Sepinwall on TV: Oscar-cast post-mortem

I have a rough cut of tomorrow's column up on the NJ.com, in which I take a longer look at how the Oscars went from a TV perspective:

"I don't know what it looks like on television," "Slumdog Millionaire" director Danny Boyle said late in Sunday night's Oscar telecast, "but in the room, it's bloody wonderful."

On television, it wasn't quite so wonderful. Some of the changes instituted after last year's lowest-rated-Oscars-ever worked, and some of them didn't, but no amount of cosmetic tinkering can fix two fundamental problems with the modern Oscars: the show is much too long, especially since the extended run-up of other awards shows takes away all the suspense from the main event, making it feel like a 3 1/2 hour rerun.

To read the full thing, click here. Click here to read the full post

United States of Tara, "Transition": Party games

Spoilers for tonight's "United States of Tara" coming up just as soon as I get my truck customized...

"My kids are safe. Maybe you should have spent more time looking after yours." -Max

"Transition" reminded me, oddly, of certain issues of the Incredible Hulk comic, where Bruce Banner desperately needed to not turn into the Hulk, and tried one method after another (meditation, tranquilizers, booze) to remain calm enough to stay human. It would always fail in the end -- a Hulk issue without the big green (or grey) guy isn't quite as much fun -- but dammit, he tried.

Tara's DID in many ways feels like Banner's situation. It's not quite a super-power, but the alters do give her abilities she doesn't ordinarily display, and they in theory provide protection for her in moments when her brain thinks she needs it. But as with Banner's temper, the bar for summoning one of Tara's alters feels uncomfortably low, making the whole situation far more curse than blessing.

And when Tara's judgmental, passive-aggressive parents (played by the always-reliable Fred Ward and Pamela Reed) show up, hoping to take Kate and Marshall away from their parents, Max realizes that he has to pull out all the stops to keep Tara as Tara. The scene where he pulls her around the backyard in a frantic circle, making her too tired/amused/distracted to transition, may be my favorite of this young series. It was so filled with sweetness and comedy but also the awareness that the Gregsons got a raw deal with this situation.

And we find out near the end of the episode that Max wasn't as successful as he thought -- that one of the alters has been peeing on Grandma and Grandpa's sofa bed in the middle of the night. But which one? Ever since Tiffany's condo got vandalized, there's been some speculation that there might be a fourth major alter (and Diablo Cody said in our interview that we'd be meeting other alters down the line. This particular move seems too vulgar for Alice, and too stealthy for Buck or T, who'd want everyone to know what they had done, and so I have to assume the bed-wetting (possibly inspired by Marshall?) and the vandalism were the efforts of this still-to-be-revealed entity.

"Transition" also gives us more clues about the trauma that created the DID. Last week when Charmaine and Max talked about boarding school, I had assumed that their parents sent Tara there to get her away from the person who hurt her (or to separate themselves from the guilty feelings about not protecting her), but Charmaine makes it sound here as if the rape (or whatever it was) happened at boarding school.

And that, in turn, really changes my view of Charmaine. She admits at the end of the episode that she wishes she had Tara's life, and her desire to have gone to the same boarding school where Tara was assaulted suggests that she even envies the DID a little. And from her perspective, why not? It makes Tara seem more interesting, and gives her a license to get away with all kinds of things that Charmaine can't.

(We also find out, in a hilarious bit involving either great makeup or an unfortunate body double -- or both -- that Charmaine's ex-husband made her get a lopsided boob job, and that in turn leads to the incredibly funny, incredibly mean moment when Max makes Tara laugh by miming being a guy playing with those breasts.)

There was one part of the episode I didn't like, and that was the business with Kate and Gene. I was relieved last week that Kate apparently saw through all of Gene's sad attempts to be the cool older guy and was able to stay in charge of their interactions, but in this episode he withholds from her just a little and she's putty in his hands? Bleh. In particular, I find it hard to believe that she'd be so desperate to make out with him after his unplugged performance of Cheap Trick's "Dream Police." I'll never complain about an opportunity to hear the real thing (which also popped up a few weeks ago on "Lost"), but this story seems all over the map. (It's also starting to come uncomfortably close to Juno and Jason Bateman's friendship in "Juno.")

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

It's a wonderful night for an Oscar! Oscar Oscar! Who will win?

For those who still care about the Academy Awards -- and I'm not sure I count myself among that number anymore(*) -- I'm setting this up as an open thread through the weekend to discuss the Oscar-cast. I'll bump it up to the top sometime on Sunday. Only one ground rule: No spoilers about any of the nominated films. But if you'd rather talk about the movies themselves than Hugh Jackman's prospects as host, or the fact that this is the 20th anniversary of the most embarrassing moment in Oscar history, feel free. Open season on the Oscars.

(*) Even if I had seen more of the nominated films -- or if movies like "Dark Knight" and "Wall*E" had gotten more significant nominations -- I still doubt I would have much interest in the Oscars anymore. The problem is this long lead-in of other awards shows that suck all the life and suspense out of the main event. By now, we know more or less who's going to win and what they're going to say when they do. Jackman's song-and-dance skills aren't going to be enough to make me want to watch this on anything but a long delay with plenty of buffer in the DVR so I can liberally fast-forward. Click here to read the full post

Battlestar Galactica, "Deadlock": Wait till your mother gets home!

Spoilers for tonight's "Battlestar Galactica" coming up just as soon as I do some spackling...

"Any mythic revelations?" -Bill Adama
"Nope. Nothing to report, sir." -Saul Tigh

After the massive (and polarizing) info-dump that was last week's "No Exit," "Deadlock" brings the show back to more practical considerations: Can the Cylon's living goop really repair Galactica? How much longer do the rebel Cylons want to stay in this shaky alliance? With Galactica's skeleton crew made even thinner by the coup, how can the civilian refugees take care of themselves? And what on Earth (or Kobol) is proud papa-to-be Saul Tigh going to do when the love of his life turns up on a stolen Raptor?

