture Show," it's not a movie to see in a quiet matinee, or on DVD. See it in a crowded theater, or don't bother. Click here to read the full post

Snakes on a Thursday?

Just out of curiosity: anybody planning to go to "Snakes on a Plane" tonight? A bunch of the local theaters here (and, no doubt, around the country) have 10 p.m. and midnight showings, and there's a part of me that feels like, if I'm going to see "Snakes," it should be tonight or never. On the other hand, I'm an old suburban man who's often contemplating sleep around 10, so...

Thoughts? Click here to read the full post

Rock Star: That's all there is?

"Rock Star" elimination spoilers after the jump...

Like I said last night, Zayra needed to go. She had no business fronting this band, and after a few weeks where the guys were keeping her around as a freakshow for their own amusement, demonstration of her actual talent seemed to jar them into recognizing that, whatever career she's going to have, it's better off away from them. Patrice isn't going to win, and unless she miraculously avoids bottom three next week there's no way she doesn't go home, but at least she sings, plays and writes a similar style of music to what the guys want to do.

And speaking of which, before we get back to the elimination stuff, am I the only one who was, um, massively underwhelmed by the debut performance of Supernova, featuring blatant frontrunner Dilana? Not a terrible song, and maybe something I might start singing along to if I heard it on the radio 57 times (which, if I still listened to NY/NJ's abysmal terrestrial radio stations in the car, I might), but nothing I'm going to rush to download to the iPod or share with friends. And is it too late to have Gilby replaced by the House Band lead guitarist?

To me, the highlight of the night was watching Storm psyching herself up for the bottom three performance she believed was inevitable, only to be crushed when Magni wound up there instead. (As with "Idol," we may have reached the stage in the contest where it's better to be bad than mediocre; outraged Storm fans were no doubt power-voting, while Iceland assumed Magni was fine.) It was funny to see how excited both Storm and Magni were by the possibility of the bottom three showcase; done right, it can almost be better than getting the encore (different song, not one off a list, etc.). It illustrated not only their personalities, but their obviously secure place in the competition (compare their faces to Toby, who looked like he'd just been offered a supporting role in Crocodile Dundee 5).

I'm getting a little frustrated at the amount of in-season repetition of songs. I understand Magni auditioned with "Creep" and feels strongly about it, but Lukas only sang the freakin' thing last week, and better, at that. (Though Magni approaching Patrice and Zayra as he sang "I don't belong here" was hella funny.) And while I applaud Patrice for getting all the words to "Celebrity Skin" right after Lukas' mangling, can't we please have some more originality on the second night?

What did everybody else think? And what would Dilana have to do between now and the finale to not win this? Click here to read the full post

Weeds: Burning down the house

What if I was to tell you that there was a TV show about a hot suburban mom who deals with the financial stresses of widowhood by becoming the neighborhood pot dealer? Is that something you might be interested in?

Sorry... wrong pay cable channel.

Anyway, because I got to see this season's first five episodes of "Weeds" last month, and because Matt wound up writing the review for the paper, I completely blanked on the fact that it debuted on Monday night -- even though I actually linked to Matt's review here. I'd like to blame it on too much of Nancy Botwin's product, but sadly, this is how my brain functions even when straight-edged.

"Weeds" is a show I didn't have much use for last season. I still hadn't forgiven Mary-Louise Parker for inflicting Amy Gardner on "The West Wing" (even as written, she was probably an irritating character, but M-LP went the extra mile), I was wary of any project featuring Kevin Nealon in a significant role, and I felt it suffered from Single Camera-itis, in which the makers of laughtrack-free comedies are too busy being impressed by their own cleverness to notice that their show isn't, you know, funny. (There was also a trace of Alan Ball-itis, in which Hollywood types are so pleased to be ripping suburbia's lid off, Ron Burgundy-style, to notice that the audience realized years ago that suburbia was rife with dysfunction.)

But, like the (non-medicinal) weeds I can't seem to purge from my own suburban backyard, the show grew on me. (Thank you. Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress.) I developed a real affection for Mary-Louise and her bizarre line readings, I discovered that Nealon was perfectly cast as a pathetic middle-aged pothead, I applauded the arrival of Prior Walter from "Angels in America" as Nancy's irresponsible brother-in-law and, most importantly, I started laughing. Not just at Elizabeth Perkins, who was genius from the start, but at everybody. And with the arrival of the deader-than-deadpan Martin Donovan, whom I've loved ever since I saw him in Hal Hartley's "Trust," the ensemble (also including Romany Malco, the secret weapon from "40-Year-Old Virgin") was complete.

Because all five have blended together in my head a bit, I don't have a lot of specific things to say about the premiere, except that I love the complete disdain that Nealon and Perkins have for each other, and I love Uncle Andy having to deal with an Israeli ex-soldier who could no doubt snap him like a twig.

Back when the network season was winding down and I put my poll in the field about what summer shows you all wanted to see discussed here, "Weeds" got a couple of mentions, so if there's enough interest, I can take a second pass through episodes 2-5 and work them into the rotation. But if nobody cares, I'll just enjoy the DVDs as they arrive from Showtime. The power is in your hands. Use it wisely. Or something. Click here to read the full post

RIP, Gas Man

Subject line stolen from my friend Dez (in reference to his "Homicide" guest spot), but I remain bummed about the death of Bruno Kirby at 57 from Leukemia complications.

Too many great Bruno movie moments to list here, but I'll highlight a few: the tight-assed non-comedian in "Good Morning, Vietnam" (especially the "Eatie Gourmet" non-joke), pretty much every word out of his mouth in "When Harry Met Sally" ("You made a woman meow?" and "Baby fish mouth is sweeping the nation!" especially), his taunting of Daniel Stern in "City Slickers" ("Is this getting you hot? 'I need a price... I need a price...'"), his Italian speaking as Young Clemenza in "Godfather, Part II," and, especially for me, this one exchange with Matthew Broderick in "The Freshman" (apologies if it's not word for word):

"Rudolfo Lasparri of Palermo, Sicily? You want me to be Rudolfo Lasparri of Palermo, Sicily? I don't want to go to Palermo, Sicily!"
"Have you ever been there?"
"No!"
"Then I really don't think you can make an informed judgment, can you?"

Time to put some Kirby in the Netflix queue. Click here to read the full post

Fair is fair

When Denis Leary is funny, he's really funny. Go enjoy him and Lenny Clarke endangering the livelihoods of both Red Sox announcers in this clip on Deadspin.

UPDATE: NESN got the clip pulled, so go to Seth Mnookin's blog to read what Denis and Lenny had to say about Kevin Youkilis vs. Mel Gibson. Click here to read the full post

Rescue Me: Sufferin' Sipowicz?

Not messing around. "Rescue Me" spoilers after the jump...

So, three questions to start:

1)Is there anyone out there who, when we got to see Johnny on the job in a scene unrelated to Tommy for the first time ever, didn't assume that he was about to catch a bullet?

2)Has Tommy yet reached that later-stage Sipowicz point where the sheer amount of tragedy befalling him starts to feel silly?

3)Anyone want to tell me that I'm wrong that the season's remaining episodes will see Tommy abandon the Florida plan and get back with Janet so they can raise the Gavin male heir (whether it's his or Johnny's) together?

Maybe it's just because I watched this one at the office, where there are more distractions, but Johnny's death didn't do a lot for me, both because it was so obvious and because of the Sipowicz factor. I'm gonna be a lot more pissed if Chief dies, though I can't imagine Leary and Tolan being dumb enough to get rid of Jack McGee.

If there was a heart-clutching moment in the hour prior to Jerry's fall, it was Charles Durning singing "Neither Have I Wings to Fly" at his wife's grave. (Though I'm biased on any use of the song, since it was the centerpiece of the amazing unaired final episode of "EZ Streets," and you all already know how stupid in love I am with that show.) I've really enjoyed the back half of this season's focus on Tommy potentially leaving the FDNY. We all know it's not going to happen (else no show), but both Tommy and the show have been taking the idea seriously and giving us so many good reasons for him (for all of them, really) to get the hell out of the firehouse.

It's late, and I don't want to wait until morning to post, so I'll hit the episode's many, many other subplots quickly so conversation can start, ASAP.

• Comic highlight of the night: Tommy's freakout over Lou sleeping with a nun, even a soon-to-be-ex nun.
  
• How dumb are Franco and Lou that they needed Mike to explain the retarded brother's motivation? Liked Franco getting agitated about the sundae on the bro's behalf.
  
• I felt for the priest having to deal with Garrity and Maggie. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't been banned from ever entering any Catholic-run facility again.
  
• So, how much of the widow money do you think Sheila just blew on a house that no doubt will turn out to be a lemon?
  
• And is Probie still gay or isn't he?
  

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

Rock Star: Death before disco?

"Stripped-down" night of "Rock Star" wasn't as much fun as last season's (which gave us Jordis' "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and Marty's "Baby One More Time," among other highlights), but there was some interesting stuff going on, including my first near-violent disagreement with the judges. In order after the jump...

Zayra, "Lluvia De Mar": Best performance she's given this season, and they should send her home for it. And no, those two clauses aren't contradictory. Listening to her sound so much more confident and melodious doing a Spanish ballad should erase any doubt that she's all wrong for this band. With Josh gone, she's the squarest peg left.

Magni, "Starman": Every time I see that vein on the right side of his head throb, I keep worrying that he's going to wind up in the ER -- especially when it goes that berserk even on a relatively mellow song like this. He's a much better pure singer than I had realized in the early weeks, but, like Tommy with Storm after the previous two episodes, I really want to see him go bananas, and soon. Can he be as interesting on a song that's faster, or angrier, or more upbeat, or anything that sounds closer to the kind of music these guys want to do?

Patrice, "Message in a Bottle": For the first two thirds, this was the best I'd heard her sound since "My Iron Lung," but she ran into some trouble at the end (ironically, the part that the judges liked the best), and the smiling was once again all wrong for the lyrics. While I think Zayra should go home tomorrow, I think Patrice will. She has obvious talent, but she's plateaued, and the audience doesn't seem into her.

Lukas, "Hero": And he's dressed as an androgynous priest why, exactly? Not as powerful as "Creep" or as energetic as some of his incoherent early numbers, but I'm starting to like the stupid little hobbit. After Dilana, he seems most sure of who he is and how to play to the crowd.

Storm, "I Will Survive": I call seven levels of bullshit on this. First, what the hell is this song doing on the show at all, let alone on the acoustic night? Storm or someone else could have ripped the daylights out of this one on a regular evening, but whoever got the song this week was starting out with both arms tied behind their backs. (And, yeah, Marty had to sing Britney Spears on this night last year, but the acoustic format was an ideal change of pace for that, whereas Gloria Gaynor was already singing a ballad.) Second, given the limitations, I thought Storm did a great job on this, finding the ugly, raw emotion at the center of the song and making it sound like something that, if not exactly right for what Supernova wants to be, at least something that would belong at an arena rock show. For me, this was at least the second-best of the night, and she had a much higher degree of difficulty than the potential top dog. I'm so irked with Dave and the guys for dumping on this that I actually went over to MSN and voted a few times, and I never do that for any of these shows.

Toby, "Solsbury Hill": Is it me, or did Toby make as bad a hash of the lyrics as Lukas did on "Celebrity Skin"? It felt like he was mixing and matching lines from different verses and at times introducing entirely new words (and not intentionally, the way Storm did on "IWS"). And while the singing was some of Toby's best for the first minute or so, once he made the move over to the bongos he got very screechy. Plus, this isn't really the week to fight for the chance to play with one of the guys, since this set-up is so unlike what the band is generally going to do.

Ryan, "In the Air Tonight": No piano and Neo coat aside, this felt like a carbon copy of his "Losing My Religion" from a few weeks back. Like Patrice, I think he's as good as he's going to be on this show; the only difference is that he started off so poorly that he's giving the band this false belief that he's only going to get better and better. Bored now, except for the string quartet, who sounded killer on this.

Dilana, "Cat's in the Cradle": Probably the best of the night, though her version was much more faithful to the original than what Storm did. Also, she took the song in an angrier direction than I think it probably should go, even though it fits her style. But she has such incredible stage presence that, unless she gets too cocky and starts coasting, everybody else is playing for second.

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

Deadwood: The rug really tied the room together

It was the best of "Deadwood" (Al being Al again), it was the worst of "Deadwood" (every scene with Langrishe). It was the age of wisdom (Al figuring out Hearst's game), it was the epoch of foolishness (Hearst sending a henchman alone into Al's lair). It was... ahh, before I do my umpteenth hackneyed riff on "Tale of Two Cities," let's go to the jump for the real observations, shall we?

It's amazing to me how one episode of "Deadwood" can seem so tight and yet contain so much filler. So let's get the latter out of the way as quickly as possible so we can tend to the chocolatey goodness.

First, I never want to see any of the theater people again, and I think that may include Langrishe. Brian Cox is a great, great actor and has been a fun foil for Al, but by God what was the point of the scene with Jack's two women? I'm assuming the dancer is his daughter and the painter is a former lover... or maybe they're both daughters... or they're his sisters... his daughters... his sisters... Whatever the bleep they are, I could not give a good damn about any of it, or about Con's blood flow problem with Claudia, or whatever the hell Bellegarde's going to be doing when we see him next (and here I thought Dennis Christopher had a lifetime pass with me thanks to "Breaking Away"). David Milch is a grand, grand thinker, but sometimes his eyes are bigger than his stomach, you know? I can rattle off a half-dozen "NYPD Blue" story arcs off the top of my head that began with great promise -- or, at least, sounded great when Milch described them -- and then never went anywhere because he got distracted by other things. (In a couple of cases, the stories never even happened at all outside of some interviews Milch gave.)