I know that material may not feel as important to some of you as finding out who/what Starbuck is, or figuring out if Daniel still exists (right now, the Vegas favorite seems to be Daniel as Kara's father), or learning what the head characters are (Head Six makes her first appearance in a while here), or simply seeing the final battle between Cavil and the rag-tag fleet. But to me, the question of the fleet's future feels just as fundamental to the series as the more "mythic revelations."

We're told over and over that all this has happened before and will happen again, and as the Cylons threaten to leave and the humans look distrustfully at the Cylons, it's only self-hating Cylon Saul Tigh who can see that the best, only solution for the fleet is for the human and Cylon factions to become one. Separation led to nothing but tragedy on Kobol, on Earth and on the 12 colonies, and Saul (with a little pre-coma prodding from Anders) seems to be on the right track here. It's telling that, much as the Cylons want to pin their hopes on Caprica Six's unborn, Cylon-pure baby as their future, she suffers a miscarriage, while the Cylon/human hybrid Hera is still alive and well. Do we blame Liam's death on trauma from Six's fight in Dogsville? On the stress of being around her baby daddy's manipulative harpy ex-wife? Or does God -- which Ellen tries to claim she invented for the Cylon's benefit, but which Saul rightly (based on what we learned last week) says they had nothing to do with -- have no interest in a pure-bred Cylon child?

(For that matter, on what do we pin Ellen and Saul's fertility problems? We know the 13th tribe could reproduce the old-fashioned way, but are the bodies they currently occupy identical to the ones they had on Earth? Or are they identically-constructed to the more familiar skinjobs?)

Whatever the grand plan is, the episode's love triangle was beautifully sold by Michael Hogan (and his amazing acting eye), Tricia Helfer and Kate Vernon. People commented last week how different the post-resurrection Ellen seemed from the drunken trollop we remembered from episodes like "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down." But this episode makes clear that Cavil didn't invent entirely new personalities for his "parents" when he imprisoned them in new bodies. The real version of Ellen is smarter than the one we knew, and maybe more regal, but she's still just as frakked-up, just as trapped in the ring of fire with Saul as she ever was. And it was alternately hilarious and terrifying to see her shift from playing all-knowing mother to the Cylons to being consumed with her old jealousies at the thought of her husband knocking up one of her children.

It's amazing, by the way, how having an outside observer re-enter the narrative after all this time casts a new light on things we and the characters had started to take for granted. Saul views his visions of Caprica Six with Ellen's face to be a message from God and proof of his undying love for Ellen; Ellen sees it as little more than mental porn. Saul has no idea that he's making love to a woman he helped create; Ellen looks at it as incest, and is almost as horrified by that as she is to realize Saul was able to get another woman (their "daughter" or otherwise) pregnant.

Ellen's arrival -- and the distrust she immediately engenders among the fleet hierarchy -- also leads to the marvelously squirmy spectacle of Laura Roslin trying to make nice to Caprica Six, whom she views, along with Baltar, as the face of the colonial genocide. Right here, right now, Laura sees Ellen as the greater potential threat, and so she tries to use Caprica as a wedge against her, then gets sidetracked by her fear that Liam may be part of the grand Cylon plan, only to be shamed into recognizing that Caprica is, whatever her other crimes might be, a very scared, very protective expectant mom. (Hey, even some of history's worst monsters had kids.)

And all of this led to the horrible sequence where Ellen's need to hurt Saul appeared to lead to Caprica Six's premature labor, and to the death of Liam. What Ellen says about Tigh's unwavering love for Adama isn't wrong, but her wounded ego should be besides the point while discussing the future of two races, and she doesn't realize that until Caprica's lying on a bed in sickbay and Saul is despairing over what's to come. Great acting by all three in those two scenes, and Hogan and Edward James Olmos were just as powerful in their tearful hug at the end.

No, I had no problem with the A-story being a bit less mindblowing than the last few weeks have been. My problem with "Deadlock" comes entirely with Baltar returning to the harem and then somehow talking Adama into arming up his little Manson family.

When Baltar bailed on the cult in the first half of the coup storyline, I lamented the realization that he'd been play-acting the entire time, and an episode like this one reminds me why that made me so unhappy. Baltar being a scam artist who will slip on whatever identity is most convenient and advantageous completely fits the character. The problem is that he's now slipped into so many bogus roles that it's impossible to take the character seriously anymore, in any way. It feels like the writers ran out of ideas for Baltar around the end of the New Caprica arc. They were able to stall for a while by putting him on trial (and vamped in between by trying to establish him as an underground political hero), but the cult was only interesting to me so long as I believed that Baltar believed. Once it became clear that he was just screwing around (in more ways than one), then Baltar is just a comic relief character. As played by James Callis, he's wickedly funny comic relief, but he feels superfluous to the main action, and I can't believe anything that comes out of his mouth -- even in moments where he's supposed to be sincere.

The return of Head Six, and her Cyrano role in pushing Baltar to a place where he got those guns for his special lady friends, makes me hopeful that this may be leading somewhere grander. But for a lot of this episode, I was rolling my eyes at Baltar just as much as Paula, Adama and all the other Gaius haters.

Some other thoughts:

• How, exactly, does Boomer find the fleet? And if she can do it, why can't Cavil?

• It doesn't happen in this episode, but it looks like I'm going to get that Boomer/Tyrol scene I've been waiting for ever since the Final Four were revealed in "Crossroads."

• Why is Tyrol, who just last week eagerly signed back on to be Adama's deck chief, now so willing to throw in his lot with the Cylons and get the hell out of here? That abrupt character turn almost -- almost -- ruined the delightful comedy of Tyrol's deadpan mumbling of, "Can we maybe talk about the offer, maybe deal with the baby later?" in the midst of one of Ellen and Saul's earliest arguments.