At first, I was willing to indulge the arrival of the theater company, even though it meant less time for characters like Sol and Adams, because of Cox. Then I was willing to indulge them some more because of all the talks Milch has had with Matt about the nature of drama as a mirror for life and how the theater company's arrival would be the culmination of that theory. Then I was willing to indulge them just a bit more because I made myself forget about all those other Milch digressions to nowhere. But no more. I'm not saying there isn't a point to the theater stuff. There just isn't enough of one to justify this much screen time devoted to them, especially at the expense of an ensemble that was already too full by at least a third.

More randomness: Cy bitching out Janine from Cincinatti, which has to be one of the weirdest in-jokey plugs I've ever seen (assuming it was even meant that way, as opposed to Milch -- or W. Earl Brown, who's the credited writer of the script, even though I'm sure it went through several dozen Milch polishes -- having Cincy on the brain when the scene was being written). I get that Cy has been cut off from most of his usual punching bags (Eddie and Andy are long gone, Joanie's on the side of the angels, Leon's high all the time and Con's too stupid to bother with) and has been reduced to mocking the new whore's name, but still -- too long.

There was some good randomness, however, notably the whores at The Gem (and Jewel) all developing girl-crushes on Alma. Those fit in not only with the episode's depiction of her as heroic for being willing to make the second walk solo, but with what I imagine her real image in the camp would be. She's not a whore, not a schoolmarm, not a vulgar cross-dressing drunk. She's a beautiful, impeccably dressed, well-mannered independent woman who happens to be the second-wealthiest person in town. Of course the whores are going to be impressed by her -- especially since they don't know about the drug problem, or the general haughtiness, or the infamous gift basket scene from season two.

And those bits were only a tiny bit of the genius in "A Constant Throb." Howzabout Al leaping off the freaking balcony to rescue Alma? Or that entire final scene at the Bullock dinner table, with everyone trying very hard not to provoke Seth? (Though, if this episode takes place the day after the Amateur Night, as Jack suggested, how does Bullock make the close to 30-mile round trip ride to and from Sturgis in less than a day? Or am I underestimating horsepower?) Or Adams standing up to Al on the Hawkeye issue? Or Jarry, having just been accused of being gay by Hearst, kneeling down in front of Hearst's crotch to beg forgiveness? Or Dan explaining the facts of life to a trussed-up, raging Ellsworth? Or Alma talking Ellsworth down off the ledge (and, at the same time, maybe realizing that she feels more than affection for him)? Or, hell, even Jane's dream monologue to Joanie, one of those moments where I didn't quite get all the words but understood the melody?

But, obviously, the highlight was Al getting the upper hand on both Barrett and Hearst. If ever a character on this show has been in need of a prolonged beat-down, followed by a throat slash, it's the head brick. In addition to all the sins Al recited, he's also the one who shattered the foot of the salesman -- who, as Doc explained in passing to Cy, is going to lose his leg for the simple sin of calling "No cutsies." (At least, I think that was Barrett; if not, he was the one who orchestrated crap like that, and still deserved the beating.) I loved Al turning the tables on Hearst, who had played on Al's overconfidence with the whole smashed finger incident early in the season and now felt so secure in his position that he sent his top gun into the lion's den with no protection and no witness. Al's taunting of Hearst on the balcony -- particularly the "How's your back?" -- was just an aria of smack talk.

As I've said in the past, I'm going to be damn curious to see how Milch resolves this without turning the finale into Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (minus the departed and pointless Earps).
I just hope like hell that there is a resolution -- at least to the Hearst situation, if not to every story and character thread -- and that Milch didn't just leave everything hanging in the belief that he'd actually get to do the promised fourth season.

Sorry for the multiple delays yesterday. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

I'll be back in a jiffy!

Have to run into the city for a few hours, so I'll do the "Deadwood" write-up sometime this afternoon. In the meantime, go read Matt's review of "Weeds" season two.

UPDATE: I got roped into writing up my interview in the city for tomorrow's column, so "Deadwood" is being pushed back until the evening (say, 9-ish?). Fortunately, Matt's analysis was posted while I was in NYC, so have at it. Click here to read the full post

Entourage: Beat on the Ari with a baseball bat?

What if I was to tell you that an episode of "Entourage" would feature guest appearances by Oscar winner Martin Landau and the guy who plays Wee-Bey on "The Wire"? Is that something you would be interested in?

What started off kind of slow turned out to be one of the best episodes of the season, thanks largely to Landau's great performance as the out-of-touch Bob Ryan, who's not so out-of-touch that he doesn't realize how out-of-touch he is. (Get me?) I had a feeling that the meeting was going to somehow turn out in Eric's favor, but the shot of E, Vince and Bob strutting through Ari's office to the tunes of "Blitzkrieg Bop" still put a big smile on my face (especially as I noticed the weird yet appropriate walk Landau had given Bob).

The subplot with Vince and Lindsay Sloane (whom I've liked ever since "Grosse Pointe") didn't really go anywhere, unfortunately. "Friends" did the whole celebrity list years ago, and unless there's a follow-up where Lindsay's fiance decides he's suddenly not cool with it, this felt like filler.

On the plus side, there was Drama's pathetic attempt to play Columbo with Saigon's mom and Hassan Johnson doing his best Suge Knight impression as Saigon's old/new manager. Sweet. Click here to read the full post

While I was out...

Never in my life have I been so happy to take a six-hour drive (including traffic back-ups) from New England to New Jersey as I was on our return trip, since it didn't involve going into an airport post-Shampoogate. I'll take the longer hours with the ability to control my environment, eat and drink whatever I want, randomly shampoo my hair, etc., etc.

I still have to sift through a lot of what's on the TiVo, but in the meantime, some things I noticed upon my return to the series of tubes:

• Screw the "Seinfeld" Curse (which would imply that the actors had done something like sold Babe Ruth or kicked a goat out of Wrigley, instead of just getting new jobs). "Project Greenlight" is now 0-for-3 after the news that John Gulager's "Feast" is coming to movie theaters in September... for all of two nights. Apparently, the Weinsteins have decided to just have latenight screenings on Sept. 22 & 23, then send the thing directly to DVD. Can I just say "Boooo!!!"? I have no idea if the movie is any good or not, but a virtual straight-to-video release can't do any good for Gulager's career prospects -- or for the chances of him doing a second movie with a DVD supplement in which he discusses the movie while sitting in the tub for 45 minutes. Sigh...
  
• About time "Rock Star" did a double elimination -- not only because the show has to be off the air by mid-September, but because it's abundantly clear that, at best, four or five of these people (Lukas, Dilana, Storm, Magni and maybe Toby) have a realistic shot at winning this thing. Josh was all wrong for this group (as I understand, casting was done before the producers knew who the band would be, which would also explain the presence of Zayra and that guy from week one who liked Duran Duran), and all three guys despised Jill, so buh-bye. Since I'm a Storm fan, I'm hoping she gets to play with one of the guys this week and really hits it out of the park.
  
• Well, my campaign to get Steve McPherson to move "Ugly Betty" off of Friday nights and into the post-"Desperate Housewives" slot (currently held by this year's Show In Trouble, "Brothers & Sisters," which is a broken foot away from "Commando Nanny" status) was half-successful. "Betty" is off Fridays, but now it's on Thursdays at 8. If the "Grey's Anatomy" halo effect extends to the hour before it airs, this could be a good move, but it now means I have to deal with "Survivor," "The Office" and "Betty" in the same timeslot. (Plus "Earl," I suppose.) I think I'm going to have to move the TiVo to an upstairs room and get a dual-tuner DVR from Comcast for the main TV if I'm going to have a prayer of surviving the early parts of this season.
  

And, unrelated to TV (save that you could watch them on a TV), I took three Netflix movies with me on the trip and got through "The Greatest Game Ever Played" (a sop to my Underdog Sports Movie addiction), "Transamerica" (Felicity lived up to the hype) and "Brick," a really odd but cool movie in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt (the kid from "3rd Rock from the Sun") stars in a contemporary high school drama where all the characters talk like they're in a Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler novel.

Back tomorrow with "Deadwood" and "Entourage." Click here to read the full post

Rescue Me: Letting go

I'm about to leave on a road trip that will have me away from the computer for at least a couple of days, if not through the weekend, so very quick "Rescue Me" thoughts before I go, and then you savages are on your own until probably "Deadwood" time.

Another comeback-y episode, with one very large exception. At this point, I don't think I ever, ever, ever want to see Janet and Tommy alone in a scene again. Too much baggage there from The Incident and what happened afterwards, both on and off-screen. As soon as they made plans to meet, I cringed, and the actual meeting was even worse than I was expecting. No. Just no. Time to start fast-forwarding through that stuff, methinks.

Lots of goodness in the rest of the show, both light (Lou looking at Garrity during the discussion of "retard strength," Tommy's debate with the cabbie about the 72/77 virgins, the woman at the bar being turned on by Tommy's woe-is-me monologue) and dark (Tommy talking Stack into dying for the sake of his family, the entire sequence with Connor on the bus and Tommy showing off his scars).

On the other hand, there was one very unfortunate bit of timing: the shot of Tommy looking at the WTC-less skyline coming immediately after the commercial for "World Trade Center." Not only did the ad kind of wreck me emotionally for a good five minutes, but it completely threw me out of the Tommy/Jimmy scene because, even though in my head I knew the timing was coincidental (for Leary and Tolan, if not for the FX exec who sold the ad time), I couldn't stop viewing the scene as some kind of weird movie plug.

What did everybody else think? Talk amongst yourselves for a bit. Click here to read the full post

Rock Star: Meet the new boss?

Well, for about 10 or 15 minutes there it looked like Dilana had "Rock Star" season two all won. Not only was she the only one brave and smart enough to want to perform with Gilby, but she kicked all kinds of ass on the "CSI: Miami" theme song. But then Storm, and Magni, and Patrice (sort of), and Lukas and Toby proved that we still have a competition here. While it wasn't brilliant from start to finish, there were more highs tonight than on any episode this season to date. In order, after the jump...

Dilana, "Won't Get Fooled Again": The House Band always rocks the hell out of The Who, and I loved Gilby's intro. I prefer Insane Witch Dilana to last week's Biker Bar Dilana, and even to tonight's Rock Goddess Dilana, but this is the incarnation that actually has a shot at fronting Supernova, and she proved she could command the stage even when not completely losing her shit. Only bad part was when Gilby did the Springsteen-esque lean-in to harmonize; his voice didn't mesh with Dilana's at all. But a lot of fun, and the wail at the end was awesome.

Jill, "Mother, Mother": What Jason said: vastly improved stage presence, bland vocals -- especially on the chorus, which is where she should have really been going berserk. Other than the leap off the stage, nothing too exciting.

Ryan, "Paint It Black": I'm sorry, but I was too busy laughing at Ryan's Zoolander wardrobe and makeup to even notice the performance first time through. And on replay... no, still laughing. Take three: he definitely has a lot more energy than he did the first few weeks, but the vocals were screamy without being that interesting. And did I mention that I kept waiting for him to show us his Blue Steel face (or, at least, Le Tigre).

Storm, "We Are the Champions": With Dana gone, Storm is the best pure singer left by a country mile, and aside from one misstep on the first "we'll keep on fighting," she stared Freddie's ghost right in the face and didn't blink. Great theatricality, and I loved the new harmony on the middle portion. But, like Tommy, I'm looking forward to Storm going nuts again, and soon. (Her "Oh, I'll spank the crap out of you again, for sure" was almost as funny as Ryan's eye make-up.) And her support for everyone else stood out more this week than ever. On the webisode, she's completely rocking out as everybody else performs their version of the Supernova song, and she was on her feet and dancing for virtually everybody tonight.

(Side note: what kind of box was Brooke standing on to seem almost as tall as Storm when they stood next to each other?)

Zayra, "All the Young Dudes": Continuing her superhero costume motif, she seems to have appropriated Lemuria's original outfit from "Who Wants to Be a Superhero?," with a top hat and stripper heels to complement it. Whenever Marian and I see Penelope Cruz on TV or in a movie, Marian likes to riff on how annoying it would be to have to listen to that voice after about a week of living together, especially once the pillow talk ends and she starts saying things like, "We're out of toilet paper" and "Where are the Hot Pockets?" Listening to Zayra always reminds me of that, even when her vocals are completely overpowered by the band (plus Magni) the way they were tonight. On the rare occasions when I could hear her, she was both flat and annoying. Not nearly the bizarro entertainment value of last week's transformation of "8675309" into a lesbian punk anthem. Be crazy or be gone, Z.

Josh Logan, "Interstate Love Song": If Dave felt Patrice disappeared in front of Tommy, then the space-time continuum folded in on itself to erase Josh from ever having existed. I appreciate his attempt to rock out for real (and his Supernova adaptation was one of the two or three best), but after the opening bars, his voice pretty much ceased to exist. The House Band and Tommy were hot, though.

Magni, "When the Dolphins Cry": Awww, his baby has noise-canceling headphones! Sorry, dad moment there. Having his family in the room sure inspired Magni; this was his best performance by far, with strong singing and palpable emotion. For the first time, I can actually see why Jason and some of the others have been lavishing so much praise on him.

Patrice, "Instant Karma": My favorite Lennon solo song, and this was a cool arrangement of it (not to mention a song for which Patrice's incessant smiley-ness wasn't out of place). Nice move with the mic stand, proving that you actually can play guitar on this show without having to superglu your feet to the stage. But at the close of the show, she was in the freakin' bottom three again. I have to think that Dilana and Storm are overshadowing her too much (she's the Jennifer Hudson in this scenario), which is a shame, because I'd much rather she stick around for a long time than, say, Josh or Ryan.

Lukas, "Creep": In the webisode, Dilana all but dares Lukas to sing this one as a put up or shut up moment about his ability to sing a song, and you could see her on stage tonight looking really pissed at herself for giving her biggest competition such a great showcase. Turns out the stupid hobbit can actually sing a little -- and, more importantly, that he can bring some serious emotion when he's not just preening and staggering. Hell, I even loved the stupid wink. He's obviously Tommy's favorite, and unless he really stumbles moving forward, I think the producers need to either limit season three's talent pool to only homeless Canadian assclowns or ban them altogether to keep things interesting.