• That line, and many of the lines in this zinger-filled episode, felt very much like something you might hear in a "Buffy" script -- and the episode, of course, was the final "Galactica" script for "Buffy" and "BSG" vet Jane Espenson. By far the funniest line of the night -- possibly of the series -- was Adama trying to walk out on Baltar by claiming, "I'm gonna go to the head. Do something constructive -- a little project I've been working on."

• I thought it was a lovely little touch that the Six we saw whenever Adama went into the bowels of Galactica to check on the repair work had her hair in a very '40s style, as if she was an inter-stellar Rosie the Riveter.

• When Helo got put back in the flight rotation (isn't he the CAG these days?), shouldn't Adama have appointed a new Mayor of Dogsville? Wouldn't that be a more sensible solution, even with the military understaffed, than deputizing a bunch of Squeaky Frommes?

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

The weekly 'Friday Night Lights' reminder

As usual, I'm re-posting the original version of my "Friday Night Lights" reviews, which you can read (and comment on) right here. Please comment there, to keep the discussion in one place. Click here to read the full post

Dollhouse, "The Target": The most dangerous Middleman

Spoilers for episode two of "Dollhouse" coming up just as soon as I put my shoulder to the wheel...

"Do you know how to use this?" -Boyd
"Four brothers. None of them Democrats." -Echo

"The Target" is easily the best of the three "Dollhouse" episodes I've seen.

The anthological Adventure of the Week was a very well-executed riff on Richard Connell's famous short story "The Most Dangerous Game," given a slight slasher movie update by making the hunter's human prey be an attractive, terrified, scream-prone young woman who slowly learns to fight back. Matt Keeslar, best known around these parts as The Middleman, was suitably bad-ass as our bow-hunting villain(*), and Echo's brassy jock persona was right down the middle of Eliza Dushku's strike zone.

(*) Most of Whedon's leading men -- David Boreanaz, Nathan Fillion, even Tahmoh Penikett -- are cut from the same cloth (tall and strapping but also capable of great self-deprecation) as Keeslar. Though a "Dollhouse" return is obviously out of the question, I wouldn't be surprised to see him join the Joss Whedon Repertory Players.

Just nicely-done all around, and smartly integrated with the flashbacks to how and why Boyd came to be Echo's handler. Because Echo is either a blank slate or a brand-new character each week, there needs to be someone we identify with, and at the moment, that's Boyd. Topher's too creepy, the other Dollhouse personnel too aloof, and Agent Ballard too separated from the main action. Boyd's the one consistent, recognizably human character the show has -- the only Dollhouse employee who seems to have moral qualms about the work they do. Because he cares about Echo, in theory if we care about him our sympathies will then translate to Echo no matter what persona she's adopting. So it was important to quickly get into the backstory of their relationship, and to more properly introduce Alpha, the rogue active who seems to be this show's big bad.

We get some necessary exposition out of the way -- Why is security so tight? Why don't the actives all have default fighting skills? Why does Dr. Saunders have all those scars on her face? -- discover that there's a larger danger to Echo than the people she works for, get our first hints that she's not as blank a slate as Topher believes (she puts her arm to her shoulder even after being wiped), and get a slick self-contained thriller in the process. All in all, a strong enough hour of television that I'm going to save my larger qualms about the series for an episode that actually provokes them.

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

Friday Night Lights, "It Ain't Easy Being J.D. McCoy": Streak for the Cash

Spoilers for "Friday Night Lights" season three, episode six coming up just as soon as I take down a load-bearing wall...

NOTE: This and all subsequent "FNL" season three reviews were written after viewing the DirecTV cut, which can be several minutes longer than the NBC version. So both my review and the early comments may refer to scenes that were not shown on NBC.

A few weeks back, I asked whether J.D. McCoy was bad or just drawn that way. I think we have our answer. And I officially feel really sorry for our new QB1.

After keeping J.D. in the background for the early part of the season as we watched our man Saracen slowly lose his grip on the starting job, episode six gives J.D. more screentime (and dialogue) than the previous five hours combined and shows us that while he may have the perfect arm, his life is far from perfect. He's a misfit on the team, socially awkward and such an obvious daddy's boy that he has trouble fitting in even with extensive (and hilarious) mentoring from Riggins. And his dad has done such a thorough job of sheltering him from any part of life that doesn't directly relate to playing quarterback that it's hard to see this kid coming out okay.

One of the most infamous pro football flops of all time was Todd Marinovich, the so-called "Robo QB" whose father tried, practically from birth, to prepare his son to be the perfect NFL quarterback. And when I say "practically from birth," I mean that his father put a football in his crib, started stretching out his hamstrings when he was one month old, etc. (Seriously, go back and read the original Sports Illustrated story on Marinovich; it's horrifying.) And what happened was, as Todd got older and got a little independence from his old man, he succumbed to every last temptation that was denied him growing up, and he imploded.

And unless Eric Taylor can step in and talk some sense to Joe McCoy, J.D. is going to implode, maybe even sooner than Marinovich did.

I'm glad the writers are going this route and not giving us Voodoo 2.0, and I liked how the episode gave us the flip side of J.D.'s story by showing us how Saracen's life has improved in some ways without the pressure of that starting job. Sure, it's going to make it much tougher for him to get a college scholarship (and I'm glad to hear Matt finally mention college), but he's more relaxed now, and he also has the time to finally rekindle things with Julie, finally taking their relationship to a place neither one was ready for two seasons ago.

People complained a lot about Julie last year, but I don't think the problem was ever with Aimee Teegarden, who, if anything, played Julie's bratty phase too well. Just watch how quietly she plays Julie's afterglow when she's in the Landrymobile and then when she's alone in her bedroom; so much said without a single line of dialogue being necessary. Ditto the expression on Tami's face when she sees Julie and Matt swapping goofy looks in church; if she hasn't quite completed the equation yet, she's clearly doing the math.

(Fienberg, by the way, is convinced that this is heading for a pregnancy scare storyline for Julie. I hope not; that's a very lame teen drama cliche.)