Toby, "Burning Down the House": Was I the only one who, when Toby pulled out the megaphone, expected him to start belting out Spanish gibberish? No? Just me? To that, I have only one thing to say: Sanchez, go! Anyway... Toby had some of the boy-band moves back for the beginning of this, but as the song kept going, he got legitimately weird, which is something I think you have to do while performing anything written by David Byrne. Good modern arrangement, House Band burning up the studio, etc.

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

Deadwood: Children's hour

Thoughts on kids in the thoroughfare, homicidal baritones, Richardson's finest hour and all things "Deadwood," after the jump...

"Innocence" isn't the first word that usually comes to mind when thinking of this town and its inhabitants. Hell, it's probably not in the top 100. But in two beautiful sequences, "Amateur Hour" powerfully demonstrated that, while the show focuses on the cutthroat action taking place behind the scenes, the camp at large has plenty worth saving from Hearst and his Pinkerton goons.

The first was the children's walk from their old school to the new one, which incorporated just about every living character on the show at some point. Swearengen, Cy, Hearst, the Pinkertons and the rest were all forced to stop , even for a few moments, and consider a world that isn't ruled by violent self-interest. And folded in there were some lovely small moments, like Alma and Seth sharing a friendly greeting absent any kind of sexual undertone and Jane putting aside her latest bout of self-loathing and whatever fear she may have about her relationship with Joanie so she could be there for the kids.

The second was the event that gave the episode its title. As the camp approaches some very dark times, Langrishe not only found a way to ingratiate himself into the community (as Matt wrote, what better way to flatter your audience than to treat them like the stars for a night?), but to offer almost everyone a distraction from the trouble that Hearst and the Pinkertons are clearly planning. The "almost" couldn't include everyone, of course. Cy had no place at such a positive, wholesome gathering, and with the Bella Union no doubt empty (lot of whores in that audience), he went off to try to make trouble for Joanie. Al, as we learned, has a fine singing voice, but his reputation in the camp wouldn't abide him performing for anyone but the moose's head. (Though, since he already had the severed head thing going, why not bring out his pal the chief? Two heads are better than one, you know.) The suddenly level-headed Bullock, having made one concession in walking Martha and the kids, had to plan for whatever's coming. And Farnum was there in body, if not in spirit, ruining the evening's highlight because he was jealous of the applause his punching-bag Richardson was getting for his juggling act.

If so much of this season has been about people sticking to the rules they or others have written for them, then this episode also featured some exceptions to that. Farnum has treated Richardson as barely a step above a monkey, yet Aunt Lou is kind to him and not only is making a passable kitchen staffer of him, but used him as a crucial shoulder to cry on after getting the awful news about Odell. (Gerald McRaney was just ambiguous enough in the scenes with Lou that, while I'm pretty sure Hearst did Odell in, I'm not positive.) And in spite of Cy's attempts to convince Joanie that she'll never be suited to anything but prostitution, she's doing a fine job as, I suppose you could call her the first superintendent of the Deadwood schools, finding an interesting new location and taking the lead in the big walk. Kim Dickens about breaks my heart in how hard Joanie is on herself, but she's doing good.

Some other thoughts:

• So, was that really it for the Earps? If so, I'm not sure why Milch even bothered, since all they contributed was an excuse for Bullock to show off his new-found stability. Not sure we needed an episode and a half's build-up (including too many references to Wyatt's "plan" that we never found out about, which reminds me a lot of Danny Sorensen's deep dark secret that Milch never bothered to explain before leaving "NYPD Blue") just for that. Or maybe I'm wrong and the brothers have more to do in the final three episodes. (Only three episodes... sigh...)
• How funny was Al's outrage at someone -- especially, Johnny -- being able to translate for Wu better then he could?
• Not only is Doc taking Al's advice to quit feeling sorry for himself and do his job, but he didn't cough once that I noticed in the episode. Does Al's voice carry some kind of mystical healing power?
• Nice deadpan reaction by Langrishe after witnessing the Pinkerton stomp on the man's foot at the Grand Central. And the way he casually flicked out the switchblade put fantasies in my head of him making good use of it during one of his massage sessions with Hearst. Stupid recorded history, always getting in the way of what I want...
• God help us, but Yankton is back in play. Look, I love Stephen Tobolowsky and his random bird calls, but if anyone can translate Jarry's conversation with Adams, I'd appreciate it. I at least got the gist of his chat with Hearst and how they'll try to use the soldiers to rig the election. This does bring a couple of questions, though. First, are there any candidates save Farnum and Sol for mayor and Seth and Harry for sheriff? Because while E.B. would be enough of a boot-licker to suit Hearst, I don't see Harry being a yes-man. Second, am I right in assuming that the Chinese couldn't vote back then? Because Wu does have his whole bunch massing nearby, too.
• What exactly is the purpose of The Woman in Red? She's been featured prominently in a few scenes at the Grand Central, and she showed up but did not perform at Amateur Night, and there's even a picture of the actress up on HBO's press-only website, which would ordinarily imply someone who's going to play a significant role.
• The General paying for Steve's stint at the No. 10 was a nice touch, as was his decision to take him out to see the show at night.
• While there was a 10-day gap after Alma's surgery, every episode since has followed the consecutive day format, so how exactly did she sober up so quickly and thoroughly? I had forgotten about her father's trick with the coins in the first season finale until Sophia mentioned it. Turns out the old bastard was useful for something, eh?

So what did everybody else think?

Click here to read the full post

Tongues, massages and wankermen

Still working on my post about arguably the best "Deadwood" of the season. In the meantime...

Morning links: today's column takes a quick look at "Osbournes 2: Electric Boogaloo" -- or, as A&E insists on calling it, "Gene Simmons' Family Jewels." And if you can't wait for "Deadwood" analysis, Matt's take is already up.

I already lavished a bunch of praise on BBC America's modernised "Much Ado About Nothing" back on Friday, so I'm curious whether anyone took the time to watch it. As I said in the review, Sarah Parish and Damian Lewis are tons of fun as the leads, and the stuff with Hero no longer makes me feel so uncomfortable.

Uneven "Entourage." On the one hand, every scene with Drama's ambiguously gay bonding with his masseur was genius. On the other, Vince's ability to always come out okay in the end was a lot funnier when it was Jerry in "The Opposite." But I'm always happy to see Paul from "Cheers" (or, as some of you may think of him, Leonard from "It's Garry Shandling's Show") get some work, in this case as the helpful blackjack player. Nor will I complain about Seth Green getting non-"Four Kings" employment opportunities, even if it also gave too much screen time to Eric. (E is fine on occasion, like in the threesome episode, but the show is Ari, Drama and Turtle as far as I'm concerned.)