As for our third quarterback, how freakin' adorable was Jason Street singing both parts of "Hole in the Bucket" to his baby on the phone at the end of the episode? They have to give him a happy ending to match Smash's, don't they? Maybe the house flip works, and maybe it doesn't, but looking at Erin's face as she listened to her baby daddy sing to her baby made it clear that she has feelings for the guy that go way beyond shared parental responsibility, and that in turn means that they're going to find some way to be together, most likely far from Dillon.

I also quite liked the uncommented-upon parallel between Coach and Tim Riggins on the night of the dance, where both men wind up disappointing their special lady friends so they can do a favor for a past or present Dillon quarterback. I don't know if they had to cut a scene of Eric helping Street paint the house or if they thought Tami's line about Eric having paint in his hair would suffice; either way, it's good that our two departing characters have been getting some extra doses of Coach love on their way out the door.

Some other thoughts on "It Ain't Easy Being J.D. McCoy":

* Does anyone actually think that Cash is telling the truth about this baby? And if he's lying, how can the University of San Francisco let in a girl as gullible as Tyra? Or is it her fault coming from such a terrible nature/nurture situation with her mom and Mindy?

* For a kid in a middle-of-nowhere school where he's supposed to be a major outcast, Landry sure has had a lot of luck finding kindred female spirits, hasn't he? Even if you leave out Tyra, Devin the singing bass player looks to be an even better match for him than wee Jean (who has since acquired superspeed and is pretending to be in love with Matt Parkman). I also liked that Landry knows his band well enough to know that the drummer would come back, and that Matt acknowledges to Julie what the writing staff should have made clear a long time ago: Landry is strictly a Panther benchwarmer.

* How many episodes was Lyla absent before this one? And did anybody really miss her?

* I want Tim Riggins to play tour guide in my town, don't you? My favorite part of the travelogue was explaining to J.D. that if he ever goes into Smitty's Bar, "You know me as Toby, two-time Iraq war veteran."

* Was Billy always this stupid, or have they dumbed him down to make Tim look smarter this season? I vaguely recall him being somewhat level-headed and responsible (at least compared to Tim) in seasons past.

* I love how, by the time Matt and Julie are done cracking jokes about Grandma's argument with Coach, they come back to find Grandma admitting that she can't stay mad at Eric. The man is very, very charming.

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

ER, "The Beginning of the End": Welcome back, Carter

Spoilers for last night's "ER" coming up just as soon as I drink some mushrooms...

"It's like Bizarro ER." -Carter

No, John, it's exactly like "ER," in that they had to go and give you a serious illness (requiring dialysis) so you can continue your transformation into the new Mark Greene, sufferer of a thousand tragedies. Sigh...

I was actually rather enjoying Noah Wyle's return until then. His last few years on the show came during the period when I had kicked the "ER" habit (I had to go to Wikipedia to figure out that Joshua Carter was his and Kem's stillborn son), and unlike some of the other returnees in this victory lap season, Carter was around long enough to have relationships with several of the main characters and not just the nurses or Jerry and Frank. The scene where he and Sam briefly commiserated about Luka and Abby finding happiness without them was very nicely-done, I thought. But if they just brought him back so we could watch him die slowly, well... that's the sort of thing that drove me from the show back in the later Carter years.

The rest of the episode was fine, in that almost shockingly understated style "ER" has adopted over the last few seasons. (Kind of hard to believe we used to call this show the medical equivalent of an action movie, isn't it?) I'm always glad to hear my old high school classmate Pete Yorn's music in a mainstream show (his "Crystal Village" was the song on the CD Ray burned for Neela), and both Brenner and Banfield are both much more appealing after the inevitable softening of their characters. If the show was going to be around longer than this year, it might give me hope that the producers would finally figure out that it's not optimal to introduce a new character as a complete jerk and hope the audience grows to like them later.

Of course, after that final scene, it looks like you can't teach an old "ER" new tricks.

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

Burn Notice, "Truth and Reconciliation": The Haitian

"Burn Notice" spoilers coming up just as soon as I get a ride to my partner stretching class...

It would be hard for "Burn Notice" to top last week's bank heist episode, which was kind of a pure distillation of all the things that make the show so much fun. But "Truth and Reconciliation" still felt like a let-down, and I'm struggling to put my finger on the reason why.

I made a note to myself halfway through the episode that it didn't feel like we'd learned that much in the way of spycraft from Michael in this one, though we did find out in the later minutes that "Killers are, by and large, whining losers." But even the gag about Fi overdosing the bad guy with cold medicine wasn't really that surprising to anyone who's taken even slightly too much NyQuil. (Cue Denis Leary's NyQuil routine.)

What I really think the issue was, though, is that this one felt pretty glum. We open with Michael killing the knife-wielding assassin(*), then move on to him dealing with a particularly tragic client and an evil but not particularly interesting target. I'm not saying the show shouldn't go to dark places -- I really liked the first episode of this batch where Michael was wandering around with broken ribs and yelling at people -- but it has to be compellingly dark, and this wasn't quite that.

(*) Is this the first time we've seen Michael actively kill someone on-screen, as opposed to arranging for one bad guy to murder another? Now, this was in self-defense, but it's always interesting to me to watch shows about people in deadly professions that try to keep blood off their hero's hands. (See also "The A-Team," where Hannibal and company fired approximately 8 million warning shots and never actually hit anyone over five seasons.)

There were some entertaining things on the margins, like Sam's charm offensive with the FBI guys from season one, or Madeline's successful attempt to fix the car and prove that she can be self-reliant. For that matter, I was glad to see Victor back, and now apparently blessed with parkour skills. But the bulk of the episode dragged, and I hope we get a bounce back next week.

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

Sepinwall on TV: 'Taking Chance' review

Today's column features my review of the new HBO movie "Taking Chance" -- starring Kevin Bacon as the military escort for the body of a Marine killed in Iraq -- which I'm not ashamed to admit made me mist up early and often. Click here to read the full post

The Middleman lives on... in comic book form

If you were reading this blog last summer, you know how badly I fell in love with ABC Family's "The Middleman," even as the low ratings made it clear this would be a short-term affair. Late in the season, I interviewed "Middleman" creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach, and he said that if/when the show was canceled, he could always continue the story the way it started: as a comic book.

Today, Disney made that plan official, as it announced plans for both a DVD set of the first and only season of the show, and for a graphic novel to properly wrap up the story of The Middleman and Wendy Watson. After the jump, the press release...

GREAT HEARTS OF PALM! ABC FAMILY’S “THE MIDDLEMAN” SERIES FINALE TO BE RELEASED AS SPECIAL COLLECTOR COMIC BOOK EDITION;

SERIES TO BE RELEASED ON DVD THIS SUMMER

Deals with Viper Comics and Shout Factory! Breathe New Life into Cult Hit

Burbank, CA (February 19, 2009) – Fans of the ABC Family cult hit series can revisit the weird world of “The Middleman” and his trusty side-kick Wendy Watson when the series finale episode appears in graphic novel form this summer. The series will also be released on DVD in summer 2009.

In a deal with Viper Comics, “The Middleman – The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse” graphic novel is to be written by creator/executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Hans Beimler, with illustrations done by Armando M. Zanker and layouts by Les McClaine. “The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse” special collector’s comic book edition will be released in July 2009 to coincide with the annual Comic Con Convention in San Diego.

"The Middleman” season one DVD will include all 12 one-hour episodes that aired on ABC Family in summer 2008. The DVD will also contain extensive bonus material that will allow fans of the series to get an insider look at the mad capped world of their favorite heroes. ABC Family has partnered up with Shout Factory! to produce and distribute the DVD. The DVD will be available in July 2009.

"The Middleman” follows the surreal life of twenty-something year-old Wendy Watson as she gets recruited by a top secret agency to fight comic book-esque criminals under the guidance of her straight-laced boss, The Middleman. The television series, starring Matt Keeslar and Natalie Morales, was created and executive produced by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, based on his Viper Comics Graphic Novels (illustrated by Les McClaine).

Well, I know one thing I'll be reading this summer. Not as much fun as new episodes with Matt Keeslar and Natalie Morales, but at least it's something. Click here to read the full post

Life, "I Heart Mom": Take 'em both, and there you have the facts of roof

Spoilers for last night's "Life" coming up just as soon as I say "unfreeze"...

"I don't think I talk differently than anyone else talks. Maybe sometimes I don't not say things that other people don't not say, but most other people don't not say the same things I don't. Know what I'm saying?" -Crews

Most of the press coverage (other than Fienberg) of Fox's decision to move the "American Idol" back to 9 p.m. in a few weeks has focused almost exclusively on what the move means for "Lost." But "Lost" is going away in another season, and ABC sure isn't going to pull the plug before then, so no matter how badly "Idol" beats on it, "Lost" will make it to the finish line.

No, my fear (and Fienberg's) is that this move is going to hasten the death of "Life." I don't think any of us are naive enough at this point to believe there's going to be a third season of this wonderful but abysmally-rated show. It's already something of a miracle that it got renewed at all, and that NBC gave it a full order this season. My only hope at this point is that it makes it to the end of this year, and that Rand Ravich was able to read the writing on the wall enough to provide some kind of closure to Crews' quest for revenge/justice/Zen, and that the series doesn't end on a shot of Crews staring quizzically at the Wall of Blame. And now that "Idol" is about to move into the neighborhood, I fear that the ratings will become so low that NBC won't feel able to justify keeping a boutique show like this(*) on the air any longer, and that the plug will be pulled with several episodes to go.

(*) The shame of it is that "Life" is basically the same show as "The Mentalist" -- and better-executed, at that -- but it's on the wrong network. Other than the "Law & Order"s with their built-in brand loyalty -- and even the mothership isn't doing too hot lately -- people don't think of NBC as a place to find well-done procedural cop shows, and NBC at this point isn't in the position to be able to adequately promote and schedule a show like this. I imagine a lot of the "Mentalist"/"Lie to Me"/"NCIS" audience would dig this show, but they don't know it exists.

An episode like "I Heart Mom" suggests the rest of the season -- assuming we get to see all of it -- could go either way in terms of closure. Crews finally reaches a place where Mickey Rayborn is ready and willing to provide all the answers he wants (and we want) about the conspiracy that put Charlie in prison, but it's unclear just how much Rayborn tells him, or how much Charlie asked. It's implied that the conversation went on for a while after we cut back to the murder investigation, and we'll just have to wait and hope to find out how much Charlie now knows. Or maybe we'll just get a bunch of cool music montages followed by an abrupt cancellation. Sigh...

If, indeed, Rayborn was murdered, then William Atherton got a great farewell episode, as he got to play dead (and laugh about it afterwards), needle Crews about his solemnity and lack of a boat, and even make the guy eat a deep-fried scorpion.

As for the main case, it was amusing to see Charlotte Rae (Mrs. Garrett from "The Facts of Life") as the mother of M.C. Gainey (Tom Friendly from "Lost"), and to see Gainey playing at being an antique-dealing mama's boy. I lost the thread of the mystery after a while, as I usually do with this show, but there were nice individual moments, like the above-quoted scene where Reese complains about the Crews' speech patterns, or Crews getting hung up on them being like a couple (but never, thankfully, in a romantic way), or the blind guy smelling Reese, Crews assuming it was perfume, and then realizing she doesn't wear any and pawning it off on the smell of her "essence."

The Ted subplot was a little thin, as most Ted subplots are. Now that he's out of prison, he again seems so disconnected from the rest of the series that, good as Adam Arkin is in the role, I wish they'd only use him if he's going to interact with Charlie. (Or if Christina Hendricks is going to come back.)