Off to ponder more about the tree in the schoolhouse... Click here to read the full post

The Wire: Money for something

As promised, from way back when I first mentioned getting the new season on DVD, my essay on the genius of the show:

And so it's come to this: David Simon is prepared to bribe people to watch the new season of "The Wire."

Okay, so maybe not a lot of people (mostly TV critics), or a lot of money ($130 per person), but if that's what it takes to keep his baby alive, he's ready.

After being MIA since the third season finished in December of '04, Simon's sweeping saga of drugs, crime and bureaucracy in Baltimore returns with a season three DVD set on Tuesday and the season four premiere on September 10. But after HBO boss Chris Albrecht suggested that renewal for a fifth and final season - which Simon had in mind when he left certain season four story threads unresolved - will depend largely on critical reaction to the new episodes, Simon wanted to go the payola route.

"I wish I'd said 'I'll send you $130 bucks to watch all 13 episodes,'" Simon lamented to me shortly after a "Wire" press conference with the Television Critics Association last month. "It probably would have violated every (newspaper) ethics policy. But I wish I'd said it. You know, 'If you watch all 13 episodes and don't like them, I'll send you $130, which is $10 per episode. I know $10 for an hour of your time isn't a lot, but we're "The Wire" and our resources are limited.'"

Having devoured all 13 hours even before sitting down with Simon, I can say I have no need of a refund. If anything, I feel like I should be paying more than my HBO subscription rate for this show. It is the best drama in HBO history - all due respect to "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood," "The Wire" is deeper, tighter and more ambitious - and one of the finest works ever produced for American television.

Since the full column is no longer up on NJ.com, click below to read the rest:

Throughout the show's run, many of its central characters have worked for the Major Crimes Unit, a neglected, disrespected branch of the Baltimore Police Department that, in spite of finite resources and a roster of personnel that the rest of the department would be happy to discard, regularly performs investigative miracles. In that way, the MCU is an echo of "The Wire" itself, which is the least-hyped show on HBO's slate, with a cast full of no-names, yet manages to make the impossibilities of the TV business seem routine.

Where most other dramas are content to include one or two minority cast members and puff out their chests about diversity, "The Wire" features literally dozens of interesting, significant roles for actors of color. Simon, ex-cop Ed Burns and their writing staff (which includes acclaimed crime novelists Richard Price, Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos) juggle what can seem like a hundred different subplots and pay them off in satisfying fashion at season's end. They don't tell you what to think of their characters, or even whom to agree with when characters debate morality, public policy and every problem plaguing urban America today. They just want you to think, period.

There's always a danger in describing "The Wire" as I just have — it sounds like your mother telling you how important it is to eat your broccoli. And I won't deny that watching the show can be work; as I said, there are so many characters and story lines to keep track of that you may occasionally feel the need for a spreadsheet.

But the payoffs are more than just enlightenment. As pure entertainment, few shows on television can match "The Wire," packed as each episode is with vivid characters you'll love and hate in equal measure, huge laughs, genuine tragedy, suspense and even, on occasion, wild action sequences. Given all that, is it so bad that if you're not careful, you might learn something before it's done?

In the first two seasons, Simon, Burns and company introduced one great character after another. To name just a few: Det. Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), a charming drunk and professional agitator; The Bunk (Wendell Pierce), McNulty's cigar-chomping, clotheshorse partner in both detecting and skirt-chasing; Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters), a brilliant detective rescued from 13 years in department purgatory (the pawn shop detail) to become the heart and mind of the MCU; Bill Rawls (John Doman), the deputy police commissioner as attack dog, whose chief responsibility seems to be punishing cops who've displeased his boss; Stringer Bell (Idris Elba), an educated drug lord trying to run his operation as if he were the CEO of a Fortune 500 company; Bubbles (Andre Royo), an enterprising snitch with a heart as big as his addiction to crack; and Omar (Michael K. Williams), a legendarily theatrical stick-up artist as hated on the street for being gay as for his ability to rob drug crews with impunity.

To them and many more, the third season added three key figures. Two were Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector), an up-and-coming drug player without Stringer's pretensions of respectability, and Tommy Carcetti (Aidan Gillen), a white Baltimore city councilman trying to be elected mayor in an 80 percent black city. Most notable was Maj. Howard "Bunny" Colvin (Robert Wisdom), a soon-to-retire precinct commander with a radical plan to reduce crime and increase the quality of life and police work in his district: He literally legalized drugs in his command, telling all the local dealers and junkies they'd be left alone so long as they kept their business to certain abandoned blocks (which quickly became known as "Hamsterdam").

Season four is even more ambitious, though partly by accident rather than design. Simon had hoped to follow Carcetti's run for mayor in a stand-alone miniseries to bridge seasons three and four, but HBO wouldn't commit to it. So the election gets folded back into the series proper, along with the rise of the increasingly ruthless Marlo, and, as the season's centerpiece, a look at the troubled inner-city school system and how it serves as the last, rapidly crumbling barrier between the kids and the drug corners, as seen through the eyes of four junior high boys who become the show's de facto new central characters. (For more on the new season, see accompanying story.)

Not many shows would hang a make-or-break season on four teenage unknowns (albeit gifted unknowns), while reducing the most recognizable actor to a few glorified walk-ons. "The Wire" pulls it off because the show long ago abandoned the fiction that Dominic West (who appears in about half the episodes, and, aside from the season finale, always briefly), or any of the actors, is the star, when the city itself owns that distinction. Simon, who before this show wrote the book that inspired "Homicide," as well as the Emmy-winning miniseries "The Corner," has made Baltimore as vibrant and indelible as Dickens' London or Roth's Newark.

For a show so writer-driven, "The Wire" has become more visually ambitious with each season as directors build on the template established by the late Robert Colesberry. In season three, Omar and his band of merry men and women get into a shootout with Stringer's people that wouldn't look out of place on a movie screen. In the upcoming season, there's a haunting sequence in which Sgt. Carver (Seth Gilliam), having badly let down one of the middle schoolers, walks down a seemingly endless white hospital corridor as the boy taunts him with cries of, "Are you gonna help me, Sgt. Carver?" And there's a wonderful silent sequence in an abandoned lot in which Lester Freamon finally answers a nagging question, which evokes the memorable season one scene where McNulty and Bunk dissected a crime scene uttering nothing but variations of the F-word.

Despite (or perhaps because of) Simon's unrelentingly cynical world view, the show becomes funnier with each passing year. As he put it to me, "You can't do a show this dark and not make it bearable (without) the humor." Season three brought the spectacle of Stringer trying to implement Robert's Rules of Order in a meeting with his dealers ("In fairness," an aide says when Stringer threatens an underling, "Poot did have the floor"); Carver and Herc (Domenick Lombardozzi) staging an elaborate chase with multiple cars, dogs, helicopters — and the theme from "Shaft" — in pursuit of a kid who's obviously a decoy; and a junkie's amazement when a cop introduces him to Hamsterdam, sounding like a wine steward as he recommends one type of crack as "the bomb."