Finally, I promised that in every episode featuring a William Atherton appearance, I'd include a quote from one of Atherton's memorable '80s movie villain roles. As this appears to be the end of the line for him, I figured I'd go back to my favorite Atherton role, as Dr. Jerry Hathaway in "Real Genius." I was tempted to go with another exchange between him and Val Kilmer (maybe the one about popcorn, or the one where Jerry tells Chris to pass the rest of the tests back, just like his IQ was normal), but given the subject of this episode, I couldn't resist Hathaway's rant at the contractors who are renovating his house:

"What are you looking at? You're laborers; you should be laboring. That's what you get for not having an education."

Ah, Atherton. I'll miss him.

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Sepinwall on TV: Looking back on 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien'

In today's column, I look back over Conan O'Brien's run as host of "Late Night," which comes to an end tomorrow. Read all the way to the end for a cameo by college-age Alan! Click here to read the full post

Lost, "316": We're putting the band back together

Spoilers for tonight's "Lost" coming up just as soon as I take in a magic show...

"These people, they are just using us. They are playing some kind of game and we are just the pieces. Whatever she tells you to do, ignore it." -Desmond

While I've had some reservations about previous outings this year, "316" is the first episode of season five to leave me feeling wholly unsatisfied. After that great in media res opening -- which had Jack in a suit, waking up on the jungle floor again, in a way that briefly suggested we were seeing a flashback to the series pilot (though his haircut's different and I think his shirt and tie were as well), before finding Hurley and Kate in the lagoon by the waterfall -- it was an awful lot of narrative throat-clearing, punctuated with lots of teases for what I hope will be more interesting episodes down the road. Given that opening, and the fact that "Lost" showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were the credited screenwriters, I was expecting a whole lot more than what I got here.

The problem was the decision to tell the episode from Jack's point of view. The issue isn't Jack's relative worth as a character. Lord knows I've complained about Jack-centric episodes in the past, but I think they've done some very interesting things with him in these Oceanic Six episodes. The issue is that Jack was the only character among those who wound up on Ajira Airways Flight 316 who had neither reservations about returning to the island, nor any logistical obstacles towards getting there, and so there was no story to tell here.

The others? They've got stories to tell, and ones I'm sure we'll see in the coming weeks. We know Hurley had to get out of jail and be told by someone (Matthew Abaddon? Charlie's ghost?) which flight to be on. We know Kate made some sort of fateful decision about what to do with Aaron. We know Sayid linked up with the mystery woman played by Zuleikha Robinson, who's influential enough to bypass airport security. We know Sun likely wrestled with the decision to go back, and/or to potentially orphan Ji Yeon. And we know that Ben got into some kind of bloody conflagration while fulfilling a promise to an old friend, and just barely made it to the plane on time.

I look forward to getting answers on any and all of this, and to finding out whether the 316 passenger played by Saïd Taghmaoui(*) was on the flight as a coincidence, or if he -- and the clean-shaven Frank Lapidus, for that matter -- fit into the island's larger plans.

(*)I'll always remember Taghmaoui as the guy asking Mark Wahlberg, "What is the problem with Michael Jackson?" in "Three Kings." Great, great movie. Has it really been 10 years since it came out?

But there was no dramatic tension in Jack's story to speak of. No practical difficulty in getting to the flight. No hesitation about going. No real character arc to speak of, in that whatever guilt he felt over Locke's suicide didn't feel strong enough to carry the episode by itself. I know the man of science/man of faith schism has been one of the show's driving forces going all the way back to season one, so in theory Locke's simple "I wish you had believed in me" suicide note should have had more weight, but Jack's been on board with Locke's intentions for a season and a half now (from our point of view), so even though there's some bitter irony in Jack not coming around until after Locke died, we already saw Jack's grief about that play out in episodes like "Through the Looking Glass." This was, essentially, an hour of watching Jack pack for a trip to the airport, and while that's a cut above finding out how he got his tattoos, it felt like the show was dragging its feet -- or deliberately walking down the wrong path -- at a time when it needs to be running towards the finish line.

It didn't help that the action on the island with Sawyer, Dan and company, has been by far the more compelling part of this season, and we only got a brief glimpse of Jin at the very end.

I was so disappointed with this one, in fact, that it's time to move straight to the bullet points:

• Though I obviously missed Sawyer's crew tonight, Jin pulling up in the magic bus, complete with Dharma jumpsuit and Dharma-issued AK-47, was a nice touch. I'm assuming that he, like Dan in the teaser to the season premiere, will wind up going undercover with the Dharma folk during a time-skip back to the '70s, and that the others will be there, as well. Sawyer's current haircut should fit right in with those Dharma hippies, shouldn't it?

• Note that the caption near the start said that the scene in the church was 46 hours before Jack finding Kate and Hurley in the lagoon, but that Ms. Hawking said they only had 36 hours to get back. Were they all passed out for 10 hours? Did something else happen?

• Ben's line about how his mother taught him to read was the funniest thing in the episode, not least because it's yet another Ben lie, since we know his mom died in childbirth.

• Raymond J. Barry was good genetic casting as Jack's grandfather, in that he looks a lot like John Terry. On the other hand, Barry's only 11 years older than Terry, who is himself only 16 years older than Matthew Fox. Lot of fast developers in that Shephard family, no?

• It's also clear that Locke at no point told Jack about seeing Christian on the island, which means Jack's motives for wanting so desperately to return are something else entirely.

• While I doubt we're going to be seeing those anonymous coach class passengers again -- Cuse and Lindelof didn't go to the trouble of killing off all of the random Oceanic 815 survivors just to replace them with a new batch of "socks" -- I sure hope Lapidus winds up on the island, because I dig Jeff Fahey, beard or no beard.

• I was about to suggest that, for all our fears about Desmond being in a room with Ben, he managed to make it out unscathed. Then it occurred to me that Ben's promise to an old friend was almost certainly about him going after Penny -- Widmore being the only "old friend" we know of to whom Ben promised anything -- and I think about the blood on his face and I don't feel very good at all. Sonuvabitch.