Season four keeps up the laughter quotient, including expanded roles for great comic figures like cheerfully corrupt State Sen. Clay Davis (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who has a gift for making a certain four-letter word sound like it has 14 syllables, and Prop Joe (Robert F. Chew), a drug lord who works out of an electronics repair shop and actually fixes the clocks and VCRs himself as a stress release.

There are also moments of jaw-dropping tragedy, most of them caused by carelessness or red tape rather than any intentional evil. Herc ruins at least four people's lives without even realizing what he's done, and cop-turned-teacher Prez (Jim True-Frost) gets an education in how the school system is run in a way that makes any learning almost accidental. Virtually every element of the show is taken from reality, either people Simon met as a Baltimore Sun crime reporter or incidents Burns lived through as a homicide detective and later a middle school teacher.

"God is not a second-rate novelist," Simon says. "God knows what he's doing, and if you just take what actually happened and marry it to where you want to go, it's better than if you thought of it yourself."

That reality brings with it the show's moral complexity, a refusal to condemn even the worst people like Stringer — "He's just trying to do business in a culture that demands violence," according to Simon — or paint other people as two-dimensional heroes. McNulty is slowly revealed to be as big a jerk as Rawls. Carcetti means well, but he also cheats on his wife and has moments in which doing what's right falls second to doing what's right for Tommy Carcetti. (Lester remains the only completely pure character.)

Simon and Burns are both believers that the War on Drugs has now become more harmful than the drugs themselves, but their agenda transcends any one political ideology. What "The Wire" says, repeatedly, is that The System — government, business, law enforcement, everything that runs this country — is broken and that the guardians of The System are too committed to defending the status quo to even try fixing it. It's not a case of corrupt or evil people choosing to ruin things for the rest of us; it's people of all moral calibers making decisions within the established context of their own institutions (the police force, City Hall, drug corners) without regard to how they affect the world at large.

That mix of pessimism and moral ambiguity, as much as the show's demanding narrative, or the predominantly African-American cast, has no doubt prevented "The Wire" from becoming a mass-appeal hit like "The Sopranos" or "Six Feet Under," but Simon isn't about to change.

"I'd rather go off the air and do something else," he says.

He likes to tell an anecdote about a speech he gave on the drug problem for a Washington-based public policy group. At the end, the moderator asked, "What's the solution? Give it to me in a sentence." Simon elaborately responded about all the things he feels the government can and should do, and the moderator again asked, "Well, what's the solution?"

"He wanted it short," says a laughing Burns, who practically had to restrain his partner from attacking the man.

As you can tell by the length of this column, the greatness of "The Wire" can't be summed up in a sentence, but if I only had one to say to Chris Albrecht, it would be this:

If you really care about HBO's reputation as the place for quality, you'd be a fool not to let Simon and Burns finish what they started and bring proper closure to their masterwork.

Short enough?

Click here to read the full post

Tonight at 11: Shakespeare!

At the end of BBC America's session at press tour, one of the critics at my table said, "If only I could write about nothing but this channel all the time." After watching several of the "Shakespeare Re-Told" apdatations (including "Much Ado About Nothing," as seen above) on the heels of "Life on Mars," I'm finding it hard to argue. "Shakespeare" gets written up in today's column.

"Who Wants to Be a Superhero?" remains inordinately cheesey, yet fun. The attack dog thing started off silly (especially Cell Phone Girl's four second "No mas!"), but then turned cool with Monkey Woman's epic struggle to get to the porch. (I wonder, as I always must with shows this obviously phony: did she tire the dogs out after so long, or did the producers tell the trainers to get the dogs to lighten up just enough to let her finish?) On the other hand, I can only imagine what the Mark Burnett editing team would have done with that whole "Rudy"-esque sequence (reaction shots, stirring music, smash cuts), whereas the Nash folks seem to put the minimal effort into everything. And, for once, a reality show manages to turn the token "I didn't come here to make no friends!" a-hole to its advantage; Iron Enforcer is the perfect bad guy for this bunch. Click here to read the full post

YouTube link of the day

Courtesy of Sars, and totally worth the 3+ minutes: Die Hard 12: Die Rockin'.

Update: I was reminded in a conversation with Fienberg that the actually subtitle of Die Hard 12 was "Die Hungry." So enjoy both. Click here to read the full post

Major dude

First new column in a week: Gerald McRaney talks about playing smilin' George Hearst on "Deadwood."

It was a Mark Burnett double-feature for me last night, albeit a time-shifted one. The "Rock Star" results show continues to put the hour-long "Idol" version to great shame. Sure, there's still some padding, and Brooke Burke makes Seacrest look like Johnny Carson, but we get three new performances (with Jill's "Alone" being the best), an encore of the previous night's best (Ryan's still a dick, and that's still a great performance), plus real conversation between the judges and the contestants about what they're doing right and wrong. Much as I like Patrice (she was one of my favorites in the first episode, and has been at least solid throughout), I think the guys would have been justified in dumping her; if people still don't care enough to vote for her when she's being backed by the band's biggest star, why will they care if she's their new singer? But Dana was never going to win, despite having one of the best two or three voices of anyone this season, so you may as well let a veteran like Patrice stick around to see if she can make some headway once the songwriting begins.

Also caught my first "Contender" in a few weeks (I missed the Balletto/Torres episode while in Cali). I know some people have complained that the fights are more sloppily-edited this year, but I thought this one was clearly told. Walter just had a much longer reach and quicker hands, and so long as he was willing to press that advantage, Andre didn't have a chance. Narrative deck was definitely stacked in favor of Aaron, though: tough to root for the guy who just wants to show how good he is (even if he's clearly better) versus the scrappy underdog who cries with his brother and gets K-9 to read to him from the Book of Job. I will admit that, without the padding provided by the challenges, all the talk of "We've gotta win back the right to choose!" can get really repetitive; I'd rather spend more time getting to know some of the fighters who may not be competing for weeks. So far, K-9 is the only really strong personality we've got. And one question: if you're Jeff Fraza, why the hell aren't you pushing to fight as soon as possible before you get struck down with the mumps or roseola or something? Click here to read the full post

Train kept a'rolling all night long

In preparing my "Why The Wire is the greatest thing since sliced bread" column for this Sunday's paper, I listened to a few of the commentaries on the season three DVD set (it comes out on Tuesday). During one of those famous McNulty and Bunk drinking on the train tracks scenes, David Simon marvels that not a single critic has bothered to analyze the symbolism behind that recurring visual motif, and challenged anyone listening to give it a shot before season four begins.

So dared, I gave it a lot of thought, but the best I've come up with is the idea of Jimmy constantly getting in front of oncoming trains (i.e., the Burrell and Rawls administration). He may think he's strong or smart enough to stop them, but the train's just gonna keep on coming.

But that's just my theory. I figure I'd open it up to the room; if your theory makes its way into a column, I'll be sure to credit you, and I'll definitely send Simon a link to all the responses.

Fire away. Click here to read the full post

Rescue Me: Welcome back

Hi show that I used to love! I've missed you! Where have you been?

Best "Rescue Me" in weeks, if not of the entire season. More thoughts after the jump...