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American Idol: Semi-finals, week one (results)

Spoilers for the first "American Idol" results show of the season coming up in a hurry so I can start watching "Lost"...

So, your first three through are Danny Gokey (duh), Alexis Grace (only slightly less duh) and Michael Sarver. Even though everyone and their mother knew Danny was going through, the producers tried to milk an extra freak-out from Tatiana by putting her next to Danny for the final spot at the end of the show, and at this point I'm finding the producers' desperate attempts to make her break down on camera far more distasteful than Tatiana herself.

I was fast-forwarding through a lot of the episode, but I didn't hear Seacrest say who finished in fourth place, which the producers have said previously means an automatic spot in the wildcard episode. My guess is Anoop, since Ryan said he finished only 20,000 votes behind Michael, but we'll see.

I would've preferred Anoop over Michael, but beyond that, this seemed like the right group to advance from a very underwhelming show last night.

What did everybody else think? And how much did you suffer through live? And why do the producers keep bringing Michael Johns and Carly Smithson back to duet on "The Letter"? Click here to read the full post

Leverage, "The First David Job": Separate ways

Spoilers for part one of the two-part "Leverage" season finale just as soon as I figure out what Fienberg would do in this situation...

That was fun, wasn't it?

"The First David Job" is the sort of thing any good genre show should be capable of doing by the end of its first season if it has any kind of ambition and/or learning curve. It builds on what we know about the characters and the way they work, sometimes by undercutting that knowledge (Elliot runs into a guy almost as tough as he is), sometimes by flipping it around (Sophie temporarily becomes Parker, Elliot becomes Hardison), and it raises the stakes significantly. We have the return of Mark Sheppard as Sterling, the introduction of both Kari Matchett as Nate's ex and the great Kevin Tighe (who can play a role like this in his sleep) as the man Nate holds responsible for his son's death, the team taking its first real beating, and even the destruction of Leverage Consulting & Associates headquarters (though not before Hardison was able to salvage the wonderful painting of Harlan Leverage III).

A very well-executed episode, and next week's "The Second David Job" is just as entertaining. I think "Leverage" as a whole has been uneven this season, but if this is a sign of the level they're aiming for going into year two, then I'm definitely on board.

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

American Idol: Semi-finals, week one

I don't have the heart or the patience to start doing singer-by-singer breakdowns of "American Idol" until the finals begin, but I'll offer some general thoughts on who did well and who didn't on night one of the semi-finals, after the jump...

Going into the night, everybody knew Danny Gokey was a lock to advance -- compelling backstory with his late wife, tons of screentime through his friendship with Jamarr, nice guy, killer voice -- and nothing that happened tonight changed that. As mentioned in many past "Idol"-related columns and blog posts, I despise the works of Mariah Carey, and Danny actually made me like "Hero." He didn't even need the pimp spot, but this was a case of the producers making it clear early on who the guy is to beat.

Beyond Danny? I initially looked at this particular semi-final grouping and thought it would be a reprise of the semi-final group from season two that featured Reuben, Clay and Kimberley -- who happened to finish 1-2-3 that year. We had not only Danny, but Anoop Desai and Michael Sarver the roughneck competing for at most two spots (one, really, since we knew Danny would get one), and the female half of the group featured a bunch of women with potential who had been heavily featured in earlier rounds -- though, admittedly, one of them was the possibly psychotic Tatiana Del Toro.

But if we went into the night with it looking like the producers had unfairly stacked the deck -- possibly to generate some early buzz for the return of the wildcard show -- we came out of it with these 12 looking much less impressive as a whole. After Danny, there were two other very strong performances, one male and one female, in Ricky Braddy and Alexis Grace. But even though Ricky did a very strong, Elliott Yamini-y take on "A Song For You," he hasn't had a lick of screentime before tonight, so he might have to wait for the wildcard, where the audience plays no role at all in who advances to the finals. Alexis was surprisingly strong on Aretha's "I Never Loved a Man," in that a little white blonde girl with pink streaks in her hair shouldn't sound so convincing on such a bluesy song, but she pulled it off.

As for the other early favorites, Anoop was solid but chose a blander song than I would have liked, and the judges rightfully called out Sarver for being too safe. Stevie Wright imploded with a painful, shrieky Taylor Swift cover, and Casey Carlson managed to out-pageant even Diana DeGarma with her smiley, pointy take on "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." I've already forgotten almost everyone else, and the show ended 15 minutes ago as I type this.

I know Danny's going through, and I feel reasonably confident about Alexis. So does Ricky somehow make it through on talent alone, the way a guy like Charles Grigsby did with this format back in season two? Do Anoop or Sarver ride their previous screentime in?

Or will the judges' desperate pleas for Tatiana to bring back the crazy at all costs resonate with viewers somehow? Vote For the Worst is already backing her (not that they matter), and you just know she'll be back for the wildcard if she doesn't go through tonight. But I have to have faith in the "Idol" viewers at large. If they're guilty of anything, it's putting too much stock in personality over talent/performance, but Tatiana sure isn't the kind of personality they've backed in the past. And her clip package was spectacular in its tone-deafness, as if she had watched all her appearances to date with no idea how terribly she was coming across on-screen.

So my hopeful predictions are Danny, Alexis and Anoop, with Ricky coming back and impressing in a couple of weeks for the wildcard. But I ain't sitting through an hour-long results show to find out if I'm right.

And speaking of padding, it was almost like the show needed to be two hours to squeeze in the comments from the new four-judge set-up. I was watching a lot of the episode on DVR delay, and after a while I lost patience waiting to get to Simon and started fast-forwarding through the other three (in addition to the appearances by the parents, the clip packages, etc.). I don't care if Kara is marginally more articulate than Randy; I don't want to have to sit through three people to get to Simon. And that's going to be a problem once the show condenses back to an hour in however many weeks' time.

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

My Boys, In Plain Sight, Criminal Intent set return dates

A few basic cable shows of note just got season premiere dates today. "My Boys" will be back on TBS on March 31 in a new Tuesday at 10:30 timeslot. USA, meanwhile, will premiere "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and "In Plain Sight" back-to-back starting Sunday, April 19.