Why was I so pleased? First, because the laugh quotient was way the hell up there: the guys getting baked by the marijuana fire, Garrity's eagerness to join the Gavin family, Garrity's conversation with Mike -- really, the entire sequence with the house finding out about Mike's, um, ex-roommate -- plus Uncle Teddy's coitus interruptus. But Steven Pasquale is fast becoming as money in the bank as John Scurti, and the amazing thing is that he has almost no comedy background to speak of.

Second, because I will never, ever object to a subplot about the Chief and his wife. I do wonder, though, whether they're now setting Jerry up to get involved with the woman from the home, or if this was just a standalone bit.

Third, because Sheila wasn't insane, wasn't whiney, wasn't date-raping anybody; for once in an absurdly rare while, the show took her seriously, and Callie Thorne played the hell out of that scene where she tried to talk Tommy into retiring and moving somewhere far, far away from all this madness and all those bad memories.

Fourth, because Dr. Gina was in it! Now, her stint as Tony B's girlfriend during "The Sopranos" season five came before watching "Sesame Street" with my daughter became a morning ritual for me, so I didn't get to experience the whole "Wait, where do I know her from?" reaction, followed by, "Oh my God, it's Dr. Gina!" For those of you without small children in the house, never mind, but it's just cool to see her in such a grown-up show, and to be very good, too. The image of Stackhouse without his legs was really haunting (though am I the only one who thought the burn makeup made him look too much like Lou at times?).

Fifth, because the Franco storyline went in a different, much more interesting direction than I was fearing. (Like him, I assumed she was another cheating manipulative nutbar.) They've got to tread a really fine line with the brother character, but so far it felt in that comfortably Farrelly brothers territory where they're having some fun with his problems without actually making fun of him.

Sixth, because nothing really pissed me off, for the first time in a long time. Even the reveal that Janet's pregnant -- no doubt a result of The Incident -- didn't bug, if only because we'd all been assuming it would happen ever since The Incident took place. For the first time in a long time, Tommy felt like a guy -- a flawed guy, but a guy -- instead of the larger-than-life macho assclown he's been since he found out about Janet and Johnny.

Is it just me, or was this one really good? Click here to read the full post

Rock Star: Stepping up

First "Rock Star" performance episode I've been able to watch in its entirety, as aired, since the season premiere, and it was a pretty solid one, I thought, albeit with two fiascos and one invader from Mars. (And no, it wasn't the person singing the Bowie song.) Singer-by-singer breakdown, in order, after the jump...

Patrice, "Higher Ground": I hate to say it, because I like her voice, but I would definitely put her in the group of 8 people Dave think would just disappear in front of Tommy. (The three who wouldn't, IMO, are Dilana and Storm, because they kick ass, and Zayra because she's an insane freakshow.) Even with the faux-hawk and the pointing and the singing directly to Tommy, she still got way overwhelmed by him. (The constant cuts to him drumming didn't help, but even in the wide shot I was more focused on him.) She and Magni both have signed leases to the middle of the pack, and this sure isn't going to lift her out of that. If she somehow winds up bottom three tomorrow, I wouldn't be stunned if they sent her home.

Josh, "Santeria": The most in his element Josh has been since the opener, but that element is all wrong for this band and this show. I understand the real reason Supernova dumped Phil last week is because he gave a newspaper interview where he admitted his only reason for going on the show was to publicize his own band and that he didn't want to win; Josh may not be quite that dumb, but Gilby, Jason and Tommy have to be bright enough to see that Josh is only in this for Josh and has no realistic chance of working with them. Fun performance, but so what?

Dilana, "Can't Get Enough": Not as blow your mind amazing as some of her earlier numbers like "Lithium" and "Zombie," but she showed that she can be almost as good when the song doesn't call for her to scare the daylights out of the audience at home. I prefer corset-wearing growly witch Dilana to leather-clad up-tempo Dilana, but that was still entertaining. Is there any chance at all that the guy who gave her the piggyback ride doesn't work for the show and didn't rehearse that with her?

Toby, "Pennyroyal Tea": Maybe it's because this was the only song of the evening I didn't know, but I wasn't feeling this. Toby had pretty clearly established himself in that group of four (with Dilana, Storm and Lukas) that was significantly ahead of the rest, and this was bland enough to maybe slide him back to Patrice/Magni country.

Zayra, "867-5309 (Jenny)": She should have gone home at least twice before now, but I've gotta admit I occasionally enjoy her sideshow, and this was one of those times. Awful, awful vocals, but the arrangement was better than I was expecting after seeing the House Band slag it during the webisode (the first time I watched one this year), and Zayra's superhero meets stripper costume and moves made me laugh, and laugh and laugh. I don't even find her that attractive (as opposed to the Supernova guys, who all clearly want to jump her), but in terms of people I want to see on my TV for a while, I'd rather be stunned/appalled by whatever the hell she's going to do next than sit through some of the more competent but bland performers. And speaking of which...

Magni, "Clocks": I'm glad that the show is flying his family out to see him, since I can't imagine him winning, unless Jason (who seems way more impressed with him than anyone else) has a whole lot of pull. Magni's good, don't get me wrong, and his voice has a kind of poor man's Bono quality even when he isn't wearing the Bono shades, and if I saw him at a bar, or even opening for a bigger act, I'd be perfectly happy with him. But I have yet to hear anything special from him, and choosing the most boring song of the millennium sure didn't help, even though he sang it well (outside an ill-planned attempt at a falsetto two-thirds of the way through).

Jill, "Don't You Forget About Me": Two minutes of shrieking. Next.

Ryan, "Losing My Religion": When I heard he was doing this, I laughed, because the guy already was way too mopey and now he was singing the mopiest song the very mopey R.E.M. ever recorded. But he made it work by changing the arrangement and making the tone angry instead of mournful. In the webisode, he comes across like a complete dick, but this is two strong performances in a row; if Toby's not careful, Ryan could usurp his place in the Big Four.

Lukas, "Celebrity Skin": Was there a single lyric he got right? Either he was creating entirely new words or he was transposing lines from Verse A into Chorus B. At least he had the decency to cop to it, but that was bad, bad, bad. Plus, the more he does it, the less interesting the Tipsy McStaggering becomes, because it comes off like the act that it is.

Storm, "Changes": I've enjoyed ballsy rocker chick Storm much more than others (her "Anything Anything" has been in constant play on my iPod for the last week), but this was a nice change of pace. Could have been cabaret, but she has too much charisma for that, even in the black suit and the mood lighting. The lack of over-emoting (the one downside to her up-tempo stuff) also helped. Great voice, great presence, can stand up to the band and seems like the most sane person in the house; what's not to like?

Dana, "Baba O'Riley": Jordis' rendition of this in season one is one of my favorites from this entire series. This wasn't as good, but it was a lot better than I was expecting from Dana. She's always had the voice, but she seems to have made the leap to where I almost believe her when she's acting tough and rebellious. Like Ryan, she's moved up several notches in the last few weeks.

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