"Criminal Intent" was originally supposed to return back in early November, and there had been some reports that the long delay was due to problems with the episodes featuring new co-lead Jeff Goldblum. I've had the next new Vincent D'Onofrio episode on my desk for a long time now, and have been waiting to get a look at Goldblum's character. Looks like I only have a few months left to wait. Click here to read the full post

House, "Unfaithful": Father McPoyle, I presume?

I've been wondering all morning what I have to say about last night's "House," and I think I've plain run out. It's the same issues every week: boring Foreteen, too on-the-nose parallels between patient and doctor, and a general formulaic quality to it all. The show isn't quite at That's It For Me! levels, but increasingly it's become this thing I have on in the background while I pay my bills and clean the living room, as opposed to something that engages me the way it used to.

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

Chuck, "Chuck vs. the Suburbs": This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.

Spoilers for tonight's "Chuck" coming up just as soon as I find out where Big Mike buys his suits...

"This place isn't real. Her feelings for you aren't real." -Sylvia

Here's the thing: we know by now that Sarah's feelings are real, that if circumstances were different -- if the fate of the world didn't depend on her maintaining a cool professional distance from her asset -- she would be strapping herself back into that Princess Leia costume and taking Chuck on the greatest date of his sad little life. But with circumstances being what they are, she has to act like she doesn't care, and Chuck has to let her. There are lies within lies -- Sarah to Chuck and vice versa, Chuck to Ellie, Sarah to Casey, etc. -- and everyone's far more miserable than they appear on the surface.

In that way, Chuck and Sarah's non-relationship relationship seems an ideal subject for a trip to suburbia, since movies and television are so fond of using the 'burbs as a symbol for romantic dysfunction and self-deception. This wasn't exactly the "Chuck" equivalent of "Revolutionary Road" -- no episode with a line like "Charles Carmichael always comes quickly" is taking itself all that seriously -- but it did feel right, pop culturally, to have Chuck finally confront the limits of his fake romance while spending time in a cul-de-sac.

And despite the presence of Andy Richter and Jenny McCarthy, this is one of the less overtly comic episodes of the season. It's "Chuck," so there are always going to be jokes -- and the Big Mike B-story had plenty, starting with Millbarge's toupee -- but there was a bittersweet quality to even the comic scenes, like Chuck's arrival at his fake new home, scored perfectly to Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime." Yes, it's funny that the dog scampers by at the exact moment Chuck realizes he has a dog, but there's a sense throughout the hour that this is a life he desperately wants, and one he's not likely to get -- certainly not with Sarah. Even if they solved the whole Intersect problem, I doubt Agent Sarah Walker's going to want to play full-time domestic goddess.

And speaking of the Intersect, the hour opens up a bunch of interesting arc possibilities with the revelation that Fulcrum is working on building its own Intersect, with the hopes of training a fleet of agents to get the full Chuck treatment. Now Chuck has an added database in his head (I hope the writers don't try to treat these red Fulcrum-sect flashes as a one-time thing), but there's also an even greater threat to his life -- wouldn't an Intersect-equipped Fulcrum agent figure out pretty damn quick that Bryce Larkin's ex-roommate works at the Buy More where Lt. Mauser disappeared, and that's all she wrote?

This storyline, and the danger of exposing an average brain to those images, doesn't quite track with the season premiere, where Tony Todd had a bunch of agents all prepped to download the Intersect 2.0, but it did lead to the very cool "Raiders of the Lost Ark" moment in the climax where Chuck made sure he and Sarah were the only ones in the room not looking at the monitors when Casey turned the sequence back on. (Was I the only one hoping to see Richter and/or McCarthy turn to dust on camera? Just me? Okay. That's just how my brain works, Intersect or no.)

The Big Mike story was the obligatory comic relief from the Buy More gang, but it was funny comic relief as usual -- I particularly liked Jeff dropping a "BSG" reference by comparing Big Mike to a skinjob, as well as Big Mike's confusion about Millbarge's "affiliation" -- and it incorporated Chuck slightly more than these stories have of late. Spy world and nerd world haven't been too closely tied together in either of the '09 episodes, but if we at least see Chuck having a conversation or three with Morgan, they feel like the two settings are both part of the larger "Chuck" universe.

I knew Big Mike would be hooking up with Morgan's mom based on the clip reel they showed at Comic-Con, and based on some of the upcoming footage from that storyline, it looks like a very smart -- and funny -- decision from the creative team.

Some other thoughts:

• This episode was always scheduled to air tonight. Despite last week's Obama-related pre-emption, NBC decided to keep this one on tonight, both because of the Valentine's Day theme and because they felt Richter, McCarthy and Chuck in suburbia were easier to promote than "Chuck vs. the Best Friend," which now airs next week. There may be some minor continuity issues, but you have one of the show's best fight sequences to date to look forward to.

• Also, in case you missed it because of the lack of a new episode last week, here's my account of the "Chuck" panel at Comic-Con.

• Casey's overkill with the spray cologne felt appropriate, given his tranq-dart overkill in "Chuck vs. the Third Dimension," and it led to Zachary Levi's hilarious delivery of "Why here?"

• On the more serious Casey tip, how bad-ass is he that he can casually break his own thumb to get out of handcuffs? Lando Calrissian's got nothing on that guy, and his rescue mission was so impressive I even applauded his latest cheesey kiss-off line, "Somebody call the cable guy?"

• Exactly how large is the operational budget for Operation: Chuck? I know the real estate market's depressed, but first they build the Castle underneath the mall, and now they're just randomly buying up suburban haciendas?

• This week's script is from regular staffer Phil Klemmer, whose last script was for the excellent "Chuck vs. Tom Sawyer," and it's the second episode of the season (after "Chuck vs. the Ex") to be directed by Broken Lizards vet Jay Chandrasekhar.

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